The Partial Gospel: What's "The Rest of the Story"?

The well-known radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would often close his daily radio program with a segment called The Rest of the Story. It consisted of presenting "little-known or forgotten facts"^[1] of important events on a variety of subjects.

Have you heard The Rest of the Story in regards to the gospel? Oftentimes people say the gospel is 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. They conclude the gospel by placing a period at the end of verse 4 so that it reads: "I declare unto you the gospel...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures." But in reality, the gospel doesn't end there! There is no period at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:4 in the biblical text. Instead, there is a comma at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:4, and then 1 Corinthians 15:5 begins with the linking word "and". In other words, the gospel includes verse 5: "and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." So according to the Bible, the gospel not only includes Christ's death, burial, and resurrection — it also includes Christ's manifestation to His disciples (see 1 Corinthians 15:5; also see John 20:19-21:14). To put it more concisely, the gospel includes Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and manifestation (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-5). That's "the rest of the story" — the whole gospel message!

Commenting on the apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:1, "I declare unto you the gospel," the New Testament scholar Dean Henry Alford (1810-1871) affirms: "I declare...the (whole) Gospel: not merely the Death and Resurrection of Christ, which were en protois [priority] parts of it".^[2] 

Darrel Bock similarly affirms: "In fact, only to speak of Jesus dying for sin – even to speak of Jesus dying for sin and rising again – is to give only about half of the gospel message….Paul in 1 Cor 15:3-5 summarizes the gospel as the fact that Jesus 'died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas.'"^[3]

The whole gospel includes the fact that the risen Christ "appeared in the presence of His disciples" (Jn. 20:30-31; cf. 1 Cor. 15:3-5). 

And now you know "The Rest of the Story"!

References:

^[1] "The Rest of the Story," Wikipedia.

^[2] Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, 4 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 602, ellipsis added; cf. Alford, The New Testament for English Readers, 2 Vols., Vol. 2, p. 229.

^[3] Darrell Bock, Recovering the Real Lost Gospel: Reclaiming the Gospel as Good News (Nashville: B and H Publishing Group, 2010), p. 3, italics his, ellipsis added. Cf. Bock, The Bible Knowledge Word Study: Acts – Ephesians (Colorado Springs: Cook Communications Ministries, 2006), pp. 310-311.