It’s starting to dawn on me that one of modern American Christianity’s biggest problems is a basic mis-framing of the gospel.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
It’s not intentional. We use the biblical term “salvation” (Greek soteria) and it’s a great word, but I think everyone tends to mentally tack 2 words onto it that weren’t originally there:<\/p>\n\n\n
“From hell.”<\/p>\n\n\n
Salvation … from hell.<\/p>\n\n\n
And with those 2 imagined words, all of the carefully developed themes running from Genesis to Revelation get brushed aside in the effort to “save people from hell”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The Greek word for “salvation” has connotations of “welfare, prosperity, deliverance, preservation, and safety”.<\/p>\n\n\n
Think how differently Acts 4:12 sounds with any of those words substituted for the normal translation of “salvation”.<\/p>\n\n\n
Compare: “Salvation <\/b>is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
To: “Preservation <\/b>is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be preserved<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Or: “Safety <\/b>is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be brought into safety<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Or: “Deliverance <\/b>is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be delivered<\/b>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
Any of those alternatives make it seem like God desires to rescue us from some present <\/b><\/i>problem. And rightly so!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Why do we automatically read “salvation” as rescue from some future <\/i><\/b>problem?<\/p>\n\n\n
Is it time to employ synonyms for “salvation”? Would that help to get the gospel back on track?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s starting to dawn on me that one of modern American Christianity’s biggest problems is a basic mis-framing of the gospel.\u00a0 It’s not intentional. We use the biblical term “salvation” (Greek soteria) and it’s a great word, but I think everyone tends to mentally tack 2 words onto it that weren’t originally there: “From hell.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8796,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions\/8796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}