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

John Meunier ponders the gospel debate

I found a post on the gospel by John Meunier, a part-time pastor.

In it, he cites an interview with Tim Keller on Trevin Wax's blog about the gospel needing to keep the salvation of the individual central. As you can imagine, I couldn't disagree more. This was the comment I left on the blog:

I think the real problem is that real conversation isn’t taking place. McKnight et al are still being misunderstood and lumped into a 'kingdom' or social gospel rather than their actual view of Jesus as the fulfillment of Israel's story and the promises of God to make a people for himself (which contains individuals necessarily) through which to redeem the whole creation. The individualism of Keller and others at TGC is not the gospel according to scripture. I used to define it that way, but after reading McKnight's book on the subject and rereading the entire New Testament and studying every instance of the noun and verb 'gospel(led)' it is clear who is using the term correctly. It is not as though individuals aren't saved, that justification isn't by by faith, or that the gospel has nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins, but that is a misdirected and narrow view that is simply not the focus of the gospel as defined by the New Testament.

After reflecting a little more, I'm not sure that McKnight really is misunderstood as much as I outline here, but that his methodology is being ignored. Keller is not using the whole of the Bible to define the gospel and I think that if individual salvation is thought to be central then the passages that are being used are not being understood properly. The gospel is about Jesus, but even if you say the gospel is about salvation it should be stated that it is the salvation of God's people, which includes individuals when they put their faith in Jesus. Even Paul continues to say that God's people is Israel. We are simply grafted in (Rom 9-11).

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?

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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.

An Expanded Apostes' Creed

I saw this very interesting expansion of the Apostles' Creed which emulates the same sort of expansion I'm driving for on the gospel: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/how-i-think-the-creed

Leave a comment. Please 'share' below. Thanks for reading.

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/