Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

M E N T O R N O T E S / 1 6 1

The Equipping Ministry The Ministry of Proclamation – Kerygma

L E S S O N 4

Welcome to the Mentor’s Guide for Lesson 4, The Equipping Ministry: The Ministry of Proclamation – Kerygma . The overall focus of this lesson is to highlight what the role of the Holy Spirit and methods are to effective biblical preaching. At first glance, it would appear that a dependence upon the Holy Spirit and clear presentation methodology would be mutually exclusive; isn’t a reliance of the Spirit the mirror image opposite of reliance on human method? While it will be argued throughout this lesson that the Spirit alone is capable of enabling men and women to understand the truth of the Word of God and apply it to their lives, we will also advocate for shrewdness, diligence, and discipline in the preparation of messages and awareness of sound principles of communication in the delivery of sermons. In all presentation of the Word of God, sincerity is not enough. We endorse the Pauline exhortation that, whatever the gift the Lord has given you (including the Word-oriented gifts of preaching and teaching), do with all your might and sense of excellence and discipline (cf. Rom. 12.4-8). In this lesson we highlight again the role of divine unction and empowerment both in the delivery and reception of the message of the Word of God. Here, again, it would help for you to read a nicely organized summary of the importance of theology of preaching to Christian leadership development, and K. Runia provides such a summary for us: In the Bible, preaching plays a major part. This is true of the OT (cf. Prophecy), but in particular of the NT. One may even say that the NT itself is the result of preaching. Both the gospels and the epistles are fully kerygmatic. Jesus himself continually proclaimed the coming of the kingdom of God. Even more, in his preaching and healing activities the kingdom was already present. In his cross and resurrection God’s eschatological act of redemption took place. This is also the reason why after his resurrection and the outpouring of the Spirit Jesus himself is the main content of the apostolic proclamation. It is therefore not surprising to see that the New Testament uses more than thirty verbs to denote the activity of preaching. The apostles, commissioned by the risen Lord, preached this message as the very word of God (cf. 2 Thess. 2.13). The Pauline Epistles frequently use such expressions as ‘the word of God’ or ‘the word of the Lord’ or, in an even shorter formula, ‘the

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