a little street preachers’ guide

Much street preaching begins and cen­tres around the “judge­ment” soon to come, which is taken to imply “eternal” damna­tion for many. It is a mes­sage of fear, and urgency. The argu­ment is that cages need to be rat­tled, people shaken awake out of their daily trot, that we are so cal­lous and jaded these days that only shock tac­tics are expected to have any effect. A zealous dis­ciple I met near my work­place gave me a list of scrip­tures about open air preaching, which I shall go through to see what we are to say, and how to say it, in the con­text of the respec­tive scriptures.

• Prov 1:20 and 8:1-3 – the per­son­i­fied “Wisdom” cries out, to speak excel­lent and right things. That’s a high calling!
• Isaiah 29:21, like­wise Amos 5:10 speaks of the unjust who accuse and per­se­cute the preacher who “reproves in the gate”, the Hebrew word trans­lated “reprove” also means “arbi­trate, decide, judge” – Isaiah and Amos are most likely talking of them­selves, who are con­victing people of their sin, which is being deemed unpa­tri­otic and incendiary.
• Is 58: This is specif­i­cally rebuking people who were out­wardly reli­gious and self-right­eous, fol­lowing spir­i­tual prac­tice (fasting) while exploiting other humans.
• Jere­miah 2 The mes­sage begins with kind­ness and love, a Father wooing his chil­dren into being close with him (again). Then follow charges, and the grief of our Cre­ator, that we have chosen to dig our own wells and drink infe­rior water, rather than the living water that only comes from Him (cf. John 4:13-14), so that we may thrive and be well. Our own trans­gres­sions will be our pun­ish­ment: living dry, parched and unful­filled lives as we have chosen to leave the only true vine (John 15:5).
• Jer 7 is a very detailed and strong mes­sage, calling us to amend our ways, to judge rightly and not to exploit, not to follow idols and then also swear (falsely) by the temple. The core mes­sage in v.3, v.7 and v.23 is to obey the Lord’s voice so that it may be well with us. This mir­rors Deuteronomy 12:28 where the pur­pose of all the pre­ceding instruc­tions is given: obeying them in order for every­thing to be well with us.
• Jer 11 again calls people to walk in the covenant, to obey the Father’s voice and not to follow our evil hearts (v.6-8). Because we have for­saken our Cre­ator who called us into being as a “Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit” (v.16), and instead have fol­lowed other gods, calamity will come upon us and at some point can no longer be reversed (v.11,14).
• Jer 17:19-27 specif­i­cally calls people to keep the Sab­bath, and again gives the con­tract that heeding our Father’s voice will lead to us being built up and standing and seeing blessing, while not heading will lead to peril and destruction.
• Mat 3:1-12 “bear fruits worthy of repen­tance” calls Yochanan the Immerser (John the Bap­tiser), and rebukes the reli­gious leaders as “brood of vipers”.
• Mat 4:17 Yeshua starts his public preaching with the words “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!”: calling people to “repen­tance”. This is the core mes­sage: the kingdom is near! You are infi­nitely close to your Cre­ator, turn and change your ways and align your­self with Him, and He shall redeem you and heal you and help you.
• Mat 10:7 Like­wise Yeshua instructs His dis­ci­ples on sending them out in pairs “…preach, saying ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand’…”, and then in v.8 “Heal the sick, cleanse the leapers, raise the dead, cast out demons…” – this speaks of action as much words, aston­ishing, pow­erful action in the Spirit of the Almighty!
• Mat 10:20 Yeshua points out that the Spirit if the Father shall speak through us. Now and always, the Father’s Spirit is “gra­cious and mer­ciful; Slow to anger and great in lov­ingkind­ness” (or stead­fast love) – Psalm 145:8 (NASB).

So yes, there is much about judge­ment, iniq­uity, blind eyes and deaf ears (cal­lous­ness), but at the core is our Creator’s desire for us, his chil­dren, to be close to Him and to be well and holy. That has to be our core mes­sage, that the best life that can be lived is one in rev­er­ence and align­ment with our Cre­ator who knows how He designed us and des­per­ately wants us to be well.

Here is some more scrip­ture on how to preach:

• Luke 14:23 com­pelling people to come into God’s glo­rious wed­ding ban­quet – making an offer, giving hope!
• 1 Cor 9:22-23 become weak to the weak, become all things to all men – i.e. be com­pas­sionate and loving, not shocking and spreading fear
• Cor 5:20 as ambas­sadors of Christ we plead: be rec­on­ciled to God!
• Eph 6:15 be san­daled at your feet with the readi­ness of the gospel of ___? Judge­ment, “eternal damna­tion”, doom and gloom? No: peace! Remember, I plead with you street preachers, that it is a gospel, a good news you are sharing! Be rec­on­ciled to God who is Love (1 John 4:8)!
• 1 Peter 3:15 be to answer to everyone who asks, give an account for the hope that is in us, with gen­tle­ness and reverence

Time and again we are called to be blessed, and not to fear. We are all some­what self-right­eous or defen­sive in our ways. The classic street preaching mes­sage is per­verted. Our Cre­ator does not want us to begrudg­ingly follow Him so that we may avoid “eternal” “hell”, both much-abused terms that have been given their cur­rent meaning and con­no­ta­tions during middle-ages Catholi­cism, and not by our Cre­ator or His Only Son Yeshua the Christ.

He wants us to love Him because He has loved us first. Because that way we will find the only true meaning of life. That is a gospel worth sharing. Yes, the urgency is there, but it shall be an urgency to encourage one another, so that we may be well and not fall into sin’s deceit­ful­ness (Heb 3:13), to live lives together toward the light, rather than telling people off for going into perdi­tion! This is all summed up in Titus 2:11-15 [NASB]

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing sal­va­tion to all men, instructing us to deny ungod­li­ness and worldly desires and to live sen­sibly, right­eously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Him­self for us to redeem us from every law­less deed, and to purify for Him­self a people for His own pos­ses­sion, zealous for good deeds. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one dis­re­gard you.”

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