Kerygmatic Compassion: What Preaching Has to Do with Compassion

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Christlike compassion issues in preaching. We encounter an astounding description in Mark 6:34 (ESV):

When he [Jesus] went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

Christ is the good shepherd (John 10:11), the bonus pastor as the Vulgate translates. The compassionate pastor’s heart cannot endure un-shepherded souls but will inevitably desire to guide them into the truth. The Christlike preacher needs what we may call kerygmatic compassion (from the Greek κήρυγμα kerygma ‘proclamation, preaching’; hence, “kerygmatic” meaning ‘related to preaching’). The true pastor, motivated by compassion, is occupied primarily with true preaching.

            An appreciation of kerygmatic compassion is what led John Chrysostom to prioritize John 20 in his theology of the pastorate. According to Chrysostom, Christ asked Peter if Peter loved him, not to reveal the measure of Peter’s love “but how much He loved His own Church, and it was His wish that Peter and all of us should learn it [Christ’s love], to the end that we too might bestow much zeal upon it.”[1] Accordingly, Chrysostom described preaching the Scriptures as of utmost importance in the pastoral vocation. Feeding Christ’s sheep on the spiritual food and teaching of Christ (John 6) was how Peter—and all pastors (see 1 Peter 5)—could imitate the Chief Shepherd. Christ will not recognize our feeding his flock “unless it proceeds out of love unto his person.”[2] We nevertheless dare not forget that, with loving God as our ultimate goal, we must for Christ’s sake have compassion on Christ’s sheep—and so teach them.

It is also important to recognize the danger of preaching unmotivated by compassion. Without compassion, the preaching of sweet salves seem stale. Without compassion, the preaching of hard truths become vengeful. Like Jonah, you hope your audience won’t heed your warnings! Like the Pharisees, you’ll seek excuses to condemn. Unlike Paul, you won’t wish you could change places with your obstinate audience (Romans 9:1–5). Preaching without compassion turns quickly into contempt.

Preaching motivated by compassion is characterized significantly by comforting. As Matthew Henry writes in his commentary on Isaiah 40:1,

We have here the commission and instructions given, not to this prophet only, but, with him, to all the Lord’s prophets, nay, and to all Christ’s ministers, to proclaim comfort to God’s people. … Gospel ministers, being employed by the blessed Spirit as comforters, and as helpers of the joy of Christians, are here put in mind of their business.^[3]

Of course, this was the same Isaiah commissioned to preach truths that would harden the unregenerate yet further (Isaiah 6). The mandate to comfort does not mean that we preach only what our hearers will find comforting, regardless of their spiritual condition. If you’re truly preaching the Bible, you’re preaching warnings and woes, curses and critiques, rebukes and rebuttals, “foolishness” (1 Cor 1), and all manner of what the crowds in John 6:60 would call “hard sayings” (KJV). Comforting means rather that we ascertain how to preach the text in ways that ultimately issues in the comfort of God’s true children, motivated by compassion for them.

The pastor who lacks kerygmatic compassion may be a shepherd, but he won’t be like the bonus pastor. Likewise, the pastor who teaches not “many things” but only some things or a few things cannot be Christlike either. “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.” (Psalm 25:8; NIV) If we’re to imitate God as revealed in Christ, we’ll communicate his whole counsel (Acts 20:27). By implication, we damn up the rivers of compassion when we downplay the ministry of preaching. A pastor cannot be Christlike without compassion that flows into preaching: kerygmatic compassion.

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[1] Saint John Chrysostom, On the Priesthood, trans. Thomas Allen Moxon, Early Church Classics (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1907), 41, §87. Available at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wcEMAAAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PR7&hl=en_GB.

[2] John Owen, Χριστολογία: Or, a Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ, ed. William H. Goold, The Works of John Owen 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), 149. Available at https://books.google.ca/books?id=b8gqAAAAYAAJ.

[3] Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume, Logos Bible Software (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 1149–1150.