Years ago, a buddy, knowing I’m a Christian, asked why belief in Jesus is necessary to go to heaven. I quickly shot back with something like, “Jesus and only Jesus, lived a perfect life in our place, died for our sins, and was raised to new life to take people like you and me with him to heaven.” Well, maybe not that precise. No matter how I said it, I was satisfied I’d nailed it. He shook his head and said, “Nah, I know all that; I wanna know why? Why Jesus and only Jesus. Why did he have to live a perfect life? Why did he have to die for my sins?” I had no clue. I knew the company lines, but that was it. That rocked me. Was my understanding of Christianity shallow, or was it Christianity?

I didn’t want to live out a blind faith, and I didn’t want to believe something that wasn’t true, so, like a detective, I began digging in the New Testament until I’d shoveled my way back to Genesis in an attempt to answer my buddy’s questions—and my own. Given this novel, you can guess where I came down on Christianity.

My work completed, I emailed my buddy a dense, 12-page, single-spaced letter demonstrating God’s plan, from Genesis to Revelation, to save people. The gospel. The answers to my buddy’s whys. Even so, I don’t remember him saying much about it. Perhaps, I had offered too much.

Despite that, I was now confident in what I believed. I could share the good news. It might take a while as I worked through my 12 pages, but I could it.

At about the same time, my pastor challenged our men’s group to adopt as our own, a system he’d created to remember and communicate God’s plan, from Genesis to Revelation, to save people. The Gospel in Six he called it. Rather than my 12 pages, he offered six simple words to act as titles for six short paragraphs: God, man, fall, offer, Jesus, and response. My pastor told us to rewrite the paragraphs in our own words. I did. My 12 forgettable pages were now six memorable paragraphs.

The Gospel in Six changed my life. I was never without the gospel. I could see the world and make sense of it through those six simple words. As long as I remember them, I could answer the tough questions, and do so quickly and concisely.

After that life-changing process, I wondered if I could translate what I had learned into a novel, one that would give others the same confidence in their faith that my investigation and the Gospel in Six gave me. It took years, but here it is.

Good News After Bad chronicles four make-believe conversations around a Starbucks table. The first session ties the basic outline of the Bible to the Gospel in Six. The second shows how the Bible (and the Gospel in Six) responds to the serious challenge of sexual identity politics. The third takes a more detailed look at the overarching story of the Bible. The last conversation looks at the evidence for the truth of Christianity.

I’m a regular guy, so by default, my approach to understanding the Bible, philosophy, and worldview issues is pretty basic. Same for my protagonist. The point is, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar or a professor to have an understanding of the Bible that can make sense of the world and stand up to whatever the world can throw at you. You either have to do the kind of investigation I did or read Good News After Bad.

I planned to work through one last deep proofread before self-publishing this coming Christmas (the same plan I’ve had for the last five years). However, I decided to scrap that approach and put it out now—complete, no doubt, with a few spelling, punctuation, and grammar issues. Why would I purposely make a common self-publishing mistake? Because during this season of quarantine, death is knocking on our doors. People are scared and confused. They’re pondering what life is all about, and asking what, if anything, happens after we die. Serious questions. Good News After Bad has answers.

One last thing: If you’re a Christian, God says you’re always supposed to be prepared to give an account for the hope within you—to share the gospel when people are open to hearing it. Are you ready?

Download Good News After Bad – A Gospel Novel, a FREE ebook, HERE.