I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

—Romans 1:16-17 (TNIV)

Are you ashamed of the Gospel? Are you eager to share the Good News with others or have you let secular culture beat you into submission and silence? Do you have News that is Good or just half good (or not good at all)? Are you worried that you will be labeled a religious nut or a bigot or narrow-minded or intolerant, etc., etc.? Are you afraid to share the Gospel because doing so would not be respectful of diversity and risk offending the senses of others?

Paul had no such reservations and he lived in an empire that was overtly hostile to the fledgling Christian faith. In fact, Paul gave his life for the Gospel—literally. He spread the Good News wherever he was and suffered insults, beatings, threats, and alienation by those who hated the cross. He did so because as he tells us today, the Gospel is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.

Yesterday we saw that the Gospel is from God and not a human invention. If this is so, then sharing the Good News with others literally is a matter of life and death. Paul knew the One who loved him and claimed him forever. He knew the stakes and he loved others enough to want to share real life with them, not something that masqueraded as life.

If you believe the Good News but are reluctant to share it with others, then you might really be ashamed of it, assuming you know what the Good News is really all about. When you stand before the judgment seat of Christ, do you think he is going to be interested in secularism or diversity or anything else that opposes the Gospel? Or do you think he is going to want to know why you claimed to have Good News but didn’t want to share it with others?

We live in a world today that desperately needs to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Will you do your part to share it with others as opportunities permit in the course of your natural interactions with others each day? When you fully understand what God in Christ has done for you, there is no reason to be ashamed of the Gospel or let yourself be bullied into silence by the various enemies of the cross. No, you will not be ashamed of the Gospel but rather you will be profoundly thankful that it exists.

If you really do have the Good News of Jesus Christ, then share it so that others may be exposed to its message of life.

O God, the author of love and the lover of pure peace and affection: let all who are terrified with fears, afflicted by poverty, harassed by tribulation, worn down by illness, be set free by your indulgent tenderness, raised up by amendment of life and cherished by your daily compassion. Amen.

—The Gallican Sacramentary

“He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” This is because those who belong to Christ have crucified their bodies with their sinful practices and pleasures. We are unworthy of Christ if we do not take up our own cross, by which we suffer, die and are buried and resurrected together with him. Only by this pledge of faith in the Spirit will he triumph in new life in us.

—Hilary of Poitiers, On Matthew 10.25-26

O God, Origin, Sustainer, and End of all your creatures: Grant that your Church, taught by your servant Evelyn Underhill, guarded evermore by your power, and guided by your Spirit into the light of truth, may continually offer to you all glory and thanksgiving, and attain with your saints to the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have promised us by our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

If, then, we desire a simple test of the quality of our spiritual life, a consideration of the tranquility, gentleness ans strength with which we deal with the circumstances of our outward life will serve us better than anything that is based on the loftiness of our religious notions, or fervour of our religious feelings. It is a test that can be applied anywhere and at any time. Tranquility, gentleness and strength, carrying us through the changes of weather, the ups and downs of the route, the varied surface of the road; the inequalities of family life, emotional and professional disappointments, the sudden intervention of bad fortune or bad health, the rising and falling of our religious temperature. This is the threefold imprint of the Spirit on the souls surrendered to his great action.

—Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life

The real issue is neither linguistic (whether the word incarnation is mythical, metaphorical, or literal), nor cultural (how far the biblical or Chalcedonian formulations reflect the concepts of their day). The ultimate question is absolutely plain, even to the man in the street to whom semantics, culture, and theology are all closed books. It is this: is Jesus to be worshiped or only to be admired? If he is God, then he is worthy of our worship, faith, and obedience; if he is not God, then to give him such devotion is idolatry.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, Truth, Heresy and Discipline in the Church

Which Jesus are we talking about? Even Paul in his day recognized the possibility of teachers proclaiming ‘another Jesus’ than the Jesus he preached (2 Cor. 11:4).  And there are many Jesuses abroad today. There is Jesus the Bultmannian myth and Jesus the revolutionary firebrand, Jesus the failed superstar and Jesus the circus clown. It is over against these human reinterpretations that we need urgently to recover and reinstate the authentic Jesus, the Jesus of history who is the Jesus of Scripture.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott, Christian Mission in the Modern World 48.

In our search for wisdom we cannot stay in the Old Testament, or even in the wisdom literature. We have to move on to its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.  For he is made unto us wisdom, and in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found. Especially the cross, which is foolishness to the proud, is the wisdom and the power of God. For the two chief blessings of Jesus’ death and resurrection are the knowledge of God and deliverance from evil. And so we are back where we started: the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

—Dr. John R.W. Stott,  Biblical Meditation: True Wisdom 26.