gospel preaching

Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place. I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.  (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

I remember them being referred to as “Gospel Preachers” when I was young. They were fire and brimstone preachers, hard and heavy on what it was that they believed God demanded of you. They were death on dancing, drinking, cigarettes, movies, rock and roll music, a guy having the top two or three buttons on his shirt unbuttoned, short skirts, long hair on men.

They preached what they called the Gospel. The only problem was, it was not the gospel. In fact, it was nowhere near the gospel.

In this passage, the apostle Paul says that the Gospel is the Good News. The Gospel is Good News from God.

What the old time gospel preachers preached was not the gospel. It was what they felt we had to do to be Christians. There is a world of difference between the Good News of Jesus and what we have to do, or at least what some man thinks we have to do to be a Christian.

When it comes down to it, there is no way that one can construe opposition to things as Good News. In fact, the old Gospel Preaching was as far from Good News as you can get and still be in the same universe.

Like John Lennon said, imagine it. I have good news. Great, you say, what is it? The Good News is that you cannot do anything you think looks like fun. Your life will be wrapped up in self-denial and association with a whole bunch of other people that are also denying themselves.

In other words, the Good News is that you cannot do anything you want to. Isn’t that great? Praise God, brother.

No. that is not Good News. That is legalism. Paul preached against legalism from his conversion. He made it plain again and again that one cannot tell other people what they have to do to be Christians. Only God can do that, and the remarkable thing is, he didn’t.

The Gospel is not the prohibition of life. If it were, it would be stupid and cruel to call it good news. Good News, children, we will have no more fun food for supper. From now on, you can’t eat potatoes, or fried chicken or have any cake. From now on, we will eat okra and liver and tofu. Isn’t that good news?

In that situation, the Good News would be that we will have a good meal each night. It isn’t about how we will eat or what we will eat. It is about the fact that we will be happy and satisfied with good stuff each evening.

The Good News is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and raised on the third day. The Good News is that God loved us and sent his Son to die for us. The Good New is that we do not have to live in our sins, that God loves us. That is the Good News.

Good News is not some person’s idea of what we can or cannot do as Christians. That is interpretation and legalism. And to bind such an idea on another is sinful according to Paul.

When he preached, he preached the Good News. Of course, people have heard the other for so long that they get to the point that they expect it. It isn’t gospel preaching unless someone steps on my toes, they say. That is like saying, my husband doesn’t love me unless he beats me. Both are bizarre reactions.

God did not send Jesus to give us a new list of rules and regulations, in many ways harsher than the Old Testament. That is especially if you consider the fact that Jesus said to think of something is as bad as doing it. In the new order, if these are rules and regulations, Jesus introduced thoughtcrime. Not only can we not do it, we can’t even think it.

That, of course, is not what Jesus meant and it sure isn’t the gospel.

The Gospel, the Good News is that God loves us. And Gospel preaching preaches that Good News.

Jesus saves! Now that is Good News.