page_title: Homiletics
section_title: Christian tradition: The preaching of Jesus
hierarchical_section_title: Homiletics / Explanation / Christian tradition: The preaching of Jesus
context_page_description: Homiletics,
  in religion, is the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific art of public preaching. One who practices or studies homiletics may be called a homilist, or more colloquially a preacher.
context_section_description: Jesus preached and commissioned his apostles to do so. His preaching included two forms of sermon, the missionary and the ministerial (to which correspond the magisterium and the ministerium of the Church), the former to outsiders, the latter to those already part of his movement. Of the latter we have a striking example in the discourse after the Last Supper (John 14-16).
  It cannot be said that his preaching took any definite, rounded form, in the sense of a modern sermon; his aim was to sow the seed of the word, which he scattered abroad, like the sower in the parable. His commission to his Apostles included both kinds. For the former or missionary preaching, see Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; Mark 3:14; Luke 9:2. Paul the Apostle's sermon referred to in Acts 20:7-11 exemplifies the second kind of preaching. In this the apostles were supported by assistants who were elected and consecrated for a purpose, for example, Timothy and Titus; as also by those who had been favoured with charismata. The homily referred to in Justin Martyr's Apology gives an example of ministerial, as distinct from missionary, preaching.
caption: The Sermon On the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch, Danish painter
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