Australian theologian Peter Adam argues that what we call preaching, the formal public address to the gathered congregation on a Sunday, is only one form of what the Bible describes as the “ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:2, 6:4).
1.On the day of Pentecost Peter cited the words of the prophet Joel, who said that God would pour out his Spirit on all his people, and as a result “your sons and daughters will prophesy” (Acts 2:17).
Gerhard Friedrich, in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, says that there are at least thirty three Greek words in the New Testament usually translated as “preaching” or “proclaiming.” Adam observes that these words describe activities that could not all be public speaking.
2 For example, Acts 8:4 says that all the Christians except the apostles went from place to place “proclaiming the Messiah.” This cannot mean that every believer was standing up and preaching sermons to audiences. Priscilla and Aquila, for example, explained the Word of Christ to Apollos in their home (Acts 18:26).
We can discern at least three levels of “Word ministry” in the Bible. Paul calls all believers to “let the message of Christ dwell among you richly” and to “teach and admonish one another with all wisdom” (Colossians 3:16).
Every Christian should be able to give both teaching (didaskalia, the ordinary word for instruction) and admonition (noutheo—a common word for strong, life-changing counsel) that convey to others the teachings of the Bible.
This must be done carefully, though informally, in conversations that are usually one on one. That is the most fundamental form of the ministry of the Word. Let’s call it level
1.At the more formal end of the spectrum are sermons: the public preaching and exposition of the Bible to assembled gatherings, which we could call level
3. The book of Acts gives us many examples, mainly drawn from the ministry of Peter and Paul, though also including an address by Stephen that probably summarizes his path-breaking teaching.
Acts gives us so many of these public addresses that we could almost say that, from the point of view of Luke (the author), the development of the early Christian church and the development of its preaching were one and the same.
There is, however, a “level 2” form of the ministry of the Word between informal, every-Christian conversation and formal sermons. In an overlooked passage the apostle Peter describes the spiritual gift of “speaking”:
