What Is The Difference Between Preaching And Christian Teaching?

The distinction between evangelizing and Christian teaching is vital to spiritual development. Much of the sterility we have in our churches can be reduced-and therefore we might have more fruitful churches-if we have a clear awareness of the distinction between evangelizing and Christian teaching. Why is this so? Why will we need to know the excellence?

Because these two activities have different goals and have different ways of attaining those goals. It is like feeding infants and adults. You don’t feed them with the same food and in the same way. Infants are usually fed with milk which they suck from their mother’s breast or from a bottle. Adults are fed with solid food which they take by their own hands. But in most of our churches people who are not yet even spiritual infants, because they have not yet actualized their faith given in baptism ( as in most Catholic churches ), or because they haven’t yet accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior ( as in Evangelical churches ), are most of the time given solid food by Christian teaching.

What these not-yet-spiritual infants need is evangelizing, not Christian teaching. On the other hand we have many churches where the preacher keeps on evangelizing to a congregation of long time Christians already, religious Christians. And he evangelises to these Christians. What these Christians need is not evangelizing, but Christian teaching. They have recently grown as Christians. What they need is spiritual nutriments, not the seed of The Lord God in order that they can be born again. In a number of these churches they have even called their main service as Preaching Service.

Characteristic Goals of Evangelizing and Teaching
The point of evangelizing is transformation, while that of Christian teaching is conformation. The purpose of evangelizing is to seriously change the listener so that she or he becomes a kid of God from being simply a human being. He is transformed from a life of sin to a life of holiness from God’s standpoint. He or she becomes a new creature. She or he leaves his or her old life and burns the bridge leading from it in such a way that even if she or he wants, she or he can’t return to that old life.

The purpose of Christian teaching is conformation to the image of Jesus. The new creature now becomes more conformed or configured to the image of God as revealed in Jesus. The listener to Christian teaching is already a kid of Our Lord God. He or she now grows as a child of God and Christian teaching makes him or her more like his or her parent God. This is the purpose of Christian teaching.

The Particular Way of Preaching and Teaching
And the resources to achieve these two different goals also differ although they both use words and pictures. In evangelizing the means is by saying the better news of Jesus Christ, what Jesus did for the listener, particularly in his suffering, death, burial and resurrection. By paying attention to this statement the individual is convicted by the power of the Lord God Almighty of their sin and turns to Christ as the only one who can solve their problem of sin.

In Christian teaching the means is by showing the individual of Jesus to the listener so that he or she gazes upon him and becomes more conformed to the image of Jesus. Moralizing isn’t basic to Christian teaching and yet most of our Christian teaching is a discussion on morality, the way the Christian is to behave in himself / herself and in the world. Special Results of Preaching and TeachingIn evangelizing we experience the power of The Lord God, ushering us to boundless life. In Christian teaching we experience his wisdom, permitting us to think, speak and act like Jesus. And the Apostle Paul tells us that Christ is the power and wisdom of Our Lord God.

It’s all the work of Christ. The preacher and the teacher are only ministers of Christ. Let evangelizing be done for those that have not actualized their Christian life, those who have not yet truly accepted Jesus as the Lord and Savior of their life. But let Christian teaching be done for those that are actualized or professed Christians. In this manner lives are transformed and transformed lives are more adhered to the life of Our Lord God in Jesus, thus turning our world upside down as the Apostles did during their time. Click here : http://evangelismportal.com/ and Christian news for more information.

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