Greek word - (euaggelion G2098)
Quiz - Choose the answer that is closest to what you think GOSPEL is.
A - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
B - the salvation message
C - truth
D - good news
Problem - Outdated, Misused
KJV Example - "I am not ashamed of the gospel" (Romans 1:16a).
Explanation
The word, gospel, is an old word that comes from an even older English word, godspel. G-O-D (pronounced with a long o, goad) was how they said good back then. And spel was a story or message. So godspel was a good story or good message. Gospel is the same thing. If you replace the word gospel with the words, good news, you will see what gospel meant hundreds of years ago when it was used for the Greek word euaggelion in the New Testament.
Anyone who has gone to church for any amount of time knows that gospel means good news. Yet this word is still frequently used incorrectly in church. Why?
This word is a prime example of what happens when outdated words are used in the Bible. First, the reader does not realize that the word is outdated. He doesn't know what the word meant hundreds of years ago. He sees gospel at the beginning of the book of Matthew, the Gospel According to Matthew, and he thinks that Matthew must be a gospel. Mark, Luke, and John have the same words. He assumes that a gospel is one of the first four books of the Bible.
Or he reads in 1 Corinthians 15 that the gospel is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15:1 says "the gospel which I preached unto you". He assumes that the gospel is when someone talks about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
In this way the word gospel takes on a whole new meaning, an incorrect meaning that does not take into account how the word was used outside of the Bible. It becomes a special Bible word with a meaning that the word, gospel, never had.
But from what I said at the beginning of this lesson, you know that gospel is good news. So replace gospel with good news and you hopefully will see what gospel is. The previous examples become "The Good News According to Matthew" and "the good news that I preached to you."
Let's also apply this to a gospel phrase found several times in the Bible, the gospel of Christ. As you learned in one of my other lessons, a christ is an anointed king. So the gospel of Christ is the good news of the Anointed King. The good news is that after hundreds of years, the Anointed King came to earth just as God said He would. He told us about God. He loved us. He died for us. He came to rescue us. That is good news. That is gospel.
In the Bible, gospel is good news.
Modern Synonym - good news
Bible Version Tally (how other versions translate this word) - gospel (33 of 50), good news (16 of 50)
Breakthrough Version - "I am not ashamed of the good news" (Romans 1:16a).