Christ is Preached

‘What then? Notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.’ (Philippians 1:18)

It is difficult to understand exactly the motives of those who preached Christ ‘out of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add afflictions to my bonds’ (v.16) The Greek word ‘eritheia’ translated ‘contention’ in the KJV is translated as ‘faction’ in the RV. It is perhaps sadly the case that these men were guilty of a party spirit. Now that Paul was in prison, they were taking the opportunity of his absence to promote their own interests as preachers.

But whatever the reasons, Paul rejoiced when he heard that Christ was being preached. And let us carefully note, it was not the preaching of the ‘gospel’ but the preaching of ‘Christ’ that brought him joy.

The renowned Scottish preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne, whose preaching brought revival to the city of Dundee, once said:

‘It is strange how sweet and precious it is to preach directly about Christ, compared with all other subjects of preaching.’

It is an easy trap to fall into: preaching ‘gospel subjects’ but not to preach about Christ. I can tell my hearers about salvation and not about the Saviour; about redemption and not about the Redeemer; about mercy but not about the Mercy Seat. If you think at first this is a harsh judgment on modern preaching – just listen to yourself the next time you preach! How much of it is about Christ? The answer is often, shockingly little.

The story is told of the London lady who was taken by hear friends to hear all the ‘best’ preachers of the day but she remained unsaved. One night they took her to hear CH Spurgeon and she was saved by God’s grace. Her friends asked her what was different about Mr Spurgeon’s preaching and she replied;

‘All the other nights I couldn’t see Christ for the man: tonight I couldn’t see the man for Christ.’

The root of Paul’s joy was that he knew God will always bless a ministry of Christ.

Somehow, I have to get there in my preaching. In our day we like spiritual shortcuts. We look for maximum results with minimum effort. But I strongly suspect that it takes a great deal of spirituality to preach Christ. In fact, it takes nothing less than the power of the Spirit – ‘He shall glorify Me…’ (John 16:14)