"Stormfront: The Good News of God"

"In the Bible, talk about salvation refers primarily to God and God's victory over all the powers that resist and distort God's gracious purposes for the world. The Bible sees life as a great struggle between life and death, between sin and righteousness, between faithfulness and rebellion, between peace and violence. The good news of salvation is the announcement that God wins: God's life is stronger than death. God's righteousness is deeper than human sin. God's faithfulness outlasts human rebellion. God's peace is more enduring than human violence. For North Americans, by contrast, salvation is more focused upon how God meets our needs. It's about overcoming our guilt, solving our problems, discovering meaning in our existence, feeling included and loved, and overcoming the threat of our death and the death of those we love -- all of course with God's help. . . ."In the final analysis, the biblical understanding of salvation is not merely that our lives will be set right again at last. The biblical understanding of salvation is that our lives become swept up into something larger and greater than ourselves, into God's purposes for the world. In other words, the receiving of salvation and the call to mission are not to be conceived sequentially, as if one followed the other (first salvation, then grateful obedience in mission). Rather, to receive salvation is to be called into something larger and greater than we are, to be invited to participate in God's saving purpose and plan for the world. That is why the gospel is primarily about God, and only secondarily about us."