DID JESUS HAVE FAVOURITE DISCIPLES? He suffered no man to follow Him save Peter and Ye Philippians know also that no church had fellow- I "ACCORDING TO MY GOSPEL" In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.-ROMANS ii. 16. THE English word Gospel is the Anglo-Saxon translation of the Greek word, Evangel, good tidings, the good news of the Kingdom to all people. As Christ was the first great Evangelist of the Evangel, the great Gospeller of the Gospel, as He preached it and declared it; and as the whole idea of it is bound up in His earthly ministry, it came about quite naturally that the word was used to express the story of Christ. Thus the word Gospel was applied to a book in which that story is related. It is used in this technical sense when we speak of the four Gospels of the New Testament, the canonical written narratives of the life of Jesus. St. Matthew's Gospel, or the Gospel according to St. Matthew, is the story as set forth by him. But the word is used in the New Testament in a wider sense still for the whole Christian teaching generally, the essential message of which the books are the record, and all that the message implies. It includes therefore the Christian morality, and the Christian beliefs, as well as the facts of Christ's life; as for example when St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians, speaks of those who "obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." In this sense it means everything that is contained in Christianity. It is not only good news to be accepted and welcomed and believed, it is also a life to be lived. It is more than a display of love and a free gift of grace; it is a vocation to which we are called, a teaching which we have ever to obey. It is in this comprehensive sense of the whole Christian teaching that the word is here used; for the statement which Paul says is part of his gospel is that God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. He says in effect: "This is part of my interpretation of the gospel, a conclusion which I draw from it. This is part of my teaching regarding Jesus." It is not our intention at this time to consider this particular item of Paul's creed; nor to give a statement of Paul's gospel as a whole; but exclusively to consider the very striking phrase in which he calls it my gospel. We might dispose of this unthinkingly by saying, what is on the surface and is of course true, that it is |