What is the Gospel?
Patrick Ramsey at Meet the Puritans rhetorically asks this question, and cites Paul Levy’s satirical 2011 article on the subject,
Gospel-licious.
Our church is a gospel church that is gospel crazy for gospel living. We believe that gospel discipleship makes gospel people who create gospel change and gospel dynamics. We believe in gospel administration for gospel organising. Gospel youth work is essential for gospel kids. A gospel welcome for gospel needers!
Ramsey argues that the gospel isn’t simply the announcement of news (Levy’s position, as well as Michael Horton’s and Tim Keller’s mentioned in the article), but does include “advice”. Ramsey relies on Anthony Burgess (a Westminster Divine and hero of mine) to make the case for a narrow and broad definition of the gospel, and I think is generally correct. But I wanted to take a stab at defining the gospel, and avoid the “narrow v. broad” paradigm for an organically expanding definition that encompasses both the news of what Christ has done and the need for response…
On Evangelical Babble and Accepting Jesus Into Your Heart
This is the inaugural post in a series on evangelical-babble and pop-theology. These will be short posts on evangelical phrases that need to go, with the primary yardstick being sola scriptura: if the phrase is absent from scripture and its employment disproportionately outweighs the benefit of any good and necessary inference from scripture, it needs to be culled from Christian vocabulary. The grammar we use matters, and the language we use shapes how people think and act.
The first phrase is “Accept Jesus into your heart” and its variants. It should be said up front that no expression like this exists in scripture…
On Scripture’s Sexual Ethics and Children in Worship
Ephesians 6:1-4 communicates several things about the nature of scripture, preaching, and worship. Growing up, my experience was that this passage was typically used as a way of instructing parents on instructing their kids. Yet Paul is not addressing parents until 6:4. In 6:1-3 Paul is directly addressing children, and the assumption held by the text is that the children of the church are present for the reading of the letter (see Colossians 4:16). The expectation of the letter is that when it is read and preached in worship that the people to whom it is addressed are present. To put it plainly, the expectation is that children are present in the worship service, not just for singing, but for the ministry of the word…
On the Commitment of Baptism
A few weeks ago another elder and I were interviewing a young teenager for church membership. He was asked what he understood baptism to be. He replied, “Baptism is about being committed to God.” That is a succinct and accurate…
On Doubt and Revival
So often the premise of revival is doubt. “Are you really saved?” “Have you changed enough in order to prove salvation?” “Do you actually believe?” “Growing up in church isn’t enough – you have to have a transformed life. Is…
