14 Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15 (NASB)
In my Cruden’s Concordance introduction for the word “gospel” it reads, “The English word gospel comes from the Anglo-Saxon gõdspel which meant good tidings through, gõdspel or god-story. The word in the original (Greek) in the New Testament is εὐαγγέλιον, from which, through the Latin evangelium, comes our word evangel, with its derivatives. In the New Testament, it is the Christ-message, not the books which were written to spread that message. Later it was applied to the four books which tell of the earthly life of Jesus—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.” The word translated as Gospel in Mark 1:15, which I placed at the top of this post is εὐαγγελίῳ, which litterlly means “good message” or “good news.” Why is it “good news?”