Cultures around the world generally gravitate to one primary and one secondary socio-cultural value set that their language and thinking revolves around. The four value sets are: honor/shame, power/fear, guilt/innocence, purity/pollution. Perhaps you are familiar with these. All four are used frequently in the Bible. In the west, we prioritize guilt/innocence language and values, utilizing legal terminology. But rather than forcing our language on other cultures who have different orientations, we crafted a simple definition of the Gospel that aligns with the Bible but is sensitive to all four of these value sets. Albeit imperfect, here is what we came up with, and maybe you can offer thoughts to help us improve it.
The Gospel Message
Pathways Bible Training, workshop #1
The Bible is clear: Our glorious, all-powerful God created people to be in a peaceful relationship with Himself and to reflect His glory throughout the earth. However, because of man’s shameful rebellion, sin made us unclean, breaking this pure relationship. Death entered the world, and the wrath of our righteous, honorable God was unleashed against sin. No good work on our part can restore our fellowship with God, for we are all sinners.
In His great mercy, God sent His Son Jesus, who lived a life without sin, and did not deserve to die. He willingly took the full punishment for sin upon Himself. His shameful death on the cross and glorious resurrection conquered sin, death, Satan, and all spiritual powers of evil. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can be saved, cleansed, and have our relationship with God restored.
Christ came to establish His kingdom and commands all people of all nations to repent of their sin and to submit to Him as King. We must place our faith in Christ alone to be cleansed of our sins and to enjoy a restored relationship with our Creator. Our new relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit changes everything. This includes our worship, our relationships, how we think, and how we live.