The True Gospel

Romans 1:14-17 "I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.  For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

I would like you to come back with me in your minds to the year AD57 and you are going to come into a room in a house where the preachers have their lodgings.  It's more than likely at night.  In this room there are two men, one is writing, one is speaking.  The man who is speaking is the apostle Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.  God the Holy Spirit is inspiring him to speak the very words of God.  In this room the epistle to the church at Rome is being written.  Paul V16 says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."     The letter to the Romans, the church at Rome is thought by many people today to be complicated, hard to understand and really only for professors of theology, but that is not the case because the apostle Paul was speaking to the majority of Christians who made up the church of Rome who were uneducated slaves (for the most part) and they understood what it says.  That means that modern educated man is not so smart as what he thinks he is if he finds difficult to understand what uneducated slaves understood in the first century AD. 

What is Romans about?  It is about the gospel. That's it.  V16 and 17 are all about the gospel, the good news.  The gospel is not just the love of God, the gospel is not just the crucifixion, the gospel contained in the bible begins in the book of Genesis with the creator God, man's fall into sin, God's grace and his plan to sacrifice his Son for sinners, and his offer of forgiveness that is given indiscriminately to all and the salvation of those who believe.  The gospel continues on with instructions for Christian life to the final glorification in heaven.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is the whole counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation and its important for us to remember that.  Many churches have a limited view of what the gospel is.  The gospel is not just a little part of the bible.