What is the Gospel?

Yesterday I began reading Greg Gilbert's What is the Gospel? It begins, "You'd think that would be an easy question to answer, especially for Christians. In fact, you'd think that writing a book like this--one asking Christians to think carefully about the question, What is the gospel of Jesus?--would be completely unnecessary. It's like asking carpenters to sit around and ponder the question, What is a hammer?"

And yet as unnecessary as this question should be, it's being asked. And answered. And the answer to this question either provides answers to all the other important questions or it raises other questions with which its answers are less than satisfying. In my preaching and teaching I've tried to answer this question, as this is the main purpose of preaching and teaching the Word of God, though I have not always articulated it so clearly. So perhaps my own understanding of the Gospel could use some work. Thus the read. As I read, I hope to interact with and articulate Gilbert's book but more importantly interact and articulate what the Gospel is (or isn't.)

Too much trellis work

I just finished reading The Trellis and the Vine and was reminded again that as a Christian, I am to be a disciple-making disciple. As a pastor, I'm to be about tending the vine, not simply building the trellis. In other words, I need to remember that my focus is on discipling and training individuals so that they can be making disciples. Structures, systems, processes and programs can aid individual discipleship, but they are no substitute for it. In God's great wisdom, he has called us all to be instruments in the Redeemer's hands, or as Paul Tripp puts is, we are to be people in need of change helping people in need of change. God has called us to be a holy people, a royal priesthood not so that we can be individually isolated from each other or from the world, but so that we can edify each other and invest in unbelievers that they may come to know the amazing grace of His gospel.

God is great. God is good.

Before my wife and I had our first child, we had the privilege of seeing many couples teaching their children how to pray. I had to say, the very endeavor itself is noble. What greater thing can be taught to children than to commune with their Heavenly Father? But I saw numerous techniques. Some parents insisted on their child folding their hands and bowing their heads. In fact, some were militant about the proper gesturing, while others were taught to mimic their parent's prayer word for word. Yet others were given a theology of prayer before praying which meant the food was terribly cold before we took our first bite! Now I wasn't trying to critique methods, rather I was infatuated for a time with each method, be it the strict discipline of posturing, the precise repetition of good theology, or the 30 minute sermonette on why we thank God for the things we have before we ask God for things. All of these were great and I was determined to do all of them when it came time to train my own child.

Until recently, however, I was still uncertain of one thing: At what age do you teach your child to pray? Is it when they can articulate the theological underpinnings of petitioning an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God? I doubt it. Is it when they can complete whole sentences? Maybe. I'm still thinking through that, but recently, when dining with some friends, they pointed out that as we prayed before our meal, without any prompting, our daughter Hannah, who's not quite two years old, politely bowed her head and when we finished, she echoed "A-maa." Keep in mind we've not given any formal instruction or reinforcement for this behavior. Now I certainly wouldn't go as far as to say that she's talking to Jesus, but by God's grace, she's already seeing something in her parents that is pointing her to Christ (even though she probably has no idea of what it is.) I thank God for that and pray that not only will she hear her mother and me speak to her about the things of God, but also, and perhaps more importantly, she will continually see the things of God in me.

"God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for the food. Amen."