Read an interview of a gospel musician the other day in which she defined “Gospel music” as “music with biblical principles done by a person who is God-fearing.”  Enough explained?  I stayed Wondering. 

i like it when I go for a Bible study and they serve tea.

Whoa!

I like it too when I sit with chaps equally my age and all we talk about is- God’s word.

And trust me; there is much to talk about in Christianity than in your Math class (Yeah, call it revenge but had to throw that comparison in)

Think of it, if Christianity were a syllabus, these would be some of the Subjects

– Blessings

-Righteousness

-Justification

-Sanctification

– Speaking in tongues

-Miracles

Name it.So in a way, when we become Christians,

We sort of, enroll.We sign up, but what is the central message of Christianity? If your answer is the gospel.Then maybe we need to ask again.

What is the gospel? What is this whole thing about? This fire that has spanned through centuries lighting up humanity –all sparked by 12 ordinary followers of an obscure Rabbi in Ancient Palestine?

I learnt the other day that my late grandfather was a local gin brewer for one of the Buganda kings, and I understand one of the Buganda kings – Muteesa – was responsible for inviting missionaries to bring the gospel to Uganda.  When I look back now, I wonder what those missionaries would say if they found the gospel we have today.

I wonder what those of Alexander Mackay and David Livingstone would say if they came and sat listening in the pews of a random Pentecostal church today, what would they hear? Would they hear the same gospel they left?

Ok, What if they turned on today’s gospel music, would they hear anything cross-centered?

So what is the gospel?

Apostle Paul described the gospel as “the power of God to salvation unto everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).My Google search tells me the word “gospel” means “goodnews”-old English “godspell” or “glad tidings”.

None has described it so tidily for me than Author CJ Mahaney’s in his volume “The Cross Centered Life” he says,  “The gospel is not a class we take in our Christian life, the gospel is the building in which all the classes take place.”

Much as we should reverently uphold all other themes in Christianity, it’s important to keep the main thing the main thing. It’s important that before we harass and chastise the world with sermons of righteous living, holiness and morality, we should have planted the seed of the “power of God unto salvation”   which is “Christ and him crucified dying for our sins and rising again to reconcile us to God.”  – Simple, yet profound.

No wonder Apostle Paul knew the importance of keeping first things first as he penned in 1Cor 15:3 “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received…

In street language, the gospel is the good news that much as all of us are born sinners and can’t even keep the 10 commandments for 24hrs- thus automatically qualifying for hell. God hatched a plan to reconcile us to himself, over 2000 years ago, he poured his wrath on his son so that this crossfire may stop, that demands our response. Repentance and faith in Jesus.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him (Isaiah 53:5). He died for our sins “once and for all-the godly and the ungodly” (1 Peter 3:18)

One of my friends likes scripturally summing the whole gospel this way,

“He made him who knew no sin become sin so that we may become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).”

So I guess if none of the above faintly resounds with what you first heard when you first got saved, perhaps you should be asking the hard question.

“Did I hear “the gospel”? or like me you should be musing.

“Whatever happened to the gospel?”

Happy Easter