Gospeling the Gospel: When Good News Feels Like Good News

When you travel to places where the gospel was first lived out, places like Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee, Corinth, and Thessaloniki, you begin to realize something powerful. The gospel wasn’t confined to sermons or temples. It was lived out in the streets, marketplaces, and homes of normal people. Walking these same streets, you can almost feel how active and alive the good news really was.

The word gospel is translated from the Greek word euangelion. We typically think of gospel as a noun. But for the early church, the good news was so much more. It was also a verb - euangelizo. They gospeled the gospel. They good news-ed the good news. It was a message that was lived out.

In Luke 4:18, Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” Similarly, Paul writes in Romans 1:15, “I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.” In our English Bibles, the phrases “proclaim the good news” and “preach the gospel” are both translations of the same Greek verb: euangelizo, meaning to bring good news.

Since modern translations often translate euangelizo as “preach the gospel,” it’s easy to limit it to the idea of preaching sermons on a Sunday morning. But in the original Greek, that phrase carries much more action and energy. It describes a life in motion.

Jesus didn’t just come to talk about the good news. And Paul didn’t just preach sermons about the gospel. They gospeled it. They good news-ed it. They lived it, embodied it, and shared it through the way they treated and loved one another. It was a way of life. It was a partnership with God to restore, reconcile, and renew everything broken:

• - Forgiving when it would be easier to keep a grudge.

• - Sitting with someone in pain instead of avoiding discomfort.

• - Giving generously to meet a need no one else sees.

• - Honoring someone you disagree with and seeking their good.

• - Serving a neighbor without being asked, simply because that is who you are now.

That’s why Paul often talked about “our partnership in the gospel” (Philippians 1:5). The gospel isn’t a message about a ticket to leave earth and go to heaven. The good news is that heaven is breaking into earth through the power of Jesus’ resurrection. God’s kingdom is taking root in our everyday lives through the transformation of the Holy Spirit and is raising us to new life, shaping us to be more like Jesus until that final Day when we are made completely new.

When we live out the transformation that God is working in us… that’s gospeling. That is good news embodied. That’s good news that feels like good news.

So maybe the question for us isn’t just, “Have I believed the gospel?” or “Am I called to preach the gospel.” You may never give a sermon. But all of us are called to live out the good news… to gospel the gospel. That’s what makes walking these lands so powerful. It reminds us that the story of the gospel didn’t end in the first century. It’s still being written in us.