gospel

Pluralgospels

Formsgospels

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The first four books of the Christian New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which tell of Jesus's birth, ministry, passion and resurrection.

   Many of the best-known scenes in Christian art, from the Nativity to the Last Supper, come from the Gospels.

   The congregation stands while the priest reads from the Gospel.

   Note

   The name is a compound: Old English godspell joins God and spell, an old word for a talk or tale, to make "the message of God." That form is probably a reshaping of an earlier compound meaning "good news," coined to translate Church Latin bona annuntiatio, so the word carries both readings at once, God's message and good news.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   Something regarded as absolutely authoritative, the final word on a matter.

   Investors took the analyst's forecast for gospel and lost heavily when it proved wrong.

   For a generation of home cooks, her recipes were gospel.

   Similartruth, fact, law

   Note

   Take something for gospel is the phrase to know: to accept it as true without checking, and it often comes with a warning attached. George Saintsbury's Dryden (1881) tells readers to read Edipus instead of taking the traditional witticisms about Lee for gospel. In this sense the noun never takes a or an.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Short for gospel music, a style of Christian religious music.

   She grew up singing gospel before crossing over to soul and R&B.

   The festival's Sunday lineup is all gospel, from small church choirs to touring quartets.

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An account of Jesus's birth, ministry, suffering, death and resurrection, generally written in the first several centuries of the Common Era.

   Early Christians circulated many gospels, but only four entered the New Testament.

   Each gospel tells the story of the crucifixion a little differently.

   Note

   Here the word counts accounts rather than naming one part of scripture. The four New Testament books are gospels in this sense, and so is any other account of Jesus's life from those early centuries, inside the Bible or outside it, which is why the word so often turns up in the plural.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A message promoted as offering important or even infallible principles to follow, in the belief that it will be welcomed or do good.

   The new CEO arrived preaching the gospel of efficiency, and every department felt it.

   Early health reformers carried the gospel of fresh air and exercise into crowded city schools.

   Similardoctrine, creed, message

   Note

   Its usual frame is the gospel of something, carried by verbs borrowed from the missionary: preach, spread, carry. A 1917 section title in Oral Hygiene promised to spread the gospel of dental hygiene in Vermont, and the phrase still lends any cause the zeal of a crusade, said with admiration or with a raised eyebrow.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   In Protestant theology, the teaching of God's grace, as distinct from the Law or divine commandments.

   Her theology professor spent a whole semester on the distinction between law and gospel.

   The sermon moved from the demands of the law to the comfort of the gospel.

   Note

   Protestant preaching sets law and gospel side by side and keeps them distinct: the law tells people what God demands, and the gospel announces what God has freely given. The pairing is so fixed that law and gospel works almost as one phrase, and blurring the two counts as a serious error, since grace that has to be earned is no longer grace.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To teach someone the Christian gospel, or to proclaim or share it.

   Church leaders want members to gospel one another in ordinary conversation, not just on Sundays.

   Her grandmother gospeled her every night with stories read aloud from the Bible.

   Similarevangelize

   Note

   The verb goes back to Old English godspellian, and in Shakespeare's Macbeth the question is whether men are so gospelled as to pray for the man who beggared them. In present-day church writing it often takes one another or each other, as believers gospel one another. American spelling keeps one l (gospeled, gospeling); British doubles it (gospelled, gospelling).

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