“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.” (Matthew 4:23, ESV)
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark 1:1, ESV)
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed,” (Luke 4:18, ESV)
“But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.” (Acts 8:12, ESV)
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,” (Romans 1:1, ESV)
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”” (Romans 1:16-17, ESV)
As we can see from the verses we have just seen and heard, the word Gospel is used often in the New Testament. In fact this is just a small sample of over 90 occurrences of the word.
It was the first imperative of the ministry of John the Baptist, The Lord Jesus Christ, The Apostle Peter and The apostle Paul.
To understand the meaning of this word we need to ensure we are interpreting the use of the word in context to the passages where the word is found or as Pastor Dennis Greenidge warns “When we take a scripture out of context all we are left with is a pretext”
Lets focus on just the last verse from Romans chapter one verses 16-17. Paul says he is not ashamed of the Gospel which means the gospel is something tangible or that has substance and is definitive rather than a loosely defined idea, to the point that a person might feel shame over it.
He goes on to say it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. What is the object of belief here? The Bible is clear, the object of belief is the message to be found in the Gospel (or the Goods News).
See additional clips from the The Gospel at our Vimeo Channel here
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