We really love preaching the gospel to people,” Dilli Lumjel told CT’s Angela Lu Fulton as she interviewed him for “Nepali Bhutanese refugees transform their trials into zeal for evangelization”.
“Gospel is not a verb,” I scribbled in the margin next to my other editorial notes when I first read a first draft.
I later learned that Lumjel used gospel as a verb several times in their conversations. He used it “so much,” Fulton told me, “that I started doing it too!” What may be technically incorrect – due to differences in translation for a non-native English speaker – is also theologically profound.
“What God gives us, we spread,” Lumjel said of his Bhutanese Nepali Christian community. This is the very pattern we see over and over again in Scripture.
While Jesus was nearby, John the Baptist pointed the others to him: “Look, the Lamb of God! » (John 1:36). When Jesus spoke to a Samaritan woman and confirmed that he was the Messiah, she “returned to the city and said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.’ Could this be the Messiah?’ » (4:28-29).
As Jesus suffered on the cross, a crucified criminal nearby stood up for Jesus, turning to him in faith (Luke 23:40-43). When Jesus died, the centurion who stood guard with other soldiers “cried out, “Surely he was the Son of God!” » » (Matt. 27:54).
And after Mary Magdalene encountered the resurrected Christ that first Easter morning, she “went to the disciples with the news: ‘I have seen the Lord!’ » (John 20:18).
From the disciples who accepted the Great Commission to Paul on his missionary journeys to Lydia who led his family to faith, Scripture describes people naturally and instinctively sharing the Good News. We see the Gospel in action as action.
Several articles in our April issue incorporate foundational gospel themes. New Testament scholar Jarvis J. Williams reflects on the life-changing truth of John 3:16. Jasmine L. Holmes discusses Christ’s victory over guilt and shame in our lives. John R. Schneider unpacks how Christians can view suffering, especially animal suffering, in light of God’s redemptive story. And Fulton details how the gospel brought new life to a refugee camp, as well as how Bhutanese Nepalese believers are bringing their zeal for Christ to the American communities where they now call home.
As we celebrate Easter, may we be people who not only receive the Good News, but give it generously, naturally and effusively. May we be one gospel-ing people.
Kelli B. Trujillo is print editor of Christianity today.
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