The King Jesus Gospel Book Reflection
Joshua Helms
GLST 220-001
9/22/15
The Gospel is an interesting topic that seems to be an endless discussion for pastors, professors, and theologians. It is essentially a spiritual glue that holds us as Christians together in order to seek after God. My personal understanding of the Gospel was bland before taking GLST 220 and I am grateful to have a better understanding of it now. As Christians, we should always be seeking how to fully understand the Gospel and what it means to serve the Kingdom of God. My understanding of the Gospel was not the best. I say this because I did not know as many verses that relate to explaining the Gospel or really anyone have to describe what the Gospel meant. I simply …show more content…
People come to Christ with their sin and receive salvation by following Him. In today’s culture, society is ripe with sin because we have fallen away from the church’s teachings. To my understanding, today’s culture looks for salvation just to say that they’ve been absolved from doing something bad, however, do not really follow or understand the whole concept of the Gospel or salvation. I have seen examples of this in youth groups in the churches that I have attended. Students would come in, stay for the hour and a half and act like a good Christian, but once at home or school they act completely different and do not represent the Gospel very well. These kids come just to feel good about a bad past or bad decision they have recently made, but do not commit and show it in school or other places. This salvation culture lacks discipleship. In Scot McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel, McKnight goes over how different the salvation culture is than a gospel culture. A gospel culture is more focused on seeking out and making disciples where that lacks for the salvation gospel. The main problem for the gospel culture with today’s Christians is that “we betray a profound lack of awareness of what gospel means and what a gospel culture might mean for our world today” . Churches today focus more on the salvation of people in evangelism rather than explain what the gospel is. For example, a church could send missionaries to a third world country …show more content…
Creating disciples helps spread the love of God and His word to those who do not know it. In order to communicate a gospel that is focused on Jesus, there needs to be accountability, having time to focus on the word of God, and mentorship. These three ideas can also be used with American Christian culture and also to those who have not heard the gospel yet. Accountability is huge for Christians in growing in their faith. My prayer leader just established accountability partners for our prayer group this semester and it is awesome to see young men boost each other up for Christ. In today’s culture, this could be used by having someone watch out for you, preferably an elder in the church or someone older than you, when spreading the gospel. Have that person make you accountable for meeting up with people and being able to share the love of God. In a worldly sense, have a similar idea but, with a Christian who has been spreading the in that area of the world longer mentor and hold you accountable. Accountability can also be useful when reading the Bible. Having time set to read the Bible is important when making disciples, God can give you strength and ideas when you are in His word. To make more disciples out of this, invite a new believer or a friend who does not know the gospel to a Bible study. To a society or culture who does not know God, try to create stories out of what you are reading in order to spread
Joshua Helms
GLST 220-001
9/22/15
The Gospel is an interesting topic that seems to be an endless discussion for pastors, professors, and theologians. It is essentially a spiritual glue that holds us as Christians together in order to seek after God. My personal understanding of the Gospel was bland before taking GLST 220 and I am grateful to have a better understanding of it now. As Christians, we should always be seeking how to fully understand the Gospel and what it means to serve the Kingdom of God. My understanding of the Gospel was not the best. I say this because I did not know as many verses that relate to explaining the Gospel or really anyone have to describe what the Gospel meant. I simply …show more content…
People come to Christ with their sin and receive salvation by following Him. In today’s culture, society is ripe with sin because we have fallen away from the church’s teachings. To my understanding, today’s culture looks for salvation just to say that they’ve been absolved from doing something bad, however, do not really follow or understand the whole concept of the Gospel or salvation. I have seen examples of this in youth groups in the churches that I have attended. Students would come in, stay for the hour and a half and act like a good Christian, but once at home or school they act completely different and do not represent the Gospel very well. These kids come just to feel good about a bad past or bad decision they have recently made, but do not commit and show it in school or other places. This salvation culture lacks discipleship. In Scot McKnight’s book, The King Jesus Gospel, McKnight goes over how different the salvation culture is than a gospel culture. A gospel culture is more focused on seeking out and making disciples where that lacks for the salvation gospel. The main problem for the gospel culture with today’s Christians is that “we betray a profound lack of awareness of what gospel means and what a gospel culture might mean for our world today” . Churches today focus more on the salvation of people in evangelism rather than explain what the gospel is. For example, a church could send missionaries to a third world country …show more content…
Creating disciples helps spread the love of God and His word to those who do not know it. In order to communicate a gospel that is focused on Jesus, there needs to be accountability, having time to focus on the word of God, and mentorship. These three ideas can also be used with American Christian culture and also to those who have not heard the gospel yet. Accountability is huge for Christians in growing in their faith. My prayer leader just established accountability partners for our prayer group this semester and it is awesome to see young men boost each other up for Christ. In today’s culture, this could be used by having someone watch out for you, preferably an elder in the church or someone older than you, when spreading the gospel. Have that person make you accountable for meeting up with people and being able to share the love of God. In a worldly sense, have a similar idea but, with a Christian who has been spreading the in that area of the world longer mentor and hold you accountable. Accountability can also be useful when reading the Bible. Having time set to read the Bible is important when making disciples, God can give you strength and ideas when you are in His word. To make more disciples out of this, invite a new believer or a friend who does not know the gospel to a Bible study. To a society or culture who does not know God, try to create stories out of what you are reading in order to spread