Who is the Gospel for? That may seem like a ridiculous question. And of course, the proper response is that the gospel is for everyone. The Gospel is God’s remedy for humanity disordered by sin. But a church disordered by its surrounding culture has often missed the mark in practicing the Gospel.
Jesus inaugurated his ministry with words from the scroll of Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18–19).
Even so, we are tempted to ignore these radical liberating words. We have tended to favor a disordered humanity that keeps people in their place.
The first major controversy in the Christian church was the inclusion of the Gentiles. The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile signified the brokenness of humanity (Ephesians 2:14). Jewish law forbade a Jew to associate with a Gentile (Acts 10:28). The first Christians were Jews and were astonished when the Holy Spirit fell upon those outside of the Mosaic covenant- uncircumcised Gentiles. The Jews were careful to protect their place as God‘s chosen people, and could not envision a place for Gentiles within their priestly community. But, God had other plans. It had always been God’s purpose that Abraham’s promise include “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3). It was a misreading of Scripture that led Jews to insist on Gentile exclusion.
It can be said that the second major controversy of inclusion within Christianity was liberation of slaves. Slavery is a human disorder which deprives men, women, and children of their liberty for the political and economic benefit of the master class. The institution of slavery has been so embedded into human culture that Christians have often misread the Scriptures in favor of their cultural biases. During the antebellum period in the United States, the most “eminently conservative” and “thoroughly scriptural” Christians interpreted the Bible to support slavery as the natural order of humanity (James Henry Thornwell, A Southern Christian View of Slavery, 1861). The master class frequently quoted Paul’s injunction that slaves be submissive to their masters (Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22 et al) and conveniently ignored Paul’s exhortation to Philemon that Onesimus (a runaway slave) be treated as a brother (Philemon 16). A hermeneutic of submission was favored over a hermeneutic of deliverance, freedom, and brotherhood. Slavery was so embedded into the culture of Christendom that it took 1800 years to abolish it. With the abolition of slavery, Holy scripture has often been read to justify systemic racism.
The third controversy of inclusion is the role of women. This is one of the most enduring biases in the church. Similar to the justification of slavery, many have given priority to scriptures that suggest the subjugation of women (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Timothy 2:11-12 et al), and ignore those scriptures which speak to the empowerment of women (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17-18; Romans 16:1ff et al). Like racism, sexism is deeply embedded within a disordered culture that insists that women have their place. In the United States, women were guaranteed the right to vote in 1920, fifty years after freed slaves were enfranchised with the vote. Those who resisted empowering women with the vote suggested that the subordination of women is inevitable and that women should not be enfranchised because of “great inferiority of physical strength… inferiority in intellect, and the salutary teachings of the Christian faith” (Susan F. Cooper, “Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America,” Harper’s Weekly, June-November 1870, emphasis added). It is ironic that those who warn of the feminization of the church see no danger in the masculinization of the church. To insist on a masculine God implies that women are not created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Those who insist on a masculine church are effectively displacing women in the church. The vision of Holy Scripture is that God has created male and female humans in the divine image and commissioned them to rule over the earth together.
The gospel envisions a new creation in which the disordered relationships of this present age have passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17). The gospel envisions a people who “once were not a people” – Gentiles, slaves, and women – to be “the people of God” (1 Peter 2:10). Because of the Gospel, walls that separate ethnic groups are transformed into bridges, slaves are embraced as brothers, and women are fellow-heirs of God’s kingdom. The gospel is for everyone.
