I don't know if you've thought much about it, but if you had to explain what the gospel is to another, what would you say?
I'd like some comment back because I'm curious if the answers I'd recieve parallel with what I've often been taught and thought as well.
Thanks.
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This is a rather indirect answer to your question, but have you ever seen this? (take a look at the quote on pages 2-3)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.craigaevans.com/Priene%20art.pdf
Guy, thanks for replying. Yes, that quote is more along the lines of what I'm beginning to understand as The Gospel. I'm gonna try and see if anybody else responds and then soon, I'll give my 2 cents. :)
ReplyDeleteThere's Caesar's birth announcement, plus there's a statue somewhere with an inscription (i could find it if i hunted hard enough if you wanted) which was made announcing that a town had come under the rule of Rome. And on that statue the same words like "salvation" and "gospel" (evangelion) are used. i think it's used prominently in one other place as well (a RomanImperial/Political source i mean). i never ever knew these things or heard these things til very recently reading a book and then in the origins of Christianity class that i took.
ReplyDeletewhat really shocked me was that these words that we think are so religious in nature were not at all invented or coined by Christians at all. They were already very much in use to describe the political empire and the benefits of it's rule and citizenship several years before Jesus came around. the author i read (N.T. Wright) plus the class i took at OU made a very plausible argument that this means Jesus and His followers very deliberately used these terms as being subversive and countermanding to the Roman Empire (which would explain so much more clearly why Jesus and His followers got into so much trouble over claiming Jesus was a King--Why?--because they were claiming that Jesus was Lord *as opposed to Caesar being Lord*).
If all that is even close to true, then i think the early Christians' use of these terms was *tactical* in nature rather than an introduction of neat-and-tidy concepts which have strict definitions. That makes me wonder if all our debate about precisely what the "gospel" is (is it the whole NT? is it only the D, B, and R of Christ? is it just the plan of salvation?)--it makes me wonder if our approaching that subject is altogether misguided. That's at least the way i'm leaning at the moment.
Do me a favor Guy and listen to this podcast:
ReplyDeletehttp://mauryhills.podomatic.com/
Dated 7-19
Let me know what you think :)
i listened to all but about the last 4 minutes because the stream kept cutting in and out the whole time. sorry to disappoint, but i think he (the speaker) is trying to "define" in the very way i think is misguided. In fact, i think Paul and John both do the very thing the speaker says is wrong.
ReplyDeleteMore to the point, i think "what is the gospel?" is *not* the same nor a similar question to "what is necessary to be saved?" At one time i definitely thought that. And at one time i would've been the "adder-to-the-gospel" person he's talking about. But now i think the debate is set up wrong from the start.
i'm sure the speaker would still consider me an adder-to-the-gospel despite my rethinking of terms. but really, i'm sure that if the speaker was pressed, he too is an adder-to-the-gospel by his own definitions. for instance, surely you'd agree with me that someone who murders orphans, steals from little old ladies, and eats live kittens for breakfast just because he loves to hear their screams--surely you'd agree with me that such a person is lost, no?. Yet prohibition of those actions are not included 1Cor 15:1-4 where the speaker says the gospel is strictly defined. So expecting someone not to do those things would be "adding" to the gospel according to the speaker's definitions.
i think any attempt to define "gospel" in exhaustively measurable terms is going to run into these kinds of problems, whether the person's definition is very stripped down (like the speaker's) or whether the person's definition is extremely lengthy (like those the speaker is criticizing). i don't think "gospel" is a categorical word like that. i don't mean to say it means nothing. But like i said, i think it was used tactically rather than categorically.