What Is the Gospel?

I reproduced this post at Christian-history.org. Today, April 3, 2014, I am revising it because its language was way too strong.

Rather than revise both pages, I am only revising it at the web site, and I am changing this post to link to that page.

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About Paul Pavao

I am married, the father of six, and currently the grandfather of five. I teach, and I am always trying to learn to disciple others better than I have before. I believe God has gifted me to restore proper theological foundations to the Christian faith. In order to ensure that I do not become a heretic, I read the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. They were around when all the churches founded by the apostles were in unity. My philosophy for Bible reading is to understand each verse for exactly what it says in its local context. Only after accepting the verse for what it says do I compare it with other verses to develop my theology. If other verses seem to contradict a verse I just read, I will wait to say anything about those verses until I have an explanation that allows me to accept all the verses for what they say. This takes time, sometimes years, but eventually I have always been able to find something that does not require explaining verses away. The early church fathers have helped a lot with this. I argue and discuss these foundational doctrines with others to make sure my teaching really lines up with Scripture. I am encouraged by the fact that the several missionaries and pastors that I know well and admire as holy men love the things I teach. I hope you will be encouraged too. I am indeed tearing up old foundations created by tradition in order to re-establish the foundations found in Scripture and lived on by the churches during their 300 years of unity.
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3 Responses to What Is the Gospel?

  1. Paul Pavao's avatar Shammah says:

    That is the distinction I’m trying to address. Well said.

  2. I don’t want to misunderstand what you’re trying to say so I would like to ask you a question for clarification. It seems to me that the Bible says that Jesus “bore our sins on the tree” not for the purpose that we could one day go to heaven but so that we might be reconciled to him and “become the righteousness of God”. Is that distinction what you’re trying to address or are you trying to refute the concept of substitutionary atonement?

  3. allison's avatar allison says:

    This is such a departure from what mainstream Christianity teaches. –which is good, it’s just taking me awhile to try to process it. 🙂 I think I get closer every time I read something else on it though. Keep writing!

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