American Kerygma: Americans love the new, but Jesus' message is old
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I just got some new stuff. I love new stuff because I’m an American, and we have a special affinity for new things. When it comes to a new digital audio recorder for my YouTube channel, new things aren’t so bad. When it comes to the way we relate to God, new things are harmful.
In ancient Greek, the word “kerygma” meant “message” or “proclamation.” Jesus’ kerygma was his claim to be the messiah and his command that all people turn from their own way and trust in him. Jesus’ kerygma was a promise to restore humanity to the image of God so we can fulfill our original purpose in glorifying God.
The American kerygma, on the other hand, is obsessed with newness. Yes, believers have “newness of life” in order to fulfill our original, age-old purpose.
Instead, the American church has exchanged an old message that calls us back to origins for a new message that calls us toward new things. It focuses on new ways to be relevant and new ways to reach new generations. We read the newest, fashionable books instead of the old, dusty one that matters. We look for new experiences instead of the old, simple spiritual practices. This is why faith healers like Benny Hinn and books like “Jesus Calling” and “The Shack” are so popular. “Heaven Is for Real” offers a new vision of heaven. Prosperity preachers enjoy their own success because they offer new success, new blessing and new happiness.
Even if you reject these examples for the heresies they are, you cannot deny their common association with Christianity in America. Neither can you deny your own love of the new, even if it manifests itself other ways. Our love of newness has been bred into us.
But Jesus’ kerygma is old.
In Luke 24, Jesus met two disciples on the road as they walked to Emmaus. They were still grieving Jesus’ death, and they didn’t recognize him because they didn’t expect him to rise from the dead. As he talked to them, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Then his disciples recognized him from the Old Testament. Jesus didn’t make up the gospel on the fly. God had been revealing it throughout human history, and Jesus often quoted the Old Testament to illustrate his clearest statements of his kerygma.
Jesus began his public ministry in Luke 4 by quoting Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1-2). When he was done reading, Jesus boldly proclaimed, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
Jesus made his famous, “For God so loved the world,” statement to explain an allusion he had just made to a story from Numbers 21. “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world … ” (John 3:14-16a). The most famous verse in the Bible, in context, is Jesus explaining how he was fulfilling the pattern for salvation laid down in the Old Testament.
But the American kerygma is failing. The average church in America is struggling with attendance, and more and more people are disassociating themselves with any form of “religion,” forgetting that the church was always supposed to be about community and relationship instead.
I pray we return to the old message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone, as revealed in the Bible alone, and for the glory of God alone. Join me in spreading the old message, Jesus’ kerygma.