Amidst all the current discussion of the and of the early Church and the NT meaning of these expressions, there is one word which curiously seems to have been overlooked—curiously, because when it is the preaching of the Word of God which is under debate one would have expected the word to have received more attention than it has.1 Attention has fallen heavily upon —a rare word in the NT, but scarcely at all upon —a very common word in the NT. Indeed in the Acts of the Apostles, a book whose chief theme is the spread of the preaching of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, occurs not at all, only twice (and then in close dependence upon ), but nearly forty times! These figures compel us to pay more attention to the word : if the meaning ‘proclamation’ is important in understanding the , and the meaning of ‘good news’ is important in understanding the , how is the meaning of ‘speaking’ or ‘speech’ important in understanding the designation of the early preaching as ?

It is the purpose of this article to examine how the evangelists used the term in the synoptic Gospels, to see what they and Jesus thought of His words, His speech and its relationship to His being, His person.