Not long ago, I heard a leading clergyman say, "By all means proclaim the Gospel! If necessary, use words!"  It was clever, perhaps even humorous, but it was very bad theology!  The idea that lay behind the remarks was well-intended .  He was trying to find a clever way to say that whet we do is more important than what we say.  Words, he was telling us, are secondary to actions.

        Now, to be sure, if someone says something and then acts contrary to his words, he is a hypocrite and what he says will be dismissed because his actions betray his words. On the other hand kind actions that are never followed up with a clear, unmuddled statement of the true and saving Gospel do nothing for the would be hearer's salvation.  The question at the heart of the clergyman's statement is: " What is the Gospel?"

        It is a critical question for any Christian!  We talk a lot about the Gospel, but we are sometimes confused by what comprises. it.  We might also ask, what is the relationship between action and Gospel words?

        At its most fundamental point, the Gospel is words about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done.  If all Christianity has to offer is kind actions, then Christianity would be exactly like every other religion on the face of the globe.  Virtually all other non-Christian religions are religions about human behavior! The better one behaves, then the better Buddhist, the better Muslin, the better whatever you are.

        In the scriptures we find Jesus saving His most harsh words for the people in that culture that behave the best!  They were the Pharisees. They were simply the most respected, the most observant, and the most demanding of the various parties that comprised Judaism.  In anyone "performed" well as a Jew, it was the Pharisees!  Just listen to a small part of the Lord's upbraiding of the Pharisees:

        Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness... you snakes!  You brood of vipers!  How will you escape being condemned to hell?""   (Matthew 23:27-28,33)

        Why, then was Jesus so angry with them?  The reason is directly connected to the Gospel and Pharisees had no idea what he Gospel was!  They thought that keeping the Law of Moses (behaving better) was the Gospel.  They thought that behaving well would get them into heaven. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

        The Gospel or Good News which saves is contained in words Just listen to them!  But now he [Christ] has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.  Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to whose who are waiting for him  (Hebrews 9:26b-28)

        There, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this if from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, not counting men's sins against them; .. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we may become the righteousness of God  (II Corinthians 5:17-19a,20)

        There are many, many more passages like these which indicate that salvation is found in no other name that that of Jesus Christ!  (Acts 4:12) Why?  Because good behavior by sinful men is completely inadequate before a holy and utterly righteous God!  Yes, the Gospel is word, God's Words!

        Then may Christian behave any way they wish since it is not by works that we are saved?  Absolutely not!  In Christ we are free from the bondage of sin and are no longer slaves to it.  We do the things of God simply because we are God's people!  God's "orchard" grows God's fruit!  So, yes!  Christian behavior does indeed give evidence of our faith, but our behavior in no way earns God's approval!  Only Christ's behavior, His righteousness is our hope!

        Therefore, the Gospel, or Good News is words which convey to us the grace of God through Jesus Christ the divine/human son of the Father.  Our actions give witness to our faith, but fundamentally the Gospel is the message about Christ crucified and risen.  As St. Paul writes in Romans 10:17  "...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ".