The following was shared by my friend, Christopher Davis, on August 15, 2023, on a facebook thread. I am sharing it as it is important, especially in light of the silly criticism that the Book of Mormon cannot be said to contain the "fullness of the Gospel" as it does not explicate many Latter-day Saint doctrines:
What is the “Gospel”? Why is this such a popular question among some Christians?
“What is the Gospel?”, a very common question asked by more than a few confident traditional Christians that ask this as a sort of litmus test to see if one can give the right answer. It’s based on several places where the word is associated with the Greek “εὐαγγέλιον” meaning “good news”. For example, the very beginning of the Book of Mark reads:
Evangelicals often use this as a type of “shibboleth”, another word from the Bible (this time in the Old Testament) that would be a “password” one was supposed to say to indicate whether they were an authentic Ephraimite after their battle with the Gileadites. If they pronounced the word with an “sh” sound instead of an “s”, the guards knew that they were not a real Ephraimite and would kill them. This figure of speech became a term for a “right answer” that someone would have to give to be accepted as a member of a group. In terms of modern Christian evangelicalism, “What is the Gospel?“ has grown to become a popular shibboleth, especially when trying to interact with distinctly different faith traditions such as LDS. The New Testament describes the “Gospel” in a few key places.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” - 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (KJV)
“Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.” - 2 Timothy 2:8 (KJV)
In these descriptions of what the Gospel was, the writers would simply define it as the miracle of Christ’s victory over sin and death and the consequences of that for us. This was “good news”, and “believing the gospel” meant that you believed that Jesus was the Son of God who died and rose from the dead on our behalf. My complaint here is that this “correct definition” was never an intention of a NT author. “εὐαγγέλιον” was meant to mean “good news”, not “code word”, and it was never meant to be exhaustive of the entirety of the teachings of Jesus Christ. In fact, it has a history of use in the Bible, centuries before Jesus, which the apostle Paul alludes to in his epistle to the Romans.
“But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report?“ - Romans 10:16 (KJV)
Here Paul is referring to the use of “gospel” in the words of Isaiah, which in the Septuagint, uses that same Greek word for “good news”.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings [εὐαγγελιζομένου], that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good [εὐαγγελιζόμενος], that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” - Isaiah 52:7 (KJV)
To Isaiah, the “Gospel” was very simple, “Peace. Salvation. Zion, thy God reigneth!” So, “gospel” is not the same thing to all people in the Bible, but a general message that people should be happy to hear. And the term is not even unique to the Old and New Testament. This is a point that I believe is something that many evangelicals overlook when they appeal to this term in the New Testament. This word is used in Ancient Greek poetry, like Homer. Runners who heralded the news to a community or government of victory or other positive information would have been rightly called “evangelists proclaiming the gospel” in a very real way. It wasn’t a rare thing to hear, but in the time of Jesus and Paul, there is a very specific prominent use of this word that the NT authors are very aware of. In the era of Jesus, Caesar Augustus became the first emperor of Rome, claiming to be the son of God, and the adopted son and heir of Julius Caesar, the assassinated dictator. In the celebration of his birthday and proclamation of the era of the Pax Romana (the age of peace of the Roman Empire), the following was inscribed of him in Priene, Turkey:
“The birthday of [Augustus] has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euangelion) concerning him”
Sound familiar? Scroll up to the top and read the beginning of Mark again. The inscription goes on to call Augustus “divine”, “equal to the beginning of all things”, “the beginning of life”, “savior”, and “having become god”. Much like the adoption language of Jesus (“this day have I begotten thee”), much of the language of Mark and Paul are directly challenging Caesar by using the honors and praises initially given to Octavian, but reassigning them to Jesus, the Messiah. Even his baptism account was a challenge to the emperor with the use of birds to indicate divine sanction of His ascension. In similar fashion to the NT prooftexts above, another commonly abused citation involving “Gospel” is the oft-quoted passage in Galatians:
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” - Galatians 1:6-8 (KJV)
I would propose that it is inappropriate to look at this as a type of Christian shibboleth, but to distinguish Christianity from other “gospels” that were already prominently spread in Paul’s present world. One of these was a state sponsored “Gospel” of the Pax Romana and kingship of Augustus over the known civilized world. Paul’s warning is a real one that has present implications, not an instruction for future generations of Christians to apply some litmus test as an indicator of a true message. The context simply is not there for that. Paul, is talking to the Galatians about real-time problems that they are experiencing and real-time messages from other heralds declaring their own “good news”.
All of these are grossly ripped out of their original context to “test” people to see if they measure up to some predetermined and set form of “Gospel” which is never expressed, and as I have shown not articulated the same way over the centuries of its use. Good news, is simply that. It’s wonderful. That’s not up for debate, but it’s power is in the figure that it is talking about. It is not something that exists in a vacuum as a password. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is as I have said, the knowledge that he has risen and conquered sin and death for mankind. This good news also comes with more information and conditions for this relationship, but these don’t have to be articulated formally to recognize that the basic message is “He is risen”. When evangelicals insist, for example, that baptism is not mentioned as part of the “good news”, therefore it is superfluous, that is no better than if I were to say back to them that by that logic “belief in Trinity” is also not mentioned in the explicit “good news” of Jesus. This “Good news” would become a word that would become the title of the narratives of the stories of Jesus as “Gospels”, and from that perspective, those “Gospels” in a much broader sense most certainly teach of the need for baptism. In summation, I would encourage people to become better familiarized with the terminology of Jesus and Paul. These words were to that generation of Christians very deliberately keying in on specific meanings that we don’t use or necessarily understand today.
