The meaning of “Jesus” and “Immanuel”
I enjoy learning about word roots and meanings. I find names usually have significant symbolic meaning behind them. As you open up to the first book of the New Testament,…
What is the gospel?
“The gospel” is another word for the Christian message or the central teaching about God’s work in and through Jesus. In Koine Greek, euangelion (ευαγγελιον) means “good news.” In early Christian communities of the first century, those the apostles started, the gospel was the central message of their faith. Paul summarizes in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 what he understood to be the gospel: Christ died for our sins as the Scriptures said, he was buried and then raised from the dead on the third day, and he was seen by many eyewitnesses including Peter and the other apostles, over 500 of his followers, and also by Paul (in a vision).
In time, Christians came to use the word “gospel” to refer to one of the written works centered on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, probably starting with Mark (see Mark 1:1) and eventually including Matthew, Luke and John. There were other books after these four bearing the name “gospel”, but these have not gained wide acceptance in the ancient, medieval or modern church.
Is a gospel by any other name still the gospel?
There is a third sense in which people use “gospel” today in everyday speech and even outside of faith circles. If something is “gospel”, it’s a true word that you can count on, like when someone raps and says, “That’s gospel!” They mean it’s not a lie, it’s the truth. There are obviously other uses of the word too, such as describing a type of religious music.
Maybe you’ve come across other uses of “gospel” than what I’ve mentioned. What is the point? Is the gospel (message) and gospel (book) really different?
(more…)Pray and don’t give up!
Why do we give up on a prayer? Is it discouragement? We ask for something and don’t see results. Or we don’t like what happens and assume God isn’t listening or at least not giving a favorable answer. In Luke 18 Jesus tells his disciples a short parable about prayer that challenges us to persist.
There is a judge who doesn’t fear God or care about the opinions of others. In other words, he’s not very open to persuasion.
A widow in the city keeps coming to the judge asking him to hear her case. In Jesus’ world, women didn’t have the rights and protections that they have today. Without a patron–a husband or a powerful relative–she wasn’t likely to have her case even heard. Judges decided their own docket, whose case they would consider and who they would turn away. The judge gave the woman a cold shoulder.
But she keeps coming. And coming. Showing up and asking to be heard.
The Fig Tree
Read Matthew 21:18-22. It will be worth the few minutes it takes to look it up and read it.
Have you ever found yourself on the road early in the morning and feeling hungry? You see something promising up ahead and decide to stop only to be disappointed–no food! (more…)