An Introduction to the Gospel

We all recognise that there is a systemic problem in today's society. Just turn on the TV news for a while and we are quickly assaulted by concentric waves of bad news, like ripples extending out from our world, at the center of which is our own life. At the periphery of our universe, the news is pretty grim -- "wars and rumours of wars," as Jesus phrased it (Matthew 24:6), compounded by crime, terrorism, natural disasters and economic upheaval -- but as you get closer to the epicentre of our lives, the news rarely brightens.

We long for good news. We long for solutions to our problems, both on an individual level and on a societal level. And our longing fuels a multi-billion dollar industry in books, each one seeking to analyse the problems and propose unique solutions. On the personal front alone, self-help books multiply, according to one study, at a rate of approximately 2000 new titles every year.

Solomon wisely said, "Of making many books there is no end..." (Ecclesiastes 12:12). Indeed, we are not short of proposed solutions. But the fact that there still remains a market for new books, each one packaging new solutions, proves that people are not finding the answers they need. Our hope is that somehow, maybe in the next book, we will find the solution that has eluded us so far.

But the Bible contains an ancient proposal that has been tested down through the centuries. We call God's solution "the Gospel", which simply means "good news." And good news it is, for in the midst of very bad news God comes with a solution that is both simple and profound, both radical and unparalleled in its power to transform a person's world.

And yet the Gospel is also the most misunderstood of all solutions. We use the term in everyday conversation. We speak of something being "gospel truth", meaning that it is absolutely true and beyond reproach. The word is even used to describe a genre of music. But when push comes to shove, few people really know what the Gospel is really about. They may vaguely know it is something about Jesus, probably about what He taught, but can rarely define what the Gospel uniquely proposes, what its distinct contribution is in the plethora of pre-packaged and heavily marketed solutions in the "marketplace of ideas" today. In fact, the average person's understanding of the Gospel is a grotesque caricature of its true message and implications.

Even Christians all too often have an impoverished understanding of the Gospel. Because of an inadequate comprehension of the Gospel, churches have often made do with a truncated version of the Gospel, something that resembles the Gospel in parts but is devoid of both its substance and power. The Gospel has been watered down with human wisdom and religious tradition.

Yet only the pure Gospel generates pure results. Only the pure Gospel produces transformed lives, vibrant churches and a multiplication effect that will turn our world upside-down. It is of utmost importance, therefore, that we identify the pure, unadulterated Gospel, stripped of all the trendy, customized additions we have added to its message down through the centuries.

In Romans 1:16, Paul gives a succinct definition of the Gospel. He declared:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...

There it is, short and sweet. What is the Gospel? It is "the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." It is God Himself getting to work in your life and in your community. The Gospel describes how God does this - the framework within which He invests Himself in the process of what I call "spiritual revolution" - the total transformation of individuals and societies.

Paul later explains, in 1 Corinthians 1:17, that his core mission was "to preach the gospel - not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power." This is absolutely vital to understand. Unless we identify the pure Gospel, we will end up with a weakened, disempowered version of it, one that has little ability to bring transformation on any level of society.

The Gospel is God's declared answer to 100% of the problems of our world. If we as the Church have fallen short, it is primarily in this: we have reduced the Gospel and emptied its power through the wholesale adoption of philosophies, intellectually-pleasing methods and self-help remedies imported from the world around us. By and large, we have not understood the true Gospel, nor lived it out for the world to see.

As Albert Einstein once said, "The significant problems in our lives cannot be solved at the same level of understanding that we were at when we created them." And yet, for some strange reason, we've sought to augment the Gospel with alternative solutions, packaged in the very same thinking that created the problems in the first place! For as J I Packer put it:

You cannot add to [the Gospel message] without subtracting from it. By augmenting it, you cannot enrich it; you can only impoverish it.

The Reformation, launched over five hundred years ago, was the beginning of the restoration of the Church back to the pure Gospel message. As Martin Luther wrote in his exposition of the book of Galatians, he was able to look back to "the beginning of the reformation of the Gospel." This restoration process has now reached a critical point in God's plan for the Church.

In this blog, we are going to explore the nature of this Gospel. We are going to discover why Paul describes it as "the power of God." We are going to unpack its meaning and discover how it works in everyday life. We are not going to list "seven steps to spirituality" or "ten principles of a power-filled life." We are, quite simply, going to explore the wonder of what God has already given us in the Gospel of Jesus.

As my Dad likes to say, it's all about...

The Gospel.
The whole Gospel.
And nothing but the Gospel.
So help us God!