Summarizing the Good News

Acts 16:29-30

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they said,“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

N. T. Wright, Acts for Everyone (Part Two)

[T]he Christian message, the evangel or “good news” . . . isn’t about getting in touch with one’s inner spiritual self. It isn’t about committing oneself to a life of worship, prayer and good works. It isn’t even about believing in some particular theory of how precisely God deals with our sins in the death of Jesus. It is about recognizing, acknowledging and hailing Jesus Christ as Lord . . . . Everything else is contained within that--all the volumes of systematic and pastoral theology, all the worship and prayers and devotions and dogma, all the ethics and choices and personal dilemmas (68).