Gospel

7 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Gospel \Gos"pel\, n. [OE. gospel, godspel, AS. godspell; god God
     + spell story, tale. See {God}, and {Spell}, v.]
     [1913 Webster]
     1. Glad tidings; especially, the good news concerning Christ,
        the Kingdom of God, and salvation.
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              And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their
              synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
                                                    --Matt. iv.
                                                    23.
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              The steadfast belief of the promises of the gospel.
                                                    --Bentley.
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     Note: It is probable that gospel is from. OE. godspel, God
           story, the narrative concerning God; but it was early
           confused with god spell, good story, good tidings, and
           was so used by the translators of the Authorized
           version of Scripture. This use has been retained in
           most cases in the Revised Version.
           [1913 Webster]
  
                 Thus the literal sense [of gospel] is the
                 "narrative of God," i. e., the life of Christ.
                                                    --Skeat.
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     2. One of the four narratives of the life and death of Jesus
        Christ, written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
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     3. A selection from one of the gospels, for use in a
        religious service; as, the gospel for the day.
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     4. Any system of religious doctrine; sometimes, any system of
        political doctrine or social philosophy; as, this
        political gospel. --Burke.
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     5. Anything propounded or accepted as infallibly true; as,
        they took his words for gospel. [Colloq.]
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              If any one thinks this expression hyperbolical, I
              shall only ask him to read [OE]dipus, instead of
              taking the traditional witticisms about Lee for
              gospel.                               --Saintsbury.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Gospel \Gos"pel\, a.
     Accordant with, or relating to, the gospel; evangelical; as,
     gospel righteousness. --Bp. Warburton.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Gospel \Gos"pel\, v. t.
     To instruct in the gospel. [Obs.] --Shak.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Gospel
       n 1: four books in the New Testament that tell the story of
            Christ's life and teachings [syn: {Gospels}, {evangel}]
       2: an unquestionable truth; "his word was gospel" [syn: {gospel
          truth}]
       3: a genre of a capella music originating with Black slaves in
          the United States and featuring call and response;
          influential on the development of other genres of popular
          music (especially soul) [syn: {gospel singing}]
       4: the written body of teachings of a religious group that are
          generally accepted by that group [syn: {religious doctrine},
           {church doctrine}, {creed}]
       5: a doctrine that is believed to be of great importance;
          "Newton's writings were gospel for those who followed"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  54 Moby Thesaurus words for "Gospel":
     Acts, Agnus Dei, Alleluia, Anamnesis, Apocalypse, Biblical,
     Blessing, Canon, Collect, Communion, Consecration, Credo,
     Dismissal, Epistle, Epistles, Fraction, Glad Tidings, Gloria,
     Good News, Gradual, Introit, Kyrie, Kyrie Eleison, Last Gospel,
     Lavabo, Mosaic, New Testament, New-Testament, Offertory,
     Old-Testament, Paternoster, Pax, Post-Communion, Preface,
     Revelation, Sanctus, Secreta, Synoptic Gospels, Tersanctus, Tract,
     apocalyptic, apostolic, canonical, evangelic, evangelistic, gospel,
     inspired, prophetic, revealed, revelational, scriptural, textual,
     textuary, theopneustic
  
  

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  97 Moby Thesaurus words for "gospel":
     Bible truth, Biblical, Gospel, Mosaic, Negro spiritual,
     New-Testament, Old-Testament, Weltanschauung, anthem, apocalyptic,
     apostolic, articles of religion, bad news, canonical, cantata,
     canticle, catechism, certainty, chorale, church music, credenda,
     credo, creed, cult, dinkum oil, doctrinal statement, doxology,
     evangel, evangelic, evangelistic, fact, faith, formulated belief,
     glad tidings, good news, good word, gospel music, gospel truth,
     how it is, how things are, hymn, hymn-tune, hymnody, hymnology,
     ideology, inspired, introit, ism, like it is, mass, motet,
     offertory, offertory sentence, oratorio, paean, passion,
     political faith, political philosophy, prophetic, prosodion, psalm,
     psalmody, recessional, religion, requiem, requiem mass, revealed,
     revealed truth, revelational, sacred music, school, scriptural,
     spiritual, system of belief, textual, textuary, the absolute truth,
     the case, the exact truth, the hard truth, the honest truth,
     the intrinsic truth, the naked truth, the plain truth,
     the simple truth, the sober truth, the stern truth, the truth,
     the unalloyed truth, the unqualified truth, the unvarnished truth,
     theopneustic, truism, truth, veracity, white spiritual,
     world view
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Gospel
     a word of Anglo-Saxon origin, and meaning "God's spell", i.e.,
     word of God, or rather, according to others, "good spell", i.e.,
     good news. It is the rendering of the Greek _evangelion_, i.e.,
     "good message." It denotes (1) "the welcome intelligence of
     salvation to man as preached by our Lord and his followers. (2.)
     It was afterwards transitively applied to each of the four
     histories of our Lord's life, published by those who are
     therefore called 'Evangelists', writers of the history of the
     gospel (the evangelion). (3.) The term is often used to express
     collectively the gospel doctrines; and 'preaching the gospel' is
     often used to include not only the proclaiming of the good
     tidings, but the teaching men how to avail themselves of the
     offer of salvation, the declaring of all the truths, precepts,
     promises, and threatenings of Christianity." It is termed "the
     gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24), "the gospel of the
     kingdom" (Matt. 4:23), "the gospel of Christ" (Rom. 1:16), "the
     gospel of peace (Eph. 6:15), "the glorious gospel," "the
     everlasting gospel," "the gospel of salvation" (Eph. 1:13).