When we hear the phrase “good-news” we tend to think that automatically whatever will be proclaimed will be received as good-news. However, our own spiritual disposition may in fact cause us to see “good-news” as something…”bad.”
It is the job of the evangelist to seek to present the Gospel as good-news to the person hearing its proclamation. And for this reason, testimony can aid in one’s own disposition moving towards its fruitful reception. The testimony of another should bear witness to an interior movement of the mind and heart and will towards the truth of the Gospel, almost like a road-map, a living analogy of how we move from rejecting the gospel to accepting it.
It may help us to consider the original usage of the term “good-news.” For the Romans, whenever they would win a battle, and conquer a nation, they would begin their victory speech by proclaiming the “good-news.” Christians hijacked this politically charged phrase and applied it to the interior life, and spiritual matters that are evident by the victory of Christ Crucified and Resurrected.
By hijacking this phrase, it highlights the conflict that naturally will exist every time the good news is proclaimed. For we are claiming something different from the world. It is not about the agenda of the flesh (in the pejorative sense), but rather a matter of being born again by the Spirit. We must witness to this as good-news, but in a humble manner that can understand the sorrow of those who reject it as good-news.
Now, the good-news has many implications (morality). But it begins and is only understood first through the lens of a relationship with Jesus, the Son of the Eternal Father.
Photo: Olivia Snow, Unsplash / PD-US
