The King Jesus Gospel

The Original Good News Revisited

By: Scot McKnight

Narrated by: Maurice England

Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Contemporary evangelicals have built a 'salvation culture' but not a 'gospel culture.' Evangelicals have reduced the gospel to the message of personal salvation. This book makes a plea for us to recover the old gospel as that which is still new and still fresh. The book stands on four arguments: that the gospel is defined by the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15 as the completion of the Story of Israel in the saving Story of Jesus; that the gospel is found in the Four Gospels; that the gospel was preached by Jesus; and that the sermons in the Book of Acts are the best example of gospeling in the New Testament. In the Beginning was the Gospel ends with practical suggestions about evangelism and about building a gospel culture.

©2011 Scot McKnight (P)2011 Zondervan

The Gospel is About Jesus

In my desire to expand my knowledge (and keep myself entertained), I read a lot of books. In my head, I know that many times I need to ruminate on a book more to really get the point and put into practice what I have heard from it. But too often I just keep reading. After all I have a blog to write.

So I made a goal for myself to re-read one book a month. I suck at meeting goals. I have only re-read 10 in the last 18 months and only 2 this year. But when I re-read, I like to read in a different format. The first time I read King Jesus Gospel I read it on my kindle. This time I listened to the audiobook.

First things, first. I think this is a very important book. I think that the message, that we need to place Jesus as Savior, Lord and Messiah and full-filler of the story of Israel, is vitally important.

I have been reading a bit on the unity of Christ and different streams of Christianity lately and understanding the central component of the gospel is vitally important.

This book seems to be frequently misunderstood. McKnight is not minimizing the need for salvation or the need for good theology or the need for good Christian living. Instead he is arguing that as important as all of those things are, they are implications of the gospel, not themselves the Gospel.

The simplest way for me to explain this is that our salvation does not make Jesus Christ Lord and Savior. Instead, the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior means that we can be saved by his grace and power through his work on the cross and his resurrection and because Christ came to fulfill and complete the story of Israel.

But I do have two thoughts on reading this a second time. First, as important as it is, I think that McKnight needs to expand two parts. First, he wants to tightly connect the Old Testament to the New Testament. Too often we present Christ as absent from the history and action of God with Israel. McKnight talks about the importance of this, but I wish he expanded it more. I get his point, I agree with his point. I still have a hard time communicating his point to others. So I would like more.

In a similar way, I wish he would talk more about the implications for communicating the gospel because of the way he is trying to limit its scope. Some people seem to take McKnight’s point as meaning we should not share a plan of salvation with anyone. That is not his point. But I do see how a too quick reading of the book might lead you to think that.

In addition to those two areas I would like to see expanded, I thought that there really was not much more that I gained by re-reading it. McKnight was clear. This is not a book that needs to be read over and over for fresh insight. He was clear the first time through.

But I would suggest that you read this rather than listen to it. There is nothing wrong with the audiobook. But this is a book that I think benefits from reading the word on the page instead of listening to them through your earphones.

Still a long way to go to shed supercessionism.

I appreciate that where from where McKnight starts, this book is actually pushing back on replacement theology. He addresses it explicitly in fact. But this is still a deeply supercessionist book. I cringed every time McKnight said that “the story of Israel reaches its conclusion in Jesus”. We have to get past this type of thinking! We are grafted in to the story of Israel. How can we say it’s concluded?

Did the story of Ruth’s life end when Boaz redeemed her? Jesus is the Redeemer of Israel. Salvation is not a conclusion but a beginning! The messianic age will be the golden age of Israel, when “the Torah goes out from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” and “the latter glory of this house is greater than the former.”

Brings Clarity to Important Issues

What did you love best about The King Jesus Gospel?

Scot, whether you agree with him or not, brings so much clarity to some of the biggest issues of our day, and gives the underlying ideas very helpful names and frames the arguments clearly. I love his style, and I love that even people he disagrees with are given a fair treatment, and are treated generously.

He obviously knows his material, and refers to much longer works that he's written on some of the subjects that he covers, but he tends to stay above the academic jargon and make it easy enough to understand.

I've recommended it to many people as a must read. You'll be glad you did.

Wow!

I don't know how to explain it, but I feel like I have a new love and fascination for the gospel. Preaching it to the world has become more joyful than ever before due to the content being larger than 4 simple spiritual laws which has so often been thought of as the gospel. This book will stretch your perspective and expand the meaning of good in good news back to what it has been all along since Jesus taught us the gospel in the flesh.

IT could have been excellent but not charitable toward Calvinists

McKnight makes a very good case regarding the content of the Gospel and it’s implications but his tendency against calvinists show up by overstating their sqlvific tendencies. Sorry, but they also emphasize the Lordship of Jesus as the point of the Gospel. The ‘gospel’ is the good news that through Christ the power of God’s kingdom has entered history to renew the whole world. When we believe and rely on Jesus’ work and record (rather than ours) for our relationship to God, that kingdom power comes upon us and begins to work through us.”
– Tim Keller
The Gospel, the good news, has an intrinsic demand to it, such that our rearticulation of the demand for repentance, faith, and obedience cannot be divorced from the gospel itself
-D.A. Carson
n and through Jesus, God, the king, is coming in a way — a new way — into the world to establish his saving rule.
-John Piper
The gospel is not merely about “getting us saved,” as if we simply pray a prayer and are immediately transported into heaven. God describes “salvation” and the transformation of the Christian life like this: I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26–27)”
― Francis Chan,

Remarkable! have changing!

I've been rediscovering the Bible, it's story and meaning, scholars like Scot McKnight are a great help. Having the right understanding of what the Gospel is and what the Jeshua and the apostles were Gospeling is crucial to understanding is meaning and applications.

Pretty Good Story

This book is kind of repetitive and doesn't get to the point very quickly... The only thing I really learned from it was that Jesus in his entirety is the gospel as opposed to the salvation plan that many Christians recite today.

Great Story

The authors research was an excellent example of how to transfer information into a reasonable read for everyone

So Much More…

This book has given me such an amazing new way to not just understand the Gospel but to share the Gospel. I have spent so many years, as I read Scripture, wrestling with the thought that “it has to be more than just praying a prayer. Jesus and Kingdom sound like so much more.” This book helped me to understand the “so much more” and I am grateful and will now be able to share the story of Jesus and the true, powerful Gospel so much better! Thank you, Scot!

Excellence

Thank you for helping me to understand the true meaning of Gospel, through the eyes of Christ Peter, Paul, and John. Also a better understanding of Personal, salvation, communities, salvation, and gospel. Thank you

A Culture to be Desired

I could not think of anything I disliked about this book. It is essential that Christianity becomes a living culture again in line with the story of the whole Bible and this book tells the story of the Good News as told by the first Church, a story that needs to be relearned by the Church today and retold over again. This book will get you fired up. I have listened to it three times over.

An important book

The modern church is in dyer need to return to the full gospel. Too long we have been losing relevance by trying to be relevant. The gospel of salvation only really makes sense in the context of the story of Israel and the promised seed- the anointed son of David- the Christ.

This book hi lights the importance and relevance of the full gospel and in so doing makes the salvation gospel more believable.

Prophecy should not be separated from the gospel.