The idea of preaching as I have gathered from several sources is a passionate appeal on a topic, usually religious. The more I have read and fit that idea into the messages that people (especially Jesus) preached in the Bible it seemed that they preached on things that they were consumed with as their “message.”  I got a feeling that the passion was in the preacher and that was conveyed to the people that are listening. I think that is why the disciples were taught for quite a while before they were sent out. They had to get the “message of Jesus” and make it theirs before they could truly give it as a “passionate appeal.” I have seen a lot of people that can get a congregation excited for forty-five minutes and then in the parking lot the people cannot remember the point of the sermon. But people who have preached on “their messages” because it is what God has put into them and their hearts make a difference.

The miracles that Jesus would do after His preaching was to convey the authority that He had to be preaching that message and to show them the real Kingdom He would bring and not just an earthly kingdom that would free them from Rome. This is why the leaders of the day were so afraid of Jesus’ message; it came with power and had hope and peace as the core of what He said.  The leaders of the day had seen other “messiahs” come and go but I think that the “passion of His message” and the miracles were more than they could handle. Gamaliel in Acts 5 said it best; “if it is from God” you are wasting your time.

This is why it is a “now kingdom”. We should be preaching His message that He has given to each of us and when we do that His power will be there to do His miracles.

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