An immediate result of the empowering of the disciples by the Holy Spirit was the compulsion which filled them, to share their new faith and understanding with others. They proclaimed, with great boldness, who Jesus was and what he had done. The Greek word keryx meant a herald, someone who speaks loudly and clearly in public to draw attention to the important announcement which he proclaims. Keryx comes from the Greek verb keryssein, to proclaim, as does the word kerygma, meaning the message or proclamation. We may speak of the apostolic kerygma, meaning the message which the apostles proclaimed about Jesus, in the early Church. The Good News of what God had done in Jesus Christ, the 'Gospel', is the kerygma.

Before we outline the kerygma that was proclaimed in the early Church, we should notice the significance of one word which marks the dramatic change which took place in those who had been the disciples of Jesus. When Jesus called twelve men to be his disciples, he was calling them to be his pupils. The Latin word discipulus from which the English word 'disciple' is formed, means 'pupil' or 'learner'. In the Greek text of the gospels, the word mathetes which is translated as 'disciple' means 'pupil' in exactly the same sense as the Latin word. The twelve disciples intended by Jesus to learn from him, and from some of the incidents recorded about them in the gospels, we can see that they had a great to learn.

 

When we turn to the record of Acts and the letters of Paul, we that they are no longer called 'disciples' ; instead, they are called 'apostles’ a word used infrequently in the gospels (Matthew 10:2, Luke 6 Luke 9: 10). This word comes directly from a Greek word meaning' who is sent with it message'. The change from disciple to apostle marks the difference in both the status and the task of those men who accepted the call of Jesus. After receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were now ready to teach others as messengers of God.

 

The great change in them became apparent on the Day of Pentecost but it had begun before that, when Jesus appeared to them after Resurrection. All the writers who attempt to describe the effect on disciples of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus to them, struggle to describe the indescribable. When Jesus stood before Peter, James, John, Thomas and the rest, they knew they were not seeing a ghost, what was happening seemed impossible by human standards. Je whose dead body had been hastily put in the rock tomb before the Pas over began, was with them again, fully alive, talking with them, eat with them, continuing to teach them and prepare them for the work f which he had chosen them. As they began to believe what they w experiencing, they realized that they were in the presence of someone whom sin and death could not destroy. They began to understand mar; things, previously not understood by them, about Jesus. They were convinced that the power of God was revealed in Jesus, as he had claim Furthermore, he promised them that after he finally left them, the power of God would be given to the disciples to enable them to do the work for which he had prepared them, Luke 24:45--49.

 

This empowering came, on the Feast of Pentecost that followed t Passover of that same year. Luke's dramatic account is in Acts 2.

It has been said that if we want proof of the Resurrection, the existence of the Church is that proof. Humanly speaking, the 'Jesus-movement’ appeared to have been wiped out when its leader died the death of a criminal, yet within a few months the men who had fled in panic when their leader was arrested had been transformed into extraordinarily bole preachers, filled with a new quality of life and possessed of a new kind of joy and confidence.

 

So we can now understand why the central message of the apostolic preaching was about the death and Resurrection of Jesus and the consequences. From the preaching of Peter, given in Acts 2:14--42,3:12-26, 4:8-12,5:27-32, 10:34--43, and the preaching of Paul in Acts 13:16-41 and passages of his letters such as 1 Corinthians 1 :6-7, 17-18,2:1-5, 15:1-11, Galatians 1:1, Romans 2:16, 10:9, we can make the following outline of the kerygma.

What was foretold by the prophets in the Scriptures had come true.

They prophesied the coming of a Messiah, a descendant of David, who would inaugurate the new age of God's rule. The Messiah was Jesus of Nazareth. His authority from God was clearly proved by what he did. He was killed, as the Scriptures foretold he would be, but this was according to God's plan so that God's power and glory might be revealed. His death was in God's plan for our deliverance from evil. He was raised from death on the third day after his burial. Jesus is now exalted to glory with God. He will return again as the Judge of mankind. All who hear this message are urged to repent of their sins so that they may be forgiven by God and saved from the coming Judgment of mankind. Those who repent should show it by accepting baptism so that they receive God's gift of the Holy Spirit.

We also find an outline of this preaching in the First Letter of Peter, I: 3-5 and 10-11, 2:20-24, 4:17-18.

The content of the kerygma could be said to end before the call to repent and be baptized, but this call always concluded the preaching, because the aim of the preaching was to make the offer of changed lives to those who heard it.

The apostolic preaching did not appeal to human reason or philosophical argument. When Paul visited Athens and met Greek philosophers there, most of them rejected his preaching because it did not appeal to philosophical argument which they were accustomed to. As we have seen, the kerygma was based on the firsthand experience of the apostles of the consequences of the death and Resurrection of Jesus, their empowering by God's Holy Spirit and their new understanding of God's self-revelation in the Scriptures. They had gone through an experience which had completely transformed them and their lives. To some, their message sounded like madness but to others it cut through to their deepest needs. There were many who knew in themselves that their lives desperately needed a fresh start, and this was offered to them in the message that they heard from the apostles.

 

We need to notice two points about the kerygma as a whole in the New Testament. The Good News preached by the apostles, that a new start was possible in the life of anyone who accepted Jesus as Lord Savior, is rooted in the preaching of Jesus himself, as it is record the gospels. He said that the Scriptures were fulfilled in him. His was to manifest the establishment of God's rule in the lives of all man and in the universe. He showed how the Kingdom of God was open to all who wanted to enter it. He predicted his suffering and death but  his victory (Mark 14:62). He spoke, in many ways, of the new life, the new start, that he offered to anyone who took him seriously.

The pattern of the kerygma runs right through the writings of the New Testament, giving it a powerful unity despite the different approach of the different authors. Mark's gospel may be called expanded kerygma, the author gives us his aim in the first line-'This is the Good N about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.' The kerygma controls the structure of the other three gospels. In the various letters, it is there in various forms of expression.

 

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