I've been reading a series by Kevin Bauder over at SharperIron. He's been posting some clear thoughts about the Gospel and how we approach it. It's been a topic of great interest of late for me. The four part series opens with quoted two paragraphs below.
The topic is both simple and huge. The implications are eternal. The Gospel is simple to proclaim and understand, but really it's taken me years to just scratch the surface of beginning to fathom it. It's the pivotal point of History, the very thing that heralds life or death - forever. There comes a moment, I believe, for every Evangelist - self proclaimed or not - where they realize they are absolutely head over heals in love with the Gospel. Now I'm not surprised to hear people speak of Jesus that way. But the night when I realized I was completely in love with the Gospel I was shocked. It was an unexpected emotion, but it has held fast and really it's grown. So it's in that love that I share some links to Dr. Kevin Bauder's series. Here's the parts. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
The topic is both simple and huge. The implications are eternal. The Gospel is simple to proclaim and understand, but really it's taken me years to just scratch the surface of beginning to fathom it. It's the pivotal point of History, the very thing that heralds life or death - forever. There comes a moment, I believe, for every Evangelist - self proclaimed or not - where they realize they are absolutely head over heals in love with the Gospel. Now I'm not surprised to hear people speak of Jesus that way. But the night when I realized I was completely in love with the Gospel I was shocked. It was an unexpected emotion, but it has held fast and really it's grown. So it's in that love that I share some links to Dr. Kevin Bauder's series. Here's the parts. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4
What is the gospel? Perhaps we should not be surprised that people disagree in their answers to this question. As early as the middle of the first century, people were already proclaiming gospels that were different from the one Paul and the apostles had announced ( Gal 1:8-9 ). If new gospels were already being invented within a few years of Jesus’ death, surely the number of divergent gospels must have multiplied through the centuries.
Today we are faced with a multiplicity of gospels. The message of the gospel is understood in terms of political liberation, social reconstruction, initiation into a body of secret teaching, synergistic cooperation in the work of salvation, reshaping of consciousness, divinization of the individual, liberation from the feeling of embarrassed shame that is wrongly called “guilt,” and any number of other constructs.
Powered by ScribeFire.
No comments:
Post a Comment