The Goal Of Our Instruction

by Chris Simmons

Why do we preach the gospel? What is our purpose or our goal?

For many it’s to entertain. We live in a entertainment-crazed culture. The problem of “entertainment addiction” is beginning to be recognized in our society and it’s no wonder then that for many, the goal of their preaching is simply entertainment. If that’s what our society demands, they will soon accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires (II Timothy 4:3). Entertainment can be defined as a break or escape from the cares and concerns of life. For many entertainment has become not a break or escape from the cares and concerns of life but their normal mode and established pattern of life. God’s word calls for us to be sober minded (I Thessalonians 5:6-8; II Timothy 4:15; I Peter 1:13; 4:7; 5:8) which means to be clear and circumspect in our thinking. We are to take life seriously and understand our preaching of the gospel is a serious matter with serious consequences and worthy of a goal far more noble than entertainment.

For others, the goal of preaching has become to simply satisfy human academic and intellectual appetites. There were those in the city of Athens who used to gather for the purpose of simply “hearing something new” (Acts 17:31). They had an intellectual curiosity and an academic interest in religious teachings and philosophies and sought those who could bring them a unique perspective. Is that our goal in preaching the gospel today? If so, the simplicity of the gospel (II Corinthians 11:3) will leave those who hunger for intellectual satisfaction hungering for something else, and a perversion of the pure gospel is sure to follow. Granted, preaching the gospel must include the impartation of facts to be believed but it must rise above a mere intellectual enhancement and fulfill its role as God’s power to save man (Romans 1:16).

Rather than for entertainment or intellectual purposes, as Paul writes to Timothy, he reminds him of just three God-given goals that we are to maintain in preaching the gospel. Paul writes in I Timothy 1:5, “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

The first goal is, “love from a pure heart.” The goal in preaching the gospel is to move men to reciprocate God’s love for us (because He first loved us, I John 4:19). This is why Jesus said in Mark 12:29-31, “The foremost (commandment) is, ‘Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Our love is to be manifested in our obedience as Jesus said in John 14:21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” This goal is to produce love that is uncompromised by anything else. John wrote in I John 2:15, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” We can’t have a divided or impure love. We must maintain the goal that our biblical instruction helps others to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength and to love their neighbors as themselves.

The second goal is “a good conscience.” Our goal in preaching and teaching is to help those with a guilty conscience obtain the relief that can only be obtained through forgiveness. The first step is that man has to recognize that his conscience has been defiled by sin and that he is lost and undone (Isaiah 6:5). Preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only means to cleanse the stricken conscience. There were thousands of souls on the day of Pentecost whose consciences had been pierced and convicted. Peter sought nothing else in his preaching than to give them the means to obtain “a good conscience” through their obedience to the gospel message (Acts 2:38). That necessitated their burial into the waters of baptism and genuine repentance as Peter later recited in I Peter 3:21, “And corresponding to that, baptism now saves you – not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Preaching that fails to convict men of a guilty conscience and offer the power to save and restore a good conscience is no preaching at all.

Finally, our goal in preaching is to instill a “sincere faith.” That is, gospel preaching and teaching is about establishing a faith that is without hypocrisy. Faith comes by no other means than the presentation of God’s unadulterated word. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). A sincere faith comes by consistently acting upon what God has revealed to us. The word for sincere literally means undisguised or unhypocritical. The positive form of the word referred to an actor in a play and reminds us that we are not to act the part of a Christian but we’re to be one, from the inside out or “from the heart” (Romans 6:17; Ephesians 6:6). Peter reminds us that we are to be “putting aside … hypocrisy” (I Peter 2:1) as those who’ve obeyed the gospel. The goal of our instruction has to be centered on exhorting such a sincere faith.

Paul said in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The gospel is God’s power to save, to teach us to love, to cleanse our conscience from dead works (Hebrews 9:14), and to walk daily with a sincere faith. If we focus our teaching on these things, we will reach Paul’s goal that he stated in Galatians 4:19 of Christ being formed in us.