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 COLIN'S COMMENT
Do you know the gospel?
Perhaps that’s a strange question to ask but a recent survey revealed that even some involved in church leadership were reluctant to give a definition of the gospel. That perhaps begs the question asked above and invites us to consider – do we really know what we believe? What I mean is – would you be able to explain to someone who never went to church the reason why you believe you need God’s forgiveness, why you believe you have received that forgiveness and why you are confident of not losing God’s favour.
You may realise that even in asking these questions I am beginning to make some assumptions about the what the gospel is and am perhaps starting from a point to far in to the gospel story for some people to understand. After all – someone say – who is this God anyway? Aren’t there many or maybe none? Perhaps the gospel starts with the question ‘is there a God?’ or even ‘is there anyone (or anything) out there?’
Gospel is itself something of an alien word today. Sometimes it’s used as an alternative to the word truth; someone will say ‘is that gospel?’ meaning ‘is that the truth?’ But while we may use the word that way the original meaning is much closer to the phrase ‘good news’ as in the words ‘this is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God’ from the New Living Translation of Mark chapter 1 verse 1.
Having posed a few questions the decent thing might be for me to answer them, except that the purpose of the original survey was to determine if people knew the gospel and that would seem to be an important issue to address.
We are a Christian church – and are therefore committed to spread the good news. If we are to do that then we ought – all of us – to know what it is. That means knowing what we believe – about ourselves, about God, about Jesus, about the Bible and about the world as seen from God’s perspective. Assuming there is a God (and the Bible never attempts to prove God – instead it proclaims him) we are committed to teaching God’s view to others.