The Primacy of Preaching

By Robb Brunansky

Published June 23, 2025

In response to rivalries, quarrels, and factions in Corinth, the apostle Paul outlined a biblical philosophy of ministry to explain how the gospel leads to humility before God. Paul noted in verse 18, the principles of ministry leading to unity rather than division. We must also understand God’s purpose in designing ministry to be done a certain way. The third point in the passage is the primacy of preaching.

God ordained the preaching of His Word as the specific means for people to hear the gospel and believe. Paul, in Romans 10:14, says one must hear the proclamation of good news to believe the gospel. In 1 Timothy 4:13, Paul told Timothy his primary job was to give attention to the preaching of God’s Word. Paul exhorted Titus to preach what was in accordance with sound doctrine. In 2 Timothy 4:1-2, Paul commanded his protégé to preach the Word.

When we look at what wins hearts and minds in the world, we might wonder why God established preaching to spread the gospel. After all, many are turned off by preaching, and there are seemingly less-offensive ways to get the Word of the cross to sinners.

God, though, has specific reasons why our worship service, outreach, evangelistic methods, or preaching style should not be designed based on the whims of the unconverted but should place preaching in a primary role. We see those reasons in verses 22-25.

• First, preaching the gospel exposes human pride.

Paul first looks at sinners’ demands of God in exchange for submission to Him and His salvation. In Paul’s day, the general rule was Jews demanded signs and Greeks (or Gentiles) wanted wisdom. Paul highlights how preaching reveals the prideful heart of all sinners regardless of their ethnicity or demands on God.

He states that Jews demand signs, which are supernatural works of God validating the message or the messenger. Throughout the Lord’s life, Jews requested signs to persuade them to believe in Him. This demand for signs is condemned by Jesus in Matthew 16 because the real motivation was to test the Lord. These Jews were essentially saying they would be the judge of whether Jesus was truly from God based on how well He performed according to their standards.

That is why Jesus called the Jews an “evil and adulterous generation.” The Jews were not sincere seekers of truth; they were proud men thinking they could stand in judgment of God. As Paul Gardner put it, “To test God by seeking signs was simply to show that they did not trust His way but that they wanted a god who would perform at their behest.” They said “jump,” and God should say, “How high?”

The heart behind seeking signs is pride, and signs do not change the heart. No matter how many signs God does for unbelievers, they always demand one more. This was the Jews’ position in Paul’s day, and it is for many people today, too.

However, the Greeks are no better than the Jews, because they search for wisdom. This is not God’s wisdom described in Proverbs, but displays of impressive rhetoric, scholarship, or superior presentation skills. We see an example in Acts 17, when Paul was preaching something the Athenians never heard before: Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Sadly, for most of his hearers, Paul’s message was absurd, and many rejected his preaching because it did not meet their standard of wisdom.

On both hands, then, we have representatives of everyone today who rejects Christ. There are people of science who demand intellectual proof, and there are religious people who demand miracles and signs. These demands come from human pride, requiring God meet us based on our intellectual or supernatural criteria. If God’s ways don’t make sense, then we reject them and God.

There are two significant takeaways about Paul’s statements here. Paul knew what his audience wanted. He did not perform his ministry the way he did because he was just unaware of what would have been more effective. Paul also could have met his audience’s demands. He could do signs, and he could have preached the way the Greeks desired. Paul’s way of doing ministry was not borne out of ignorance or ineptitude, but to intentionally expose pride in his hearers’ hearts that rejected Christ and sat in fatally misguided judgment of God.

• Second, preaching the gospel exalts Christ crucified.

Paul is perfectly aware of the problems inherent in preaching a crucified Christ. For the Jews, a crucified Christ was a stumbling block because that means the Messiah was accursed of God when He was hung on a tree. For the Gentiles, this message was foolishness because no king or true savior could be executed by his enemies.

Even though Paul knows how Jews and Gentiles view his message, he preached it anyway because he understood this exalted the crucified Christ. Paul had confidence that the Lord, through the preaching of Christ crucified, would save Jewish and non-Jewish people because God has called individuals from every tongue, tribe, nation, and people to salvation in His Son.

An amazing thing happens when God calls us effectually to salvation through the preaching of the gospel. When we hear the message of Christ crucified, we don’t stumble over it, find it to be foolish, or solely see a dead man who is unable to save himself or others. Rather, we hear Christ, the power and wisdom of God. The cross becomes, not the place where Christ was merely condemned, but where He was exalted as the One who embodies the power and wisdom of God.

The power of God is observed in the cross because there we see God’s power to save the worst of sinners. The wisdom of God is demonstrated because there we see God’s wisdom in saving the worst of sinners. Salvation does not come by works, nor exalt human pride, nor depend on human ability. Salvation is by grace through faith based on Christ’s righteousness. We see God’s wisdom displayed because He solved the problem of sin, which we never could have resolved. Our efforts are in vain, but God in His wisdom devised the perfect plan of salvation through the cross of His Son.

When we proclaim the word of the cross, not based on sinners’ desires but in humble dependence on the Holy Spirit, our preaching exalts Christ crucified as the power and wisdom of God. We fade to the background, and others marvel at Christ and praise God for His indescribable wisdom.

• Finally, preaching the gospel exerts divine power and wisdom.

Paul preaches Christ crucified because the message of the cross is more powerful than any human creation. This is why preaching the word of the cross should be primary – because we don’t have a better alternative. To borrow an analogy from John MacArthur, preaching the word of the cross is wielding a double-edged sword; everything else is going to war with a butter knife. God exerts His power and His wisdom to save sinners when we preach the gospel.

As human beings, we want to feel important, and we want God to consult with us. However, the scandal of the gospel reveals that God demands submission to Him on His terms, not ours. We can demand signs and search for wisdom, but we must see the cross and the Christ who was crucified there as God’s power and wisdom. This is a biblical philosophy of ministry.