The Gospel is NOT…!
What is the Gospel NOT?
Way back in the spring I sat down, and in about half an hour I had written a whole bunch of statements to explain what the Gospel was NOT. I set them to post automatically on Facebook and Twitter every Monday morning.
But alas! They have finally run out.
(Why did I write about what the Gospel is NOT, instead of what it IS? Mainly because I was trying to write something short. And one of the big problems with (bad) explanations of the Gospel is that they tend to lack balance. In other words, short statements can be great summaries (there are a lot of short statements about the Gospel in the Bible!), but they never give the whole picture.)
Anyway, I’ve listed every one of my statements below. Some come straight from Bible passages, some (sadly) I’ve actually heard people (or even preachers) say. Feel free to comment and let m know what you think.
So – is there something else I should start posting Monday mornings? Some short statement about something? Any suggestions?
- The Gospel is NOT – “God will save you … for the most part….”
- The Gospel is NOT – “I’ll adopt you as My child … for the time being”
- The Gospel is NOT – “You can do better next time”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Do your part and I’ll do mine”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Behave!”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Thank goodness Jesus appeased His mean old Dad!”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Here’s the first of many things you need to do to get to Heaven”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Jesus probably died for your sins and perhaps rose again – maybe rose spiritually – but that’s not important…”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Come to Jesus if you want – it’s up to you – whatever you want – your choice – either way – – -“
- The Gospel is NOT – “You will be like GOD!”*
- The Gospel is NOT – “Show the world that you’re better than everyone else”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Self-enlightenment and realizing that there’s no such thing as sin”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Good news for a few privileged classes”
- The Gospel is NOT – “A neat club to belong to”
- The Gospel is NOT – “God really needs your love to be fulfilled. Poor guy.”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Yeah, of course I went to church on Sunday…”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Just for people who haven’t sinned TOO much.”
- The Gospel is NOT – “God is obligated to love you and take you to Heaven…”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Access to the biggest To Do list you’ve ever had!”
- The Gospel is NOT – “A prayer you prayed”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Love God and love one another”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Tomorrow will be better!”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Just my private belief”
- The Gospel is NOT – “God is too loving to judge anyone”
- The Gospel is NOT – “And from then on my life was easy!”
- The Gospel is NOT – “A pyramid scheme”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Something that was useful when I was younger…”
- The Gospel is NOT – “What every preacher preaches”
- The Gospel is NOT – “What feels right”
- The Gospel is NOT – “A secret only available to the really smart”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Just another way to understand the Great Oneness of the Universe”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Something that’s always convenient to share”
- The Gospel is NOT – “God loves you – now He wants to teach you to love yourself”
- The Gospel is NOT – “Christ died for those whose attitudes were just a little wrong”
* We had a bit of a conversation about this one on Facebook. At first glance, it seems obvious – after all, these are the words of Satan (Genesis 3:5).
But once again showing the genius of Satan’s temptation, the fact is that it can be true. In a sense. No, we will not become gods – however, God’s power does transform us to be like God morally – holy – showing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). So in this case, in a sense we will be like God. But not in His divine nature.
16 October 2012 @ 10:58 pm
I thought these statements were very good and need to be said.
Without much thought, I’ve wondered if you could do a similar thing with the Bible? Just a spontaneous idea.