What Does “the Gospel” Mean?
This is a 2-part message. Please see the next message in this column for Part 2.
“Share the gospel”
“Believe in the gospel message”
“Advance the gospel”
What does the word “gospel” mean?
Is it subjective? Is it objective?
Does the Bible use this word?
What do Christians mean when they use this word?
I’m really big on not saying things just to say them or doing things just to do them. Not being superficial is really important to me.
That doesn’t mean that I never do things because it’s the right thing to do even when I don’t feel like it, or that I don’t ever say the appropriate thing to say even when something else is running through my head, but as a general rule of thumb, I want to be as genuine as possible in my words and actions. As an example, I will actually answer the question, “how are you doing?” (sorry for the explanation you probably weren’t expecting!) and I won’t say to you or comment on social media that “I’ll pray for you” unless I’m actually going to pray for you.
For the same reason, I am very sensitive to using “Christianese” – terminology Christians use to refer to Christian principles or experiences. Terms like quiet time, fellowship, body of Christ, blood of the lamb, servant, slave to sin, and so forth. When used between Christians, they are understood, but when used around people who don’t spend time in Christian circles, these words can be disconnected, hard to understand and can make others feel like outsiders. I often take pause and ask myself,
What does that word really mean? Do others feel left out when I use that term?
So, today, I want to dig into a term that no one uses in modern-day English (except Christians) but is very important to the Christian experience and belief - “the Gospel”.
I fear many people have lost touch with its true meaning – including me.
I want to understand the word and I want to understand what it is referring to.
When I look up “What does the word “gospel” mean?” this is what I get:
The word "gospel" comes from the Old English word godspel, which means "good news" or "glad tidings." It refers to the teachings of Jesus Christ, particularly the message of salvation and hope through faith in him.
This tells me what it means and prompts more questions:
- The good news (awesome – about what?)
- The teachings of Jesus Christ (what did he teach?)
- The message of salvation and hope (what is that message?) through faith in him (how?)
If you want to know the answers to those follow-up questions, read the next message in this column entitled “What is the Message of the Gospel?”.
Also, there’s another use of this word - the first four books of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are referred to as “Gospels”. So, people will say “the Gospel of Mark” and that means their referring to the book of Mark in the New Testament. These four books are narrative writings of the life of Jesus – his life, teaching, death and resurrection.
Is the word “gospel” actually used in the Bible or is it a word Christians made up somewhere along the way?
The answer is, “Yes, the word ‘gospel’ is used in the Bible”.
You can open up the book of Mark in the New Testament and read the first sentence to find this term being used. Later in Mark 1, verse 14, we see it again, where Mark documents that Jesus was “proclaiming the gospel of God” (same instance reported in Matt 4:23) and in verse 15, Jesus is quoted saying, “believe in the gospel”. I could go on and on. It keeps coming up. Jesus uses it, his followers use it, and it is used in the early church too. Here are some more examples: Matt 24:14, Mark 13:10, Romans 1:16, Romans 10:15.
Now, I'm curious about the English language versus the language of the original text.
News flash – the Bible wasn’t written in English!
Sometimes we make up words in English and sometimes they actually have a root meaning, so this is a nerdy thing that is important to me (probably because I got my first degree in language!). I’m no Bible scholar, so I’m using online searches to find this information, but I’ll share what I found:
The Greek word "euangelion" (εὐαγγέλιον) is the root, meaning "good news". It's a compound word, with "eu" meaning "good" and "angelion" meaning, “announcement”.
The Greek term was Latinized as "evangelium".
In Old English, "evangelium" was translated as "gōdspel" (gōd "good" + spel "news").
So, the simple conclusion is that this is a very real word that we can and should use, but we need to recognize that people don’t actually know what it means, and it is critically important for Christians to be able to articulate what we mean when we use this word.
This word is basically a shortcut to refer to a very amazing and meaningful message for mankind.
The word is more for us (Christians) than it is for non-Christians. If we say publicly, “believe in the gospel”, I’m not sure that would be very compelling for anyone because this word is not well known or understood today. When Jesus and others used it in the original language of the Bible, the words had meaning (Good News, Good Tidings, Good Announcement). Maybe we could say:
“Do you know God’s good news?”
“Can I share the good news of God with you?”
“Believe in God’s good news for all.”
Hearing that would actually interest me and make me ask, “what is the good news?”
So, what is the good news message? Scroll to the next article in this column to find out. I do my best to explain and articulate (in my own way) this public service announcement of good news for all. I don’t want the idea of the gospel to be abstract and obscure - at a minimum, we should understand what God has done for us and have the choice to respond.
