1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
“Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way,
3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”
4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
Comment: The secular meaning of ‘gospel’ is “an idea or rule that’s accepted as undoubtedly true.” I think that the Bible meaning is no different but we need to find out what this Biblical gospel is talking about! Mark tells that he is starting at the beginning. And to get to the start he refers to one of the many OT prophetic passages about what the coming of the Messiah will be like. For example the last chapter of Malachi, the last book in our OT of the Bible is all about the coming of and the Messenger who will precede the coming of the Messiah! He is there called ‘Elijah’ . We are told in the gospels that ‘that ‘Elijah’ was the name many gave to him (or perhaps they thought that he was Elijah risen from the dead and thus the fulfillment of Malachi prophecy!) We are then given a description of what sort of man he was. He was different in dress, and dietary habits! We are told much more about his beginnings in the other gospels.
But then we have two aspects of the message which he preached. 1. The greatness of the One who was to follow and of Whom he was the herald, and his own unworthiness. 2. His baptisms for the people were with water but the Coming One would baptise with Spirit Reality! It will be good as we read on to see what that means!
Proverbs 21: 3 To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.
Prayer: Please increase my understanding of what the ‘gospel of Jesus Christ’ is.
As I read it! 