kerygma, that is, basic gospel facts — James Montgomery Boice

"Peter had a chance to give a brief sermon in his defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 5:29-32). The sermon contains what in formal New Testament studies has come to be called the kerygma, the fixed structure to almost all New Testament presentations of the gospel message.

C. H. Dodd distinguished kerygma from didachē, which means “teaching.” 

The latter word refers mostly to ethical instruction, the kind of thing we find in the Sermon on the Mount and large portions of the New Testament letters. 

Kerygma, by contrast, refers to the basic gospel facts. These facts include: Christ’s death for sins, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension to heaven, and his appearance in his resurrected form to chosen witnesses. We find perhaps the clearest example of this proclamation pattern in 1 Corinthians 15. But it is also found elsewhere and is the basic structure for the four Gospels. It is precisely what we find in Peter’s short sermon to the Sanhedrin:

  •      The crucifixion: “whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 5:30)
  •      The resurrection: “God … raised Jesus from the dead” (v. 30)
  •      The ascension: “God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior” (v. 31)
  •      The witnesses: “We are witnesses of these things” (v. 32)

Where is the ethical teaching of the New Testament? It is not present. Most of what Jesus taught in the Gospels was ethical teaching—sometimes in the form of parables, sometimes in more formal discourses. But when we come to this early Christian preaching we find that the apostles did not do as he did. Why not? Did they consider Jesus’ ethical teaching unimportant?

Obviously, the reason the disciples began with the kerygma is that they knew, as we should also know, that a person must first come to Jesus Christ as Savior before he or she can take on the burden of his teachings. It is true that we cannot have one without the other. But unless a person first believes on Jesus as his or her Savior and thus has the new life of Christ within, that person cannot even begin to live the life Christ commanded. As a matter of fact, unless you first confess your sin and find forgiveness, you only go on into increasing sin, which is what these leaders did.

The apostles did not tell the Sadducees to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Instead they told them to repent of their sin and come to Jesus Christ for cleansing from it. That is the message we have been given for a perishing world today."

— James Montgomery Boice, Acts: An expositional commentary (108–109). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.