Richard Bennett of Berean Beacon begins:
I had great difficulties as a Catholic priest in listening to evangelists in my fourteen years of searching for the Gospel. Christian radio programs continually told me the amount of things I had to do to accept Jesus into my heart. Christian tracts likewise told me the amount of dedication or commitment I needed in order to make a decision for Christ.
After an agonizing search in the face of being told what I must do to be saved, I discovered that the first thing that must be understood biblically about the Gospel is that it is “concerning Jesus Christ our Lord”, in the words of Paul in Romans 1:3. While the Gospel is proclaimed to all, it is not about us or about anything that happens in us.
It solely concerns what Jesus Christ did and His death and resurrection. I found out, too, that the Gospel is an historic fact. Biblical faith is not concerned with recommending techniques, whether mystical or ethical, whereby salvation may be obtained for that is the burden of all false religion.
Rather the Bible proclaims the fact that God has in concrete historical fact saved all His people from destruction. The Gospel “by which ye are saved” (I Corinthians 15:1-4) is the finished and complete work of the Lord Jesus Christ… What seems to be totally missing from modern evangelical circles is “the knowledge of the Holy”…