Old: "If we are truly to understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center."

“If we are trulyto understand Christian preaching, we must see Jesus Christ as its center.First, we must see Jesus as the fulfillment of generations of preaching andteaching that went before him, and second, we must see Jesus as the type, orperhaps prototype, of generations of preaching that have followed him. He isboth the pattern of preaching and the gospel to be preached.

“We preachers makesense only when we are understood as continuing the ministry of our Master. Wehave done our job only when we have borne witness to Christ, when we havetaught all things that he has commanded us.

“It is the gospel of salvation inChrist that the preacher is commissioned to preach. Nothing the preacher doescan be understood except in relation to this, “Go into all the world andpreach the gospel. That is the touchstone of the preacher’s ministry.” –Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, p. 8