gospel
[ gos-puhl ]
Noun
The biblical narratives covering the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Written respectively by St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John. The word gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon term god-spell, meaning “good story,” a rendering of the Latin evangelium and the Greek euangelion, meaning “good news” or “good telling.”
There is some pretty important information contained in that first sentence describing the “gospels”. Beyond that essential information that everything else rests on for Christians, there are a lot of great stories with a lot of good news in them. And while the “old” testament often reads more like a prescriptive rule book or an accounting of the journey of disenfranchised people trying to find their way back to God, the “new” testament was a great collection of stories of what it looks like to live life in union with that God.
While many viewed Christ as a sort of spiritual superhero, he described it as almost the opposite. He was no superhero, but simply super connected to a very powerful God. In fact, he embodied the Creator completely. God as a man.
His plan seemed to be, from the very first day, to encourage others to find that super-connection to God as he did. He said things like:
All authority I have been given is passed to you.
You are a child of God, just as I am.
I’m giving you a spirit to connect to and guide you as I was guided.
Even greater things you will do than I did.
Rather than another rule book, the gospel accounts of four of his followers tell simple stories of what following God and living under that direction and intimacy could look like. And the point was not so much about replicating the stories found in those gospel accounts but replicating the sourcing of the power and authority that produced all that expression of good news…in order to write new gospel accounts.
I am spending most of my time focusing on the gospels these days. I am also reading all the way through the old and new testaments this year, but the gospel stories I am most compelled by are the gospels of Brandon, Gregg, Jason, Erik, Todd, Paul, Lindsay, Jay, Neal, Debbie, Trevor, Kyle, Jaimie, etc. I am immersed in dozens of gospel stories. And the good news they are offering in their gospels is astounding.
Never has the world been more confusing, chaotic, or uncertain. Never has the expression of good news seemed like better news. These men and women are deeply sourcing their power and authority as seen in the four biblical gospel accounts, but the gospels they are writing with their lives are equally astounding. In fact, we are building a recording studio in our new offices and I hope you will get to hear parts of many of their gospels in the near future.
An employee in one of the companies I own told me about his love of indie horror movies. While I am very interested in him and his life, I couldn’t be less interested in those kinds of stories. What I see going on in some parts of the world is horrifying enough!
And I know there are a lot of good news stories to be told, but either most people aren’t interested in hearing them or the storytellers of our day aren’t interested in telling them. Good news accounts of better lives lived seem to be in short supply. So I am searching to and fro, building a tribe of those interested in telling better stories with their lives. I am turning off all the other channels and ignoring all the other stories.
And hope is rising as their gospel accounts are written. And the best thing about these gospels is that the best ones haven’t even been written yet!
Consider
What kind of gospels are you spending your time “reading” in this season?
Are you in proximity to others telling great stories that offer good news?
Is that starting to manifest similarly in your own life?