The Gospel and Its Meaning: A Theology for Evangelism and Church Growth

The Gospel speaks to a broad range of concerns--concerns that differ from person to person, group to group, culture to culture. Yet the practice of the twentieth-century church has been to concentrate on one part of the Gospel--repentance and justification--as if it were the whole, and to proclaim that part uniformly, often without meaningful context that would demonstrate the relevance of Christ to the hearer. The Gospel and Its Meaning breaks fresh ground for evangelism. It equips the students of evangelism with theological foundations for reaching diverse groups, from Hindi pantheists to radical environmentalists, without compromising the Gospel's integrity. The Gospel and Its Meaning - Identifies the basic elements of the Gospel - Shows the relationship of these elements to specific doctrines of theology - Identifies theologians and systems that have focused on particular doctrines - Shows which elements of the Gospel deal most clearly with various issues of evangelism - Suggests avenues of ministry that can address each evangelistic issue. By showing how different parts of the Gospel address the concerns of people within and without the Judeo-Christian worldview, The Gospel and Its Meaning helps those in any kind of evangelistic ministry to develop a means for connecting the Gospel directly to the world of the hearer while distinguishing it clearly from philosophies of relativism and pluralism.