Simple, Concise and a Robust Gospel

A few weeks back I did a post on whether we could tweet the gospel. CT actually posed the question to Rob Bell. A while after that there have been numerous blog posts talking about the possibility of tweeting the gospel. Some criticized Bell for his take on it (well his take on the gospel based on his book "Jesus Wants to Save Christians") which you could read here. And on the same site also, a few days after critiquing Bell, there was a post on "How would you present this gospel on Twitter?" and it was a contest on who could put up the best way to convey the gospel via tweets. Just a note here, i'm not posting this to say that I disapprove of them for making it into a contest, in fact i'm up for any contest that gives me a chance to win books.

Reading the post again a few days after it was posted, there were a lot of responses from people on their take on tweeting the gospel. But I was somewhat disappointed with the answers that were put up. It makes me wonder whether it is even a good idea to even think of tweeting the gospel. Because of the concise nature, a lot of things get lost, and it really makes the Christian message look kind of dour and sour. See for yourselves here.

I'm not an enemy of simplicity and concise presentations but somethings are not worth working out in simplistic forms. Why? Because we might miss some important detail. Details that might have been vital in our presentation. So what should we do, if we wanted to present a simple yet concise as well as robust gospel?

I like McKnight's take on this

"The gospel is the story of the work of the triune God (Father, Son, and Spirit) to completely restore broken image-bearers () in the context of the community of faith (Israel, Kingdom, and Church) through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Pentecostal Spirit, to union with God and communion with others for the good of the world." Read the rest of the article here.

To me this would be a better way at conveying simplicity, conciseness and a wider grasp of the gospel as a whole.

Death by Paper Cuts

This article by Skye Jethani raises my level of respect for Rob Bell. I remember a few months ago I introduced my brother with this hip Pastor named Rob Bell. When I said introduced, it was in the form of introducing him to his material (wish it was in person though), two DVDs which I purchased ("Everything is Spiritual" & "The Gods aren't Angry"). I was glad my brother liked the guy and saw him looking him up in the internet. My brother was surprised why people are so critical of him. I explained some issues which people seem to poke him on but I must say some are quite harsh. I am not defending Bell here but I found the article above really explains the depth to this pastor. In the article you will find pastors can get hurt by criticism, Rob is no exception. You will also find how Rob deals with this.

Any thoughts about the article?