What is the gospel? I’ve heard people point to 1 Corinthians 15 to get a definition of the gospel: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-5) The death, burial and resurrection are often signaled as the totality of the gospel, with some merely writing DBR when they want to refer to this concept.

But was Paul offering a complete definition of the gospel? I’m not so sure. For one thing, the apostles preached the gospel before they even understood that there would be a death, burial and resurrection (Luke 9:1-6) Seems like the gospel they proclaimed was the Kingdom of God. John the Baptist preached the gospel (Luke 3:18), as did Jesus (Matt 4:23; 9:35; Mark 1:14; Luke 20:1).

Paul also talks about judgment being a part of the gospel (Romans 2:16), which fits well with the “eternal gospel” proclaimed in Revelation 14:6-7. In writing to Timothy, Paul speaks of Jesus’ descent from David as being part of the gospel (2 Timothy 2:8). To the Galatians, Paul says that the gospel was preached to Abraham when God promised to bless all nations through him.

So what do you think? Is it just DBR or do we need to broaden our definition of “gospel”?

(And is there any significance to the fact that the image above, found via Google, comes from a Church of Christ website, or is that just coincidence?)