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'What [Mary's song] says is the language, not of sweet maidens, but of Maccabees: it speaks of dethroning the mighty and exalting the lowly, of filling the hungry and sending the rich away empty. Mary's praise to God is a revolutionary battle cry...
'The old word, the technical term, for the change Mary was rejoicing in is "gospel"; but "gospel" has become a tired old word. For some, it means the invitation to an individual to accept the forgiveness of sins, so that to preach the gospel, to "evangelize" is to spread the message of this invitation. For others, it means correct teaching about the work of Christ, so that "evangelicals" are those who hold to traditional doctrines. Elsewhere, "evangelical" simply is the current word for "Protestant." For still others "gospel" represents a particular kind of country music.
'If we are ever to rescue God's good news from all the justifiable but secondary meanings it has taken on, perhaps the best way to do it is to say that the root meaning of the term evangelion would today be best translated "revolution." Originally it is not a religious or a personal term at all, but a secular one: "good news." But evangelion is not just any welcome piece of information, it is news which impinges upon the fate of the community. "Good news" is the report brought by a runner to a Greek city, that a distant battle has been won, preserving their freedom; or that a son has been born to the king, insuring a generation of political stability. "Gospel" is good news having seriously to do with people's welfare. Today we might speak of the end of [a war] in this sense; not merely an event that makes some of us happy, but one which shapes our common lives for the better. This is not only true of the meaning of the word we translate "gospel," in its ordinary secular usage outside the New Testament; it is true as well of the story which the New Testament calls by this name.'
~ John Howard Yoder (in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas)
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