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Honest questions

What is the gospel?

News, not advice. God made the world good, people turned away from him, and rather than abandon the project he entered it himself: Jesus lived, died for sins and was raised, and he is now king. The response asked for is to trust him and change direction. That is the announcement in its shortest form.

Why news and not advice

The word translated gospel meant an announcement, typically of a victory or the accession of a king. That is a different kind of statement from a piece of guidance. Advice tells you what to do; news tells you what has happened and then asks what you will do about it. This is why the New Testament writers report events rather than issue programmes, and why the earliest summaries are lists of things that occurred: he died, he was buried, he was raised, he appeared.

The shortest version Paul gives

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul sets out what he calls of first importance, and says he is passing on what he received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, and that he appeared. Four clauses. Notice that they are all events, that two of them are anchored to the Old Testament, and that the appearances are listed with names attached, which is the sort of detail people include when they expect to be checked.

The kingdom version in the Gospels

Mark summarises Jesus' own preaching differently: the time is fulfilled, God's kingdom is at hand, repent and believe. That framing is about God's reign arriving rather than about individual forgiveness alone, and it is easy to lose if you only ever hear the Pauline summary. The two are not rivals. The cross and resurrection are how the kingdom arrives, and the kingdom is what the cross and resurrection are for. A gospel missing either half tends to go thin in a predictable direction.

What it asks of you

Two things, repeatedly paired: trust and turning. Trust means relying on what Christ has done rather than on your own record, and turning means a genuine change of direction, not merely regret. Neither is a transaction you complete once and file away. What follows is ordinary and long: reading, praying, belonging to a church, and slowly becoming someone different. Trinity can help with the first two and is deliberately not a substitute for the third.

In the text

Where this comes from

Quoted from the World English Bible, which is public domain. Read the surrounding chapter in whatever translation you own.

The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.

Mark 1:15

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:16

For I am not ashamed of the Good News of Christ, because it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes.

Romans 1:16

Keep going

Related questions

  • What is grace?

    God's kindness given to people who have not earned it and cannot repay it. Not leniency, which overlooks the problem, and not a reward for improvement. Grace is God acting first, forgiving, adopting and staying, on the basis of what Christ has done rather than on the basis of how your week went.

  • Is Jesus God?

    Christians say yes: fully God and fully human, one person. Jesus is rarely called God outright in the Gospels, but he does things only God does, forgives sins, receives worship and claims authority over the Sabbath, and the earliest churches prayed to him. The direct statements are there too, in John, Colossians and Titus.

  • Can I be forgiven?

    Yes. The New Testament's offer has no category of sin too large for it, and the people it holds up as examples include a murderer, a traitor and a man who hunted Christians. Forgiveness is asked for and received rather than earned, and it does not depend on feeling forgiven afterwards, which often lags a long way behind.

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