GIFTS : "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is . . . ."

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," wrote Paul to the Roman Saints, "for it is . . . ."---what? What is the gospel of Christ, of which Paul refused to be ashamed?

Teaching a Primary class in 1994 I had a class member---a ten-year-old girl---go ask the Gospel Doctrine class next door for the answer. She returned with, "It's 'good news'."

It certainly is. But what is that good news? Those "glad tidings of great joy" announced by angels past and present? Now there's a clue---sounds a lot like Christmas, at least the Bible Christmas.

Remember, Elder McConkie showed that the gospel, the message that Christ Himself preached, goes far beyond love, honesty, charity, and every other ethical principle. The "Good News" is the message of Christ and how to come unto Him and put Him in a human life. We complicate it.

Some years ago at a Church Educational System symposium at BYU, Commissioner Henry B. Eyring asked a few thousand seminary teachers, What is the gospel? What is it we are to teach our youth?

He continued: "Now I would like to say this: There are two views of the gospel---both true. They make a terrific difference in the power of your teaching. One view is that the gospel is all truth [think of Hugh Nibley's statement given last week]. It is. The gospel is truth. With that view I could teach pretty well anything true in a classroom, and I would be teaching the gospel.

"The other view," he continued, "is that the gospel is the principles, commandments, and ordinances which, if kept, will lead to eternal life. That is also true. When I choose which of these views I will let dominate my teaching, I take a great step.

"If I take the view that the gospel is all truth, rather than that it is the ordinances and principles and commandments which lead to eternal life, I have already nearly taken myself out of the contest to help a student withstand the sea of filth."

Supervising the teaching of seminary teachers a generation ago I had the hardest time trying to get them to see this. Often I would hear, "Well I didn't teach anything that was false . . . !" Brother Bob Matthews, a worthy mentor if ever there was one, said he often heard that too. And he was dean of religious instruction at BYU. Bob said he objected to that view. He said, "It is not enough to just not teach what is false. We must teach the very best things we could have taught that hour." Joseph would agree with him. Sidney might not. . . .

So again, What is the gospel? It is a crucial question, and a companion to the greatest question in history: "What think ye of Christ?" (see Matthew 22:42). Elder Maxwell taught that a failure to answer that question is an answer in and of itself. It is the same with our main question over the past two weeks: What is the gospel? And it is also related to all we have said about the need to be bold and frank in speaking openly and testifying clearly of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whose holy name we bear by covenant and permission. We must live up to it. And we must have good answers to each of these questions.

If we were arrested and interrogated for being Christians, would there be enough evidence to convict us? President Spencer W. Kimball once confided to his brethren in the leading councils of the Church, "Brethren, wouldn't it be a great privilege to die as martyrs for the sake of the Master?" He said, "Some of us may be called upon to do so before this work is finished." I am with him.

So now, in conclusion: What is the gospel? Well, it is something of which not to be "ashamed . . . : for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek [ie the Gentile, and the Muslim, and the Buddhist, and the Mormon, and to all mankind]" (see Romans 1:16).

The three or four places in scripture where the Lord Himself says, "This is my gospel," and then proceeds to define it, all come down to the first principles we emphasized last week. It is summarized in "the doctrine of Christ" Paul taught to the Hebrews and which Nephi so masterfully expounded for us in 2 Nephi 31--32.

Elder McConkie summed up the doctrine of Christ thus: "The whole gospel plan, the whole system of salvation, the total arrangement whereby man can gain perfection and be like God is five things: 1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; 2. Repentance; 3. Baptism; 4. Receiving the Holy Ghost; and 5. Enduring in righteousness and devotion to the end" (DNTC 3:159).

Do you see it? It is the first principles. The fourth article of faith. The basic fundamental truths that we return to each week, each day, every hour, until we have the privilege to renew that covenant and loyalty at the sacrament table. This is the gospel of Christ, it is infinite in its own sphere, and I am not ashamed of it.

Steve