There’s power in what you don’t say.
“Did you have a good time last night,” mom asked as I sat down for breakfast.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging my shoulders slightly.
“So, what did you do?”
“Oh, I hung out at Pete’s house for a while,” I said, hesitating slightly. “And we watched a movie.”
Mom turned back to the stove. “That sounds like fun. I’m glad you had a good time.”
She wouldn’t have been so happy if I’d told her the rest of the story.
Granted, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I did go to Pete’s house and we did watch a movie. But, I may have left out the part where we drove into Portland with some friends, which I wasn’t supposed to do, and spent the better part of the night hanging out at Waterfront Park. To understand my little summary accurately, my mom really needed the rest of the story.
Alberto Ortiz (Flickr)
My last post in this series argued that there’s something wrong with our Gospel, and that it stems at least partly from what we don’t tell people. We present our Gospel summaries, which in themselves probably contain things that are entirely true. But, we fail to provide the broader story within which the Gospel make sense. And, like my mom, we leave them with an incomplete picture that begs to be misunderstood.
But, what is the bigger story? I’d be making the same mistake I’m warning against if I simply assumed that we all know the bigger story within which we need to hear the Gospel. So, I’ll need to make some comments about the bigger story before we can move on. Obviously, I can’t unpack everything that happens from Genesis to Revelation, but I can identify several key points that I think need to be in place if we’re going to understand the story well.
1. This story centers on God manifesting his glory in his creation.
This sounds obvious, but as we continue this series, I think we’ll see that our Gospel summaries often run into problems at precisely this point. So, we need to be clear from the beginning: the Gospel is not about us. It is about God and his glory. It always has been. Just look at your Bibles: “in the beginning, God….” And, his plan has always been to display how amazingly awesome he is: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1).
2. This story revolves around God’s plans for his people.
Even when I hear people offer a bigger story for understanding the Gospel, I think they skip too quickly from creation to the rest of the story. Let’s not miss the fact that this is a story about God and his people. At the pinnacle of creation, God creates human persons to serve as his image bearers, those who would manifest his glorious presence in creation. His plan has always been to manifest his glory in his creation through his people. And, we’ll see that this doesn’t change as the story continues.
3. This story takes a terrible turn with the Fall.
This part of the story is familiar to most of us, so I won’t spend much time here. It’s worth pointing out, though, that God’s response to Adam and Eve in the Garden contains at least as much grace as wrath. Notice that after the Fall, God seeks out Adam and Eve, speaks to them, and provides for them. Although I’d expect a holy and just God to crush these insolent humans and start over again, he displays grace and demonstrates that he will not give up on his plans for his world and his people.
4. This story continues with Israel.
As you’re unpacking the story, I think it’s important to emphasize that the story that continues after the Fall is the same story that was in place before the Fall. This is still a story about God manifesting his grace in his creation through his people. So, he picks Abraham and promises him a great people in a land prepared by God through whom everyone will be blessed. Sound familiar? God’s people, in God’s land, manifesting God’s glory. It’s the same story.
And, throughout the Old Testament, God offers promises upon promise that someday he will restore his people and his land so that his plans would be accomplished. In many ways, the story of Israel is the story of God staying faithful to his plans and his people. And, it’s a story that we need to understand if we’re going to get the Gospel right.
5. This story reaches its climax with Jesus.
Only at this point do we get to the climactic arrival of the Messiah. And, it’s only with the whole story that we can understand why his arrival is such good news. It’s not just that he’s come to make sure my sins can be forgiven, though he has done at least that. But, he has come in fulfillment of all God’s promises to Israel as the means by which God will restore his people and against manifest his glory through them in creation. Jesus is the Gospel. But, we only appreciate the full significance of that sentence when we have the rest of the story.
7. This story won’t be done until God’s plans are accomplished.
God’s story continues with the church: his people, in his creation, manifesting his glory. But, it doesn’t end, if you can even call it an “end,” until we reach Revelation and we see the culmination of God’s plan: his people, in his creation, manifesting his glory, forever. It’s the same story, just in a different and more glorious key.
I could go on. It’s an amazing story. But, this should be enough to help us analyze the Gospel as we typically present it. And, when we do, I think that we’ll find that our Gospel has some real problems. Or, more accurately, the Gospel that we’re giving people may be true. But, lacking the broader story, I think that they (and we) may well be hearing our Gospel summaries and hearing them in unfortunate ways.
There’s power in what you don’t tell people.
So, in the next post, we’ll start looking at three key mistakes people make when they hear the Gospel without the story.
About Marc Cortez
This is the first of the posts that I have read so pardon me if I’ve missed something of significance in what you’ve already shared but are you suggesting that what Paul shared with the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15:1-6 was an insufficient summary of the Gospel? It sounds as if the “complete” Gospel you are suggesting is the result of lifelong learning rather than an initial presentation of the Gospel with an expectation of a decision.
When I put my trust in Jesus some 40+ years ago it was on the basis of what someone shared from Ephesians 2:1-10. There is nothing in that text, as far as I can see, about the “glory” of God but plenty about his mercy, grace, kindness and love. Nothing there, as far as I could see about Creation, Israel, or even obviously the Trinity for that matter. Did I not get enough information on that occasion to entrust myself to God and his work through the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved? Was it only when I later received and responded to the information that you suggest is a complete presentation of the Gospel that I was truly saved? Should the person who led me to Christ have given me more information at that time?
Thanks for the comment, because this isn’t what I’m trying to suggest. I commented on the earlier post that one of my big concerns about emphasizing the importance of the story is that people will see it as too daunting and not share the Gospel at all! That’s definitely what I’m after. We have to start somewhere with the Gospel, and what you’ve described is as good a place to begin as any (far better than many!).
My concern is that we often leave people with just these brief Gospel summaries. And, even when we go on to talk about the rest of the story, we often fail to help them see how that part of the story relates to the Gospel summary they heard earlier. So, we give them a story-less Gospel at the beginning (often necessary), but we then leave them with a story-less Gospel as they move forward (always sad). And, the latter is more the problem that I’m after here. Because I think some real problems arise in our understanding of the Gospel when we don’t see it in relationship to the rest of the story.
We share a lot of testimonies (summaries) but do we get to the power of the Gospel? In John 16:4, Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, and it’s His job to convict the world concerning sin, what Gods righteousness/holiness actually is and the judgment that God will deliver. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth. Rom. 1:18 After pondering that, hearing God’s plan of salvation, sounds pretty good. But to those that the Spirit has not been working in their life, sounds foolish. Wouldn’t the right plan be the one that God came up with. In God’s plan there is power. Power for true repentance. The power that starts with the Holy Spirit, forgiveness attained from the Father from Jesus did. Sounds like the whole plan rests on the Trinity. Otherwise, we just give a testimony about what God did for me, how my life has changed, its essentially just talking about the fruit of the spirit after salvation. We end up trying to convince someone to come to God, look what has happened in my life. It starts to sound like a philosophy for life instead of the adoption into His family. I am afraid that there will be a lot of people hearing “depart from me, I never knew you.” We should not be ashamed like Paul. Paul in Romans 1:16 that he was not ashamed of this gospel, it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The power of God is in His plan for the predicament that we have gotten ourselves in. It’s all Him! Thinking of sin, righteousness and judgment? The Spirit is working!
The “gospel” that gets shared today is often more focused on how God/Jesus can help a person clean up his life and remove certain problems which are often a result of poor choices. In this sense, I agree that our “gospel message” is at best incomplete if not erroneous. But, to suggest that the whole story from creation, through Israel’s history etc. is necessary for someone to hear an effective presentation of the gospel would stand against gospel presentations given even in the New Testament. You need look no farther than the conversion of Cornelius and his friends and family in Acts 10 to see that the gospel as laid out in the early verses of 1 Cor, 15 (the short version) is effective. Peter confirms that the Gentiles (who would not be informed of Israel’s journey) had received the Spirit! The rest of the story, which when even done hurriedly would take a very long time, comes with discipleship.
As I mentioned in my comment to Paul above, I’m not trying to say that we have to share the entire story every time we tell someone about the Gospel. There’s nothing inherently wrong with Gospel summaries – after all, that is precisely what Paul was using. The problem comes when we fail to ground our Gospel summaries in the story at some point (the sooner the better!).
But, your original post says that Gospel summaries are incomplete, “leave[s] them with an incomplete picture that begs to be misunderstood”, and that they are “hearing them in unfortunate ways.” Are you saying that Peter’s successful gospel presentation left his hearers “with an incomplete picture that begs to be misunderstood.”
Your posts seem to say one thing very strongly and your responses to comments another.
A gospel presentation and biblical literacy are two different things with different requirements.
A couple of things. First, we have to keep in mind that Peter’s audience was very different in that they had a much better understanding of the broader story than most people today. So Peter didn’t need to worry as much about whether they’d understand his Gospel summary in context.
But even with that Peter offers more of the story than we usually do, connecting his Gospel message to a whole range of OT promises. So I wouldn’t see Peter’s sermon as an example of a story-less Gospel presentation. And I’d actually disagree that we have any examples in the NT of such a story-less summary. Remember that Cornelius was well-versed in Scripture, and Paul was writing to an established church. So we should be careful about taking them as good examples of how to share the Gospel with people who aren’t as grounded in the story.
Looking back over my responses to comments, though, I can see where you and Ed (see below) are right that I may have sounded little inconsistent in my responses. What I want to say is that I fully understand that there are times when we need to share the Gospel in such a condensed format that presenting a broader story simply isn’t possible. (Bill’s post today discusses that very scenario.) And in situations like that, you share what you can. My concern is that we seem to have made these overly condensed, story-less Gospel summaries normative, instead of seeing of them as what we’d do in a worst-case scenario. Normally we have more than two minutes, so why wouldn’t we take the time to share more of the story?
Hi Marc. Great post. The gospel can be truncated which is a pity with the increasing biblical illiteracy around the place. Paul, there are those who have been saved by a single verse, I myself was saved after hearing 1John 4:19 and it was only later I read the rest of that chapter. The gospel is more than a what it takes to be saved but is also what it takes to live the new life. For that we need more information that enables us to grow in our new faith.
Marc I teach a course called the biblical story which looks at all the elements you have listed. This is a great summary and would love to use it in that class with your permission.
Don
Thanks. And, please feel free to use this in your class. I hope it helps!
My first read on this blog, and I was blessed. You are spot on. I appreciate the concerns of your critics, but it didn’t take you much time to the whole story in perspective. One could put quite a bit of meat on it and still be within a reasonably short presentation. Sure, God saves some with very sketchy information. But the ‘sketchier’ the more false professions occur. Interestingly, in all the the actual messages we have recorded in Acts (and they themselves are summaries) the preacher traces the history of God’s working among His people. So don’t feel you have to back-peddle in your responses. Biblical context is essential to the gospel. Good job.
So, what was number 6?
Thanks, Marc. I think these are good thoughts. I agree with what you and others have said, that the first presentation of the gospel will probably not include all of these elements, but I wholeheartedly agree that soon after it needs to be rooted in the whole story.
I really like how you have talked about the creation bringing glory to God. I would add that His rescue plan of His people was also to bring glory to Him. I feel that the other piece often left out, tied to your remark of the people of God, is the role of His church and His purpose through them. A new believer needs the paradigm for this.
Bill and I at one point were in the habit of talking through the overarching story from Creation to Restoration during some of the teaching sessions or college small groups. It lasted a couple months. But then I remember students asking me, “Taylor, tell the story again.” or “What’s the background behind this again? Do your overview thing.” They knew it. They had heard it many times, and many had grown up in the church. Yet, they loved to hear it all put together in a 5 minute summary.
It shouldn’t surprise me. We were meant to love that story.
Great thoughts. Thanks again.
I love to talk about the Church as a part of the story. I definitely think that’s a missing piece that leaves many Christians viewing the Church as nice but not necessary. So, we go to church because we get something out of it, not because we see it as an essential part of this amazing plan God has been working out from the very beginning.
And its sounds like what you’ve done with your teaching ministry is outstanding! That’s exactly the kind of thing I think we need more of.
And apparently I felt that since 7 was a godlier number than 6, I should just jump straight there.
Marc, I appreciate how you build out the story that gives the arrival of Jesus its full significance. I was reading a book this past week that touches on the same idea. While I am extremely grateful for the personal salvation I have experienced in Jesus, my salvation (while it glorifies God) does not seem to embody the grandeur of the work that God has done, is doing, and will do. I’m learning more and more lately that without the larger story, I am really pointing to a singular God-glorifying moment that almost undermines the greater God-glorying plan that He has set into place. I’m still working a lot of it out and trying especially to figure out how to share this complete Gospel with people. But thanks for the post.
I really love that we are talking about this topic of getting the word out that the bigger story is so valuable and is such a worthy pursuit! I’m also so excited we are trying to use less christian-ese so more people can better understand us. I do struggle with the churchy sounding phrases with ‘reveal’ and ‘glory’. I bet there are some better ways to say it, but I have not yet taken the trouble to work through it.
And I usually shy away from phrases like, “It’s all about God,” because it is so short. I might prefer,”It’s all about what God is up to.” The part of the story where He initiates relationship with us and asks us to be His ambassadors to others is really the shortest part of the Big story…if you know what I mean.