Gospel Truth

Many readers of this blog will know that I have had a 'pet peeve' surrounding the term "gospel" in its many limited uses. I have no 'pet peeve' when it is used correctly in its unlimited referential context. There is a blog by Peter Enns about this particular term's limited use in modern vocalizations and he references two other blogs by David Williams (and here).  I would like to simplify their argument.

Gospel refers in its original context to a proclamation of rule, in the New Testament that means the rule of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In its current context, 'Gospel' takes on the limited meaning and referant of telling someone they need Jesus to go to heaven.  This is an oversimplification, but in this current world where words seem to have no meaning except in the group using them, "Sharing the Gospel" is the simplification of a process that found its reemergence in evangelical circles in the 1950's through Dawson Trottman and the Navigators and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade.  In its original form the phrase was "Sharing the plan of Salvation."  The 'plan of salvation' is limited, it refers to a recognition of our sin (total depravity for the Calvinist), the forgiveness offered by Jesus, and the call to confess Jesus as Lord/Ruler with one's mouth and believe in one's heart that God raised him from the dead.  But this "plan of salvation' was only the beginning for these groups and others like Billy Graham.  The unseen work was the training in discipleship, i.e. learning to live under the rule of God, and a lifetime of following God empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Any attempt to "share the gospel" and limit it to merely a plan of salvation diminishes the actual biblical message made popular in the song "Our God Reigns!" Until the people of God in the 21st Century take  a lifelong commitment to the reign of God seriously, little will change.  When the people of God take seriously God's reign in their life and the life of their community, God will be glorified and his reign more visibly recognized on earth as it is in heaven. Could the absence of this public prayer of Jesus lead us to forget God's reign?

Just a thought.