2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19 – The exercise of faith is the means of our healing, our wholeness, our holiness, our happiness, and our salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coming Up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jeannine Brown<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 first words in Mark\u2019s Gospel announce the impending arrival of God\u2019s reign. \u201c\u2018The time has come,\u2019 he said. \u2018The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!\u2019\u201d (Mark 1:15). Although it is easy to think Jesus was the first to speak about the good news (euangelion<\/em> in Greek), the origins of the \u201cgospel\u201d go further back. If we look for antecedents of announcements about \u201cgood news\u201d tied to the reign of a king, we find two paths that prefigure Jesus\u2019 proclamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first is a Jewish path. Isaiah, hundreds of years before Jesus, announced the good news of God\u2019s reign for Israel in exile, with no immediate hope of restoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, \u2018Your God reigns!\u2019\u201d (Isaiah 52:7)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, \u201cgood news\u201d is conveyed by the Greek verb euangeliz\u014d<\/em>, which is related to euangelion<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Isaiah has a gospel: It is the news of the reality of God\u2019s powerful return to Zion to restore Israel (40:1-11). Isaiah sums up this good news as \u201cHere is your God!\u201d and \u201cYour God reigns!\u201d (40:9, 52:7). Isaiah looks ahead to the establishment of God\u2019s kingdom in this world. As Jesus comes proclaiming the nearness of the kingdom as the \u201cgood news,\u201d Jewish people would have expected the arrival of the great transformation anticipated in the wake of God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much like Isaiah\u2019s \u201cYour God reigns,\u201d Jesus announces the kingdom of God. He also enacts God\u2019s reign in this world \u2014 \u201con earth as it is in heaven\u201d (Matthew 6:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the Gospel writers connect the arrival of the kingdom directly to Jesus\u2019 authority and ministry: \u201cIf I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you\u201d (Luke 11:20).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second path for understanding this \u201cgood news of the kingdom\u201d (Matthew 4:23, 9:35) may seem a more unlikely one \u2014 it comes from first-century Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An inscription that heralds the supposedly benevolent reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC-AD 14) reads: \u201c\u2026the birthday of the god [Augustus] was the beginning of the good news that came through him to the world.\u201d In our contemporary context of a separation of church and state, it can be easy to assign this claim for Caesar to the political realm and to identify Jesus\u2019 kingdom announcement as spiritual. Yet no person in that era would have conceived of such a separation. Instead, this inscription claims that Augustus was ordained as supreme ruler. Later coins minted with the image of Tiberius (AD 14-37), Rome\u2019s ruler during Jesus\u2019 ministry, identify Tiberius as emperor (\u201cCaesar\u201d), \u201cson of the divine Augustus,\u201d and \u201chigh priest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What can we take away from these Jewish and Roman precursors for the euangelion<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, the connection between the \u201cgospel\u201d and the arrival of God\u2019s kingdom is built into the Jewish Scriptures. We can imagine that the Jewish people experiencing Jesus\u2019 early preaching would have heard its echoes of Isaiah and understood Jesus to be announcing the promised and long-awaited in-breaking of God\u2019s reign. Israel\u2019s God was now coming to make all things right and to send the Messiah to rule (Zechariah 9:9-10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some hearers might well have been wondering if this one announcing the kingdom might be its Messiah-King. The New Testament writers confirm that this is the case. God\u2019s reign breaks into this world definitively in Jesus. His mission of compassion and restoration culminates in his representative death. And God resurrects him, vindicating Jesus and his mission: \u201cGod has made this Jesus \u2026 both Lord and Messiah\u201d (Acts 2:36). In this way, the New Testament story moves from Jesus preaching the kingdom to the early church preaching Jesus as its reigning King (Acts 17:7; Revelation 17:14) and Lord (Romans 1:4; Philippians 2:11).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, given the everyday and everywhere placement of Roman propaganda about Caesar as lord and king, those who heard Jesus and those who read and heard the apostolic testimony would have understood that announcing the reign of Israel\u2019s God challenged Caesar\u2019s universal lordship. Instead of thinking of Caesar as political ruler and Jesus as spiritual ruler, they reckoned with Jesus\u2019 preaching of \u201cthe good news of the kingdom\u201d as an all-encompassing claim of God\u2019s truly benevolent reign in this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christians are called to allegiance to God alone \u2014 all other loyalties must answer to that allegiance: \u201cAbove all pursue [God\u2019s] kingdom and righteousness\u201d (Matthew 6:33 NET). Following Jesus, the true \u201cLord of all,\u201d involves unswerving loyalty (Acts 10:36).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, our part is to \u201clive the gospel\u201d \u2014 to live in light of the reality of Christ as King and Lord. When we look at the world today \u2014 from natural disasters to human violence toward one another, to hunger and starvation \u2014 it may seem difficult to speak with conviction, \u201cJesus is Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet that is precisely the faith stance the New Testament leads us to confess (Romans 10:9). And if Jesus, the one who brought justice and mercy in his ministry (Matthew 12:18-21), is reigning and working to bring justice even in the center of such present ambiguities, we know that all things will be brought under his gracious and benevolent reign in the end (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). And this, truly, is good news!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth of the \u201cgospel\u201d is the announcement of the kingdom of God \u2014 now firmly planted in this world in Jesus\u2019 reign (Matthew 28:18). We are called to pass this good news along \u2014 to proclaim and teach it (Matthew 29:19). We are called to pray, \u201cMay your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven\u201d (Matthew 6:10 NET). And we are called to live in light of kingdom values. Those who follow Jesus are to live out the final day reality in the present by being people of mercy, integrity, peace and justice (Matthew 5:7-10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sermon tomorrow: “As They Went” 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19 – The exercise of…<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-4106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worship-this-week","tag-worship-this-week"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/SPEC-GNC-black-sm-2022.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Paross","author_link":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4107,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106\/revisions\/4107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stpaulsmarietta.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Evangelical Theology<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Jewish Path to Good News<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Roman Path to Good News<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The New Testament Good News<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The Good News for Today<\/h3>\n\n\n\n