Romans 1:16-17 ... For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the
Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of
God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live
by faith.
Exhortation: Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
Gospel means: "God's story"
Certainly all the Bible is God's story.
And then we have that word God has spoken to us by HIS Spirit which is "gospel", God's story.
We have dreams sent from God.
The angel of the Lord sometimes speaks God's will to us and guides us.
But all are gospel when it is from God.
Paul lived in a very fearful time. The early church often risk their lives when speaking. It was the heat of the work day.
We labor more in the cool of the day, for the most part. Yet even now often we are afraid to speak for we know they are likely to think ill of us if we speak from God's viewpoint. They exalt the flesh of man. We exalt God.
Paul is encouraging us not to be ashamed of that word that is from God for it is the power of God.
I was born again August 5, 1975. After that I was taken into heaven in the night as I slept, similar to the account in II Cor. 12:1-5 ... I was with God, with the Holy Spirit, with Jesus (though I saw no physical images, it was in the spirit). And I was merged into the body of Jesus, made one with the Word of God. A few nights after this, the exact same thing happened again.
In approximately 1981, I was visiting my aunt who had been Church of Christ member all her life. Church of Christ at that time was a very letter of the law, black and white, type religion, not speaking of miracles and such. I realized I was going to have to tell her what happened to me. Certainly I did not want to do that. But I was persuaded I had to do it. So I told her. She looked at me and said: "Something like that happened to me once and it was all golden."