Today, there is much understandable concern about how to communicate biblical truth to an increasingly post-Christian, post-modern, post-everything culture. There is profound appreciation of the chasms that often lie between Western and non-Western cultures. But, of course, much the same could be said of the first century. In the face of these daunting challenges, the apostles did not choose the course of silence or inaction. They preached Christ to the perishing (2 Cor 4:3). They knew that Jesus was a Savior adapted to their hearers’ human need as sinners. It was that conviction that brought the gospel to the end of the earth, and now bears the gospel across the world.

Judging from the number of books about preaching churning from the presses each year, Christian ministers are constantly looking for ways to improve their preaching. This desire for improvement is commendable. If we are to grow in grace (2 Pet 3:18), and to fan into flame those gifts that God has entrusted us (2 Tim 1:6), then every minister ought to aspire to grow in his preaching (cf. 1 Tim 4:15). No preacher is so good (or bad) that he cannot be better.

Such growth can only benefit the church. After all, it is through the sound preaching of the Word of God that, as Paul told Timothy, “you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim 4:16). Not, of course, that any minister or sermon has inherent power to save a sinner. Rather, as the Westminster Confession of Faith summarizes the point, “the grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word.” Further, by the ministry of the Word, this same faith “is increased and strengthened” (WCF 14.6). This fact means that people in the pew must be deeply invested in preaching. Preaching is how we will grow in the Christian life. For this reason, we need to know what makes for a good sermon. We need to learn how to listen to a sermon. We need to learn how to profit from the sermons we hear.

Few books in the Bible illustrate the relationship between the preaching of the Word and a flourishing church like the Acts of the Apostles. Alec Motyer has recently captured the point well:

Here is a principle to ponder: that which makes the Church a distinctive company in the world is the Word of God – or, putting it more concisely, the Word of God is the constitutive reality at the heart of the Church. It is what makes the Church what it is … What we call ‘the Acts of the Apostles’ is a case in point. In its twenty-eight chapters there are about thirty-seven references to the growth of the Church. Indeed ‘The Growing Church’ would be a more suitable title than ‘the Acts of the Apostles’. Of the thirty-seven or so references… twenty-four link growth with the preaching of the word of God – indeed in 12:24 the growth of the Church is actually called the growth of the Word, as if they were so closely related that they could be identified one with the other.(1)

Acts, Motyer is saying, hammers home the connection between the preaching of the Word and the growth of the church.

It is no surprise, then, that Acts is filled with examples of preaching. All but one of eleven major speeches (Stephen’s) in Acts were delivered by Peter (Acts 2, 3, 10) or Paul (Acts 13, 17, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28).(2) This fact is in itself telling. To Peter God had entrusted a ministry to the Jew; and to Paul, a ministry to the Gentile (see Gal 2:9). It is through these two apostles’ respective ministries that Luke will highlight the progress of the gospel from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (1:8), that is, from Jew to Gentile (see Rom 1:16-17). Significantly, their ministries consist of and the church expands and grows by their preaching of the Word of God. In fact, Luke uses nearly thirty different verbs in Acts to describe this apostolic preaching ministry!(3)

Acts gives us a variety of sermons. Some of its sermons are evangelistic (e.g. Acts 2, 13). At least one is addressed to an exclusively Christian audience (Acts 20). Others are apologetic in their scope (Acts 22, 24, 26). Of the evangelistic sermons, some are delivered to Jews (Acts 2, 3, 13), while others are addressed to pagans (e.g. Acts 17). Preaching is versatile. It can convert the sinner; it can edify the saint; it can refute the gainsayer. Preaching is also suited to all kinds of audiences – those who know their Bibles backwards and forwards, and those who have never even heard of the Bible; those who are cultured and learned, and those who have no formal education. What is striking is that, amidst all this diversity, the apostles preach one message. To be sure, the apostles, in the words of the Westminster Larger Catechism, “apply themselves to the necessities and capacities of the hearers” (Q&A 159). But that adaptability is in the service of the gospel, never at the gospel’s expense.

Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2:14-41 is the first Christian sermon. That is, it is the first sermon preached after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In that sense, it is the “mother of all sermons.” It sets the stage for the sermons that will follow in Acts. It also gives us practical guidance and direction, whether we are called to preach or are called to listen to preaching. In what follows, let us ask what principles we can glean from this sermon about Christian preaching.(4)

1. Christian preaching is biblical 

It seems commonplace to say that Christian preaching is biblical – “Of course! What else would it be?,” you might say. In our day, however, this point needs to be stressed.  Much preaching is not biblical in the way that it ought to be. But what do we mean when we say that preaching is biblical?

One thing that strikes us in reading Peter’s sermon is how much of it comes from the Old Testament. He quotes Joel 2 at Acts 2:17-21, Psalm 16 at Acts 2:25-28, and Psalm 110 at Acts 2:34-35. Not only is Peter concerned to quote Scripture, but he is also concerned to explain the Scripture quoted. Peter takes the time to unfold the meaning of each passage that he cites. The events of Pentecost, Peter says in 2:14-15, are “what [were] uttered through the prophet Joel” (2:16). The death and resurrection of Christ (2:22-24) were precisely what David had prophesied of his Son and Lord in Psalm 16. The exaltation of Christ in his resurrection, session, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit (2:32-33) had also been foretold by David in the 110th Psalm (2:34-35). It is fair to say that Scripture is the engine that drives this sermon forward.

Christian preaching, then, is expositional. That is to say, its goal is to explain Scripture for the benefit of the hearers. Ministers do not stand before the congregation to proclaim their opinions about politics, science, culture, literature, or a host of other areas. It is not that these areas are unimportant in themselves. It is that ministers have neither the divine authority nor the promised competency to make such areas the stuff of their sermons. “The preacher’s business,” Robert L. Dabney said, “is just to show the people what is in the Bible.”(5)

This standard sets an admittedly high bar for Christian ministers. We have no right to expect our hearers to heed our words, much less listen to them, unless we are faithful to this principle. Ministers are, by definition, “servants,” called to declare the Word of God to the people of God. Our authority is neither in our own persons nor in the church of which we are part. Our authority is alone in the God we serve and in his Word, the Bible. As Calvin noted, “all the authority that is possessed by pastors … is subject to the Word of God.”(6) If we take this principle seriously, then we will not be content to utter biblical things in our sermons. We will also show our hearers where those biblical things stand in the Scripture.

2. Christian preaching is Christ-centered

The undisputed center of Peter’s sermon is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Peter’s goal is to explain to his hearers who Jesus Christ is and what he has done for sinners. Therefore, Peter reminds the Jews in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost who Jesus is – “Jesus of Nazareth [is] a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know” (2:22). He is a true man, the Second Adam, and therefore qualified to be our Redeemer. He is a divinely commissioned figure – God’s Messiah (Prophet, Priest, and King). And this was a matter of public knowledge.

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