What Is the Gospel?

I remember, more than twenty years ago now, an international visitor to Sydney being asked this question. Throughout the week that he had been here, the speaker had appealed to the gospel many times. Clearly in a part of the world well-known for the strength of its evangelical witness, such an appeal was essential if he was to get a hearing. But the appeal had not been convincing and it had become increasingly obvious that at this most basic level our guest had a very different idea of what exactly it was that he was appealing to repeatedly throughout the week. So some brave soul — someone braver than me — publicly asked him the question. What is the gospel?

He hesitated for a moment. I suspect he feared a trap of some kind. The young man asking the question did not back off but quietly waited. Then the man who had been appealing to the gospel all week replied, ‘I don’t think I could define it yet. I’m still learning more and more what it means and what should be included in it. I’ve got a way to go yet.’

At one level his answer came across as humble and gentle and appropriately Christian. It provided cool relief from the bold, even strident, claims he and others had made from the platform that week. Who among us has it all together and nothing to learn? Who hasn’t got a way to go yet? Nevertheless, not being able to articulate in a simple and clear way what it is that lies at the heart of the Christian message — especially when the person concerned is presenting themselves as a Christian teacher — struck many of us as not just sad but alarming. This reticence when it comes to proclaiming and explaining the gospel message seems light years away from the attitude of the first Christians. The apostle Paul could even exclaim ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!’ (1 Cor 9.16). He urged Timothy to do the work of an evangelist, a gospel-speaker (2 Tim 4.5). To do that, he would have to be clear about what is the gospel. Keep reading

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