In this Section we shall try to arrive at God's point of view with regard to Gospel Proclamation. To this end we need to discuss points on transformation of self and the world, belief in Jesus Christ, the Church and salvation, World Religions and the necessity of Gospel proclamation.
Self-Transformation as a Precondition for Gospel proclamation: The proclamation of the Gospel is usually compared with the royal proclamations of ancient times by the King's heralds. The comparison is good in as far as it is a message received from God and transmitted to the people. However, the essential difference is in the qualifications required in the proclaimer. In the case of the King's messengers, it is enough to clearly announce the message from the King to the people irrespective of whether the announcer believes in it or not. It is not so in the case of the Gospel Proclamation. Believing in the message with the consequence of the transformation of the personality of the messenger of the Gospel is an absolute pre-requisite for the genuine Proclamation of the Gospel. This requirement emanates from the very nature of the Gospel message , which is meant to touch the personal lives of each and everyone who comes in contact with it. It is geared to an internal transformation producing external fruits of various types. The content of the Gospel message is the love of God showered upon men and women to make them partake in His own nature. Anyone who announces it cannot remain unaffected and do it successfully at the same time.
Jesus Christ himself was completely transformed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism from John and was driven by the Spirit to the wilderness for prayer and fasting for forty days and nights. Thus in the power of the Spirit Jesus started announcing the Good news of the Kingdom of God. Similarly, John the Baptist before Jesus led an ascetic life in the wilderness and announced the coming of Jesus after him. All the Apostles were together at Pentecost and on receiving the Holy Spirit boldly set out to announce the Gospel to the whole world. The fishermen, tax-collector and a Pharisee well-versed in Jewish law like Paul were all transformed into new creatures before they started proclaiming the Gospel. All of us who have received the sacraments of baptism and confirmation have received the Holy Spirit in abundance. We may have to re-kindle the fire in us in order to be fit instruments of the Gospel Proclamation expected of us.
Before proceeding to the task of proclaiming the Gospel message, let that message seep into our lives and transform us. Otherwise we would be proclaiming anything but the Word of God and the message of the Good News. How do we make sure that real transformation of our selves takes place in accordance with the Will of God? We have to depend on the Word of God and cross-check our lives with the demands coming from it. An understanding of the Word of God in its true sense is absolutely essential for a genuine transformation of our lives. Meditation on the Word of God is the means to achieve the same just like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who kept in her heart the things she did not understand.
Repentance and Self-Transformation: The transformation of our own selves is the sure way to our happiness and to the Kingdom of God (Heaven). This kind of self-transformation is the ultimate aim of Gospel Proclamation that will gradually transform the whole of creation. That is the reason why Jesus, and before him John the Baptist, proclaimed: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you" Matthew, 4:17; Mark, 1: 14-15; Luke, 3: 2).
The original meaning of repentance is a sudden reversal of the course we follow presently and turn back decisively for the opposite direction. This is how the violent take away the Kingdom of Heaven by force, i. e., by self-violence leading to self-transformation. It is not enough to say that we repent, but we have to prove it by our actions as we see in Luke, 3: 8: "Then prove your repentance by the fruit it bears...". Mark clearly tells us what is the Gospel of God: "The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel" (Mark, 1: 16). From this it is evident that repentance is the first step in believing the Gospel. Repentance is the one message we can address to everyone irrespective of caste, creed and religion. The only condition for this kind of proclamation is that the person who takes up the task should himself or herself be genuinely repentant, manifested in constant self-renewal. Once this is being done, believing in the Gospel is the natural outcome aided by the grace of God.
The Bible is full of instances of people who were transformed into new creatures on the strength of the Word of God. The obvious examples from the Old Testament are Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel and the prophets after him, King David, etc. In the new Testament, the most prominent example of transformation of an individual by the Word of God is Mary of Nazareth. Then we have Joseph, the Apostles, disciples - among whom the secret ones like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea - and the women disciples like Mary and Martha, sinners like Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, etc. The graphic description of the transformation of Zacchaeus in Luke, 19: 1-10 is a master-stroke narration of the change of personality of Zacchaeus in the presence of Jesus. We, however, are so used to reading all these instances in the Bible that we remain impervious to any impact from them in our lives! We know very well how to erect a shell of protection around our personality by means of seemingly pious items in our life that we always remain the persons we were before!!
Another example of a dramatic transformation of a person can be seen from the incident narrated in Acts 16: 25-34. It is about the jailer who was in charge of the prisoners including Paul and Silas at Philippi, a city of Macedonia. At the earthquake, all the prisoners were able to flee and the jailer assumed it to be so. On thinking of the consequences he was about to kill himself when Paul called out about their presence. This extraordinary and unexpected behavior from the prisoners transformed the personality of the jailer and he was ready to receive the Good News. Here is a clue for us in the various methods of the proclamation of the Gospel. (To be Contd).
Self-Transformation as a Precondition for Gospel proclamation: The proclamation of the Gospel is usually compared with the royal proclamations of ancient times by the King's heralds. The comparison is good in as far as it is a message received from God and transmitted to the people. However, the essential difference is in the qualifications required in the proclaimer. In the case of the King's messengers, it is enough to clearly announce the message from the King to the people irrespective of whether the announcer believes in it or not. It is not so in the case of the Gospel Proclamation. Believing in the message with the consequence of the transformation of the personality of the messenger of the Gospel is an absolute pre-requisite for the genuine Proclamation of the Gospel. This requirement emanates from the very nature of the Gospel message , which is meant to touch the personal lives of each and everyone who comes in contact with it. It is geared to an internal transformation producing external fruits of various types. The content of the Gospel message is the love of God showered upon men and women to make them partake in His own nature. Anyone who announces it cannot remain unaffected and do it successfully at the same time.
Jesus Christ himself was completely transformed by the Holy Spirit at his baptism from John and was driven by the Spirit to the wilderness for prayer and fasting for forty days and nights. Thus in the power of the Spirit Jesus started announcing the Good news of the Kingdom of God. Similarly, John the Baptist before Jesus led an ascetic life in the wilderness and announced the coming of Jesus after him. All the Apostles were together at Pentecost and on receiving the Holy Spirit boldly set out to announce the Gospel to the whole world. The fishermen, tax-collector and a Pharisee well-versed in Jewish law like Paul were all transformed into new creatures before they started proclaiming the Gospel. All of us who have received the sacraments of baptism and confirmation have received the Holy Spirit in abundance. We may have to re-kindle the fire in us in order to be fit instruments of the Gospel Proclamation expected of us.
Before proceeding to the task of proclaiming the Gospel message, let that message seep into our lives and transform us. Otherwise we would be proclaiming anything but the Word of God and the message of the Good News. How do we make sure that real transformation of our selves takes place in accordance with the Will of God? We have to depend on the Word of God and cross-check our lives with the demands coming from it. An understanding of the Word of God in its true sense is absolutely essential for a genuine transformation of our lives. Meditation on the Word of God is the means to achieve the same just like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who kept in her heart the things she did not understand.
Repentance and Self-Transformation: The transformation of our own selves is the sure way to our happiness and to the Kingdom of God (Heaven). This kind of self-transformation is the ultimate aim of Gospel Proclamation that will gradually transform the whole of creation. That is the reason why Jesus, and before him John the Baptist, proclaimed: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you" Matthew, 4:17; Mark, 1: 14-15; Luke, 3: 2).
The original meaning of repentance is a sudden reversal of the course we follow presently and turn back decisively for the opposite direction. This is how the violent take away the Kingdom of Heaven by force, i. e., by self-violence leading to self-transformation. It is not enough to say that we repent, but we have to prove it by our actions as we see in Luke, 3: 8: "Then prove your repentance by the fruit it bears...". Mark clearly tells us what is the Gospel of God: "The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel" (Mark, 1: 16). From this it is evident that repentance is the first step in believing the Gospel. Repentance is the one message we can address to everyone irrespective of caste, creed and religion. The only condition for this kind of proclamation is that the person who takes up the task should himself or herself be genuinely repentant, manifested in constant self-renewal. Once this is being done, believing in the Gospel is the natural outcome aided by the grace of God.
The Bible is full of instances of people who were transformed into new creatures on the strength of the Word of God. The obvious examples from the Old Testament are Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Samuel and the prophets after him, King David, etc. In the new Testament, the most prominent example of transformation of an individual by the Word of God is Mary of Nazareth. Then we have Joseph, the Apostles, disciples - among whom the secret ones like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea - and the women disciples like Mary and Martha, sinners like Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, etc. The graphic description of the transformation of Zacchaeus in Luke, 19: 1-10 is a master-stroke narration of the change of personality of Zacchaeus in the presence of Jesus. We, however, are so used to reading all these instances in the Bible that we remain impervious to any impact from them in our lives! We know very well how to erect a shell of protection around our personality by means of seemingly pious items in our life that we always remain the persons we were before!!
Another example of a dramatic transformation of a person can be seen from the incident narrated in Acts 16: 25-34. It is about the jailer who was in charge of the prisoners including Paul and Silas at Philippi, a city of Macedonia. At the earthquake, all the prisoners were able to flee and the jailer assumed it to be so. On thinking of the consequences he was about to kill himself when Paul called out about their presence. This extraordinary and unexpected behavior from the prisoners transformed the personality of the jailer and he was ready to receive the Good News. Here is a clue for us in the various methods of the proclamation of the Gospel. (To be Contd).
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