Quotes about Gospel

We believe the truth, however, is that he was an 18th century Anglican. He was an orthodox, Trinity-affirming believer in Jesus Christ, who also affirmed the historic Christian Gospel of a Savior who died for sinners and was raised to life. But then again, we also believe it would not be accurate to call him an "evangelical" (by modern standards of the word).

And for Christians, the gospel has always been the lens through which Israel's stories are read—which means, for Christians, Jesus, not the Bible, has the final word. The story of God's people has moved on, and so must we.

The need to explain Jesus as both surprise ending and deeply connected to Israel's story drove the Gospel writers to do some creative reading. Sticking to what the Bible says wasn't their goal. Talking about Jesus was.

All this is to say that a faith in a living God that is preoccupied with certainty is sin, for it compromises the gospel—personally, locally, and globally. But it need not remain so. As Jesus said to the adulterous woman, "Go your way, and from now on do not sin again" (John 8:11).

We do not honor the Lord nor do we uphold the gospel by playing make-believe. Neither are those who engage the kinds of issues discussed in this book necessarily on the slippery slope to unbelief. Our God is much bigger than we sometimes give him credit for. It is we who sometimes wish to keep him small by controlling what can or cannot come into the conversation.

The real Jesus can only be truly understood from a later vantage point—interpreted after the resurrection when the broader implications of who Jesus was and what he did could be better grasped. That is the Jesus the Gospel writers give us, each in his own way.

If we think of the gospel as simply rolling right off the Old Testament tongue, we will be wrong. And we will fail to appreciate how creative the New Testament writers were in working out the day-to-day real-time implications of all of this.

Then we have the Gospel of John, the odd man out. John's story of Jesus is so out of step with the others that it is sometimes hard to see how he could be talking about the same person.

Because, more than the other three Gospel writers, John is big on Jesus's divine authority over the religious leaders. That's part of his agenda, and so he shapes the past to make the point.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at His teaching,

But they went out and spread the news about Him throughout the land.