What Is The Difference Between Preaching And Christian Teaching?
The distinction between evangelizing and Christian teaching is vital to religious development. Lots of the sterility we have in our churches can be reduced-and so we’d have more successful churches-if we’ve got a clear awareness of the distinction between evangelizing and Christian teaching. Why is this so? Why do we need to know the distinction?
Because these two activities have different goals and have alternative ways of achieving those goals. It is like feeding children and adults. You do not feed them with the same food and in the same way. Children are customarily fed with milk which they suck from their mother’s breast or from a bottle. Adults are fed with solid food which they take by their own hands. But in most of our churches those that are not yet even religious children, because they’ve not yet actualized their faith given in baptism ( as in most Catholic churches ), or because they have not yet accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior ( as in Evangelical churches ), are the majority of the time given solid food by Christian teaching.
What these not-yet-spiritual children need is evangelizing, not Christian teaching. On the other hand we have many churches where the priest keeps on evangelizing to a congregation of long time Christians already, non secular Christians. And he evangelises to these Christians. What these Christians need is not evangelizing, but Christian teaching. They have recently grown as Christians. What they need is religious nutriments, not the seed of The Lord God so they can be born again. In a number of these churches they have even called their main service as Preaching Service.
Characteristic Goals of Preaching and Teaching
The purpose of evangelizing is metamorphosis, while that of Christian teaching is conformation. The purpose of evangelizing is to seriously change the listener so that she or he becomes a child of God from being just a homo sapien. He or she is transformed from a life of sin to a life of holiness from The Lord God’s standpoint. He or she becomes a new creature. He or she leaves their old life and burns the bridge leading from it in such a fashion that whether or not he or she wants, she or he cannot go back to that old life.
The aim of Christian teaching is conformation to the picture of Jesus. The new creature now becomes more conformed or configured to the picture of God as exposed in Jesus. The listener to Christian teaching is a child of The Lord God. He or she now grows as a kid of God and Christian teaching makes him more like their parent God. This is the purpose of Christian teaching.
The Special Way of Preaching and Teaching
And the resources to achieve these 2 different goals also differ although both use words and images. In evangelizing the means is by announcing the better news of Jesus Christ, what Jesus did for the listener, particularly in his suffering, death, funeral and resurrection. By giving attention to this statement the person is convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit of their sin and turns to Christ as the only one who can work out their problem of sin.
In Christian teaching the means is by showing the person of Jesus to the listener so that she or he gawks upon him and becomes more conformed to the picture of Jesus. Moralizing is not basic to Christian teaching and yet the majority of our Christian teaching is a discourse on morality, the way the Christian is to behave in himself / herself and in the world. Particular Results of Preaching and TeachingIn evangelizing we experience the power of God, ushering us to eternal life. In Christian teaching we experience his wisdom, permitting us to think, talk and act like Jesus. And the Apostle Paul tells us that Christ is the power and wisdom of Almighty God.
It’s all the work of Christ. The preacher and the teacher are only ministers of Christ. Let evangelizing be done for those that have not actualized their Christian life, people who have not yet actually accepted Jesus as the Lord and Savior of their life. But let Christian teaching be done for those that are already actualized or confessed Christians. In this way lives are transformed and transformed lives are more adhered to the life of God in Jesus, thus turning our world the wrong way up as the Apostles did during their time. Click here : witnessing faith and news for Christians for more information.
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