“Don’t preach to me!”
Maybe you’ve heard that before from a friend or family member.
What they mean is “Don’t lecture me,” or “Stop trying to tell me what to do.”
None of us like being told what to do, especially if our conscience is telling us that maybe they’re right. Sometimes what a person means is “Who are you to tell me what to do?” It’s not about what you’re saying so much as it is who is saying it. “What authority do you have to tell me what I should believe or how I should live?”
That’s a great question.
Telling your friend they need to stop smoking or stop buying so many books (preaching to myself here) is something you might do simply because you care about them.
But that’s not really what this post is about. I’m talking about the Gospel. Why do we preach the Gospel? And, while we’re at it, what is that exactly?
Why Do We Preach: We Are Commanded to Preach
The simple answer is because we are commanded to. We preach because we are under God’s authority. When we “preach,” we do so not on our own authority but on God’s. We are ambassadors of the King, bringing the message of the King. We represent Him and His authority over all that he has made, including ourselves.
The Bible, which is the guidebook of the Church (for more info on this, see this post), explains the great story of God and what He expects of us; it repeatedly tells us to preach the gospel to the world. Here are a couple familiar examples:
“Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15).
“‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth'” (Acts 1:8).
We also see it in the example of Jesus’ disciples. When the Spirit came upon Peter at the Feast of Pentecost, he immediately stood up and preached the gospel (see Acts 2). We see it in Paul’s example who said to the church in Rome, “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome” (Rom 1:15) and who taught his young protege, Timothy, to do the same (see 2 Timothy 2:42).
But what exactly is preaching?
The example given at the start of this post might have you think that preaching is just giving some advice to a friend. Some might define it as simply sharing the gospel message with someone. However, evangelizing (sharing the gospel) is not preaching. And preaching is not something that everyone is called to do.
Not Everyone is Called to Preach
When we look at the Scriptures, the command to preach is never given to believers in general. Kevin DeYoung, citing the work of Claire Smith and Jonathan Griffith’s writes:
Building on the work of Claire Smith, Griffiths argues that in the New Testament euangelizomai, katangello, and kerysso are semi-technical terms referring to the proclamation of the gospel. Griffiths charts all 54 uses of euangelizomai (“announce good news”), all 18 uses of katangello (“proclaim” or “announce”), and all 59 uses of kerysso (“make proclamation as a herald”). While the three terms are not employed in a uniform sense, they are “semi-technical” in that they normally refer to preaching by some recognized authority. Of the three verbs, kerysso is the most specialized term with the narrowest range of meaning. But even with the other terms, Griffiths notes, there are no examples in the New Testament where believers in general are commissioned or commanded to “preach” (36).
Just like in the Old Testament, not just anyone could be a prophet or a priest, you were commissioned and called by God to serve in such a role. Those who stepped into such a role on their own were called out by God (Jer. 23:21), were to be punished (Deut. 18:20-22) and received God’s chastisement (1 Samuel 13). Such Scriptures should give us pause about the seriousness of such transgressions. It is a weighty thing to be commissioned to speak for God.
That being said, the kind of “preaching” I’m referring to here is more than just “sharing your faith” with a friend in casual conversation (which every believer is commanded to do in one way or another, see 1 Peter 3:15). The preaching that this post speaks of is the public proclamation of God’s truth by an authorized and commissioned agent.
In most traditions of the church this means someone that has been through a training process of some kind whether formal (i.e. seminary) or informal (regular meetings/training with an ordained minister to learn how to preach). Usually after going through such a process, this person would then be authorized by the laying on hands (ordination). Of course, in some cases, preaching happens by those who are moving through some kind of similar process.
What Do We Preach?
These called and commissioned preachers are heralds, bringing good news from God, as Romans 10:14-15 says:
14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news! (ESV)
But what is this good news that they are preaching? Certainly it includes the death and resurrection of Jesus, which Paul has been discussing in Romans 1-9, but in this particular passage from Romans 10, Paul is quoting Isaiah 52:7. What does Isaiah say this good news is?
How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” (ESV)
These heralds are to proclaim the reign of God: “Your God reigns!” John Piper elaborates on what this means for preachers:
The keynote in the mouth of every prophet-preacher, whether in Isaiah’s day or Jesus’ day or our day, is “Your God reigns!” God is the king of the universe. He has absolute Creator rights over this world and everyone in it. But there is rebellion and mutiny on all sides, and his authority is scorned by millions. So the Lord sends preachers into the world to cry out that God reigns, that he will not suffer his glory to be scorned indefinitely, that he will vindicate his name in great and terrible wrath, but that for now a full and free amnesty is offered to all the rebel subjects who will turn from their rebellion, call on him for mercy, bow before his throne, and swear allegiance and fealty to him forever. The amnesty is signed in the blood of his Son. [2]
The call to surrender to the King of the Universe, and ascribe complete allegiance to him, however, is also a call to joy. The feet of the one bringing the good news are “beautiful” for this reason: this is what we were made for! Preachers proclaim the good news that God’s reign and our joy are not in conflict. Rather, taking up our cross, repenting of sin, turning to the Lord Jesus in full obedience, trusting in him completely, and ascribing all glory and honor to His name is the path to everlasting life and fullness of joy. To quote Piper again, “When the kingdom is a treasure, submission is a pleasure.” [3] There is no greater joy than knowing Jesus Christ, in fact, Jesus himself said it is the very essence of eternal life (John 17:3).
Because God Saves People Through the Preached Word
But God has chosen not to write these words in the clouds. Instead he sends out commissioned agents—preachers, to declare it. And God’s Spirit is pleased to use preaching to open hearts and awaken souls. Put simply, we preach because it is through the “folly” of preaching that people are saved (see 1 Corinthians 1:17-18, 21). Haddon Robinson in his classic work on preaching writes:
In spite of the “bad-mouthing” of preaching and preachers, no one who takes the Bible seriously should count preaching out. To the New Testament writers, preaching stands as the events through which God works. Peter, for example, reminded his readers that they had “been born anew, not of perishable seed but of imperishalbe, throught ehliving and abiding word of God: (1 Peter 1:23, RSV). How had this word come to affect their lives? “That word,” Peter explained, “is the good news which was preached to you” (1:25). Through preaching God had redeemed them.[4]
In Jonathan Landry Cruse’s words: “[B]y the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Himself speaks through His ordained servant, saving sinners by the spoken word to the glory of God.”[5]
The great Welsh preacher, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones observes that throughout church history that when the Church declines, we see that preaching has declined. The opposite is also true, “What is it that always heralds the dawn of a Reformation or of a Revival? It is renewed preaching.” [6] D.L. Moody is purported to have said that if you want to “revive a church, build a fire in the pulpit.”
The prophet Jeremiah preached because he could do no other: “It is If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot” (Jer. 20:9).
[1] See Kevin DeYoung, “What is Preaching (And Who Does It?),” tgc.org, Jan 20, 2020, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-is-preaching-and-who-does-it (Accessed Jan 13, 2026).
[2] John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, Rev ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2004), 26-27.
[3] Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, 28.
[4] Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Preaching: The Development and Delivery of Expository Messages, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 19.
[5] “The Foolishness of Preaching,” tabletalkmagazine.com, Apr 10, 2024, https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/the-foolishness-of-preaching/ (accessed Jan 13, 2026).
[6] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1972), 24.
