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If you have not seen this before be prepared to be amazed, or shocked, as I was. If you have, apologies you may not wish to continue reading: the word "love" is not in the book of Acts.. not even once. This fact is presented on a number of places on the internet.
Consider how different this is with the modern day ways of preaching the gospel. A classic one is the "4 spiritual laws" which goes something like this: 1. God loves you, created you to have a personal relationship with Him.. 2. because of sin you are separated from God.. 3. believe in Christ and you will be saved".. 4. be filled with the Spirit/join a church that you like.
I should add this method of gospel preaching is effective and has worked many times (or rather, God has used this method to save people).
Now consider how the early church preached the gospel from the book of Acts. Acts is an important book. The book of Acts is relatively long, with 28 chapters. Acts records the history of the early church over 30 years. It contains preaching to the gospel 13 times.. from crowds, to individuals, ordinary people to high-ranking people.
Here I list the number of times that the apostles preached/mentioned certain things in Acts...from highest to lowest (the numbers are approximate only).. and out of interest I searched a few common phrases that we may like to use such as "God wants to be your friend".
Using an electronic bible such as e-sword you can do a word search for yourself and count the number of times a word appears in the bible.
This is by no means intended as a method or rule of "how to " preach the gospel.. but it helps to paint a picture of how the apostles preached the gospel:
Christ: 32+ times
name of Christ: 20 times,
baptism: 21 times,
belief: 16 times,
Law of Moses: 15 times,
Old Testament prophecies: 15 times,
the resurrection: 12 times,
repentance: 7 times,
sins: 7 times,
kingdom of God: 7 times,
the cross: 5 times,
the coming judgement: 5 times,
receive the Holy Spirit: 5 times,
good works: 3 times,
history: 3-4 times,
creation : 2 times..,
Hell: 2 times, "
call upon the name of the Lord: 1 time,
God's love: 0 times,
wonderful plan for your life" : 0 times.,
"an abundant life or life to the full" : 0 times.
"accept Jesus into your heart": 0 times.
"man's separation from God": 0 times,
original sin: 0 times,
"God wants to be your friend": 0 times.
"what if you die tomorrow": 0 times,
"God wants to live inside you": 0 times.
"Go to heaven when you die": 0 times.
I found it interesting that the most frequently used word in gospel preaching: Love.. is no where in the book of Acts.
From this we can see that the apostles did not preach about God's love itself. They did not use the modern day evangelical mantra John 3:16 "for God so loved the world.. etc etc". ... the main thing they preached was Christ!!
And then to my surprise.. this word count in the book of Acts..that found Christ was the main thing preached... matches Paul's words perfectly:
1 Cor 1:21 "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles."
1 Cor 2:2 "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."
See.. the early church had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. From this personal relationship and experience of Him, they testified about this Person, they talked about Him and what He did for them and for us all.
They did not use a set of methods or rules and didn't even start preaching about God's love. Because even if you know about God's love, but don't meet Jesus Christ and experience it, you cannot be saved... you may end up believing in something like Universalism and you will not see the important of Christ.
Some may say "well if people don't know that God loves them how can they accept Christ, won't they feel condemned or judged".. well apparently not.
It was not their methods that saved them, it was not what they preached, but who they preached.. it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself living within them who saved them:
Col 1:27 "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
I suspect that they did not preach about God's love for a few reasons. One is that God's love is implied in the preaching of Christ crucified.... if you hear about someone coming to die for you , for your sins..and you believe it.. you should feel some love for them, this is a reaction.. we love God because He loved us first.
Another reason is that love is not a concept or theology, it is an action word.. it is something to be experienced: James 2:16 "If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?". God's love may be the experience of someone hearing the gospel, so they don't need to be taught or told about it.
God's love in a tangible and full way is something that really cannot be experienced or known by someone until they have the faith to receive Christ..until the Spirit comes to live within them.. faith first.. then hope then love.. in that order I guess.
Consider how different this is with the modern day ways of preaching the gospel. A classic one is the "4 spiritual laws" which goes something like this: 1. God loves you, created you to have a personal relationship with Him.. 2. because of sin you are separated from God.. 3. believe in Christ and you will be saved".. 4. be filled with the Spirit/join a church that you like.
I should add this method of gospel preaching is effective and has worked many times (or rather, God has used this method to save people).
Now consider how the early church preached the gospel from the book of Acts. Acts is an important book. The book of Acts is relatively long, with 28 chapters. Acts records the history of the early church over 30 years. It contains preaching to the gospel 13 times.. from crowds, to individuals, ordinary people to high-ranking people.
Here I list the number of times that the apostles preached/mentioned certain things in Acts...from highest to lowest (the numbers are approximate only).. and out of interest I searched a few common phrases that we may like to use such as "God wants to be your friend".
Using an electronic bible such as e-sword you can do a word search for yourself and count the number of times a word appears in the bible.
This is by no means intended as a method or rule of "how to " preach the gospel.. but it helps to paint a picture of how the apostles preached the gospel:
Christ: 32+ times
name of Christ: 20 times,
baptism: 21 times,
belief: 16 times,
Law of Moses: 15 times,
Old Testament prophecies: 15 times,
the resurrection: 12 times,
repentance: 7 times,
sins: 7 times,
kingdom of God: 7 times,
the cross: 5 times,
the coming judgement: 5 times,
receive the Holy Spirit: 5 times,
good works: 3 times,
history: 3-4 times,
creation : 2 times..,
Hell: 2 times, "
call upon the name of the Lord: 1 time,
God's love: 0 times,
wonderful plan for your life" : 0 times.,
"an abundant life or life to the full" : 0 times.
"accept Jesus into your heart": 0 times.
"man's separation from God": 0 times,
original sin: 0 times,
"God wants to be your friend": 0 times.
"what if you die tomorrow": 0 times,
"God wants to live inside you": 0 times.
"Go to heaven when you die": 0 times.
I found it interesting that the most frequently used word in gospel preaching: Love.. is no where in the book of Acts.
From this we can see that the apostles did not preach about God's love itself. They did not use the modern day evangelical mantra John 3:16 "for God so loved the world.. etc etc". ... the main thing they preached was Christ!!
And then to my surprise.. this word count in the book of Acts..that found Christ was the main thing preached... matches Paul's words perfectly:
1 Cor 1:21 "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles."
1 Cor 2:2 "For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."
See.. the early church had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. From this personal relationship and experience of Him, they testified about this Person, they talked about Him and what He did for them and for us all.
They did not use a set of methods or rules and didn't even start preaching about God's love. Because even if you know about God's love, but don't meet Jesus Christ and experience it, you cannot be saved... you may end up believing in something like Universalism and you will not see the important of Christ.
Some may say "well if people don't know that God loves them how can they accept Christ, won't they feel condemned or judged".. well apparently not.
It was not their methods that saved them, it was not what they preached, but who they preached.. it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself living within them who saved them:
Col 1:27 "To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."
I suspect that they did not preach about God's love for a few reasons. One is that God's love is implied in the preaching of Christ crucified.... if you hear about someone coming to die for you , for your sins..and you believe it.. you should feel some love for them, this is a reaction.. we love God because He loved us first.
Another reason is that love is not a concept or theology, it is an action word.. it is something to be experienced: James 2:16 "If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?". God's love may be the experience of someone hearing the gospel, so they don't need to be taught or told about it.
God's love in a tangible and full way is something that really cannot be experienced or known by someone until they have the faith to receive Christ..until the Spirit comes to live within them.. faith first.. then hope then love.. in that order I guess.
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