One of the subtle causes of the decline of Christianity in the West is the value the church, and individual churches, place on preaching.
Preaching, as it is thought of today, didn't exist in the New Testament.
In fact, our English word, sermon, traces back only to about the year A.D. 1000, as far as I can tell.
Preaching sermons, as the preaching of sermons is practiced today, wasn't a New Testament practice at all and, in fact, is very modern in the 2,000 year plus history of the Jesus movement.
What was central to the building of a dynamic and growing movement of followers of Jesus, is not preaching, but teaching.
When Paul describes the giftings Christ gave, "to prepare the saints for works of ministry," (Eph. 4:12), he mentions apostles, prophets, evangelists and shepherds and TEACHERS, not preachers.
The distinction may seem subtle in this century, but, in truth, it's monumental.
Read Paul's discourse on what happens in gatherings of disciples in 1 Corinthians 14. Teaching is crucially important, as is prophecy.
Yet, nothing like the preaching of prepared sermons is even in that universe.
From the perspective of history, one of the plagues on Christianity today is that the modern phenomenon of the preached sermon dominates, and teaching, especially as it took place in the early days of Jesus-following, doesn't exist.
Preached sermons turn everyone in a place, except the preacher, into a consumer of the sermon. Teaching as it took place in the early days of the movement had the purpose, as the Book of Hebrews describes gatherings, of provoking good works.
Read your history. It did provoke good works.
I honestly can't see how this will happen. But, Kingdom people must repent of the sermon and embrace teaching as New Testament people practiced teaching.
The word, indeed, is APEST, not APESP.
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