A Pharisee and the Gospel

Last week we looked at the way the Gospel/Good News (euangelion) was used in the writings of Matthew and Mark. In these books my thesis that euangelion is a proclamation of the Lordship of Christ held up pretty well. The majority of the time euangelion is coupled with the kingdom of God/Heaven which makes a perfect connection.

But the fact is that compared to Paul, the biographers of Jesus barely used the word gospel. Here's the full break-down of euangelion:

Matthew x4

Mark x7

Acts x2

Paul x59

So while there is definitely a huge level of significance as to how Jesus used the word (or it was used in direct reference to His ministry) if we want to really wrestle with this we have to wrestle with Paul.

Now, in my opinion, Paul was too educated for our own good :)

I don't remember where I heard it (so don't go spouting it off like I'm about to) but I remember hearing somewhere that today's equivalent of Paul's Pharisaical education is that of at least 2 doctorates.

Paul's writing is dense, intricate, "wordy", full of run-on-sentences (which are allowed in Greek), metaphors, mixed-metaphors, analogies, vague illusions... the list can go on. There is no doubt that Paul was an intellectual and wrote as an intellectual. Paul's writings make the Gospel of Mark and Peter's letters (for example) look like "Run Spot, run!"

As a side note, it is unfortunate for us as English readers when our translations "smarten up" rough Greek like Mark's and Peter's and at the same time "dumb down" Paul's Greek. We lose the personality of the writers when the language in our translations are homogenized.

Anyway, all of that is to say that Paul's usage of euangelion is rather diverse. He doesn't use it in a conveniently uniform way like we saw in Matthew and Mark. Instead we see him using phrases like, "the gospel of your salvation" (Eph. 1:13) or "the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:15). These don't fit nicely with my thesis and therefore must be ignored... just joking.

Instances such as these fit better with a literal translation of euangelion ("good news") rather than an idiomatic (Lordship proclamation) translation. This brings me back to my original question from a few weeks ago: is it better to educate people on the semantic range of our word Gospel or is it better to translate it differently depending on its context?

Aside from that, I think I could probably make a case that "the gospel of peace" can still fit within my thesis (see Mounce's def'n in my original post). At the very least we can agree that euangelion is not confined to an announcement of personal salvation, nor is it quite so simple as a literal good news. The New Testament usage of it is way too broad to be simplified into either of those.

Michael F. Bird addresses complex words like gospel in his introduction to Pauline theology:

"In the ancient world, the title 'Lord' (Kyrios) was also used of the Roman emperor. In the Roman era, terms like grace, gospel, parousia, justice, freedom, Lord, saviour, and Son of God were employed in Roman political propaganda and utilized in the prayers and rites of the imperial cult, which focused on worship of the Roman emperor. By analogy, then, the 'good news' that 'Jesus is Lord' carried with it the implication that Caesar was not Lord... We see that Paul's gospel had theopolitical consequences in that it claimed for Jesus an immense authority and power which threatened that of Rome" (Introducing Paul, 84).

In fact, Bird uses the comparison that proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in the Roman world would have been pretty much the same as proclaiming 'Jesus ist Fuhrer!' in Nazi Germany!! An interesting analogy.

And I still think that a significant portion of the time that Paul talks about euangelion it fits closely with this idea of Lordship:

"gospel of Christ" x8 (Rom. 15:19; 1Cor. 9:12; 2Cor. 2:12, 9:13, 10:14; Gal. 1:7; Phil. 1:27; 1Thess. 3:2)

"gospel of God" x5 (Rom. 1:1, 15:16; 1Thess. 2:2, 2:8, 2:9)

"gospel of his son" (Rom. 1:9)

"gospel of our Lord Jesus" (2Thess. 1:8)

"glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1Tim.1:11)

"gospel of the glory of Christ" (2Cor. 4:4)

There is absolutely no doubt that the theme of Lordship is evident all throughout Paul's writings. After all, by my quick count, Paul uses the phrase "Lord Jesus" or "Lord Jesus Christ" a minimum of 72 times as well as referring to the Kingdom of God (of whom, of course, Jesus is Lord) a minimum of 14times.

However, a lot of the time the way Paul uses euangelion is ambiguous enough that you can't strongly argue for or against a specific definition. An example of that is Romans 15:20 - "and thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel..." This usage is so generic that it doesn't exactly lend any weight to either side.

The phrase that got me scratching my head was "my gospel" x3 (Rom. 2:16, 16:25; 2Tim. 2:8).

This doesn't really fit with my "Lordship" definition. Here Paul seems to simply mean "the message that I preached to you."

So it appears that Paul's usage of euangelion does include, but is not limited to a Lordship proclamation. Depending on the context Paul flexes the word to make it fit his purpose; typical Paul!

Anyway, what do you think?

What other texts might tie into this?

What do you think about the translation issue?

The Gospel in the Gospels

So, the theme that I'm running with for the next few weeks is that there may be a need for us to rethink what the Gospel/Good News (euangelion) really means. Our tendency as Western Christians has been to personalize/individualize our faith and so the Gospel has been taken by many to mean: the good news of my personal salvation... Christ died for me.

I'm certainly not going to argue the basic truth of such statements, but that is not what the Gospel is. Based on what we talked about last week, the thesis that I'm testing (and please understand that this is a trial-run of this idea. I'm arguing for this idea to see if it holds under scrutiny... so please provide some) here is that the Gospel is a proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus.

And, just so you know, this isn't just me making stuff up. Aside from some very major New Testament scholars pursuing this theme, the fact that Bible translation guru, Bill Mounce (ESV, NIV2011), would include "...rise to power, or decree of the emperor that was to herald the fulfillment of hopes for peace and wellbeing in all the world..." in his definition of Gospel really says something.

So this week we're going to tackle the usage of Gospel in... the Gospels:

Surprisingly, euangelion doesn't show up all that often in the Gospels!

Matthew x4

Mark x7

Luke x0

John x0

**Gospel may show up in Luke & John in our English translations but (and I checked) euangelion isn't there in the Greek.**

In Matthew the euangelion is intimately linked with the Kingdom (Mt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). This makes perfect sense with this "proclaiming Lordship" definition of Gospel. If Jesus is preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God then to think of the gospel as a proclamation that there is a New King and a New era coming into being fits perfectly.

In fact, that is one of the major themes of Matthew: that Jesus, the descendant of King David is the one true heir to the throne of Israel and is bringing about a new Kingdom, one where the purposes of Israel are being fulfilled through Him.

Basically, there's no way that we can really think of gospel as being about personal salvation (at least not in the 4 Gospels) because Jesus is preaching the gospel prior to His death and resurrection!

Observe Mark 1:14-15 (ESV)

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

Again we see this link between the Kingdom and the Gospel. Again, the gospel cannot mean Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice for us because it hasn't happened yet. So, in order for those people to "believe in the gospel" it has to mean something else. Again, in my mind, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would mean:

"The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe [that God's Messiah is the one true ruler of all creation]"... or something along those lines.

This also makes perfect sense with Jesus' constant healings and exorcisms. If the only reason why Jesus came was to die for my sins why did He bother doing all that extra stuff? He did it to demonstrate that He was the true Lord of Creation coming to claim His rightful throne. Jesus had God-given power and authority over all creation: physical (healings, calming seas, multiplying food, etc) and spiritual (exorcisms, forgiving of sins, etc).

So, what do you think?

Is this starting to make sense?

What problems with this idea do you see?

What strengths?

Good News for the Gospel

Our word "Gospel" comes from the Old English: gōd spell which means "good tidings." This was a direct translation (in it's day) for the Greek εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion): good message... the good news!

Naturally, the vast majority of English Bibles translate euangelion as either good news or gospel. But what does euangelion really mean? Does it really do the concept of euangelion justice to simply translate it literally as good news?

The reason why I bring this up is because recent scholarship (the last few decades) has been revealing that there is a depth of meaning behind euangelion that can't be captured by a literal translation. As more and more manuscripts are discovered that are also written in Koine Greek we can get more context for how certain words are used. It has become clear that the word euangelion is used most frequently in a very specific context: announcements to the citizens of the empire concerning royalty, specifically birth and coronation proclamations.

"The word euangelion was not invented by the Gospel writers... It referred to an announcement of 'glad tidings' regarding a birthday, rise to power, or decree of the emperor that was to herald the fulfillment of hopes for peace and wellbeing in all the world" (Mounce's CEDONTW).

"The idea of good news... had two principle meanings for first-century Jews. First, with its roots in Isaiah, it meant the news of YHWH's long-awaited victory over evil and rescue of His people. Second, it was used in the Roman world for the accession, or birthday, of the Emperor" (NT Wright's glossary in his "for Everyone" series).

So euangelion is not just, "Hey, honey, I've got some good news. I got a raise at work..."

No! Euangelion is all about, "GOOD NEWS!! An heir; a SON has been born to the emperor!" or "GOOD NEWS!! The reign of the new King has just begun! It's the beginning of a new era!"

On top of this, it is of note that in the Gospel of Mark the word euangelion is used 7 times (for those of you unfamiliar with the significance of numbers in the Bible please read: this). Couple this with the fact that the passion narrative in Mark's gospel is "arranged according to the coronation ceremonies of the Roman Emperor" (Velvet Elvis, 64) and I think we are running into a pretty significant theme.

The reason why I bring this up is because I think a lot of Christians are under the impression that the gospel is about personal salvation... but maybe it's not!

Over the next few weeks I'll be developing this line of thought (and it's implications) a bit more.

In the meantime:

What do you think?

How is this similar or different from what you think the Gospel is?

What implications do you see when you encounter this alternative definition of euangelion?