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Ever want just the gist of the Bible? After all, the Bible contains 66 writings—39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament—comprising 1,189 chapters that have over 31,000 verses. Is it even possible to sum up? Yes. It’s called the gospel.
The Christian gospel is like a seed of a tree which the Old Testament planted and from which all the New Testament grows.
If you don’t understand anything about Christianity, at least learn the gospel.
Even though none of the writers of the New Testament wrote: “Here’s all you need to know about the gospel, ‘Blah, blah, blah…,’” we can at least piece together enough statements to connect them like a puzzle…and the puzzle is not a blurry picture. Rather, it has sharp lines and distinct features forming a clear presentation.
The First Statement to Know
The first thing we need to know comes from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia—probably one of his first letters written in the AD 40s—approximately fifteen years after Jesus died and resurrected.
Paul said,
“For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11–12, ESV)
What Does the Word Gospel Mean?
According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the use of the English word gospel began in the Middle English period (twelfth to fourteenth centuries) and comes from the Old English word godspel used prior to the twelfth century.
Godspel consists of two Old English words—god which means “good” and spell which means “tale,” to mean “good tale” or “good story” or “good news.”
Translators of the Latin Bible needed to translate the word evangelium so they combined the two words to form godspel.
The Latin word evangelium translates the Greek word euangelion used by the Greek New Testament writers to speak of “good news.” In the Roman world, messengers traveled to publicly announce good news from their senders.
The Christians adopted this word to encapsulate the message of Jesus Christ that must be publicly announced as good news. So the word gospel in the Bible means “good news.”
Today, we typically use the word gospel to refer to the good news from Jesus Christ or as a title for one of the first four books of the New Testament documenting the life of Christ—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
For the World, But Not of the World
“…that the gospel preached by me is not man’s gospel….”
Paul says he didn’t receive his gospel from any person. When Paul wrote to the church in the Roman province of Galatia, the southern region of modern day Turkey, false teachers had spread throughout the church a gospel different from what Paul originally taught. They preached a message saying, “Embrace Jesus Christ and…” as opposed to Paul who said, “Embrace Jesus Christ alone.”
The false teachers learned Paul’s gospel and made it their own by adding to it layers of Jewish tradition, logic from human ingenuity, and fancy badges, metaphorically, to convey how they’re the true people of God. They thought the heavenly cake needed cream cheese frosting.
But this gave the gospel a souring flavor differing from the sweet teachings Paul gave to the Galatians.
The gospel preached by the early Jews of Jesus did not develop from their wise theorizing. Their history and schools of thought did not give them the training to contrive the good news they preached. It’s like saying Karl Marx developed socialism from reading Shakespeare.
The early Christians preached a story Jews would understand if they kept listening, but different enough to make many of the Jews stop listening. But those who did listen understood that the message indeed comes from the God of their fathers who raised up and brought down the nation of Israel.
Christians believed the God of the Jews had returned to restore not only the Jews, but the whole world to himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
So the gospel of Jesus is not another clever idea on par with the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky, Plato, Gautama Buddha, or Thomas Jefferson. Yes, their writings may be interesting, even useful for many, but in the end, they’re developed by another person made of stuff like you and me.
The Gospel Comes from God
“…but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ….”
The biblical gospel comes from God—not originating from a human mind like yours and mine.
Paul did not invent the message he preached. He received it by way of revelation. God revealed the message to him. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, stands at the center of that message. The message not only came from Jesus Christ, but also consists of Jesus Christ. It’s about him. The message has a divine source with divine content.
After Pilate crucified him and Joseph of Arimathea buried him, Jesus Christ appeared in a new body to Paul while he traveled to Damascus.
Prior to that, Paul didn’t like the Christians. He didn’t like their message. He actually wanted to squelch their movement and kill the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, so called the “Christ.” That’s what Paul had done in Jerusalem and planned to do in Damascus.
So it makes sense that something drastic must have happened to Paul to impel him to claim that Jesus resurrected from the dead and for to him worship Jesus as the God of Israel.
Paul not only saw Jesus, but received Jesus’ commission to proclaim the gospel. Paul says he went to Jerusalem to ensure the message he received from Jesus, and had proclaimed to non-Jews, aligned with the message received by the leaders who knew and followed Jesus during his lifetime.
Paul had the same content as they had—sourced from heaven and about the man from heaven who died and was raised, Jesus Christ.
So It Came from God, What’s the Big Deal?
First, the gospel of Jesus contains specific content about the person of God, the purpose of life, and the goal of history.
More on the specific content later. For now, this means that no other message—that contradicts, adds to, or takes away from what the first century apostles put forward—adequately represents what God wants us to know about these things. Chocolate milk tastes like chocolate milk and is called chocolate milk because it’s not orange juice.
Whether it be a new scholar, a dreamer of dreams, or a new movement, if the message contradicts, adds to, or takes away from the gospel according to the Bible, then God did not give it because humans invented it. Often, people invent different gospels based on the real gospel.
Second, we should learn about the purpose of life, the person of God, and the goal of history through the gospel.
Don’t you hate the constant flow of ads that promise to reveal the one decoration your living room is missing or the one investment no one knows about that is making people rich? They just want you to look there…or to click here…or to enter this door. Often, they don’t actually care about adding value to your life. They just want your attention and money without providing a quality service or product.
Not so with this gospel.
God doesn’t want us to invent our own purpose for life, nor contrive our own thoughts of how God should be or what God should do, nor stake all of our hope in human cunning to progress our race.
If the true God has spoken to us through the gospel, then he obviously wants us to know something. That the gospel means “good news” indicates that God wants us to benefit from the news he’s given.
He wants us to have words in our mind that stem from thoughts in his. He wants us to understand the meaning of the events he performed. He wants us to know his plans. Not all. But what’s pertinent to us, and our well-being, God has shared with us.
Third, the gospel should receive an ample amount of our effort, time, and attention.
Nothing else worth knowing compels us to know it more than the gospel.
That a home exploded on seventh street, or the prime minister of France met with the prime minister of England, or the Dow went down two percent, or Beijing’s smog has increased, or receiving education for a career, or even learning that a loved one has passed away…none of this can affect us more than what God wants us to know through the gospel. It sounds extreme because it is extreme, eternally so.
The gospel invites us into a story far more captivating than Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. It contains events stranger than any fiction, knowledge deeper than any philosophy, and power that works better than any self-help guru—especially Tony Robbins…though I find some of his stuff useful.
The gospel’s importance bids us to enjoy its richness often.
Bibliography
1) The Lexham Hebrew Bible, 2012
2) The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, 2016
3) Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 2003
4) The Lexham Theological Wordbook, 2014
5) The Lexham Bible Dictionary, 2016
6) Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, and Bruce M. Metzger, Novum Testamentum Graece, 28th Edition, 2012
7) William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 2000
8) Timothy George, Galatians, 1994
9) F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, 1982