"no gospel at all"

To many of you, this may seem duh-obvious. But, guaranteed, there are many who rarely...if ever...think about the cross...therefore they think not of the gospel...or, worse, they think the gospel is how they get saved; then put it on a shelf. These are important words:

"Surely Paul could have made the gospel more palatable – and less dangerous – by saying it was about something else.

Something cleaner and less ridiculous than the cross.

Something more glorious.

Less disgusting. 

He didn’t do that, though. “I decided,” Paul said, “to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). 

In the face of the worst cultural prejudice imaginable, he fixed the entire gospel squarely and immovably on the fact that Jesus was tacked to a stauros and left to die. 

If he had been trying to find a surefire way to turn first-century people off from his “good news,” he couldn’t have done better than that! 

So why did he do it? 

It’s simple. 

He did it because he knew that leaving the cross out, or running past it with a glance, or making it peripheral to the gospel, or allowing anything else to displace it at the center of the gospel would make it, finally, no gospel at all."
 
Greg Gilbert

Clayton's Story...and a follow up

Somehow I missed this five years ago...and it's probably been floating around since but I'd not seen it until my son Joel recently sent it to me...powerful stuff...watch it, then watch the follow up that appears below the first video:

Clayton's Story from Jacob Lewis on Vimeo.

Here's the Directors follow up:

The Rest of Clayton's Story from Jacob Lewis on Vimeo.