Download: The ‘Gospel’

Many idiomatic expressions using the term “gospel.”

Take it as gospel

It’s the gospel truth

Preaching the gospel

Spreading the gospel

According to the gospel of [so-and-so]

The word “gospel” is from the Old English gōdspell

In the New Testament, “gospel” is translated from the Greek word euangelion.

The Good News of Isaiah…

“It seemed good to the Greeks of Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: “Since Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance (excelled even our anticipations), surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good news [euangelion] for the world that came by reason of him,” which Asia resolved in Smyrna. [Priene 150.40-41, c. 9 B.C.]

Mark 1:1, 14-15

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of God and saying, “The time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has drawn near. Repent and believe the good news.”

“We will say more about both elements of this good news in a little while. But it’s important to emphasize right away that what Paul was talking about was not what most people today imagine. If you mention the Christian good news, most people today imagine that you’re talking about an option you might like to take up if you feel so inclined. A piece of advice. For some, it’s a new kind of spirituality: here is a Jesus-focused interior life for those who want that kind of thing. For others, it’s a new way of living: here is a Jesus-based morality you, or indeed your community, might like to follow. For others again, it’s about taking out an option on your future—a kind of retirement plan, except that the retirement in question takes place after your death rather than before it. It’s a way of making sure that you at least will be safe and sound, even if the rest of the world isn’t. Some people, as we will see, highlight this last element, and when they talk about the good news or the gospel, they focus almost exclusively on this aspect. Some people do the same with the idea of reestablishing our present relationship with God after being cut off through sin. None of these ways of looking at things are, as they stand, totally wrong. The message of Jesus and the message about Jesus do include something about spirituality, something about morality, something about the ultimate future, something not least about our relationship with God. But all these miss the main point. The good news brought by Paul (and before him, by Jesus, though we will come to that presently) was not about an option you might wish to take up. It wasn’t a piece of advice about something you might or might not wish to do. It was news. They claimed it was good news. When Paul told people his good news, he didn’t mean for them to say, “Well, that’s interesting. I’ll see if that’s going to suit me or not.” He wasn’t inviting them to try on a new way of thinking or living that would enable them to live differently or think differently. He was telling them that something had happened which had changed the world, that the world was now a different place, and that he was summoning them to be part of that new, different reality. He was telling them about an event that would cause them to adjust their entire lives in order to come into line with the way things now were.”

~N. T. Wright, Simply Good News, pp. 19-20

That God’s kingdom has arrived, calling people to repentance, faith, and a new way of life under God’s reign.