Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is “treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mt. 13:44). This is an older sense of discovery, “of finding something that was there,” writes Iain McGilchrist. In ancient times, it was believed truth is covered and we dis-cover it. It’s similar to setting out to see one thing and stumbling upon something entirely different. It’s the combination of surprise, discovery, and joy – exactly what Augustine meant when he said the soul delights in particular in what it learns indirectly.
McGilchrist believes the Enlightenment distorted this ancient view. It instead fostered a “grandiose sense” of discovery, with truth as “something we make, rather than something we uncover.” Enlightenment experts constructed theories, principles, and concepts that were presented to inquirers as truth. The ancient sense of discovery was dulled. To assess the damage done to education, catch Sir Ken Robinson’s critique of the Enlightenment and how it crimps students’ enthusiasm for learning.
The Enlightenment infected the Western church as well. Enlightenment evangelists set out to present truth rather than assist others in discovering it. This fostered new methods of evangelism. One is the direct method – sermons, speeches, and canned presentations like The Four Spiritual Laws. Another is the erudite approach, lamented by Roger Parrott, president of Belhaven College. It relegates evangelism to the domain of gifted apologists who present “biblical worldview.” The therapeutic method presents a “safe” God. The consumerist approach presents a God dying to “meet your needs” – but allows individuals to determine those needs, turning them into consumers.
The problem with these methods is not that they don’t work. They do. But they ignore the Enlightenment paradox. Presenting truth in modern ways “simultaneously makes evangelism infinitely easier, and discipleship infinitely harder,” writes Os Guinness. In not having to dig a little and discover truth, conversion becomes infinitely easier. But discipleship becomes infinitely harder, since Christian formation is arduous, requiring discipline. The effect of the Enlightenment approach “is not that Christians have disappeared,” writes Guinness, “but that Christian faith has become so deformed.” The solution is restoring the ancient sense of discovery.
1. EAT WITH OTHER PEOPLE
We all eat three meals a day. That’s 21 opportunities for church and mission each week without adding anything new to your schedule. And meals are a powerful expression of welcome and community.
2. WORK IN PUBLIC PLACES
Hold meetings, prepare talks, and read in public spaces like cafés, pubs, and parks. It will naturally help you engage with the culture. For example, whose questions do you want to address in your Bible studies, those of professional exegetes or those of the culture?
3. BE A REGULAR
Adopt a local café, pub, park, and shop so you regularly visit and become known as a local. Imagine if everyone in your gospel community did this!
4. LEAVE THE HOUSE IN THE EVENINGS
It’s so easy after a long day on a dark evening to slump in front of the television or surf the Internet. Get out! Visit a friend. Take a cake to a neighbor. Attend a local group. Go to the cinema. Hang out in a café. Go for a walk with a friend. It doesn’t matter where as long as you go with gospel intentionality.
5. SERVE YOUR NEIGHBORS
Weed a neighbor’s garden. Help someone move. Put up a shelf. Volunteer with a local group. It could be one evening a week or one day a month. Try to do it with other members of your gospel community so it becomes a common project. Then people will see your love for one another and it will be easier to talk about Jesus.
6. SHARE YOUR PASSION
What do you enjoy? Find a local group that shares your passion. Be missional and have fun at the same time!
The gospel is the good news that, though we deserve judgment and hell, God has provided a way for us sinners to be restored to Himself, now and forever, through His Son Jesus if we turn in our hearts from sin to Jesus and receive by faith what He did to deal with our sin- His sinless life, sacrificial death on the cross and His resurrection.
The Gospel is the good news that God, in His great love, has provided a way for us and all the rest of His creation to be reconciled and restored to Himself. Without this provision, all we have to look forward to is judgment day, when God will judge all that we did. We will be found guilty of sin and, most importantly, of rejecting His provision for our sin. As a result we will be sent to hell where we will experience the full wrath of God for our sin. God’s provision for our sin is through His Son, Jesus Christ, who became a human being and lived a perfect sinless life, then sacrificially died on a cross for our sins, after which He was resurrected to new life and is now at the right hand of the Father waiting to return to set up his eternal kingdom. All those who have accepted God’s provision in Jesus will be adopted by God as His children and will be with Jesus forever and ever.
Longer Definition
The Gospel for us begins with the fact that we are separated from God due to our sin of disobeying Him and not giving Him His rightful place in our lives and hearts. Instead we have chosen to be our own gods and to do what we want regardless of what God says.
We were created for God’s good pleasure, to have a loving relationship with Him. But for love to exist there needs to be the ability to choose to love or not, so God gave us the ability to choose. Sadly, we chose to reject God and to disobey Him, just like Satan did in eternity past. His pride was his downfall as he was the most glorious of all that God created. Instead of appreciating what God had done for him he decided in his heart that he should be worshipped like the Most High. Tragically, we have fallen in his footsteps of wanting to be our own gods.
Imagine this from God’s perspective! Before anything existed God was. He is spirit, invisible and eternal, without beginning and without end. Even though He exists outside of time He is present everywhere through all time and space. He is infinite in knowledge and wisdom and His ways are beyond our ability to understand. He is all-powerful and able to do anything and everything that He wills to do that is in harmony with His nature. He is beautiful, true, good and perfect in every way never changing.
By His will all things that exist were created. He is sovereign over His entire creation and does as He pleases at all times. He alone is the source and giver of life, full of goodness to all that He has created. As He alone is life and the source of life, He is also love and the source of love. God is one in nature but exist in three divine persons- Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For love to exist there needs to be relationship and in the Trinity there has always been perfect harmony and love.
God is holy, righteous and just; He lives in unapproachable light, the light of His majesty and splendor. He is jealous for His glory for He alone is glorious. Sin cannot exist in His presence. He hates sin and because of His nature He brings judgment against it and destroys it by His righteous angry wrath.
While God is holy, righteous and just He is also infinite in love, mercy, grace, kindness, compassion, faithfulness, and patience. In humility He seeks to see His creation become all that He intended it to be.
What we deserve for our rejection and rebellion against God is judgment and hell. Everyone of us is guilty with no exception. We can’t blame others; we are responsible for the choices we have made in our lives. This is indeed bad news.
The bad news even gets worse! There is nothing we can do ourselves to restore our relationship with God. We can’t be good enough or do enough good things or be religious enough to earn our way to Him.
Because of that, what awaits us after the Lord Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom, is a day where we will have to stand before Him and give an account of our lives. We will be judged for our disobedience to God and for our rejection of Jesus which is God’s only provision for our sin. He will show us all the times He tried to reach out to us with His great love and how we rejected it and instead hardened our hearts towards Him. Then He will tell us to leave Him and go to Hell where we will be separated from Him forever and where we will receive the full wrath of His judgment for our sin. There we will also spend all of eternity living with the knowledge that we rejected Jesus, the Father’s great expression of love for us.
But there is good news, the greatest, most awesome news ever! God loves us and does not want any of us to go to Hell. That is why He has provided a way for us to be restored in our relationship with Him through His Son.
He sent His Son, Jesus, to live a perfect life and to die on a cross. While on the cross God placed the sin of the entire world upon Him and then poured out His wrath on His own Son for every sin. By this Jesus paid the price for every sin. On the cross He died then was buried and three days later He rose from the dead proving He was without any sin of His own and that God’s wrath was fully satisfied for sin.
Those that recognize their sin against God and confess it to Him and then turn in their hearts from their disobedient rebellious ways and turn to Jesus, receiving by faith what He did on the cross for their sin and making Him their Lord, will be forgiven of their sin and God will send His Holy Spirit to live within them making them spiritually alive and His children to be with Him forever.
Some day soon Jesus is going to return and set up His kingdom here on the earth where He will rule in righteousness and truth. When He comes, all those who have turned from their sin and placed their faith in Jesus, will be with Him and will rule with Him in His glorious kingdom. At the time of His coming all those that are His will be transformed in the blink of an eye to be like Him, without sin and immortal. We will have physical bodies, yet they will also be spiritual bodies.
Eventually all of the creation will burn in a blazing fire then God will create a new heaven and earth. At that time the new Jerusalem will come down from heaven from God. God will live with men, He will be their God and they will be His people. He will wipe every tear and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. He will restore all things and make them new.
On February 4, 2009 I wrote a new post titled The Gospel - A New Definition.Everything will be as God had originally intended from the very beginning. To the praise of His glory and grace!
You will find links to the resources of the 10 week gospel series I did in January-March 2009 here: Gospel Series ResourcesHere is a post I wrote that is my second most viewed one-
Here is the newest teaching series I am doing on the gospel. At our church in Bucharest I teach the last Sunday of the month on the gospel. Then when I get time I video an English only version.
Sorry I haven't had time to do the English only versions so here is the link to the English with Romanian translation.
