Late-Fall

 It's fuzzy sock season.

TWS

Per Usual

I woke up in the middle of the night and could not sleep, so I decided to type this.

What is the gospel? 

What is the good news?

Keep reading.

Growing up in the church, I had always heard about the gospel and how it needs to be shared to bring people into salvation, but I never knew just how to articulate it. I could talk about Jesus and what he came and did and what it meant to me, but it all seemed so platitudinous. Maybe evangelism just wasn't for me.

Turns out, the gospel is this:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

It is really that simple. 

The gospel is not:

Jesus loves you!

~or~

You need to be saved to avoid hell and Jesus saves.

-or-

John 3:16

~or~

We have all fallen short of the glory of God, but Jesus came for us, died on a cross, and was resurrected so we could have everlasting life in him. Believe on Jesus' name, ask him into your heart, and you will be saved.

-or-

~The myriad of prosperity promises about material blessings and other false gospels.~

Shocking, I know.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

In my former church, I went to a class on sharing the gospel because I felt like as a "believer" I "should" be "witnessing" to "bear fruit" or whatever. 

And I'm terrible at small talk, so I was curious in how to turn meaningless, futile banter into meaningful, fruitful conversation.

We talked about several bridges to turn normal everyday things (death, news, etc) to point to the hope that we have. We went through the illustration with the gap between God and man and how the cross of Jesus enables us to be reconciled to God. 

At the Q&A section at the end, I asked at what point do we share with them the cost of being a disciple?

The answer given was somewhere along the lines of, we don't tell them that in the beginning conversations; that would come later.

REALLY?????????

The first word of the *true* gospel is repent.

That is an action word, and it means to turn from all your wicked, worldly ways.

Sounds like it could be pretty life-changing and, er, costly.

Further, if someone wasn't willing to repent, would they even be a true believer?

In Matthew 28, Yeshua did not say, "Go therefore and make believers/converts of all nations."

He said, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations."

And guess what else he said? 

Keep reading!

"Baptizing them...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

So...there's an obedience clause to being a disciple?

Matthew 10:38: And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 

Luke 14:33: So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

True believers are repentant and true disciples are obedient.

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, and I mean, soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many churches stop at Jesus.

They just stop.

Belief is good enough.

The aim is membership and not discipleship.

Repentance is completely left out of the pulpit today, IMHO, because it has to deal with the law, and God knows no one preaches the law anymore. 

But how do you know what sins to repent from if you have not the law? 

(#Paul #Romans 7:7)

Perhaps people would repent if they only knew which worldly ways were wicked!

Seriously, all fun alliteration aside, the law and the prophets is what should be preached in order that people be moved to repentance and obedience. It's what the apostles did, and we should have never diluted or departed from that gospel.

And for all of you horses out there, ye NEIGH-SAYERS, who claim that Paul said that the law wasn't required of the Gentiles because of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, let's have a looksy.

First off, I'm not proclaiming a works-based salvation here, just works-based obedience.

Okay, we're clear? 

All right, we're gonna move ahead. 

Sorry to slow you down.

Secondly, because it's not a works-based salvation, Paul rightly declared that circumcision was not required to be saved. He goes through this whole thing about not placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples, and that they'll be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus (v 11) which people take to mean that the Old Testament law doesn't apply to Gentiles.

But keep reading!

Verse 19:  Therefore my judgement is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 

How did he come up with all these random commands? 

Mosaic law, probably?

And these aren't your Sunday school 10 commandments, either. 

The command to abstain from blood is in Leviticus 17, just a few chapters after the clean and unclean meats are discussed. 

This is Biblical kosher, baby.

Verse 20: For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.

This verse is so interesting to me because it answers the question: how would the Gentiles know what to do to follow the Lord? 

They read the law of Moses in the synagogues! Every week they were hearing these things! 

And not only hearing, but they were probably surrounded and encouraged by other like-minded disciples who were actually living out the law desiring to present their lives pleasing to God. 

What a concept.

So I paraphrase Paul at the council like, "We don't have to lay it all on them at once. Let's take care of the huge idol and pagan stuff that they may need to repent from, and they'll learn the rest in the assemblies." 

Dude, what if Paul found out that we weren't reading Moses? On the Sabbath? In synagogues? 

He'd probably, like, write us a strongly-worded letter.

But then the church would probably twist his words and distort the meaning to rationalize lawlessness like has been done with several of his other writings.

"But synagogues are just for Jews," exclaimed a whinypants somewhere, fluent in dispensational theology.

Acts 15 specifically dealt with Gentiles.

Repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent repent

One disadvantage of not preaching the law and the prophets is that people don't know what to repent from or how to worship YHWH rightly. So you have a bunch of "believers" wondering what they can do for the kingdom of God and so they do a lot of volunteer work or serve on committees or in the nursery or play music for the "the church", thinking that is fruit. That was me for a long time.

Matthew 3:8: Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

Again, it's that simple. Your fruit is turning from worldliness and turning unto godliness by keeping the commandments! It is a circumcised heart, of course, that even allows this to occur which is also all over the law of Moses. 

Another disadvantage of not preaching the law and the prophets is that people don't know the MAGNITUDE of the great promises of being the people of Yah! 

Before Yeshua came, the Hebrews had the law and the promises, e.g. old covenant. But now, that gospel of repentance can go forth into all nations, and he is extending the law and the promises to anyone and everyone, e.g. new covenant!

Gah- I could go on about that for a while but I need to go ahead and wrap this up because the I can see the sun now and realize I've been typing for hours.

But keep reading.

The difference between a "believer" and a "disciple" is action.

Not just hearers of the word, but doers.

Repentance is the only way to a gospel-changed life. 

Am I minimizing Yeshua's great sacrifice?

No, he absolutely took the punishment that we deserved.

But belief in his resurrection isn't the gospel.

Belief in church doctrine isn't the gospel.

The belief that heaven is a glorious place and you'd rather be there than what you've been told of hell so you just kind of go along with church-ianity is not the gospel.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Unless, of course, you believe that repentance was only meant for the Jews.

Keep reading,

TWS

Recommended reading:

The whole Bible and start at the beginning this time