What’s the hook (Part 2): The gospel and the gospels

It’s a question of where to start.

Intuitively, there is so much going for starting with the gospels if you want to present the gospel. The focus is so beautifully on Jesus, the personal reality of God present amongst us.

However, for 2 reasons, I wonder whether the disadvantages outweigh the advantages:

the gospels say a lot of stuff that you might not want otherwise to include – what do you think about Mk 13, let alone how do you teach it?? The other side of the coin is that they don’t say a lot about stuff you might want to major on – eg. the doctrine of the atonement, or justification by faith is not exactly prominent

the gospels start in the middle of a story – the story of creation, and God’s determination to restore it from the devastation of sin, and his image bearers to their rule. It is within that story that Jesus, and the gospels, make sense. But our culture has now completely lost touch with even the basic rudiments of this story.

So maybe the gospels are not the best place to start the gospel! In which case, where?

Read Full Post »