What is the Gospel message?

One day while I was in Kenya, I was walking down a beach in Malindi, on the Indian Ocean.  I got talking to guy called Captain Omar.  He was a Captain, because he owned his own rowboat.  He was Omar, because he was Muslim.  I didn't figure that our right away, and if I had maybe I would have been a little more cautious since the coast of Kenya is known for violence by Muslims towards Christians.

Captain Omar asked me why I was in Kenya-  was I tourist?

"No, I'm actually a missionary"

"What's that?"

"Someone who tells people about Jesus."

"I'm a person, tell me."

I suddenly found myself at a loss.  I'm great at apologetics, or defending isolated moral teachings, or explaining about miracles, or whatever.  But how do I explain to someone who knows next to nothing about Jesus why Jesus mattered?

By this time I knew he was Muslim, so I said something to the effect of  "Well, you believe in God-  and so do I.  But I believe that God became a man... well first He became a baby, and was born in a manger.  Then he grew up and became a man... not all of God, you see, just God the Son, who is fully God but there's still God that is not son... and they killed him, but he came back to life. Then he went to Heaven. But we still eat his body every week at Church."

You ever realize how stupid Christianity sounds to unbelievers?  No wonder the strongest argument against us is not really an argument so much as to make us feel intellectually embarrassed that we actually hold to these doctrines.

But it shows the problem-  even I, as a trained missionary and youth minister, could not quickly explain to a stranger what Christianity was really about.

This quick introductory teaching about Christianity is called Kerygma, which is just a Greek word for preaching.  It is worth isolating the basic pieces of it, so usually you'll see something like this;

1. God is Love and created us out of Love.
2. We sinned and broke our relationship with God.
3. Jesus came and died for us so that we can be with God again.
4. Christians are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, in order that we might be made Holy, like God.

Now if you know these 4 basic points, you've got the gist of the Gospel message, and can now 'evangelize', meaning bring people to a basic knowledge of the truth.

The point I'm most interested in is number 4.  It seems like a lot of Christians are of the impression that Jesus came, died, and rose, and that's all we need to know about Him.  There's a guy called N.T. Wright, who's an Anglican Bishop and New Testament Scholar.  His theory is that when we established the Creeds, like the Nicene Creed (c325 to combat Arianism) we summarized the disputed teachings of the faith.  But then we used that as a teaching tool, so we go straight from "Born of the Virgin Mary" to "suffered under Pontius Pilate,  was crucified, died and was buried."  Wright says he suspects that the Gospel writers would be like "Hey, I spent a lot of time writing about the stuff that happened in between those 2 events!"

If you look at Jesus' life in between those two things, this is where he did the thing that he said he was "anointed" to do. Jesus himself summarizes it by quoting Isaiah: 

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

This stuff is important!  The word "Gospel" means "Good news".  So what is the good news? Seems like most Christians think the good news is only that "You don't have to go to Hell."  Which is true, but try telling someone that as good news!

"Good news!  You don't have to go to Hell"

They might reply "Great!  I wasn't planning to!"

Even in Jesus time, the people the apostles were preaching to, didn't really think they were going to Hell. The Jews didn't focus much on the afterlife at all- the Sadducees didn't even think there would be one!  The Greeks believed in Hades, which is pretty attractive, but a far cry from how we picture Hell.

And Jesus had them preaching the good news before he even died and rose!  So what was the good news?

Jesus came and was annointed to establish His Kingdom on Earth!  So it's not just that you don't have to go to Hell...  when the Bible says we are "saved" from our sins the Greek word "Sozo" could be translated "Saved" or Healed or Freed.  So it's not just about Hell!

The good news is that we can be healed and freed of our sins too!  That means, that by God's grace, we can overcome addictions, and character flaws that hurt our marriages and relationships. We can be transformed into people who are "Rooted and grounded in love" (Ephesians 3:17), and who have the fruits of the spirit like joy, peace, kindness, patience (cf Gal 5:22) as natural attributes of someone who is plugged into God!

And it's not just me that can be personally transformed!  The promise of a kingdom is the promise of a community of others who are transformed and we hold each other up and we begin to transform society. In time by living lives of  transformation in Christ, we could see societies where war is eliminated, economic disparity is impacted by societal generosity, human dignity is upheld against lust and other destructive ideologies.

The Gospel message is all of these things, and it is great news!  By becoming disciples of Christ we can;

1.Experience personal transformation
2. Establish the kingdom of God on Earth.
3. Overcome death and Hell.

With good news like that, of course we should be prepared to tell others!