the gospel

Lately I have been growing tired of the word "gospel". Mind you, I am not tired of Jesus. I am not tired of Christianity. I am not tired of talking about the "good news" (the literal definition of gospel) of God becoming a man. I simply tired of the word.

How did I get here? Well, recently I was at InterVarsity's national staff conference and that is where I realized how I was feeling. The theme of the conference was not being "ashamed of the Gospel", which is something that apostle Paul talks about in his letter to the Romans. When I first saw this theme I cringed. Cringed! I felt so guilty. After all, my job is to be someone who communicates Jesus' offer of relationship and salvation to the world. I should love this theme. Yet I cringed.

I thought about my cringing later that day. I tried to identify what in the world was wrong with me. Then it finally hit me (or perhaps God did the hitting, I am not too sure) I am not tired of the gospel, I am tired of the connotations that I have with word, namely an oversimplified, one size fits all interpretation of Jesus' message.

Unfortunately, I am not sure that I have better definition of the gospel then a simplified one though. Is the good news that God became man? Is the good news that He died so that we don't have to? Is the good news that I can have relationship with God? Is the good news that whole world can have relationship with God? Is the good news that Jesus taught us to love the least among us? Is the good news that Jesus led His followers to talk about Him with gentiles (non-Jews), a necessary step for me and most people I know to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven? Is the good news heaven? Is the good news now? Is the good news Jesus' whole life and ministry? That would take a much longer blog post!

The good news of Jesus is so meaty, so multi-layered, so frickin confusing and so beautiful. I have given my life to it. I have been redeemed by it. I have seen it transform people that I love. I have seen destroy my pride more times than I can count. I want the world to know and more importantly, experience this amazing good news and really interact with God. At least I know that I am not ashamed of that.