Today’s reading is Acts 8.
Yesterday, we learned the scattered Christians went about preaching the Word. The very next verse describes this preaching a different way. Philip made his way to Samaria. He proclaimed the Christ. Preaching the Word means preaching the Christ. It means preaching the Anointed One who is the Savior and the Lord. If we are not careful, we can drop Jesus Christ right out of our preaching, all the while convincing ourselves we are preaching the Word. When we jump from passage to passage finding tidbits about moral living, proper marriage, financial planning, relationship development, successful career growth, we can convince ourselves we are preaching the Word. After all, every sermon, blog post, podcast has an anchor verse found in the Bible. Folks will applaud how relevant we are. They will eat up our preaching as they do the self-help, business management, and leadership sections of the Amazon library. But that is not preaching the Word. We aren’t preaching the Word unless we are preaching the Christ. Certainly, preaching Christ and the Word will impact many aspects of our lives. But Jesus didn’t come to give us good health, prosperous wealth, fulfilling relationships. Jesus came to save us from sin. We need Jesus. We need to proclaim Jesus. That is what Philip did. He did it using the Scriptures. He did it in Samaria. He did it with the Eunuch. And when he did, folks believed, received, were baptized, and were saved. Let’s preach the Word. Let’s proclaim the Christ.
Tomorrow’s reading is Acts 8.
A Word for Our Kids
Hey kids, I hope you noticed something important when Philip preached Christ. He preached the Christ to the Samaritans (Acts 8:5). He preached Christ to the Eunuch (Acts 8:35). Hold that thought in your mind for a moment. This chapter doesn’t give us the sermons of Philip. It doesn’t explain exactly each subpoint in Philip’s outline. But did you notice how the people responded to Philip’s version of preaching Christ? They believed and were baptized. Now, where do you think they got the idea that they needed to be baptized? How did they come up with the notion that baptism was the proper response? Is it possible baptism was a significant part of Philip’s preaching? Obviously, it was. When we preach the Word and proclaim the Christ, we will tell people they need to be baptized. Philip did. We will tell them things that will cause them to say, “Here’s water. Can I get baptized?” Understand this: preaching baptism is not the same as preaching Christ, but you can’t preach Christ without preaching baptism. Don’t even try.
PODCAST!!!
Listen to the podcast episode that goes along with this post by clicking here.
Read the Bible 