King Jesus — in Japanese

Ever since Sachi Nakamura (Twitter) contacted me about translating King Jesus Gospel into Japanese I’ve looked forward to this day: and here it is, whether you can read it or not.

King Jesus Gospel in Japanese, so tell your friends who are Japanese or who can read or speak Japanese.

It is beyond an honor to open a package to see copies of one of your books translated into a foreign language. Thanks Sachi.

For those who are not aware of King Jesus Gospel … it seeks to explain what the Bible means when it says “gospel.”

That term is more often than not understood to be first and foremost about salvation so that the good news (gospel) is that we can be saved from our sin.

The NT clearly uses the term “gospel” far more directly for the good news (gospel) about Jesus. Namely, that we announce that Jesus, the one born of Mary and in Bethlehem, is the long-awaited Messiah and Lord who saves.

So the theme is this: first christology, second soteriology. This is an order issue, that we begin with saying something about Jesus, not an either/or issue. The Messiah and Lord saves, so Savior is inherently involved.

The argument of the book runs through three basic kinds of evidence:

Every gospel statement must begin with 1 Corinthians 15. (The number who don’t depresses me. Let’s be biblical.)

Then it goes through the sermons in Acts that articulate the gospel, and they look like 1 Cor 15’s focus on the message about Jesus.

Then it goes to the Gospels as the gospel itself. Every reading of any passage in the Gospels is gospeling.

And one more thing: the word “Gospel” refers to the first four books of the NT, the word “gospel” refers to the substance (the good news). The Gospels are the gospel.