The Good News

When I was a boy I would sometimes be asked to deliver telegrams that had come into the local post office and there was nobody else available to deliver them. Telegrams were often used in past times to get news to someone in a hurry and very often it was bad news. Telegrams often told in a few words that a loved one had died or had been in a bad accident or something like that. But telegrams also often told good news, and Paul and Barnabas told the people in the city of Antioch in Pisidia (not the Antioch from which they were sent out) that they were bringing good news — what we call the Gospel.

If you look up an English thesaurus (a kind of dictionary) you will find a multitude of suggested meanings for this word and all of them are positive in the sense that what the Gospel says is true. It can be trusted and relied upon. Often people say 'it is Gospel', meaning it is true. Why has it come to have that meaning?

Simply because people recognised that this good news this Gospel actually is the truth. The truth of the Gospel is centred on Jesus all the way through. Jesus changes lives and makes bad people good and shows us the way to honour God and live for him. Paul just loved to preach the good news because it had done so much for him.

Prayer

Dear Lord, help me to love the Gospel and to share its good news with those who don't know it. Amen.