The reformer Martin Luther – a preacher of the gospel and no stranger to a fight – once said that knowing the gospel and teaching the gospel is so necessary for discipleship that we must beat it continually into our heads[1] (he had a fierce way with his metaphors). Luther knew this gospel-beating was needed greatly because of our fight against the three enemies of Christian growth – the devil, the flesh and the world – all of which are working daily to weaken Christians with lies and temptations. If this fight is an everyday reality – however overt or subtle it may seem – it would follow, then, that the best counter-offensive would be to have the truth of the gospel sink deep into our minds and hearts on a daily basis. We need to be hearing and speaking the gospel with each other proactively, and, I would propose, in the tradition of Luther, having it spoken right to our faces.
Part one of this article will be to discuss why we need to speak the gospel to each other. Part two will offer a few suggestions on how to speak the core doctrines of the gospel, and conclude with some encouragement toward speaking with spontaneity and without fear. For the purposes of this article, I will be talking about speaking the gospel primarily with Christians. While speaking the gospel to unbelievers is crucial for the Great Commission (and some of the ideas here could have crossover in evangelism), here I am concerned only with the necessity of speaking it to believers (Eph. 4:15; Heb. 3:13). Read more
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