It is incorrect to state that the Cross must be central to every sermon. It was not mentioned by Paul in his Athens speech on Mars Hill. In fact he never even mentioned Jesus by name. His sweeping address included such all-embracing terms as: “the world and everything in it”; “all nations that dwell on the face of the whole earth”; “in Him we live and move and have our being”; “all men everywhere”; and “assurance to all men”. Paul was not addressing Jews, whose knowledge came from the Torah, but Greek philosophers who “spent their time in nothing else but to tell or to hear some new thing.” (Acts 17:21) Paul was painting with a broad brush on a wide canvas.
Paul was no doubt inspired though, when he chose an idol dedicated to “The Unknown God” as the focus for his witness to the curious philosophy collectors of Athens. He chose not what they knew but what they didn’t as the topic of his message. The statue was to them likely a form of spiritual insurance – was there a god they had perhaps overlooked?
Some maintain that Paul failed at Athens by not preaching Christ crucified. But Acts 17:34 informs us that “a few men” became close followers of Paul – among them Dionysius, “a member of the Areopagus.” Since that august chamber was the equivalent of our High Court, Dionysius would have been a judge. A woman named Damaris was another convert, as were “a number of others.”
In short: a good response to one message by a man who was spending time in Athens waiting for a couple of ministry friends to join him on his journey to another city.
We know from Acts 17:18 that Paul had been preaching Jesus and the Resurrection when the group of philosophers encountered him and took him to the Areopagus. And we know from Acts 17:31 that when he began to preach on the Resurrection and on judgement to come, most of his listeners soon lost interest. They were interested in philosophical speculations, not scriptural certainties.
These days, the two inseparable elements of resurrection and judgement are rarely preached to the unsaved. They should be, even if many are not willing to listen, because there might be some who will. I preach Christ crucified to the unsaved, but context, while not everything, is not a bad place to choose when your audience knows nothing, and you need to start somewhere.
The Good News of Jesus Christ is that while future judgement is certain for all, present forgiveness is available now to all – and that’s one thing we should never fail to emphasize. We live in a time when murderers think they can blow themselves and others into oblivion without being called to account for it beyond this life. But the certainty of Resurrection and Final Judgement say otherwise.
We should preach and teach both more often than we do. The personal problems encountered in this life will not compare with the psychological and spiritual nakedness sinners will experience in their afterlife, final face-to-face encounter, when the Lord Jesus will be their Judge.