You Need a Better Gospel: Reclaiming the Good News of Participation with Christ

Too often, the church hasn’t done justice to its own gospel because it has neglected how much the New Testament message is about deep involvement in life with God. Senior New Testament scholar Klyne Snodgrass offers a corrective, explaining that the church will never be what it is supposed to be without a recovery of the gospel.

This brief, accessibly written, and timely book shows that the biblical message is about attachment to Christ, participation in his death and resurrection, and engagement in his purposes. Snodgrass demonstrates that understanding and appropriating the gospel of participation conforms with what the church’s great thinkers have emphasized throughout history and enables the church to recover its true identity.

This book brings the notion of participation in the gospel to a wider church audience. While other studies on this topic focus mostly on Paul’s writings, You Need a Better Gospel shows that participation is the emphasis of the entire Bible, including the Old Testament. The real gospel, which offers participation in life with God, is astounding in its beauty and its power for life.

208 pages.

View excerpt here.

Contents

Introduction
1. Participation in Christ
2. Is Faith as Participation a New Idea?
3. What Is Participation, and Why Is It Important?
4. Is the Gospel of Participation in the Old Testament?
5. The Gospels in the Synoptic Gospels
6. Deep Participation in John and 1 John
7. The Gospel in the Book of Acts
8. Paul’s Letters: How Does Salvation Work, and for What Purpose?
9. Paul’s Letters: How Does Salvation Work, and for What Purpose?
10. Striking Assertions of Participation
11. So What?
Appendix: The Relation of the Gospels of Jesus and Paul