A Sermon on the Gospel

I was very blessed and fortunate to be a guest speaker at Richmond Alliance Church this past weekend. The lead pastor, Jon, specifically asked me to preach on the gospel because we had some conversations about my study on it last year and he thought it would be great for the church to hear. I was glad to do it and it gave me the opportunity to review and rethink it further as well as communicate it better. I based my sermon on Paul's definition of the gospel given in Romans 1:1-7. You can listen to it by clicking the link below. Leave a comment if you have any comments, questions, or thoughts. Also be sure to 'share' it below if you like it. Thanks.

http://www.richmondalliancechurch.com/www/media/metaudio/20130728.mp3

The 3rd day of Christmas

Here is the 3rd post by Scot McKnight: The Christmas gospel part 3

The 2nd day of Christmas

Here is the 2nd Christmas post by Scot McKnight: The Christmas gospel part 2

Derek Vreeland - The Gospel vs the plan of salvation

I came across yet another group C adherent this week in Derek Vreeland on his blog here. It is essentially another summary of Scot McKnight's book, but has a helpful chart outlining the differences between the gospel and what some call the gospel, but is actually the plan of salvation.

	The Gospel	The Plan of Salvation
1.	Exemplified in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5	Exemplified in the “Four Spiritual Laws”
2.	True to the teachings of the Apostles	True, but not the gospel
3.	A story framed around Jesus	Principles framed out individual human beings
4.	Highlights the Person who is the good news	Highlights our benefits
5.	Focuses on how God made Jesus alive again	Focuses on how we are made right with God
6.	Produces disciples	Produces decisions
7.	Depends on declaration/creativity	Depends on persuasion/rhetoric
8.	Creates a gospel culture	Creates a salvation culture

Mark Stevens discusses 3 gospel groups

Another adherent of 'group C', as I've called it, appears to be Mark Stevens. He is part way through a series on some books written about the gospel or which include it as a central theme. Interestingly, he categorizes group A as "soterian" group B as "Social Justice" and group C as "Historical/Contextual". I'm not sure I agree with his analysis of each 'group' and disapprove of using Scott McKnight's 'soterian' title as well as group C's title, which sets them out as the clear logical choice before full consideration.

Here are the posts:

Introduction
"Soterian"
"Social Justice"
"Historical/Contextual"
Conclusion (coming later this week)

What do you think?

Leave a comment. Share the post. Thanks for reading.

Using the term 'gospel' to denote the right things.

I noticed that someone tweeted this quote from N. T. Wright on our modern use of the word 'gospel'. It is one of the phrases that haunted me all year while reworking the biblical definition in my mind through study, prayer, and reflection. I also used it to stir up discussion in the 'Prison and Pastoral epistles' class I co-taught in the spring.

Another question I asked often was whether or not Paul would have been imprisoned or killed by Rome for preaching the gospel without using 'Lord' or 'Christ' (King) and whether it mattered that some don't even include those titles let alone their implications. I also pushed further asking whether Jesus would have been killed either. The charges, trial, verdict, sentence, and sign above his head on the cross by Rome are pretty explicit.

Jeff K. Clarke questions the gospel.

I saw this blog post by Jeff K. Clarke, which is essentially group 'C' material. I wanted to demonstrate its continued spread to expand the narrowness of the classic 'A' gospel: http://jeffkclarke.com/2012/10/06/the-gospel-of-sin-management-and-the-loss-of-discipleship/

The gospel today (Scott McKnight)

I started my first job as a pastor this week and purposely haven't spent time blogging to take it all in. I have a large post I'm working on, which should be up Friday. In the meantime, i found this great explanation from Scot McKnight about how important it is that we re-think what the gospel is in the light of Scripture. It is partly a polemic defence of his book, The King Jesus Gospel, but in doing so, he articulates the reason I started this blog in the first place. We need to know the gospel according to Scripture.

This is a chart he made within the post:

 

Beside it Scot writes:

"Do you see the massive differences? One only speaks to how I can get saved while the other tells me something about Jesus that saves (me)."

Thanks for sharing these posts on Facebook and Twitter.
Leave comments or questions or links. It boosts the my online profile.
Readership spread to Russia and Indonesia this past week!

Me, Mechanics, and the Master

My re-evaluation of what the gospel is began at the start of this year when I read Scot McKnight's book, The King Jesus Gospel. A little over a week ago he made a fairly succinct post on the last of the 5 points I wrote about yesterday; the gospel is about the Master (Jesus) not My salvation or its Mechanics. You can read it here.