Mark, great post on C.J. as Bunyan. So true. His message at T4G continues to pastor me daily.

Mark and I have been together at a Pastor's meeting in Chicago this week, and I've enjoyed fellowship with Mark, as well as benefitted from Mark's wisdom. It was also good to talk to you by phone tonight, C.J. Wish you were here! And happy anniversary - late.

Now, I've still not answered C.J.'s Gospel question, and I'm waiting with abated breath to hear about the non-laser-building bears in Al's woods, but I'll ramp up to my Gospel post by feasting you with a series of great quotes about the Gospel, from some giants of Christian ministry.

"If you believe what you like in the gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." (Augustine)

"The whole gospel is contained in Christ." (John Calvin)

"Whenever the gospel is preached it is as if God himself came into the midst of us." (John Calvin)

"There is nothing attractive about the gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin." (Oswald Chambers)

"A gospel that elevates man and dethrones God is not the gospel." (Will Metzger)

"The world has many religions; it has but one gospel." (George Owen)

"The man who does not glory in the gospel can surely know little of the plague of sin that is within him. (J.C. Ryle)

"The revelation of the gospel is to a world that is already under indictment for its universal rejection of God the Father." (R.C. Sproul)

"If the Lord's bearing our sin for us is not the gospel, I have no gospel to preach." (C.H. Spurgeon)

"The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ." (C.H. Spurgeon)

"When we preach Christ crucified, we have no reason to stammer, or stutter, or hesitate, or apologize; there is nothing in the gospel of which we have any cause to be ashamed." (C.H. Spurgeon)