What is the Gospel?

What is the gospel? Unfortunately, this fundamental question often goes unasked in the Body of Christ today because of presumed familiarity. Those who have grown up in churches in the Western world are especially prone to overlook this question. With so many sermons, worship CDs, and Bibles floating around, surely we know what the gospel is—don’t we? With so many Bible schools, seminaries, and theology textbooks at our disposal, surely we are poised to trumpet the gospel with clarity and boldness—aren’t we? The reality is that when pressed to give an answer, many (if not most) in the church find themselves scrambling to fit the many fragments of truth and catchphrases they have accumulated over the years into a coherent presentation. Moreover, much of what is termed “the gospel” today would be hardly recognizable to the prophets and apostles of the Bible.

What are some of the distorted understandings of “the gospel” prevalent in the Western church today, and what are the cultural and historical factors that have contributed to those distortions? What are the core components of the gospel? How does the Bible define and portray the Kingdom of God? How does the Biblical portrait and definition of the Kingdom compare and contrast with various theologies of the Kingdom that have been taught at different times in church history? These are the questions we will be exploring in this seminar, which will include times of worship, prayer, and breaking bread together.