Tools for Monday: What is the Gospel? (Part 2)
Bill Hull, an expert teacher of Christian discipleship, helps us a great deal should we choose to refocus on the biblical gospel. He simply says, “The gospel we preach determines the disciples we produce.” In other words, if we neglect the biblical gospel, then we likely will make disciples who look less and less like Jesus.
In our last article, we began to focus on what the Bible actually says concerning the gospel, or good news of Jesus Christ. We found that the term “gospel” peppers the entire New Testament and was an outstandingly important word for the early church. The gospel is the positive proclamation concerning the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Believing this gospel sets a person on the transformative track of submitting repentantly and gladly to the Kingship (Lordship) of Jesus and becoming his student.
We can however reduce the gospel to a less-than-biblical formula if we’re not careful. Like it or not, our culture is a product of the Enlightenment, meaning that it is almost second nature for us to search for concrete answers to our questions, and those answers must be backed by hard evidence. While the Enlightenment mindset is not necessarily negative (Due diligence in study can be quite positive!), it can negate some of the gospel’s power. In other words, the gospel is not simply a set of spiritual deductions requiring convincing proof and mere mental ascent. From a philosophical point of view, a reductionist gospel as described above would be called “utilitarian,” meaning that it is something of a logical religious tool meant to assure well-being and prove that we can go to heaven when we die. The gospel becomes more of a math problem that, once solved or believed logically, opens the doors to heaven.
A utilitarian gospel subsequently removes one of the most important aspects of the true gospel: faith. We’re not simply to believe in information about Jesus. We are to believe in Jesus himself. It is likely that the disciples produced by a reductionist gospel will be disciples who have less fervor about walking as Jesus walked. Discipleship becomes disconnected from a reduced gospel. Thus, life becomes more about maintenance over ministry.
There are more “gospels” that result from a reductionist reading of the New Testament. Other gospels are downright false and not found anywhere in the Scripture. We will examine a number of these philosophies next time.