Without any elaborate introduction, Mark launches right into the story of the ministry of Jesus. He begins, with the words, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God".

What the Gospel is (Mark 1:1)

The very fact that Mark does not stop to define the meaning of the term "gospel" indicates that he knew quite well that his readers needed no definition. They had heard the gospel and, hearing it, had opened their hearts to its message and its power, and so had entered into a new fellowship with God and with one another.

To the people of Mark's day, the gospel was simply the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord.

This, of course, is the sense in which the term is used throughout the passages of the New Testament. In Acts 15:7, when Paul and Barnabas visited Jerusalem to make a report on their first missionary journey, the brethren were skeptical of the reported conversion of so many Gentiles to the Christian faith. Peter, with his characteristic boldness, sttood by Paul and Barnabas to declare, "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe." (Acts 15:7)

It was in this same sense, as the message of salvation, that Paul used the term when, in writing to the Corinthians, he said, "Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you ahve taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you" (1 Corinthians 15:1-2).

Jesus came to preach the gospel, but he also gave us a gospel to preach - by his life among men, by his death on the cross for our sins, and by his rising from the grave for our justification. It was Mark's purpose in writing his gospel to set for th the message of salvation as it centered in the story of Jesus Christ the Son of God.