Two Words You DON'T ACTUALLY Know: Gospel & Faith

There are two words that sit right at the center of everything Christians talk about. Two words you’ve heard a thousand times.

Gospel. And faith.

Every pastor assumes that everybody knows what these words mean.

But what I want to suggest to you today is that most of us don’t really know what either of them means.

And I don’t mean we’re fuzzy on the details. I mean we’ve gotten the definitions of these words completely wrong.

I want to be clear. This is not some fringe idea. The scholars behind this reassessment, people like Drs. Matthew Bates, Scot McKnight, Nijay K. Gupta, N.T. Wright, are not radicals. They are working from the original Greek texts, from the historical context of the first century, and from church history. And they keep arriving at the same conclusions.

This presentation will be in two parts. Part One: what the gospel actually is.

And Part Two: what faith, that is the Greek word pistis, actually means in context.

PART ONE: THE GOSPEL

First, let’s talk about what the Gospel Is Not

If you ask most Christians today to define the gospel, you’re likely going to get one of two answers.

The first answer sounds something like this: we are all sinners. We’ve broken God’s law. And because God is holy and just, that sin has to be dealt with. The good news, the gospel, is that Jesus dealt with it for us. He died in our place.