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εὐαγγέλιον (Euangelion): The Good News of Christ · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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We take complex ideas and drill down into the sources to extract
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the essential story. This is the deep dive.
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And today we're tackling a concept so central to Christian
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faith that we often just assume we know exactly what it means.
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The Gospel. We're going to be targeting a
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single Greek word, ijugion. It's usually rendered as gospel
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or good news, but what we want to show you is how this word got
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its its theological weight. We're going to trace its path
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from, believe it or not, a secular word about rewards all
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the way to the absolute confession of Christ's effective
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rule. It's a huge journey for one
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word. We've compiled sources that
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detail its ancient usage, its role in Greek and Roman culture,
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its relationship with the Jewish prophetic tradition, and then,
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of course, it's radical repurposing in the New
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Testament. Our goal for you is pretty
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simple, really. It's to gain a deeper, more
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accurate apprehension of what is contained in that declaration of
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the gospel. You'll see it's a word that's
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far older, far more layered, and perhaps most surprisingly, far
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more politically charged that it's common usage today might
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suggest. So let's unpack this.
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Right. Let's start at the beginning.
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I think when most approach the New Testament, they assumed the
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words used were, you know, created specifically for these
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big spiritual concepts. But Eglon has a surprisingly
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mundane, almost commercial beginning.
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That's. Probably the most unexpected
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part of its history. Yeah, in its earliest attested
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form, the word did not mean the message itself.
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It meant a reward for good news. It was the compensation, the tip
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basically given to the messenger for bringing GLAAD tidings.
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The tip, so we're talking about a purely transactional term.
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Purely transactional. Think of it as ancient
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performance based pay. You brought good news, you got
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paid for it. The word itself was the payment.
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It's interesting to consider that the very first meaning of a
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word that would become so associated with eternal life
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was, well, literal cash. Where do we first encounter this
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in the historical record? Well, we see it's antiquity
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established in Homer, specifically in the Odyssey.
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There, the term eglion denotes the reward that's promised to
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Eumaeus the swineherd, if he brings Odysseus's wife,
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Penelope. News that Odysseus is coming
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home. So the reward is mentioned
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before the message is even confirmed.
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Yes, the promise of the reward is dangled out there as the
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incentive, the echolion itself. The reward is the focus.
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So the reward itself was the Aga caleone.
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That's a great piece of linguistic trivia, but what does
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that tell us about the culture surrounding the word?
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It tells us that announcing joy had an intrinsic, immediate
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economic value. A word, an announcement could
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bring about a cessation of anxiety or the promise of
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prosperity, and the person who delivered that word deserved
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payment proportional to that relief.
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So the culture recognized the immediate social and, I guess
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emotional impact of news. They absolutely did and they put
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a price on it. Did the Hebrew tradition handle
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this concept in a similar way? Was there a parallel?
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Yes, there was. The corresponding Hebrew noun
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deshra shared this exact same double meaning.
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While it certainly could refer to the content of the news, it
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also carried the meaning of a reward for the bearer.
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OK, can you give an example of that?
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Sure, a clear 1 is in Sexy Samuel 4.9.
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You have a messenger who comes to David, and he presumes he's
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bringing David glad tidings about Saul's death.
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He's expecting a handsome reward.
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He thinks he's about to get paid.
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He. Absolutely.
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Does the expectation was that joyful news meant personal gain
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for the one who brought it. That was just baked into the
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culture. So Phase 1 of this word's life
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is really defined by payment, by compensation, based on the
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positive effect of an announcement.
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Precisely after that, though, the term naturally expanded.
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It started to move past just the reward, to simply mean the good
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news or the GLAAD tidings itself.
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It became about the content of the message.
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This more general sense, which you see becoming common in
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classical Greek literature around the time of Cicero,
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became the default secular usage.
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OK. So once it broadens, what kind
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of events would qualify as ETA Gila?
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What's considered good news? Most frequently it was tied to
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the outcome of war. It was the news of victory in a
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battle which you have to remember meant the immediate end
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of conflict, the opening of trade routes again, and the
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safety of the city or the nation.
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This was huge public celebratory news.
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It sounds like a community wide event.
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Did they develop rituals around receiving that kind of news?
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Absolutely. The announcement of a massive
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victory would lead to the ritual practice of Ayagoitan.
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This was the act of offering a sacrifice to the gods
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specifically to celebrate the good news that have been
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received. And notice the plural Yagagi,
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the good tidings. So it became a technical term
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almost for the festival that was surround a victory report.
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That's a good way to put it, yeah.
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And outside of military matters, what other announcements were
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considered agaia? Oh, anything that brought
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general and public joy. The successful conclusion of a
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major political election, for instance, Or the celebration
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surrounding a major wedding ceremony.
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The safe arrival of a son and heir.
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The birth of a son, right? Exactly.
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Or even the inauguration of a new civic official who promised
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prosperity for the city. Any of these could be called
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good news. What's so critical to realize
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here for you listening, is that in these earliest contexts, the
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word eglant was entirely common. It was secular.
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It just referred to joyful communications, far removed from
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any specific theological thought that would later develop.
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It was all contingent on worldly success.
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It was situational. The weight of the word really
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depended on the context. I mean, the joy you get from
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winning a battle is different from the joy of a wedding, but
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the word itself was just a descriptor for a positive
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communication. The theological gravity it would
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acquire in the New Testament was at this stage completely
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nonexistent. Right.
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This is where the word leaves the marketplace and well, it
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becomes weaponized. It takes on political and
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religious significance at the same time developing these
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competing claims of authority. This is where it gets really
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interesting. The biblical tradition provides
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the first great theological anchor.
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It grounds the term via its Hebrew root, Bashar, in an
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eschatological context, a context of final things.
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This verb meant to bring good tidings, and the noun for the
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person doing it is sadio mabashar, the Herald, or the
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Proclaimer. Right.
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So the Jewish tradition focuses the announcement not just on,
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say, a single military win, but on the ultimate definitive
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victory. Exactly.
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The focus is the announcement of the great final victory of
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Yahweh, and that victory entails the inauguration of His kingly
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rule and the dawn of the new Age.
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This is news that terminates history as they knew it.
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It's a whole different ball game from enhancing a new air.
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When we speak of this prophetic shift, my mind immediately goes
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to Isaiah. Which text is it that
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establishes this shift most forcefully?
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It's the incredibly potent image in Isaiah 52.7.
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The herald, the Mebashir, is standing on the mountains,
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perhaps looking down on the ruins of a destroyed Jerusalem,
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and he cries out, proclaiming what has just happened, peace
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and salvation. Yahweh is king.
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The Hebrew is Malak. You shake, your God reigns.
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That one phrase moves the whole concept of good news from
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temporary relief to eternal sovereignty.
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Yes, and this is where the efficacy of the Word enters the
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picture. And this links directly back to
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our Reformed understanding of the creative power of God's
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Word. The proclamation isn't just a
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report that the new age is coming.
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It is an effective creative act. By declaring the inauguration of
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the eschatological age, the Messenger brings it to pass.
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So the word itself makes it happen.
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Salvation comes with the word of proclamation itself.
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It's not just information, it's an event.
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So the word possesses effective force because Yahweh is speaking
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through his messenger, and that speech initiates his sovereign
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role. That's a massive shift in
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gravity from, you know, getting a tip for bringing good news.
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It's the ultimate word of power. The proclamation that Yahweh is
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king is the restoration of Zion. It's the comfort of Israel, and
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it's the assurance that all subsequent good tidings flow
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from this one definitive ruling act.
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And within Palestinian Judaism, this Herald figure, that may be
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sure, he was often anticipated to be a messianic figure, right?
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Maybe Eliza returning or a great prophet who would bring this
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final redemption in peace. That's right, the news itself
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was wrapped up in the person delivering it.
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The messenger and the message were becoming intertwined, and
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we also find this proclamation of victory rooted in the
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collective worship of Yahweh. You see the action of
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proclamation in the Yahweh cult where news of Israel's victory
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was proclaimed by a great company of women.
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I Garrido mentioned in Psalm 68.11.
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So it's communal, it's. Communal, It's Worshipful, and
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their song is a direct response to the victory that was ordered
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by God himself. This shows the context the Word
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had already acquired centuries before Christ.
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OK, now at the same historical moment, outside of the Jewish
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context, the very same Greek word on Thuglia was being
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systematically used by the Roman Empire, and this creates an
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immediate and really an inescapable rivalry for the
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early church. This is the crucial political
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backdrop for the entire New Testament.
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Rome took the secular term for glad tidings and they
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transformed it into state sponsored political theology,
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the imperial cult. Right.
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The Roman Emperor, starting prominently with Augustus, was
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viewed as a Theos, the divine man, the Son of God, whose
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actions brought salvation to the known world.
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And every major event related to the Emperor, his accession to
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the throne is returned from a successful campaign, or, most
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tellingly, his birthday was proclaimed as a Gedlia.
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Good news. We have stunning historical
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evidence of this, don't we? I'm thinking of the famous pre
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and calendar inscription from around 9 BC celebrating the
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birth of Augustus. That inscription is absolutely
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vital. It explicitly refers to the
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Emperor's birthday as the beginning of the joyful messages
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which have gone forth because of him.
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This message proclaimed that a new era of salvation, peace, Pax
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Romana and prosperity had dawned for the whole world through the
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Emperor's rule. Wait, I want to pause on that
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phrase. If the emperor's birthday was
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the beginning of the joyful messages, does that imply there
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were many? Adrian, It's plural.
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Yes, and that's a key point. The Roman system was built on a
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series of successes. Many battles won, many provinces
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secured, many acts of imperial beneficence.
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Their salvation was ongoing and fragmented.
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Hence the plural annelier. The many good news is the many
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gospels of the Emperor's rule. And this creates the immediate
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high stakes tension for the New Testament audience.
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The writers then deliberately opposed the singular Aegila, the
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message of the one crucified King Jesus Christ, to the plural
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aeglia of the dominant, powerful Roman system.
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It is a head on ideological clash.
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The Roman message proclaimed salvation through the powerful
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divine status of Caesar, enforced by legions of soldiers.
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The early Christian message proclaimed salvation through the
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shame of the cross, centered on the king of Israel, who appear
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as a humble rabbi. Both sides used the same word
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for good news, but they pointed to radically different sources
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of authority and peace. It makes you wonder, why didn't
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the early Christians just choose a different word to avoid the
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confusion, to avoid the political persecution that must
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have come with that? Well, they didn't, because the
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language of power had already been established back in Isaiah
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52.7. To proclaim Yahweh's rule as the
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gospel was a direct polemical act.
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It was an assertion that Caesar's claims were, to put it
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in modern terms, fake news, a counterfeit gospel.
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It's an act of defiance. It's an act of theological and
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political defiance. By using Aeglion they were
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declaring you claim the Emperor brings ultimate peace and rule.
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No, only the resurrected Christ brings the true singular good
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news of God's dominion. OK, so before we jump right into
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the New Testaments usage, there's a linguistic curveball
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we need to address, and that's the Septuagint.
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Yes, the Septuagint or the LXX. It's the Greek translation of
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the Hebrew Scriptures, and it further emphasizes just how
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distinct the New Testaments term really was.
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The LXX was created to translate the Hebrew prophets, including
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Isaiah, which is the very text that gave the word its
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theological heft. So did the LXX just adopt the
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Hebrew Bashara wholesale into Greek?
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They did, but they were remarkably meticulous about it.
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They wanted to avoid any confusion between the content of
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the message and the reward for it.
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The translators who were working centuries before Christ
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displayed some really unique vocabulary choices to make this
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distinction clear. So how did they manage that?
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How do they linguistically separate the good news from the
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tip? The LXX used the feminine noun
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egella in the singular to translate the Hebrew day when it
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meant the content of the good news, the message itself.
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But conversely, it used the neuter plural to agilia
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exclusively to mean the reward for good news, just as we saw
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back in Two Samuel 4.7. And so they created a
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distinction based on grammatical gender and number.
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Feminine singular for the message, neuter plural for the
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reward. Exactly.
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It's a very sophisticated way to maintain clarity.
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That is sophisticated. Now here's the key insight from
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our sources. The specific word a galoy in the
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singular, the exact form used all through the New Testament,
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is absent from the Septuagint. It just isn't there.
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And that absence is extremely revealing.
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The New Testament, theologically speaking, needed a word that was
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more robust, more politically charged, and less diluted than
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the LXX's common a gala. By choosing the singular neuter
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Agala, the apostles utilized a term that carried all the
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political weight of the imperial cult, but they loaded it with
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the effective eschatological truth of the prophetic tradition
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from Isaiah. So the New Testament's usage
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wasn't just a passive inheritance of vocabulary from
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the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures.
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It was a deliberate polemical choice.
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It stood distinct from both the Roman plural and the LXX's
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feminine singular, and this really sets the stage for the
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New Testament's unique claim. It does.
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Once the New Testament writers adopt aegion, the proclamation,
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which is the verb agalisfi to announce good news, becomes
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intrinsically tied to specific agents authorized by God.
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This is not arbitrary reporting. This is a chain of command.
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Right. And the sources establish a
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clear hierarchy. God himself is the ultimate
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author. He's the one revealing His plan
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of salvation to the prophets, or proclaiming peace through the
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Anointed One, as it says in Acts 10236.
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And just below the divine author we find the heavenly agents.
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Angels serve as evangelists. You have Gabriel announcing John
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the Baptist's birth. But the most famous instance, of
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course, is the Angel telling the shepherds of the birth of the
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Savior. He declares A ghalami.
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Ghumo Khalenaglen, I bring you good news of great joy.
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That's in Luke 2.10. They function as God's first
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evangelist in the New Covenant. Then we meet the last of the Old
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Covenant prophets, John the Baptist.
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Luke 3.18 says he evangelized the people.
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What does his proclamation signify within this whole
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context of semantic shift? John acts as the hinge of
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history. He's proclaiming the imminence
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of the Kingdom, serving as the crucial boundary line, as Jesus
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himself says the law and the prophets were until John.
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But from his time onward, the Kingdom of God is announced.
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Doego Mekdi, as it says in Luke 1616.
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So he's preparing the way. He's preparing the way, bringing
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the good news of repentance and anticipation.
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He's the opening act for the main event.
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But the central agile, the true proclaimer, the Mabasher
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Incarnate, is Jesus Christ. Precisely his entire ministry is
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summarized by the Gospels as being focused on this singular
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mission. Luke 8.1 describes Jesus as
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literally proclaiming and evangelizing the Kingdom of God.
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That's Karishenkai, or Angulisminos Ton Bazilian to the
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woe. This was not a side activity for
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him. It was his vocational mission.
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It was the reason he was there. And when John the Baptist sends
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his messengers from prison to ask Jesus if he is the One,
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Jesus's response is fascinating because it wraps his whole
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identity up in the act of proclamation.
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That moment in Matthew 11.5 is absolutely key.
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The proof Jesus offers isn't a grand political act or the
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philosophical argument. It's that the sohagile Asantai
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good news is preached to the poor.
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Which is a direct quote from Isaiah.
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It's a direct fulfilment based citation of Isaiah.
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Isaiah 61.1. Jesus is basically saying look
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at what's happening. The very things the prophetic
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good news promised are being done.
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He is the substance of the gospel that's being preached.
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He embodies it. Then, following Jesus's
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departure, this Commission is passed on to his authorized
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messengers. Yes, the task is given to the
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apostles, the 12 and later Paul, and to evangelist.
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Like Philip, Paul saw his entire life as being defined by this
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mission. He used Eigel Zesi to describe
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his complete Apostolic activity, especially his vocation to bring
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this message to the Gentiles. He felt compelled.
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He saw himself as under a divine constraint, He says a necessity
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was laid upon him to preach the gospel.
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It wasn't a choice, it was a divine imperative.
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And the beauty of Romans 10.15 really highlights the continuity
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with that old prophetic tradition.
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It talks about the feet of those who announce good news.
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That imagery takes you right back to the joy and the honor
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attached to the Herald running on the mountains in Isaiah 52.7.
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It does. It shows a direct lineage.
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Now it's vital we move beyond who proclaimed it to how they
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proclaimed it. The New Testament proclamation
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is not simply religious speech. It's done with full authority
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and power. We have to return to that
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concept of efficacy. When the apostle spoke this
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word, what did the audience understand it to be doing?
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It wasn't just information. They understood it was God's
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Word, living and active. Paul states this very clearly.
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He says the gospel came to the Thessalonians not only in Word,
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but also in power and in the Holy Spirit.
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That's in First Thessalonians 1.5.
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The Word itself is attested and backed by the immediate
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observable power of God. So the word is effective, just
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as the prophetic word of Isaiah was effective.
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It's not just describing a future reality, it's creating a
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present one. Absolutely.
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It's an effective missionary term.
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It doesn't just invite contemplation, it demands
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conversion and submission. And importantly, this
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proclamation is accompanied by verifiable results.
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It brings signs and wonders. It brings healing of bodily
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disorders. And it simultaneously
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establishes a right relationship with God.
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So it's a word that operates on the physical and spiritual
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planes at the same time. The good news of the Age of
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Grace creates health and wholeness in every respect.
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It's not just a philosophical shift, but an imparted blessing,
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an act of imparting salvation. That's it.
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The New Testament is clear. The act of Agonessa is the
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divine tool used to open the eyes of the blind, to raise the
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dead, and to transfer individuals from the domain of
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darkness into the Kingdom of light.
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It is a communication that produces new life, which aligns
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perfectly with our conviction that God's Word is never spoken
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in vain. It always accomplishes its
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purpose. OK, so we've established the
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words political and prophetic pedigree.
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Now we had to define the critical content.
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If I get Raider I is the true opposite of Caesar's propaganda,
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what exactly is contained within the Christian message?
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The New Testament concept is structurally identical to the
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prophetic proclamation of old. The gospel is intrinsically
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linked to the announcement of God's Kingdom.
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The gospel is identified with Jesus message about the coming
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of the Kingdom of God. And the Synoptic Gospels make
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this connection completely explicit with the phrase Gospel
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of the Kingdom. You Angelian toes Posilius.
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We see this multiple times in Matthew 4.239.35 and 24.14.
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In fact, Mark opens his entire account by defining the subject
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matter. He says the beginning of the
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gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and then he immediately
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summarizes Jesus score teaching as proclaiming the Aya Gala
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Maya, the gospel of God. And what's the content?
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The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand.
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The content is the fulfillment of time and the imminence of
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God's rule that echoes the cry of Isaiah 52.7.
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Yahweh is king. It's happening now.
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That linkage is everything. The message is not simply Jesus
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is a great teacher, or here are some good moral ideas.
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It is defined as good news proceeding from God concerning
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the instantiation of a new sphere of divine dominion and
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its king, Jesus. The central thesis is that the
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Messianic Age, the time of God's rule, Malku Shamiam, has arrived
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in the person and work of Christ.
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So if the Gospel is the proclamation that the Kingdom is
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here now, how does that differentiate it from, say, the
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teaching of the law or the older covenant?
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It differentiates it fundamentally because it deals
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with the effective action of God in the present moment.
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The law was the standard of God's rule.
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The gospel is the declaration of God's provision for those who
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failed that standard, and it's the implementation of His rule
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through Christ's life, death, and resurrection.
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So the gospel isn't just religious instruction, it is a
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geopolitical declaration of a change in regime, the arrival of
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the sovereign king. Absolutely, and that's why the
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proclamation demands an immediate response.
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Repent and believe in the gospel.
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As Mark 1.25 says, you can't be neutral about a regime change.
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Submission or repentance is required because the Kingdom has
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arrived. We have to come back to the
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decisive point. The Gospel is not just
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information or historical reporting.
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It's a declaration that simultaneously establishes the
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reality it announces. Paul spent his entire career
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dissecting this very idea. His clearest distillation of the
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content and function is found in First Corinthians 15.
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The core message is the factual historical narrative of Jesus's
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suffering, death, and resurrection, all of which he
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stresses happened according to the Scriptures, meaning it was
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the prophesied definitive act of God.
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And Paul's insistence that the gospel is effective power must
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be understood in that context of the struggle with Rome.
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Caesar claimed to bring peace through force.
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Paul claimed Christ brought salvation through weakness, the
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cross. That tension is what gives
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Romans 1.16 it's tremendous weight.
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Paul states that the Adeline is lacamas A sation effective power
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for salvation. This doesn't mean it offers
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power. It is power.
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It's the active, dynamic force of God operating in the world.
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Functionally, what does that deck means that power do?
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It is the means by which God transfers a person from death to
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life. It breaks into human life, It
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overturns the reigning sin and darkness.
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It creates communities bound by grace and mediates forgiveness,
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and it affects regeneration. It is the address of God to
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humanity that compels a response and initiates new creation.
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So in effect, when the gospel is proclaimed, the Kingdom of God
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is momentarily localized in that place through that word for
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those who hear. It that is the understanding the
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Gospel is salvation history itself breaking into the human
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narrative. It stands in direct theological
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and political contrast to the imperial claims, where Rome's
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good news was fleeting and required constant maintenance by
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military might. The New Testament gospel is the
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decisive, singular divine act of revelation.
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It's the beginning of God's eternal rule established in
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Christ. And crucially, this gospel, this
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effective power, is available to everyone who believes.
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This takes the message which started as a financial reward
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for the wealthy or a political declaration for the powerful,
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and democratizes it. It makes it accessible solely
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through faith, not through status or works.
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Precisely now we can trace the final stage of this word's
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evolution, the shift from the dynamic oral proclamation, the
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act of evangelizing, to the static written document, the
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book we hold in our house today. Right, this is a linguistic
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distinction that's easy to miss initially.
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How did the New Testament use agalon?
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As an action or as an object. Initially it was predominantly A
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nomen actionist, a word describing the act of
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proclamation itself. For example, when Paul speaks of
24:06
the beginning of activity as an evangelist in Philippians 4.5
24:10
Teen, he's describing the start of his preaching ministry, not
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the mailing of a book. The focus is on the verb, the
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doing. That seems a little
24:19
counterintuitive given the classical Greek usage where a
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gelon usually referred to the resulting communication, the
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object of thought. Yeah, why the focus on the ACT?
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Well, the scholarly consensus suggests this verbal preference.
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This focus on the action of preaching is rooted in the
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underlying Aramaic and Hebrew tradition.
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The prophetic tradition emphasized the act of bringing
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the news, the efficacy of the utterance itself.
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But at some point the term had to transition.
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When did it start to denote the content of Jesus's life as a
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fixed story? We can see the transition point
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almost immediately in Mark 1.1, the beginning of the gospel of
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Jesus Christ. While this still points toward
24:57
the message being preached, the focus is now clearly on the
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details relating to the life and ministry of Jesus.
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The message is becoming identified with the narrative
25:06
account. This shift must have been
25:08
necessary for the gospel to be transmitted reliably, especially
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once the apostles began to age or die.
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You needed a fixed record. Absolutely, and even Paul's
25:16
practice shows this necessity. He could transmit the gospel
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score content in a letter summarizing Christ's death and
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resurrection like he does in First Corinthians 15.
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This indicates that the message was separating from the
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immediate singular oral utterance and could be shared
25:31
and preserved in a written form. So the word finally took on its
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third, and for us today, most common meaning, a book dealing
25:38
with the life and teaching of Jesus, a gospel account.
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The rationale for that is compellingly logical.
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Since the original oral preaching bore faithful witness
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to Christ's words and acts, which were the very substance of
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the divine Ideon then the written accounts that preserved
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these acts naturally inherited the name of the message itself.
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The book became the vessel for the action.
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Yes, the message that was preached, the content, was not
26:03
secured in writing and this development is confirmed by the
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early Church Fathers who sought to protect this content against
26:09
heresy. What examples do we have from
26:12
the early church confirming this designation?
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Irenaeus, who was writing in the 2nd century, noted that Luke,
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Paul's follower, committed to a book, the Gospel that Paul
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preached. This explicitly links the
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preached message to the written text.
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And then later Eusebius mentioned evangelist
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transmitting the text of the divine gospel.
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The language becomes very specific.
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And this is where we see the plural Tigagia reemerge, but
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with a completely new meaning from its Roman or Septuagint
26:40
usage. That's right, the plural Teda
26:43
Gilia came to refer specifically to the collection of the four
26:46
written accounts Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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To distinguish them, they use the phrase secundum mithium
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according to Matthew to clarify the specific narrator.
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But it's so important that this plural usage for the books is
27:00
not confused with the plural agile of the Roman cult, which
27:04
spoke of fragmented many gospels.
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That distinction is paramount. The early Church always
27:09
understood the different written gospels as conveying the one
27:13
Gospel of God, the single message of Christ's rule.
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The term became a fixed and definite magnitude of tradition
27:20
to which the church could always appeal.
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However, we must stress, even after becoming a book title, the
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true glad tidings still happen through the active word of the
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preacher. The book preserves the message,
27:30
but the act of proclamation is what ignites the power.
27:33
The word on the page requires the word in the mouth to realize
27:36
its full efficacy. A perfect summation.
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The book is the faithful witness.
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The preaching is the dynamic encounter.
27:44
This has been a fascinating linguistic excavation.
27:46
We've tracked A Gion from his humble beginnings as well,
27:49
compensation given to a messenger in Homer through its
27:52
political cooption by the Roman imperial cult to its theological
27:56
anchor and the prophetic victory of Yahweh culminating in the
28:00
effective declaration of God's rule in Jesus Christ.
28:02
And finally, it's memorialization as the written
28:05
book. The central unifying element
28:08
throughout this whole history is the idea of effective, world
28:11
changing news that demands a response from the hearer.
28:15
The significance of the Gospel rests entirely on the
28:18
proclamation that Yahweh is King, a definitive reality
28:21
inaugurated through the humiliation and resurrection of
28:24
Jesus Christ. The New Testament gospel is not
28:26
an optional philosophy or a set of moral guidelines.
28:29
It is a divine act of revelation.
28:31
It is a word that, when declared, exercises the dynamic
28:34
power of God, producing salvation and setting things
28:37
right with creation. And so here's a final thought to
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consider as you reflect on this history, knowing that the
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original Agaidal was understood as an effective power, a
28:47
sovereign word that brings to pass the reality it announces,
28:50
whether that reality was a Roman emperor's peace or Christ's
28:53
eternal rule. How does understanding the
28:56
dynamic, effective nature of this concept challenge how you
28:58
hear, how you receive, and especially how you declare the
29:01
Gospel today?