“And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42). The Apostle Peter reveals that he and the other apostles were commanded (to transmit a message, to order) to preach (to be a herald, proclaim) Jesus to be the judge of the living and the dead and that one can receive remission of sins by responding in obedient faith.

We are commanded to preach the gospel to the lost . “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation’” (Mark 16:15). “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).

The command to preach the gospel is a natural consequence in the Divine arrangement of things in this world. “No agency of religion is older than preaching. It is as old as the Bible itself (2Peter 2:5). It is a necessary adjunct of a religion that is communicated to man by means of an objective and authoritative revelation, such as we have in the sacred Scriptures. It is an entirely natural agency of the forms of religion revealed in the Old Testament and New Testament. It is strictly in harmony with those ideas that obtain in both testaments regarding the method of propagating the faith, set forth through the agency of holy men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. That faith is disseminated by means of teaching through argument, explanation, motive and exhortation. The agency for the spread of a religion of persuasion must be preaching” (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, p. 2432).