The
gospel culture and the salvation cultures are two very important aspects of
evangelism. The main difference between the two is usually based on the
underlying depths the two bare when it comes to the word of God, salvation and
the management of sin. Salvation culture is the one with the least depth
between the two. It is a culture that has been developed by evangelicals and
only incorporates the aspect of salvation and sin management. These are
important aspects, but the culture downplays other important aspects such as
the Old Testament, the path of Jesus and the work of God since the beginning.
This means that this is a culture that puts a lot of focus on salvation and
downplays the gospel story. Many evangelicals of today emphasize a lot on
salvation and dedicate a lot of time to making people get saved and teaching
them about the management of sin but forget about the gospel story and its
significance in the development of a good foundation for salvation. One key
thing to understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is very broad and can never
be taught within a few hours. The gospel
culture is more about the complete story of God, the creation process, the fall
of humankind and then the recreation through Jesus Christ. These are aspects of
the culture that are very significant and have to be well rooted within an
individual. It is an aspect that is greatly omitted by the salvation culture
because of the need to emphasize on salvation. The Gospel is usually very
robust, communicate and very rich in details and very demanding because it
requires people to live like God’s icons the same way Jesus did while one
earth.
Christianity
for a very long time has called for much emphasis on personal faith and
salvation, and that is what has led to the development of the salvation
culture. This is a culture that mainly measures people based on whether or not
they can or have witnessed an experience involving personal salvation. As a
result, many Christian evangelists focus a lot on people’s personal salvation
rather than teach about the gospel of God.
The
gospel culture is a culture deeply rooted in the Bible, and the salvation
culture is part of the gospel culture. However, the entire Gospel culture needs
to well understood and meditated upon as a good basis for salvation. Depending
on salvation only without understanding and learning about the word of God may
lead to a salvation that is incomplete. The salvation culture has the effect of
separating the world between the saved and the unsaved and fails to teach people
enough about God. The Bible being the actual gospel stories is very extensive
and explains how the gospel came to be, how and why it is significant in the
lives of people as well as how people can fulfill it in their lives. Salvation
becomes an essential aspect of the gospel culture because salvation involves
accepting Jesus Christ and beginning a life based on the gospel of God. Salvation
becomes an important theme in the life of a person and gives him or her
perspective that enables them to learn and accept the gospel. This is usually
what is termed as the plan of salvation, and it is a factor of the gospel
because God wants his people to live as his icons the same way Jesus did while
on earth.
References
Gospel Culture or Salvation Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved 2017, from http://network.crcna.org/church-planting/gospel-culture-or-salvation-culture
DISCUSSION POSTS
Reply to Jared Smith
I completely agree with you Jared; it is difficult
for one to witness to others without the proper comprehension of what the
gospel is. I came to find on my own that salvation gospel deals majorly with
sin. It enables us to know what sin is, how we commit sins in our day to day
activities and most importantly how to avoid sin (Wiles, 2005). I, however, do not agree with you that salvation
gospel majorly points to the fact that we are all sinners and are going to hell;
I believe that salvation gospel shows us that we are indeed sinners, but we get
a chance to repent and live better lives without sin. Nevertheless, I do find
it true also that the New Testament tends to forget to mention facts and points
from the Old Testament a lot. We truly do need both testaments to comprehend
everything that God intended for us. Christians believe that everything that
God did was for a purpose, therefore, the same way that the Old Testament had bits
and pieces mentioning the coming of the Messiah (in the New Testament), so
should the New Testament mention points from the Old Testament. The Salvation
Gospel deals a lot with sin but to better understand sin, we must be able to
understand where it originally came from and as you stated, it started with
Adam and Eve in the Old Testament. Therefore, my view is pretty clear that I
believe to understand God’s plan for our salvation, we must comprehend the
whole Bible, the New Testament and Old Testament included.
Reply to George Miles
The definition of both gospel and salvation culture
showing their difference is pretty amazing. I do not think I could have put it
any better. Based on my beliefs I also believe that the gospel simply shows the
power of God and apart from that, it also shows how righteous God is based on
our faith. The gospel tends to bring people to faith in God. The gospel is the
word of God, and by hearing it, we usually convert our ways and follow God’s
word thus increasing our chances of salvation. I agree with you that it is
important to understand the gospel as it will enable us to discern the right
decisions from the wrong ones and in the end be saved. To help you confusion, I
also found hard to understand how one came to be recognized automatically as a
member of the church simply after following the normal procedure which is
baptism after birth, attending catechism class and so on, I came to believe
that belonging was all in one’s heart. Once one truly believed themselves to
have complete faith in God and did what was right in His eyes, then they have
no shame in saying they belong. Once one fully understands the gospel and is
willing to live according to the word, then they will surely achieve salvation.
References
Wiles, M. F. (2005). The Gospel of
salvation. The Spiritual Gospel, 148-157.
doi:10.1017/cbo9780511659744.010
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