Preaching is the public heralding and proclamation of the Word of God—the authoritative announcement of God’s truth and especially the gospel of Christ by His appointed ministers—which God has ordained as the chief means of grace and the central element of public worship. The Greek word picture is that of a herald (kērux) who proclaims the message of his king with authority, not offering his own opinions but declaring what he has been commissioned to announce. So the preacher is Christ’s herald, sent to proclaim ‘thus saith the Lord,’ to declare the whole counsel of God, to preach Christ crucified, to call sinners to repentance and faith, and to feed the flock with sound doctrine. God has been pleased to make this proclamation the great instrument of salvation and sanctification: ‘it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe’; faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God; and the ministers of Christ are charged to ‘preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.’ Preaching is to be biblical—drawn from the text, expounding and applying the Scripture, not the wisdom or speculations of men; faithful—declaring the whole counsel of God, the hard truths with the comforting; Christ-centered—for the substance of all true preaching is Christ and Him crucified; and applied—pressed home to the conscience and life of the hearer, not left as bare information. It is no mere lecture, religious essay, or motivational talk, but the solemn proclamation of God’s Word by God’s ambassador, attended by the power of the Spirit, through which the living God Himself speaks to His people—so that to hear the Word truly preached is to hear, in the preacher’s voice, the voice of God. The high place Scripture gives to preaching rebukes every age that would marginalize it; it is the chief means by which Christ builds His church, converts the lost, feeds the saints, and is to hold the central place in the worship and life of the church.