Mark 16:15 " Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." A straight forward command of our Lord just before He departed and returned to glory. But what is the gospel? For many it is that Jesus died for your sins and that if you believe that or accept Him as Savior you will be saved from hell and have eternal life in heaven with Him. And that is true, at least it could be true. For now you have to define believe or what it is to have faith. Belief or faith is not a mental choice; it is a change in direction for your entire being. It includes obedience and being a disciple or, according to James, it is not faith at all. From this is the issue of what it is to obey and how do I know. All good questions, rabbit trails to chase another day. The question I face in this blog is what we leave out when it comes to sharing the Gospel or Good News Jesus told us to share. Are we robbing those we talk to by not sharing all of the good news?
The word translated "gospel" in the New Testament is euagelizo, which is where we get the word evangelize or evangelical. It means good news or glad tidings, or in a verbal sense, as proclaiming the good news. It is rarely used with salvation but often used in reference to the Kingdom. The good news is that God's Kingdom is coming and we can be a part of that Kingdom. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are called the Gospels, for they are the record of the "Good News" that Messiah has come and He has conquered death and will establish His Kingdom, among a host of other things. This is, indeed, good news. Paul writes to the Corinthians, " For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" 1 Corinthians 15:3 - 4. Paul's primary message concerns the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, Messiah. However, that is not Paul's only message and it is not all of the Gospel or Good News. In fact, the letters of the New Testament all have one thing in common. That is the need for unity in the community of believers.
The Good News we are to proclaim is not about an isolated intellectual faith or belief in an event in history. It is not about an isolated event in my life when I chose (or was elected for you reformed folk) to believe and thus began a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The Good News is more than that. In writing to the Ephesians Paul tells us Gentiles the good news that, "We who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ". We have been brought into God's Kingdom. Grafted in. Made part of the Body of believers. We are a living stone, a part of a temple with other living stones being built together to the glory of God. We are not isolated. We are not alone. I am not the only one in God's Kingdom. I am a citizen among many citizens with the privileges and responsibilities that go with that remarkable Good News. I belong.
The Good New Paul, Peter, James, John, the writer to the Hebrews all proclaim is that we are together in this. Every individual who receives Christ as Savior is, at that moment, a part of God's Kingdom, His Body, His temple, The assembly in His fellowship with other believers. God likes to remind us of this with "one another's" in His Scriptures. In Romans alone we are told to be kindly affectionate to one another, to be of the same mind,to love, to not judge, to edify, to be like minded with patience and comfort, to receive, admonish and greet one another. Check out the Blue letter Bible https://www.blueletterbible.org to see the full number of "one another's" that we are commanded to do. A brief look showed most to be imperatives, so these are not "feel good" suggestions; these are things the Lord expects us to do. Now how can we do any of these things alone?
The additional gospel or good news here is that these are reciprocal. One another demands that I do all this for you and you do all these things for me. We are not isolated beings; we belong to one another as much as we belong to Christ who is the Head of the Body. Single cells or single parts of the body do not survive well or function as they should without the rest of the body. Paul makes this abundently clear in 1 Cor 12. If you prefer building illustrations then see the living stones in 1 Peter 2. A stone isolated from the rest of the building is no more than rubble on the side of the road. That is not God's intention. That is not God's design. That is not the gospel. To have an isolated, personal relationship with Christ is not found in Scripture, Yes, there are times when we have to stand alone and when circumstances will isolate us from other believers but that is not to be the norm. The Gospel is that, through Christ I have forgiveness, eternal life AND that I am a part of His Kingdom, a part of His Body, a living stone in His temple. That is the Good News.
So when you present the gospel, do you hope they will "pray the prayer" and receive Jesus. Or do you also explain that receiving Christ also means becoming a part of a community. A part of a body of fellow believers. They will not be alone but a citizen of God's Kingdom. The good news of the gospel is that by accepting Jesus I am accepting the privileges and responsibilities to be a "one another" follower of Jesus. Because to accept Jesus as Savior and Lord means you are a part of His Body. There are no other options.
No comments:
Post a Comment