Philip Arthur Bence PhD Thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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eschatological event, which is continually
re-enacted in the word of proclamation. This
proclamation is a word which addresses me
personally, and tells me that the prevenient
grace of God has already acted on my behalf,
though not in such a way that I can look back
upon this act of God as a datable event of the
past, but in the sense that God's having acted
is present as an eschatological Now.e
"Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of
salvation" (II Corinthians 6.2), as Bultmann quoted
throughout his writing.
In his proclamation, the preacher goes far beyond
the presentation of historical or abstract truth. He
summons his hearers to a radical life-changing encounter
with Christ. "The task of preaching, therefore, is to
present the Word in such a way that the poss1b515ty oY
understanding . . . becomes an actual possibility which
is disclosed by the word and which must be grasped by the
Preaching, then, is "primarily an event, not a
communication of knowledge,"'" 1 "addressed not to the
theoretical reason, but to the hearer as a self,".42-
asking "whether he is willing to submit to the cross and
understand himself in terms of Bultmann could
thus define the New Testament term 'kerycima' as "the word
of summons, which demands the obedience of faith."-4A
That definition of keryqma determines the nature of
Christian preaching.
Preaching is "summons." Preaching "demands" a
choice. One cannot hear true preaching without sensing
the call to an immediate choice. The hearer has no