So far we've established that Jesus' 'gospel' message drew on 'kingdom' themes that would have resonated both for Jews and Gentile citizens of the Roman empire, but may have tweaked their ears a bit, since Jesus attached his 'gospel' announcement to God's care for those outside of Israel (Luke 4) and made it an announcement about a kingdom that was clearly NOT Rome's empire, but also seemed to lack military ambition.  

It might help to step into the shoes of someone in the ancient world.  What do kings/kingdoms, emperors/empires care about?  What is a central concern?  Loyal citizens.  Obedient subordinates.  And how did Rome deal with disloyalty and disobedience?  They, like all empires and kingdoms, 'pacify' such elements.  One instrument of such pacification was the crucifixion.  Crucifying rebels sends a certain unequivocal message.  If your town or colony was in rebellion and the imperial forces showed up, there was a HIGH probability of brutal retribution.  The "Pax Romana" (peace of Rome) was basically good for the citizens of the empire and the empire resented it deeply when their services were not appreciated.  Now, the 'gospel' of Isaiah, the prophecy of Daniel and the message of Jesus precursor, John the Baptist all indicated that in some way God was going to be showing up.  John asks his audience "Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?"  Jesus' 'gospel' indicates that "the kingdom of God" was "at hand." It might even be breaking out "in the midst of you" which was a weird way to think about it.  What was this going to be like?  The early Christians might have said, "Too bad we never got to find out" and gone their separate ways, but they didn't.
Now, let's look at what some Christians were saying about Jesus after he was crucified and (Christians' claimed) resurrected from the dead.  Here are the claims that were being made about the Roman Emperor, which we looked at in the last post, juxtaposed with the claims made about Jesus in Colossians 1:

Caesar: "equal to the beginning of all things" "the beginning of life and vitality"
Jesus: "the firstborn of all creation; 16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
In other words: Caesar and his throne subordinate to Jesus. Ouch.

Caesar:  "when everything was falling into disorder and tending toward dissolution, he restored it once more and gave the whole world a new aura"
Jesus: "through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross."
In other words: Jesus restored everything disordered and chaotic to its right place through Rome's crucifixion of him?

Caesar: "who being sent to us and our descendents as Savior, has put an end to war and has set all things in order;" Jesus: 13He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. v21 "And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him"
Assuming we already know how Caesar "puts an end to war" Jesus does it differently - through "reconciling" and "forgiving" rebels and presenting them blameless.  Blameless?  Not just "forgiven"?  What a weird emperor?!

Caesar:  "having become god-manifest, Caesar has fulfilled all the hopes of earlier times…the birthday of the god (Augustus) has been the beginning of evangelion concerning him…"
Jesus: 15 "He is the image of the invisible God,... 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell," and a bit later:  9"For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,"
In other words, "Yes, the great emperor of emperors did come to a rebellious people in and through Jesus, but instead of coming with retribution, he came and allowed us to do our worst to him.  He exposed our fear and animosity but somehow transformed it through suffering."

The message is remarkably consistent, from the parables of the kingdom that Jesus describes where the kingdom becomes a rather indiscriminate home for the riff-raff of the world, to Luke's Jesus saying "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" while he's hanging on the cross, to the (THE) major theme of Paul's letters which are overwhelmingly concerned with reconciliation and the unity of formerly divided people (ethnically, religiously, nationally) in the church. Even the 'gospel' of John has Jesus telling Nicodemus that "unless he is born of water and the Spirit" he cannot "perceive the kingdom of God." Indeed, who COULD perceive it without a radical paradigm shift?But even here, we have Jesus (or John) saying, "God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." But those who run in fear from the emperor; who cannot imagine that they might be rendered "blameless" cannot find out that this is the verdict - they are running from a messenger of good news because they fear the news is bad.

The passage we've considered from Colossians concludes with this: "I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel."  Indeed.  The books of Acts that recounts Paul's travels concludes with him living under some sort of house-arrest and:28:30 "He lived there for two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, 31proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance."


Next, we'll have to backtrack a little bit and consider 1) The divinity of Jesus? and 2) What are the implications of this message?  Wright (a major influence for me) sums things up well here:

In part 1, I wrote about the abuse of the word gospel to mean whatever we want it to mean.  In part 2, I showed how Jesus drew on (and revised) the good news proclaimed by Isaiah.  Let's look at one more passage from the Hebrew scriptures and a Roman "text" that also predates Jesus.  If gospel is significantly connected to language of God's kingship or rule in Isaiah (it is) and also in the teaching of Jesus (it is), then we should also be paying attention to other things that sound like "royal announcements."

In Daniel 7, the writer describes this vision: 13As I watched in the night visions,  I saw one like a human being* coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. 14To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. (NRSV)
*Aramaic “a son of man”

In the last post we basically discussed a method for figuring out what the gospel was/IS as opposed to just using the term to mean anything we want.  Here I want to look at 2 related texts from Isaiah (which pre-dates Jesus).  Here's why:

You're thinking, "Huh?"  Well, the people who heard Jesus and his followers talk about "gospel" had a frame of reference for that word.  Most people today do not (see this post).  So, we read the "gospel" in the New Testament by filling in the background (ie. green screen) with our own ideas about it.  We assume that the audience 2000 years ago heard the same thing we are hearing.  However, that audience (and those "gospelers") had some previous experience with the words that would have filled in that background and helped them make sense of it differently.     

First, let's look at a text from Isaiah: 
52: 7 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,*
       who proclaim peace,
       who bring good tidings,
       who proclaim salvation,
       who say to Zion,
       "Your God reigns!" 

Okay, so we can see that the "good news" here seems to have something to do with the god of Isaiah and his audience being in charge the way a ruling king is in charge and that God sending a message of peace and salvation (in this case from exile and subservience to Babylon, who had conquered them in 587 b.c.e.).   I think most people would agree that if any such deity WAS in charge, that a message of peace and salvation would be good news (unless one was Babylonian or Persian perhaps, since they conquered Babylon).

Now, Isaiah 61:1-2 picks up the gospel language: 
"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me  to preach good news to the poor.          
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor, the day of the vengeance of our God."

This get more specific and more complicated.  The good news is the advent of a particular year and day.  It is the announcement of the year of Jubilee from Leviticus in which the Israelites were mandated to cancel debts and return land that had been sold or traded to its original owners.  God's economic plan for Israel seems to have been a cycle of 49 years of fairly laisse-faire dealings followed by a decisive punch to the "reset" button.  Anyway, tt seems clearer here that the good news is good for some people and not others.  Some will get favor and freedom and others vengeance?  Some people will get their stuff back and others will lose the stuff that they had accumulated.

Getting slightly ahead of myself, This second passage is the one Jesus reads (and announces the fulfillment of) in Luke 4, BUT Jesus leaves OFF the "vengeance" line and offers some upsetting commentary to his audience that in the days of the prophets of Israel, God's favor had been extended to people outside the community of Israel, even to a military leader of their enemies, even when there were those inside the community that needed God's favor in the same way and didn't get it.  Whoops.  Did God mis-fire?  Jesus seems to indicate that it was intentional.    

Next we'll look at a passage from Daniel and an ancient Roman account of the evangelion.

A. One of the first four books of the New Testament (ie. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John)
B. A type of church music sung primarily by African Americans and white Southerners
C. a shorthand way of explaining how to become a Christian or "get saved"
D. a euphemism for any true statement
E. None of the Above

If "gospel" is used to describe too many things, it becomes somewhat meaningless, almost like our culture's "4 letter words."  If we look at the Bible (this should make sense as a starting place) we see that "gospel" or "good news" is part of the message of Isaiah in the Hebrew scriptures (Hebrew - besara) and it is the English translation in the New Testament of the Greek word evangelion presumably used by Jesus and Paul (unless you believe in Aramaic priority but let's not go there). god-spell is not just a Broadway musical, it is the old English word meaning "good tidings/news" which is exactly what evangelion means.  If you look close you can see the word "angel" there in the middle.   Angels are so-called because they are the messengers of God's news/tidings... You get it.  
If, as Karl Barth suggests, the Christian "proclamation" (ie. basic message) is the foundation of Christian theology, then it might be important to figure out what that is. In addition to "None of the above" answers to our question, we'd have to add that "THE gospel" can't be both a summary of MY theology and also the foundation of CHRISTIAN theology (if my theology is Christian).  Instead, we should hope that "THE gospel" creates the questions that any Christian theology tries to answer and we should try to figure out how the Bible (which gives us numerous examples of the message of Jesus and his earliest followers) uses the term "gospel" and derive our account of what "THE gospel" is from there. 
For fun, let's insert Rob Bell's brief account of the gospel here, because Rob is a lightening rod for controversy (personally, I like him) and I might get more readers if I include it:

What do you think?  We'll be looking at biblical (and pre-biblical) references to "gospel" next, so rather than measure it against material I haven't presented yet, let's just ask this:  If what he says was true, would it be good news?