Dear Church of the Open Bible,
What is the gospel? Take a minute and answer that question. “Gospel” means good news so what is the news, and why is it good? This is a question I’ve begun to ask more regularly. I ask it more regularly of my kids, starting with the youngest first if they’re all together. I ask it more regularly of my friends when we meet to catch up over coffee. And I ask it more regularly of myself because I, most of all, need that dose of perspective and priority. I can’t think of anything that we need to be more clear about.
“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
These verses in Romans do not give us all of the content of the gospel. Paul will lay that out in the rest of the book. But one of the things we see here is that the gospel is “the power of God for salvation” and that it reveals “the righteousness of God.” These are pretty important. So what is the gospel? And where might you find that in Scripture? Here are just a few passages that might help you answer that question: 1 Cor 15:1-5; Acts 3:14-21; Acts 17:24-31. May we be clear and confident about the good news we have received!