Churches in America have recently engaged in a recurrence of an ongoing conversation about social issues – justice, racial matters, poverty, equality, are all issues which have stirred up a good deal of discussion and sometimes emotion. These discussions have been fruitful at times, and I have learned a good amount, but I have also observed that a large number of leaders and regular churchgoers prefer not to talk about these matters, insisting that we should “just preach the gospel.” That insistence leads me to wonder, what do you mean by the gospel? and what is included or excluded?
There are many facets to the gospel, among which are the love of God and the kingdom of God and resulting renewal of creation. Evangelicals like myself and many of those calling to “just preach the gospel” often focus a good deal on phrases like justification by faith and the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross for forgiveness of sins. These concepts are indeed central to the gospel, but perhaps there is more to the gospel that many of us are tempted to neglect.
That leads me to some insights I have discovered in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Out of all the books of the Bible, Galatians is known as one in which the gospel is defined and protected. Along with Romans, Galatians contains the idea “the righteous will live by faith,” which awakened Martin Luther and ignited the Protestant Reformation. If you want to learn what the gospel is all about, go to Galatians, Romans or Ephesians. Of course you will want to read the Gospels too, but these letters of Paul spell things out in a clear, thorough and helpful way. In Galatians, Paul is very protective of the true gospel, opposing those who preach something else, to the point where he says, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (1:9), or as an older version says more strongly, “let him be eternally condemned!”
So, if Galatians is largely about rightly defining the gospel, we should pay attention to some thinking or commands which it says are part of the gospel. This is where I have been a bit surprised recently. Somehow my education and thinking led me to deemphasize some of these important points in Galatians, but recent conversations about justice, poverty, racial matters and equality have made them stand out to me.
One of the issues which is central to the gospel is the matter of inclusion of the Gentiles, which also has to do with ethnic favoritism and divisions. Paul says in chapter 2, that some false believers were trying to force his colleagues like Titus to follow the Jewish law and customs. He says, “We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (2:5). Inclusion of the Gentiles, as Gentiles, and not as Jewish proselytes following the Jewish law and customs, was a gospel issue. Later, speaking of the same issue, he says that Peter and others “were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel” (2:14). Insistence that Gentiles act like Jews is contrary to the gospel. And I would propose that an imposition of any set of cultural values and behavior on believers is contrary to the gospel. Pakistanis should not have to “become British” to follow Jesus. Haitians should not have to “become American.” Black Americans should not have to take on the ways of white Americans.
The second issue has to do with poverty. In chapter 2, in the midst of this discussion of Gentile inclusion, Paul reports how the leaders of the apostles-James, Peter and John-embraced and encouraged the ministry of Paul and Barnabas to the Gentiles. And then Paul says, “All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along” (2:10). “Remembering the poor,” for all of the apostles, was an essential aspect of the gospel. So, part of the church’s ministry of the gospel is to serve poor people and advocate for them. As Christians, we are to pay a lot more attention to the poor and disadvantaged people around us. When we consider potential careers, we should remember the poor. When we do our jobs, we should remember the poor and how to improve systems so they work better for poor people. When we talk about public policies, whether it be Covid responses, gun control, abortion, racism, you name it, we should remember the poor people in our communities, and how the policies that we support may effect them. And, dare I say, when we vote we should remember poor people and how the candidates we support may or may not help them. We have to continually ask ourselves – am I eager to remember the poor?
A third issue has to do somewhat with Gentile inclusion, but it seems to go further. In chapter 3, Paul talks about the importance of faith for justification before God, and he says, “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you'” (3:8). So it’s not just a few Gentiles who are included, but all nations. The call to bring the gospel to all nations is central to the gospel. On the same theme, Paul also says “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (3:14). Taking the gospel to the nations is not an optional add-on. It is essential.
A fourth issue is equality. At the end of chapter 3, Paul says, “So in Christ Jesus you are all children (sons) of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (3:26-29). Unfortunately, some of the newer English versions have chosen “children” over “sons.” This is unfortunate because it removes some of the radical nature of this statement. In Paul’s society, only sons received an inheritance. But in Christ, women are counted as sons, that is heirs. Slaves and Gentiles are also considered inheritance-worthy sons. Paul is proposing a radical equality, in which all believers were on equal footing. As Christians, our lives should be shaped in such a way that women and men are equal, slaves and free are equal, and Gentile and Jew are equal. This idea worked its way through Christian circles to the point in the Middle Ages where it was seen as wrong for Christians to keep other Christians as slaves. Once the African slave trade spread, and African slaves started accepting Christianity, this idea fell out of favor, and many Christians made space for Christians to enslave other Christians. New Testament teaching such as 1 Corinthians 7:21 should have made it clear that a Christian should not hold another Christian as a slave. But back to the point – this passage teaches us that equality is part of the gospel. All believers should be valued equally, and the cares and concerns of each are equally valued. Acts 6 and 1 Corinthians 11 show examples in which the church dealt with inequality in decisive ways. So, ethnic, status, and gender distinctions should not result in differences of value in the Christian community.
One last issue has to do with freedom. We Americans founded our country on certain ideas of freedom, and our public conversations often have to do with balances between different freedoms and between individual freedom and communal responsibility. Those with a more libertarian bent will often point to Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” After some discussion of circumcision, it becomes clear how Paul understands freedom in Christ: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (5:13-16). So, freedom, according to Paul, does not mean “doing whatever I want.” It means freedom from our sins and fears so that we can serve each other with humility in love. Love of neighbor is central to the gospel. We are called to lay down our own comfort and preferences so that others will be better off. To me, that has been a driving force regarding how to respond to Covid. It can be hard to wear a mask, spend more time outside when the weather is bad, and to avoid crowded spaces. Many of us have concerns related to vaccines and other measures. Many of us believe we are healthy enough to live normally and take our chances with Covid. But we are called as Christians to make the needs of others more important than our own comfort and preferences. That doesn’t necessarily mean we will all respond in the same way, but we must be acting out of a desire to serve each other with humility in love.
I conclude that there is much more to the gospel than how to “get saved.” When we closely examine Galatians, an epistle in which the meaning of the gospel is a major theme, we find that it is essential for us to: 1) reject ethnic favoritism and divisions, 2) remember the needs of poor people, 3) promote spreading the gospel to all nations, 4) embrace radical equality of each other, 5) pursue freedom for the good of others and not to gratify our own desires. Let me propose that when we “just preach the gospel,” we pay attention to these matters too. If we neglect these matters, can we really say we are preaching the gospel at all?
HIS WORDS, HIS WORKS, HIS WAYS 