1055--preaching in OT & NT

            This is another one minute version of the two minute commentaries I wrote in December, 2010.  This one is a shorter version of #55 on preaching in the days of the Old and New Testaments.

1055—preaching in OT & NT

            This is Simple Church Minute.  What was preaching like in the days of the Old Testament?  Prophets spoke sporadically.  False prophets also spoke. Sometimes the people apparently preferred the false prophets. The people were allowed to interrupt and ask questions.  As Israel was both an ethnicity, belief, and sometimes a nation, the king had spiritual responsibility, usually for ill. Prophets and priests spoke from the burden of their heart, but not with the rhetorical manner that the Romans would later be known for. 

Jesus also spoke in the traditional Jewish manner, even allowing for the trick questions of the religious leaders.  The early church did the same. Assuredly Jesus taught the 12, who taught the early church. At that time, preaching meant dialogue; speaking indicated oratory or at least monologue.  Oratory as status quo ritual was, though, a Roman cultural tradition that came to the church before most other ones.

  You can find out more about simple worship in this area at www.hrscn.org.

On this and many of these writings, I have taken this information from George Barna and Frank Viola’s Pagan Christianity, which, in turn, has the historical footnotes.