Does “Preaching Christ And Him Crucified” Mean We Should Preach Less About What Christ Taught?

Many gospel preachers seemed to have the mistaken notion that I Cor 2:2 (“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified”) means we should preach more about what Jesus did and what happened to him, and less about what Jesus taught. Denominational preachers use the phrase “Preach The Man Not The Plan” to imply the same false concept.

But they are missing the point of Paul’s statement altogether. Paul’s declaration is not contrasting what Jesus did (and what happened to him) with what he taught. It is actually contrasting what Jesus did and taught with what uninspired humans do and teach.

What Paul is teaching in I Cor 2:2 is the same thing as he taught in Col 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” It’s a contrast between teaching the doctrine of Christ (II John 9) versus teaching the philosophies of men, the commandments of God versus the commandments of men (Matt 15:9), not a contrast between preaching what Christ did versus what Christ taught. If the latter were the case, then Paul himself was more guilty than us all, because by my estimate – Paul spent at least 95% of his recorded teaching relating what New Testament doctrine is; only a small part of his material actually describes what Jesus did.

Notice from even the context of I Cor 2:2 itself, Paul is not contrasting preaching about the things Jesus did versus what he taught, but Paul is contrasting what Jesus’ wisdom taught versus what human wisdom would say (verses 6-7 “Howbeit we speak wisdom … not the wisdom of this world … But we speak the wisdom of God …”). The contrast is God’s revelation of New Testament law versus man’s wisdom (verse 13).

A few years ago a well know preacher in our brotherhood (we’ll call him John Doe), after he was too feeble to get out much, wrote a lot of religious articles to keep his influence going. But I noticed he was the central figure of almost every article. Most every article was about something he had taught in the past and about how he was mistreated because of it. Even if it were true the brethren were wrong for mistreating him in every case he mentioned, he was still violating I Cor 2:2. Instead of writing about Christ and what Christ taught, this preacher was writing about John Doe, what John Doe did, what John Doe taught, and what happened to John Doe. That is not preaching Christ and him crucified, and that has nothing to do with the fact that John Doe spent more time on Jesus’ teaching than Jesus’ actions. Instead it had everything to do with John Doe writing primarily about himself as the focus (even in the context of religion) instead of writing about Jesus and what Jesus taught as the focus.

Nobody thinks preaching “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” rules out preaching about Jesus’ resurrection. Why then would anybody think the phrase rules out preaching on the details of what Jesus taught? As a matter of fact, Jesus puts to rest this whole notion in Luke 6:46 “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” It is not enough just to call Jesus Lord; we have to make him Lord, and we make him Lord by doing the things he taught us to do. That cannot be over emphasized.

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