Preaching? Proclaiming? A World of Difference in Words
Scripture:
- Romans 10:15 How shall they ________ unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful the feet of "those who __________" good things"
Romans 10:15 has two words that can make a world of difference to the attitude and manner in which the Gospel is shared. Why make such a fuss over the translation of a couple of words? It is written, "The power of life and death lay in the tongue." The manner in which the Good News of peace is shared can determine whether the Good News is welcomed as a living seed or rejected as a rotten seed. This post explores these two contended words and my feelings about the translation of this very important writing.
Romans 10:15 - What Was Originally Written?
According to Wikipedia, the Chester Beatty Museum in Dublin Ireland has an ancient papyrus that would contain Romans 10:15. While I have searched their website, I have not yet been able to find it. However, it has been a delightful treasure hunt.! The Chester Beatty Museum has many interesting papyri including fragments of the New Testament and the Septuagint.
According to the Blue Letter Bible Romans 10:15 is written in Greek like this:
πῶς δὲ κηρύξουσιν ἐὰν μὴ ἀποσταλῶσιν καθὼς γέγραπται Ὡς ὡραῖοι οἱ πόδες τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων εἰρήνην, τῶν εὐαγγελιζομένων τὰ ἀγαθά
I really like using the Blue Letter Bible resources to explore Greek scripture in-depth, because it not only gives the original Greek, and concordances - Strongs and Englishman's, but it has an audio pronunciation of each word and the parts of speech for each word.
Do you find reading Greek challenging? Before I started deep-diving into scripture, I would look at Greek lettering and think I could never be able to read or understand Greek in a million years, but after just a few short weeks, of using the Blue Letter Bible it is becoming clearer and clearer to me. After all with God, all things are possible! I hope that God willing my eyes will be opened further to this beautiful language and the true intention behind these texts.
What Does κηρύξουσιν Mean?
κηρύξουσιν
Pronunciation: kirysso
Related Words: κηρύξωσιν - meaning - proclamation
Strong's Concordance notes that this word means to share publicly and openly as a town crier or herald in a serious manner. Therefore, although, I am just a relatively new Biblical scholar, I would say that this word should be translated not as preach, but proclaim.
Preaching versus Proclaiming
What is the difference between preaching and proclaiming? It is huge! Preaching has come to be associated with a note of condemnation. Popular music often carries the cultural understanding of a word. We can see how preaching is regarded as condemnational in songs like "Papa Don't Preach" Proclaiming, on the other hand, is an excited public sharing of news. We find this word in the tome honoured lyrics of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" - With the heavenly hosts proclaim... Proclaiming gives life to the seed to be planted in hearts.
What Does εὐαγγελιζομένων Mean?
εὐαγγελιζομένων
Pronunciation: exelongaylenomenzohm
Related Words: εὐαγγελίζω - noun meaning - good messenger coming from the words εὐ meaning good and α γγελίζω meaning messenger, herald or angel
Strong's Concordance notes that the verb word literally means "gospelizing" or the proclaiming or sharing of good news. Therefore I believe it stands to reason that this word rather than being translated as preach should be translated as proclaims or evangelizes. When I look at the structure of this word, I can see where the words evangelist, evangelize and evangelism came from.
Will You Proclaim or Preach?
I once read that the success of many of Billy Graham's evangelism crusades was due to the fact that they did not go to tell people what they were doing wrong but to simply share the good news that could set people free from the burdens on them that came from carrying their sin.
When we proclaim the gospel, we are sharing how much God loves everyone.
Nick Vujicic of Life Without Limbs Ministry in an address at Saddleback shared two important things that would-be disciples need to hear. The two reasons that people do not come to the Lord.
- One of the two main reasons that people do not come to God is they do not feel worthy. Will condemnational preaching bring these people closer to God? No way. In fact, condemnational preaching may even drive some people who are already believers away!
- The other main reason people do not come to the Lord is.... oh my. I better watch this video presentation again!
In Acts 17, Paul gives an excellent example of how we are to share the good news and plant the seed of truth so it will flourish and grow. When addressing the Athenians in the Aergropus in Acts 17, Paul comes alongside as a friend and offers the good news as an extension of their understanding.
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. Acts 17 22-23 NIV - Bible Gateway
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About This Author
Sister Su is grateful to God for keeping her alive. She is a Trent/Queen's Concurrent Education graduate with over 20 years of teaching experience. She writes on several blogs, has a YouTube channel and is most easily reached through Twitter @Sister_Su See her link tree for more details:@Sister_Su | Linktree
This post was proofread with the free version of Grammarly
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