What is the Gospel?

In many of our churches there is a particular time when the Gospel is read.  The people typically stand and the Bible is open and the Gospel is read.   However, what is actually read are some verses from one of the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.  

If people are asked, ‘what is the Gospel?’  there would undoubtedly be many different answers.    I know that for a long time I would reply that the Gospel is the “good news” as I had learned that the word gospel was in fact a translation of the Greek word for ‘good news’.

However, "What is the Gospel" is an all-important question and the reason I’m mentioning it is not to criticize any particular answer, as there are many ‘right’ answers to the question, but to remind us all that it is the Gospel that is the essential truth that actually unites all believers as the Body of Christ.

Paul tells us what the Gospel is

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth in response to what appears to have been a number of questions that they had regarding not only beliefs but practices and the structure of the church.   In his first letter to these Christians at Corinth he defines the actual gospel that he had preached to them as well as well of all the other churches that he founded:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15: 1-6)

The Apostle Paul recounts the essential truths that he identifies as the Gospel: Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures had foretold, he was buried and then rose on the third day also as the Scriptures had foretold.

This gospel truth is fortified when Paul talks about the witnesses of these events; that the apostles had seen the risen Christ but also there was five hundred at one time. 

Development of our Creeds

The early church took these truths, encapsulated and developed them in what we know now as the Nicene Creed and also the Apostles Creed.  These Creeds contain these essential truths that to this day are the identifying marks of a disciple of Jesus Christ.

When we embrace these truths, this Gospel that the Apostle Paul recounts, we not only experience unity within the diverse Body of Christ but we also experience revival.

Preach the Gospel, live the Gospel, share the Gospel. 

The 50/50 Marriage is yielding a 50/50 Result

By Berni Dymet

The apostle Paul, writing to the church at Ephesus, laid down some very good guidelines for husbands and wives. To the men he said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it" (Ephesians 5:25). To the women he said, "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22). That kind of relationship brings about a lack of tension in marriage.

The husband should be willing to sacrifice himself for the wife's good.  If he loves her enough that he is willing to give himself for her, even as Jesus did for the church, then the wife will be willing to submit to his leadership. She will know that he is always looking out for her good and always willing to put her interests ahead of his.

By the same token, a wife has the ability to make her husband the head of the household by urging him to take his proper role in the home. She should encourage him to seek God, to find out what God is telling the family to do. She can build her husband up and, by being willing to submit, give him a sense of responsibility so that he will assume his proper role.

The one who always insists on "rights" will destroy the marriage relationship. If the husband says to the wife, "You must obey me because the Bible says so," he is going to alienate her. At the same time, the wife who refuses to submit to the husband and fights him all the time will make him apprehensive about following the Lord. He will start thinking, What if I get a message from God? All I am going to get is opposition from my wife, so I might as well just follow my own desires and let her follow hers. Such attitudes will pull couples apart, whereas God's standards should draw them together.

It is important to remember that husbands and wives are partners. Someone has rightly pointed out that woman was taken from the side of man, not from his head or foot. She is not to dominate her husband, nor is she to be supine and let him walk over her as if she were a doormat. A husband and wife are to be partners in life and are to share a living relationship that acknowledges that the man is the head of the family as long as he is submitted to Christ.

In the United States almost 50% of all marriages end in divorce.  It may be likely because many marriages including marriages between Christian people are a 50/50 approach is yielding a 50/50 result.    In marriage a 50/50 arrangement looks something like this: Well, he’s watched the football on TV all afternoon so tomorrow I get to go shoe shopping. Or – She’s just spent money having lunch with her friend so I’m going to get that new cell phone. Or He should have cared that I was feeling down, it’s not fair that he didn’t notice, he owes me. 

Those responses are based on the 50/50 principle. If the other one gets something, then I have to get something too – that’s only fair.  It’s about trade offs all the time. But underneath there’s this deep destructive thing called the 50/50 mentality. Her 50 becomes conditional on his 50, his 50 becomes conditional on her 50. This is a relationship based on conditional trade offs. It’s a relationship based, let’s be blunt about it, on what I get out of it.  50/50 is about saying, I’m entitled to my cut of this relationship, I’m entitled to my 50.

How different would your marriage be if you accepted your husband or your wife for who they are? How different would your marriage be, if your main goal was to make your wife or husband happy, and if their main goal was to make you happy?

How different would your marriage be if your soul-goal was to make sure that your soul-mate got 80, 90 – even 100 – no matter how well they ‘performed’ and no matter how little you feel that you’re getting? 

Do you know what that’s called? It’s called love. Unconditional love. Precisely the sort of love that you promised your life long soul-mate on the day you married them.

Likely on the day you married you heard exactly what you promised to do.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.              (1 Cor. 13:4-7)

(reprinted from ChristianityWorks 

Half Truths and Whole Lies

It seems that we all have grown too accustomed to settling for being told ‘half-truths’ that are obviously designed to deceive.   Politicians are likely at the top of the list of ‘half truth’ tellers but ‘half truths’ are also featured regularly on our nightlight news, radio ads, commercials, the internet and even many companies sales reports.

Here are just a few of the obvious ones: ‘Clinton didn’t inhale’, ‘You can keep your doctor’, ‘The Republicans will roll back Obama care’, ‘Peta really cares about the animals’, ‘1 out of 10 people are gay’, ‘The Polar bears are drowning’ and ‘Iran can be trusted.'

The problem with any ‘half truth’ is that they are actually whole lies.

Telling lies makes you a deceiver and a liar. 

Lying is a character flaw that in the past would mark you as being untrustworthy.   Unfortunately, lying has become such an acceptable art form that we actually repeat these half truths and admire people that can use words in such a way that they appear to be saying one thing while hiding the actual truth.   The use of ambiguous language that conceals the actual truth should actually be a character flaw, not an admired trait. 

The problem with ‘half-truths’ is that they contain enough truth that they can misrepresent fact and are meant to deceive.  Deception has become so common that we actually re-elect, befriend and even admire those that deceive so often they could be considered compulsive liars.    

Fortunately, studies have shown that companies that are known for integrity and transparency and are known to be trustworthy actually do better than their peers.  Couples that are honest with each other tend to stay together, remain married rather than divorced and will have fewer financial problems than their ‘half-truth’ peers.      

Regardless of  how common deception and ‘half-truths’ are in society, Integrity is likely the single most important character trait you could ever embrace.   Integrity is soul deep and provides the moral compass that actually will ensure long-term success and happiness in life.

Integrity is a catalyst for other important virtues as well.   Virtues such as kindness, generosity, courage, responsiveness and even good work habits are locked-in by the embrace of honesty and integrity.

Embrace integrity.   Integrity today actually is a wonderful way to differentiate your business and your relationships with your friends and coworkers.  When you are known for your integrity it becomes more and more difficult for others to convince you that their half-truths are not actually lies.

Healthy Church Members

I recently wrote about Pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling “Purpose Driven Life," and his saying of how ‘Healthy things grow”.   My article on Healthy Churches identified that church health was related more to the growth in maturity of the members and attendees than the numerical metrics like attendance and giving.

Just as every pastor should be concerned about church health, every true believer should be interested as well in how to be a ‘Healthy Church Member.'  As we focused on the local church in the last article, I thought I would address the topic as well from a local church perspective.

Partnership rather than Membership

A few years ago I had the privilege of being the pastor of a church that had decided to intentionally discontinue talking about  ‘membership’ in favor of encouraging those that were attending to become ‘partners’ in the church ministry.  I found that while there was some misgiving about the change, the idea of partnering in the particular ministry calling with the local pastor and paid staff was refreshing for many as well as challenging.

While ‘membership’ suggests a sense of benefits, ‘partnership’ connotes a supportive relationship that includes responsibilities and obligations.   Each neighborhood church is the unique expression of the local ministry of Jesus Christ and varies in its particular calling and ministry.  While there are unique differences,  every local church has a responsibility to make disciples just as each pastor has the responsibility to lead, teach, equip, protect and admonish the congregation.

No pastor can successfully lead the church without committed Christ-like disciples that come alongside him or her and take on the responsibilities, ministries and assignments that God has uniquely gifted each one.   In Chapter 12 of First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul describes first the gifts and then the offices of the church.  While these are all unique and distributed through the will of God to individuals, they are for the benefit of all as all function collectively as one Body of Christ. 

The Great Commandment and Great Commission

To be a ‘healthy’ part of the local church each individual needs to first understand their relationship with God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They then begin to grow through weekly preaching and the daily reading of the Word of God.  The bible describes this as our 'spiritual food' and necessary for spiritual development.  In time, each healthy church member understands that the Great Commandment (to love one another) and the Great Commission (to make disciples) was not given to the few, but to all believers.    Each healthy church member shares this responsibility knowing that God provides opportunities for us to minister individually as well as corporately.

Sharing in the responsibility by participating financially, being faithful in attendance, volunteering in ministry, leading where appropriate and supporting the local pastor in his or her unique calling is the best way for both the individual as well as the local church to grow. 

Healthy church members create and grow healthy churches!

Healthy Churches

Pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling “Purpose Driven Life”, is often quoted as saying, ‘Healthy things grow”.   As the pastor of one of the largest and most influential mega-churches at the time, many pastors used Pastor Warren’s quote to push for numerical growth.

I confess I’m a fan of numerical growth.  The Kingdom of God is for ‘whosoever’ and there are literally millions of people that pass by our local churches every week that could benefit from not just church attendance but the remarkable life change that accompanies any movement towards God and his Son, Jesus Christ.

However, Rick Warren has said that he is often misquoted in the ‘Healthy things grow” as he was referring as much to church heath, not church growth, as being a primary indicator and primary concern.  I agree whole heartedly with Pastor Warren. 

Church health should be the concern of every pastor in every church.   The World Health Organization (WHO) defines, health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.   In the church, our focus is on the person of Jesus Christ.  A healthy church embraces the truth of Jesus as the Christ, practices and then celebrates the teachings and disciplines (i.e. discipleship) of the faith including the essentials of the faith. 

In these essentials, a local church will find that they not only have unity with the rest of the Body of Christ, regardless of denominational or doctrinal traditions, but will also find revival. 

Growth is also process that leads ultimately to maturity.  In this process, the Apostle Paul encouraged us to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:1-2)

In this way, the Apostle Paul equates spiritual maturity with unity.   This is why we are to walk in ‘humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love’.  All too often many church leaders walk in arrogance and embrace their theology, morality or practices as being superior to others.  This is exactly how the church becomes divided and weak.

When we embrace the fact that our theology is at the best somewhat flawed and that the Holy Spirit is not bound by our doctrines and traditions we can begin to humble ourselves.  In humility we pray and believe that it is Jesus that is truly the head of the church and that any growth we see, either numerical or in spiritual health, is hopefully a result of the work of the Holy Spirit through His humble servants.

This work of the Holy Spirit can be found in the early church as recorded in Acts 2:42-47 where the believers “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  When these early believers embraced the essential faith and found themselves having all things in common, the Lord “added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Spiritual health is definitely a precursor for numerical growth