Hark! The herald angels sing...

"From that time on Jesus began to preach..." Matthew 4:17

Uh oh... another one of those words that tends to scare people off. I can't count the number of times I've heard kids say "I don't want to be preached at..." or "If there's just gonna preaching, then I don't want to go..." When people hear the word preach they hear other words like "convict" "boring" or "harass." Even through my younglife training I've been taught to "teach" kids rather than "preach" to them... people within the faith even associate it with negativity. It's too bad really.
The greek word for preach is kerussein, which means "herald's proclamation from the king." A herald is one who brought a message directly from the king himself. There was never any hesitation or doubt in a herald's message. Their message was indisputable. Because they were speaking on behalf of the king, they spoke with authority. They were often the ones laying down the law. Jesus was God's herald now.
Clearly there was a renewed sense of urgency to get the word of God out there. Time, once thought of as a limited resource, had been invaded by eternity, and Jesus wanted to challenge folks to think about where they were gonna spend it.