I know that bad news sells. But its getting ridiculous. Each morning’s paper is another rehash of the same old problems at home and abroad.
What is worse, there seems to be no real solutions.
Sept. 11? Lets toughen up airport security. Enron collapse? Lets tighten up public accounting practices. Illegal immigrants causing trouble in Malaysia? Lets round them up and deport them.
Am I the only one who thinks that the proposed measures are not real and final solutions?
‘Reformation’ was the battle cry of those who called for political and social renewal in south east asia. But we need more than reformation. We need transformation.
Technological, political, and social reformation will turn out to be nothing more than band aids on the deepest wounds of human kind. We shouldn’t knock band aids. They have their place. But we need more than that. We need the kind of spiritual transformation that Ezekiel talks about:
“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36: 25-26 ESV
Jesus came to make possible this spiritual heart transplant. Which is why Mark calls his account of Jesus a ‘gospel’, which means ‘good news’. In his classic commentary on the gospel of Mark, William L. Lane writes:
“The term ‘gospel’ or ‘evangel’ was not a word first coined among the Christians. On the contrary, the concept was significant both in pagan and Jewish culture. Among the Romans it meant ‘joyful tidings’? ?in Isaiah the Hebrew terms signifying ‘good news’ concern the announcement of future salvation, or of the time of salvation.”
Jesus and His offer of human transformation is the only really good news.
Which is why we need no apology for sharing the gospel.
Not even in a day and age when political correctness is the order of the day. And anything that smacks of religious extremism is seen with suspicion.
We share the gospel because it is true. We share the gospel because we are under orders to do so. We share the gospel because it is our only hope.
For gospel means good news. In this or any other millennium.