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    Good News for Ordinary People: What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?
    Good News for Ordinary People: What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?
    Good News for Ordinary People: What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Good News for Ordinary People: What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?

    By Michael D. Morrison

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    About this ebook

    Almost 2,000 years ago, a Jewish carpenter began to preach. He was popular with some people, but he made others angry. Officials said he was a threat to national security, and they arranged for his death. His only weapon was his message. The crowds seemed to like it, but “good” people didn’t. He said it was about love—so why did anyone hate it? What was the message that got Jesus killed? Do we need it now?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrace Communion International
    Release dateApr 9, 2014
    ISBN9781310445842
    Good News for Ordinary People: What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?
    Author

    Michael D. Morrison

    I grew up in a small town in southern Illinois: Sparta. Our family of seven was religious but did not go to church - instead, we had a Bible study at home every week. I eventually began attending a church after I moved away, and then I went to a Bible college, and eventually a seminary. Now I work for Grace Communion Seminary, an online seminary based in Glendora, California. My interests are the Gospels, the epistles and theology of Paul, and ethics.

    Read more from Michael D. Morrison

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      Book preview

      Good News for Ordinary People - Michael D. Morrison

      Good News for Ordinary People:

      What Was the Message of Jesus Christ?

      By Michael D. Morrison

      Copyright 2014 Grace Communion International

      Scripture quotations in chapters 1-3 are taken from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations in chapter 4 are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      All scripture quotations in the subsequent chapters are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

      The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

      Table of Contents

      Good News for Ordinary People

      What Did the Apostles Preach?

      Paul Preaches the Good News

      The Message of Jesus

      What Jesus Said About Himself

      Preaching in the Early Church

      The Gospel According to Paul

      The Good News of Salvation

      Relationship With Christ

      Good News in an Alabaster Jar

      Why Would Anyone Want to Be a Christian?

      How to Become a Christian

      Life in Christ: Living Like a Christian

      Growing in Christ

      Humans in the Image of God

      Sanctification

      About the Author

      About the Publisher

      Grace Communion Seminary

      Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

      ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

      Good News for Ordinary People

      The message of Jesus

      Almost 2,000 years ago, a Jewish carpenter began to preach. He was popular with some people, but he made others angry. Officials said he was a threat to national security, and they arranged for his death. His only weapon was his message.

      The crowds seemed to like it, but good people didn’t. He said it was about love—so why did anyone hate it? What was the message that got Jesus killed?

      Here’s another puzzle: If this message got Jesus killed, why did other people take up the message and preach it, too? Were they trying to get themselves killed? Why were they so bold with the message?

      Let’s examine what the Bible says about the message of Jesus. Let’s see the words he used to describe it, and the words his followers used.

      Chapter 1: The gospel of the kingdom

      Matthew describes the beginning of Jesus’ preaching career in this way: From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (Matthew 4:17, New Revised Standard Version).

      Verse 23 adds a little more: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

      From these verses, we see that Jesus taught:

      • good news (older translations say gospel, which means the same thing)

      • about the kingdom—the kingdom of heaven, or the reign of God

      • the kingdom had come near and

      • people should therefore repent, or turn toward God.

      What is this kingdom of God? How was it near—in time or in location? How are people supposed to turn toward God? And if all this is good news, why did it create such a controversy among first-century Jews? Why would anyone kill the messenger of good news?

      We need to keep reading.

      Good news

      In the Roman empire, the word for good news was used for official announcements. Jesus was announcing something about God’s empire. Perhaps you can guess why some government officials might think that his message was dangerous: he was preaching about a kingdom. But they didn’t understand what Jesus really meant.

      How did Jesus use the word for good news? In the Gospels, the word is usually on its own—Jesus preached the good news. The readers knew what it was—it was a shorthand way of saying the message of Jesus.

      But sometimes we are given a brief description of the good news. Once it is called the good news of God (Mark 1:14). But it is more often called the gospel of the kingdom. The first three Gospels tell us that Jesus often preached about the kingdom of God.

      But this is not the only way to describe the message. The Gospel of John, for example, doesn’t even use the word for good news. John describes the message in other ways. And as we go forward in the Bible, the word kingdom becomes less common. The message is much more commonly called the good news of Jesus Christ (see box). It can also be called the good news of salvation, the good news of God’s grace, and the good news of peace.

      This creates another puzzle: The words grace and kingdom, for example, are not normally interchangeable. Is the message about a kingdom, or is it about grace, or is it about Jesus Christ?

      What did Jesus preach?

      The Gospels use the word preach or proclaim more than 40 times. If we survey these, we will see that Jesus not only preached the good news about the kingdom, he also preached about repentance, forgiveness, justice, and rescue for the poor (Luke 4:18; 24:47).

      Was Jesus leading some sort of poor-people’s revolt? No, Jesus was not a political leader—he was a religious leader, a rabbi. His message was about God, repentance and forgiveness. But his message was especially good news for the poor—not to lift their economic burdens, but to lift their religious burdens. They were carrying a heavy load, and it wasn’t fair.

      Jesus preached justice for the poor, freedom for the oppressed. But the people who were doing the oppression didn’t like the message. The religious leaders didn’t like the message of Jesus. It disturbed the peace, and threatened the status quo (Matthew 10:34).

      Religion (even certain forms of Christianity) can be used to oppress people, to keep them in line, to burden them with guilt that they don’t need to carry. But the message of Jesus can lift those burdens. It can help people see clearly, can help them be freed from religious bondage. Even today, people who oppress others do not like the message. Religious leaders who use religion as a tool of power do not like the message of Jesus.

      The time is at hand

      The time is fulfilled, Jesus said, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news (Mark 1:15). What did Jesus mean by saying that the time was fulfilled? He meant that the time had arrived for the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is near, and in this passage Jesus is talking about nearness in terms of time. Jesus told his disciples to preach the same thing (Matthew 10:7).

      The kingdom of God had been predicted hundreds of years earlier; it had been hoped for and prayed for. The Jewish people wanted the kingdom to come, and Jesus came and said, I have good news! It’s time for the kingdom of God!

      Today, we might have all sorts of ideas as to what a kingdom is, and what the kingdom of God might be. But if we have the wrong idea, then we will conclude that Jesus was a false prophet, because he did not bring the kind of kingdom that we expected. But if we do that, we are judging Jesus even before we give him a chance to explain what he means.

      First-century Jews had their ideas about the kingdom, too, but Jesus did not bring what they expected. Many were disappointed—even his own disciples were disappointed. That’s because they were hoping for a political kingdom, but Jesus did not bring a political kingdom. He brought a spiritual kingdom.

      Jesus not only announced that the kingdom was near—he also had to explain what the kingdom was. The people had their ideas about it, but Jesus had to correct them. The kingdom of God is like this…, Jesus often said, and he would give an illustration. The reason he had to teach so much about the kingdom is because the people had so many wrong ideas about it.

      First-century Jews thought the kingdom would be a time of agricultural abundance, economic prosperity, military superiority and glory for the Jewish people. But Jesus never described the kingdom of God in these ways. He had something much better in mind.

      Responding to the message

      Jesus expected people to respond to his message. He urged them to believe it and to repent. Of course! Any speaker wants people to believe the message. But Jesus wants more than a simple acceptance that what he said was true—he wants them to believe that it is good! He wants them to receive it with joy.

      The kingdom of God is bad news for people who oppress others. But if you are a victim of religious oppression, then the kingdom of God is good news. If you have been turned off to religion, then the message of Jesus is good news.

      Jesus wanted people to repent. What does it mean to repent? In simple terms,

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