A Gospel Primer

“This book is offered as a handy guide to help Christians experience the gospel more fully by preaching it to themselves each day. It is also offered as a correction to a costly mistake made by Christians who view the gospel as something that has fully served out its purpose the moment they believed in Jesus for salvation. Not knowing what to do with the gospel once they are saved, they lay it aside soon after conversion so they can move on to “bigger and better” things (even Scriptural things). …God did not give us His gospel so we could embrace it and be converted. Actually, He offers it to us every day as a gift that keeps on giving to us everything we need for life and godliness” (5).

That statement from the introduction of Milton Vincent’s short book, A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love (2008), was only an appetizer to the gospel feast he prepared in the following four chapters. The first provides thirty-one brief (paragraph-sized) meditations on the gospel, paying special attention to its present effect for life, joy, godliness, the pursuit of holiness, etc. The second provides a brief-though-sweeping narrative of the gospel followed by the same narrative retold in a poem. Both of these chapters serve as memorization tools to help store up within our hearts all that God is for us in Jesus, so that these truths might be used mightily by the Spirit throughout our daily walk. Scripture verses also appear as footnotes on each page. In the final chapter he gives his testimony of God’s triumph in suprising him with the power of grace in the gospel.

What I appreciated and thought was rather unique was that Vincent uses the first person (”I,” “my,” “me”) throughout the first three chapters, so helping his readers already to preach to themselves the infinite riches of God’s love. Overall, Vincent’s book serves as a very practical tool that cultivates ongoing love for the gospel itself and fruitful reflection on the gospel’s effects. Young believers and seasoned believers would do well to read through this book (or at least carry out the preaching found in its pages). If more Christians lived out what Vincent encourages, the gospel would cease to be viewed as merely a class to get through, and instead be seen as the school we enter as Christ’s disciples.