Relax; this post has nothing to do with speaking in tongues or anything like that. Rather, I hope to share the reality of a full-orbed gospel, a good news that is actually better news than the incredible news of just "not going to hell."



I first started thinking about this subject while listening to Derek Webb's latest album, The House Show. In one of the sermonette intros to a song, Webb said we believers ought to preach the gospel to each other. That struck me as both odd and true. I'd never really thought that thought before, but it opened up a wealth of thoughts about what exactly we should be preaching to each other.



When most believers here the word "gospel," they naturally think of the shorthand recipe for conversion: we are sinners, but thanks to Jesus' sacrifice, we can trust him in faith and receive salvation. This is of course true, and it is a miraculous truth at that -- it is undeniably the heart of the gospel, especially as it is brought and taught and lived by believers to and in an unbelieving world.



But there is also a sense in which we preach this gospel to fellow believers. In our calls to repentance, in our conviction and discipline of others -- above all and in all, in our extension of grace to each other -- we are preaching this gospel to the community of the already convinced. When we help a brother through his sin, pray with him, extend grace to him, remind him of his Father's forgiveness through the Son's sacrifice -- that is preaching the heart of the gospel to our brother.



The good news, however, is news about more than escape from sin and hell. I began to think through all the news that is good in "the good news" when encountering a passage in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together that reminded me of that line from Webb's album. Bonhoeffer writes:

God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother's is sure.

The good news of Jesus Christ comes continually to those inside the kingdom when others inside bear their burdens with them and lift them up, just as Christ did. Every time we preach the Word to believers, we preaching good news to them.



I started to think of all that makes the gospel good news to the believer, to the one in need of a gospel beyond "escaping hell" (oh, but a comfort that is all its own!). Just to name a few, The Gospel is the good news of:



1. Life outside of ourselves.

Even post-conversion, we are frail and faulty creatures, plagued by sin and doubt. We stumble and we fall. But the good news is that God's grace covers us, takes us outside of our power to find strength and comfort in him. "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor. 12:10).

It is good news that we do not, because we cannot, rely on ourselves.



2. Life in love.

"All you need is love," Lennon sung, and while he was way off the mark on where that love comes from, he had the right idea. "We were born to be loved," King's X sings, and I think we all have that innate longing to be loved. Only God's love can truly satisfy that longing. His love is active and living, an ever present help and comfort in our times of trouble. It does not cover just enough to squeak us by damnation; it lifts us up, buffets us, carries us along and into his presence. His redeeming love makes the world's substitutes just so much garbage.

It is good news to live a life in God's relentless and unfathomable love.



3. Life in community . . .

. . . because the community represents reconciliation. That is the full gospel: it is not just a salvation from sin and death, it is a salvation to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Salvation through Jesus reconciles God's children to himself. The life we are called into -- following Jesus in community -- is a picture of that reconciliation. The community is God's nation reconstituted, redeemed. We are brought in and reconciled to each other as a living picture of our reconciliation to our Father.

Therefore, we are commanded to love one another just as our Father loved us. We are to forgive one another, be patient with one another, carry each other's burdens, etc. -- just as God has done all of these things for us. Jesus died for us and he has left the challenge of such an act before us as a test of friendship! (John 15:13) The call of the gospel is a call out of the world and into the community. It is the gospel of the kingdom of God.

The good news is that life in the community of God's people is an integral and necessary part of an individual's salvation.



Bonhoeffer reiterates:

And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.

We continually preach salvation to our brothers and sisters in Christ, because the salvation of God is greater and more full than the initial decision that got us here. That initial step is the milk of the gospel; there is meat to be had, as well.

In his fantastic new book New Way to be Human, Charlie Peacock writes:

Over time and under various influences, Christians exchanged the totality of the invitation Jesus came to give for a smaller, more mechanical and efficient story. As a result, more often than not, an invitation to follow Jesus fails to describe the scope of redemption and renewal that Jesus set in motion and made final.

. . . The stories we tell one another have power. The story you hear when you first start following Jesus steers you toward becoming one kind of follower and not another. Knowing this, it is essential to begin with the most comprehensive Story possible.



To go no further than the God of the soul (where privatized views of Christianity usually peak) is to miss out on the sufficiently huge view of God, people, and place. You cannot put together the way to be human without knowing the Story from beginning to end. Without it, the ordering and power that lead to being a human as God designed will be absent. There will be a loss of integrity. God's relational Word is what guides creational action.

There is more to The Story than the first step. There is the following, the journey, and the destination before us. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news of all of that. That is why we must preach the gospel to believer and unbeliever alike, in word and deed alike.