The beggars are gospeled

As a general rule—and as something of a language purist, as should be part of the job description for a book editor and proof-reader—I am not a fan of excessive verbification. But as a writer and someone who enjoys working with words, I can appreciate the opportunities that creatively adapting language can offer. When we make a word that has only previously been used as a noun into a verb—for example, instead of “having an impact,” something might “impact” us—we cause language purists to shudder, but we also have a new way of talking and thinking about how an idea is put into action and affects us and others.

An unusual example of this recently caught my attention in a new translation of the New Testament. I began reading it after hearing scholar Scot McKnight talking about his work on the project, describing the literal-but-sometimes awkward and intentionally alternative nature of his translation choices as a way to help us read the text afresh and to ask new questions of it.¹ That seemed a worthwhile way of approaching well-loved and well known Bible passages—and I have enjoyed beginning to re-read the Gospels with some interesting variations of language and expressions.

So far, the verse that has most sparked my imagination and my thinking about faith is Matthew 11:5. It is the list of evidences Jesus gave to the disciples of John the Baptist—or “Yoannes the Dipper” as McKnight labels him—in response to John questioning whether Jesus was actually the Messiah, as John had previously proclaimed. Jesus’ reply and explanation included various kinds of healing, helping and making whole, and the usual form of the final phrase is expressed as something like “. . . and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”²

The alternative translation that has prompted my reflections goes like this: “The beggars are gospeled.”³ Suddenly we have an invitation to engage the gospel as a transformative act or actions and a calling to enact it in our time and place, in the name of Jesus.

Consider how Jesus summarised “the whole Code and the prophets” in response to a question about the greatest commandment—as translated by McKnight: “You will love the Lord, your God, in your whole heart and in your whole self and in your whole intelligence. . . . The second is comparable: You will love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39).⁴

As whole-hearted, whole-selved, whole-intelligence followers of Jesus, the verbified gospel begins to make sense—whatever we might think of the linguistic aberration or awkwardness. Jesus reported that, in His ministry, “the beggars are gospeled”. As those commissioned to continue His ministry in our time and place, what might “the beggars are gospeled” look like here and now? What might it mean to “gospel” our families, our communities and our world? The context of Jesus’ ministry and teaching does not allow this to be merely preaching or even friendly sharing. We are not trying to convince others of our theology, doctrines or worldview, so much as we are seeking to change their realities. This demands practical, wholistic and often-radical transformation of the lives and circumstances of others, particularly working with those most in need, marginalised and vulnerable.

So let’s set about verbifying our faith and activating the gospel. As we care and love, listen and serve, we are gospeling. That is a way of seeing, engaging and understanding the world around us that not only makes the most sense and the strongest arguments for the truths we claim, but also that makes the most difference and will matter the most to those around us.

Seeking to be a Jesus purist is more important than being a language purist, so may the gospel be verbified and enacted all the more—and may the poor and all in our communities be gospeled. As Jesus did. As Jesus does. 

1. “Holy Post Podcast”, Episode 599, holypost.com/post/599-paganism-returns-a-new-new-testament-with-scot-mcknight.
2. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible verses are from New Living Translation.
3. Scot McKnight, The Second Testament (InterVarsity Press, 2024), Kindle Edition, p14.
4. McKnight, p28.

Nathan Brown is a book editor at Signs Publishing.