What is the Gospel?

Do words mean things? Of course they do.  How important is it to have a proper biblical understanding of the biblical words we use?  Let me give an example by way of an experience I had while earning my masters degree in a conservative bible college.

In one of my classes we had an adjunct professor teaching a class on leadership philosophy. During the class the professor was going into great detail about the missional church that he was part of. He told of how his missional church worked to purchase a local cafe for the downtown artists in Seattle, Washington. He spoke of the tremendous effort that was put into “reaching” these postmodern artists. He spoke of the many facets of missional work and the commands in Scripture to show mercy and compassion towards the lost.

This went on for some time…until I raised my hand and asked, "when did you share the gospel with these postmodern artists?"  Which lead to a discussion, or an almost discussion on the gospel…which I thought was a pretty important topic to discuss. 

Let me take you a little further into our discussion…I noted to the professor that in sharing the gospel with my Roman Catholic father-in-law…that while we used the same words our understanding of those words were as far as the east is from the west. While we both talked about justification by faith, grace, sin, and divine judgment, it would seem that we were reading from two different bibles.

My point was that we can be using the same words but have two entirely different understandings of those terms and words. For my efforts to define the term gospel I was publicly rebuked by the professor and told to “get off my high horse.”

So, what is the gospel? This should be the question that fuels our passion and drives our Christian lives. We have to know what the bible teaches about the gospel so that we can proclaim it with accuracy and clarity. Our lives should be consumed with having our understanding informed by what the Scriptures teach concerning the gospel…our understanding of the gospel must grow out of Scripture and not out of some un-biblical system of theology. All that should ultimately matter to us is what does God’s word say?

I’ll say this, the gospel is both narrow and wide…let me give you the heart and soul of the gospel (the narrow)…it is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

The gospel is Christ. The gospel will always be Christ…his work…his sacrifice…his grace…his reaching the lost, depraved, and sin-stained sinner.

Listen to the words of our old friend Charles Spurgeon on this matter:

Let this be to you the mark of true gospel preaching - where Christ is everything, and the creature is nothing; where it is salvation all of grace, through the work of the Holy Spirit applying to the soul the precious blood of Jesus."

The gospel call that we see in the N.T. was a call to discipleship, a call to follow Him in submissive obedience, it was more than saying a prayer or a making a decision…it was a call to repent of sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul tells us that the gospel = power…the Greek word is dynamite, see Romans 1:16:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

Christian, do not be duped by “another gospel,” as Paul told the saints in Galatia not to be fooled by another gospel even if an angel came down from heaven and preached it (Galatians 1:8)…don’t listen, run, and run fast and far.

Let me close with wise word from R.C. Sproule:

“I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a methodology, in a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word. He alone has the power to change lives for eternity, and that power is focused on the Scriptures.”

God's Unchanging Law

The moral law of God as contained in the Ten Commandments is alive and enforceable today in our 21st century era of moral relativism. This statement is anathema to our culture and to those who oppose any moral absolutes.  The Apostle Paul tells us in chapter one in the book of Romans that a society can apostate and slide into a black hole of apostasy when God's law is pushed to the side and marginalized.

But what about an individual? can a person ignore the moral law of God without suffering the same fate? Can any person harden their heart and sear their own conscience without also sliding down the black hole of nothingness?

We as Christians know that the whole world system is directed and under the power and influence of Satan (Ephesians 2:2). He has blinded the minds of the lost (2 Corinthians 4:4). He works to keep unbelievers in spiritual darkness.

This wold's system with all of its philosophies, ideologies, and religions are under the direction of the prince of the power of the air...Satan. As we analyze why moral relativism is alive and well in the 21st century we don't have to look to far...the deceiver and the enemy of God is at work in our educational systems, in our governments, and yes, even in our churches.

But for God's people the moral law of God is a lamp to their feet and a light for their paths Psalm (119:105). The moral law of God as contained in the Ten Commandments is an absolute standard of morality...it will never change or equivocate....this is where the child of God plants his flag...in God's unchanging moral law.

Listen to a wise man from the past...one of our former presidents on the importance of God's moral law:


“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State.”
― Harry S. Truman

It is reassuring for the believer to know that God is not changing his mind from generation to generation. His law is fixed and permanent.

Here's another voice from the past on the surety and steadfastness of God's moral law:

“Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.”
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

I would encourage the believer to go back to the moral law of God and devour it, love it, nurture it, and thank God for it. God's law is good, clean, pure, and holy.

All of life is theological!

      All of life is theological!

Have you ever heard or read the thought that all of life is theological? Think about it. Take the time and deeply think about how all of life is to be understood and explained. Okay, I jumped ahead of myself here ... let me give you a quick definition of theology:

The first half of theology is theo-, which means god in Greek. The suffix -logy means “the study of,” so theology literally means “the study of god,"

The "study of God" wow! J.I Packer says that all of life is about knowing God; listen as he speaks, "“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.”

 I'm a simple man, so it just makes sense that since God the creator created us and the world we live in we should then should seek to know this God ... to study this God ... and allow this God to speak to us. But one might ask, how can I study God? How can I allow God to speak to me? Well, I'm glad I can answer that question with the utmost confidence...He's given us a book. Yes, God has revealed Himself to us through the sacred pages of the Scriptures. God speaks to us through the sacred pages of Scriptures.

When the Christian realizes that God has given him all things for life and Godliness he need not look any further in his search for fulfillment and happiness...2 Peter 1:3 says:

As his divine power has given to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us by glory and virtue,


Now back to the original thought...all life is theological. In every area of life we live we should seek to know God's will and to hear God speaking. Whether it is in our marriage, or raising our children, or how we deal with pain and suffering, or knowing the difference between what is good or what is evil...for the Christian we seek to study God. Now, I certainly agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer when he says, "While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.” But nevertheless, we live out our lives with the passion and thirst to seek and to know God.




So God has revealed to us what He wants us to know. The secret things will always belong to God. However, we are still exhorted and encouraged to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). The Christian is to be placing his affections on those things in God's kingdom (Colossians 3:1-2).


When we live our lives with the deep realization that all things begin with God and end with God, we then can begin to look outside ourselves for life’s answers. When we know God we know ourselves. When we know God we begin to understand ourselves and the world around us from God's perspective.
My favorite theologian R.C. Sproul use to say that we are all theologians, it just depends if you are a good theologian or a bad theologian.

One last word on knowing God by Mr. Packer, he says, "How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.

Deist or Theist?

Today's thoughts come from my musings about whether or not Christians really believe what they say they believe. In other words, are we living a congruent life? Does our lifestyle match what we believe in our head? In the psychological world the term used for a life that does not match or agree with our core beliefs is called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is just a fancy word that is saying that you're not walking the talk, or you're not being true to who you say you are.

Life shows us that when one lives contrary to what their core beliefs are they get all discombobulated, that's another fancy word for all messed up. We as Christians are the most prone to fall into this cognitive dissonance trap. We have tons of core beliefs, and values, and in addition to all of our beliefs and values we also have our own personal lists of do's and don'ts.

Having said that, let me ask this question of you...do you really live your life like God is present and active in all details of your existence? Do you practice the presence of God in your life. Can the Child of God expect to live in the presence of God? The answer is clear, for those who are saved have God’s presence with them. Did not Jesus say, " I am with you always"?

Are you living your Christian life as a Deist or a Theist? If you are not practicing the presence of God in your life by praying, thinking and dwelling on the things of God...if you are not actively seeking those things that are above you are really a Deist by practice.

The Psalmist had it right when he exclaimed, “Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” ( Psalm 16:11). Let me ask you another question, hope you are not getting tired of all the questions, but they do serve a purpose, it is to get you to dig down and do some deep introspection, so here is the question:

 IF JESUS WERE WITH US FOR 24 HOURS A DAY 7 DAYS A WEEK, WOULD YOUR LIFE CHANGE?

GEN. 28:15 says, "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all the places wither thou goest."

Don't live your life as a Deist, live your live as a theist. I'm using the terms quite loosely, but by Deist, I mean living your life as if God is some far off Deity, and by theist, I mean one who lives his life as if God is close and can be known personally. The balance for the Christian is to live within both the knowledge of the transcendence and immanence of God. While God is above and beyond his creation (transcendence), he has also made Himself knowable to his creation and particularly to His people (immanence).

Christian...live today in the presence of your God and your King.

All True Worship Starts From Within.

God has established means for His Church by which she is to grow and mature into Christ-likeness.  If God's clear and precise means are not followed there will be no growth or maturity for God's people; there will be only spiritual decay and deterioration.

Today's blog will share with you one of the means that God has established for His Church. God's word is the one means by which the Christian can grow and mature, and be shaped and molded into the image of Christ. Without a steady and constant diet of truth malnutrition sets in and the believer begins to become weak and vulnerable to the flesh, the devil, and the world.

I'd like to share a text of Scripture with you that will nourish and feed your soul. The text is found in 1Peter 3:15:                                                         

 "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord...."

Let's take this one single morsel and allow it to feed and nourish your soul. Let this text of God's word sink deep into your inner being. Mediate on it and allow it to transform your thinking and your living.

Are you ready? Lets get going...I love how the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary lays out how the believer is to revere Christ, they note:

sanctify—hallow; honor as holy, enshrining Him in your hearts. So [as] in the Lord's Prayer, Mt 6:9. God's holiness is thus glorified in our hearts as the dwelling-place of His Spirit.

The believer is to sanctify Christ as Lord in his heart...the heart is our inner sanctuary. This inner sanctuary is where all true worship takes place. Yes, we glorify Christ before others, but all of our actions on the outside start and emanate from within our inner sanctuary.

Thought: Those who are religious (and I use this term for those who have an outward from of Godliness, but do not have the life changing Holy Spirit inside them) can only perform religious deeds, and righteous acts...they can never sanctify Christ as Lord in their hearts.

When we live-out our daily lives, setting Christ up as Lord in our hearts, we live in submission to His holy Lordship in our lives...we are thus changed from the inside out...we live our lives not autonomously, but in total dependency on Christ's strength.

We look for the nod of His approval in all we do. When the Christian's worship starts within first, he is then on the path to becoming like his Master and fulfilling His Masters plan for his life

Continuing In Prayer

Those who have grown up in Christian homes and in the church have heard "Christian speak" all of their lives. It is like being out in the cold weather, eventually you get use to it. The purpose of today's blog is to look at one such phrase that we have all heard. We have all heard at one time or another the expression to "walk with God," or another way you may have heard it expressed is walking in "fellowship with God."

Now, to let you know, I love theology, and with theology comes words, concepts, and ideas. However, theology with its concepts and ideas must be brought down from the abstract into reality in order for it to be effective and explosive in our daily lives. If theology remains in the abstract, it becomes neutered for us and diffused of its power and explosiveness.

This concept of walking with God sounds so wonderful, so grand; to think that sinful man, that you and I can walk with the creator of the universe. We have sung about it; we have read about it; matter of fact, we see it in the first book of the Bible. We have recorded for us that Adam and Eve had contact with God on a level known only by a few other humans. Then further on in Genesis we see that Enoch enjoyed a close relationship with God...it is recorded that Enoch walked with God.

Throughout the entire Old Testament, we see that there were those who enjoyed the privilege of walking with God. When we come into the New Testament, we are struck with language that implies and suggests that we are to be walking with God. Jesus whispers this concept to His followers as he tells them, "abide in me, and [let] my words abide in you" (John 15:7).

The Apostle Paul echoes the same thought when he tells the Church at Galatia to "walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:16). The whole epistle of 1John is peppered with the language of walking in the light, and walking in truth...which are all metaphors for walking with the one who is light and truth.

Here is the conundrum for us all...how do we keep this expression from becoming just another catchphrase? Just another bumper sticker slogan that we paste on our cars? How do we get this concept out of the abstract and make it our reality?

As I was thinking hard on this and reflecting on my nearly four decades of being a Christian, one thought came to mind...now mind you, this is just one principle out of many principles that the Scriptures give to instruct us on how to walk with God. This one grand principle is given to us in Colossians 4:2 where Paul tells us "Continue in prayer," and again in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 where we are exhorted to "Pray without ceasing." Continual prayer seems to be the one link in the chain that needs to be healthy in order for the believer to have a strong and vigorous walk with God.

The idea of continual prayer should be looked at from the perspective of an attitude more so than how often we pray. If the believer maintains a prayerful attitude, he is guarding his conscience from those things that would disrupt a strong healthy conscience before God. No believer can have a healthy walk with God while carrying around a weak and offended conscience.

The believer who walks with God is a sober and vigilant person. He is on guard from any influence that would disrupt his communion with his God. This prayerful attitude keeps his emotions in check...there is much self-inventory going on: do I have a bitter spirit? a jealous spirit? a greedy spirit? a lustful spirit? etc.

This attitude of prayer reminds the believer daily, no, not just daily, but hourly, or even better  yet continuously, that he is to be dying to self, dying to his sinful passions and desires.

So I leave you with this last thought: "For every look at self—take ten looks at Christ! Live near to Jesus—and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843).

Is Christianity all about being relational?

Is Christianity all about being relational? Yes, to a large degree it is, and no, to a large degree it is not. The problem arises when the Bible is cherry picked to make a certain narrative work. For the liberal/postmodern thinker cherry picking the Bible is what they do best.

The postmodern thinker has a narrative about who Jesus is and what Christianity is suppose to look like. They tell us that Christianity is all about love and helping others just like Jesus did, so goes the chirp. They provide for us examples of Jesus feeding people, healing others, and just being a real nice guy. Where they err and fail, is that they throw out any narrative that does not fit their rosy self-painted picture of Christ.

Now we know at the heart of the gospel is reconciliation which at its core is relationship. The sinner who was estranged from God has been brought into a right relationship to God by the atonement of Christ. Man is in a very serious situation, you see, he is estranged form God by his sin, and his sin must be removed before he can enjoy any relationship with God.

So yes, Christianity is about relationship. Now here is the fly in the ointment for the liberal/postmodern, they will agree about the relationship part of Christianity, but will exclaim hogwash to the sin part. They are not so readily disposed to talk of sin, for them sin is a divisive word; it separates people, and marginalizes those who might be offended by being labeled a sinner. For the postmodern thinker sin is an outdated term and should be regulated to bygone days.

The liberal/postmodern has a different brand of Christianity...for them they have an offend none at all costs religion, for them, tolerance and being relational are the supreme virtues of the Christian life. Tolerance in their theology has morphed into a pervasive insistence that no one should hold firm convictions. In the end, this high value placed on being relational has distorted and perverted the whole message of the entire Bible.

The whole of their theology of tolerance is filled with structural flaws and is in direct opposition to traditional Christianity.  Neither Orthodox Christianity nor the Bible ever talks about relationship with God apart from first being reconciled to Him through atonement. Whenever we separate what the Bible has joined together we become guilty of cherry picking and we distort the true picture that the Bible paints of Christ.






The same Savior who told us to love our neighbor also said, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). The same Savior who showed kindness to the poor and marginalized also spoke to them in parables lest they should hear and understand and be converted, see Matthew 13:11,  "He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

Here is the full text:

Matthew 13:10. And the disciples came and said to Him, "Why do You speak to them in parables?"

11 He answered and said to them, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

12 "For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

13 "Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.

14 "And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive;

15 for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'

16 "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear;

17 "for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

Revelation 1:7 gives us a description of the second coming of Christ when John records these words for us, "Behold He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him, even those who pierced Him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of Him. Did you get that? All of the earth will wail when Christ comes with power and glory...not the humble Shepherd as painted in the gospels, but the Lion of the tribe of Judea.

Let us heed the exhortation in the book of Romans 12:2 where Paul tells his readers to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. Let us submit our minds, wills, and emotions to the authoritative word of God. Let God's word sit in judgment upon all of your narratives, and let His narrative become your story to tell.