As I said at the start of this series, the gospel is vast. So please don't read this series reductively. The gospel doesn't reduce to an epistemological crisis, nor is stating that the gospel is an epistemological crisis in anyway a comprehensive statement about the gospel. The goal of this series was simply to highlight that the gospel is News, News about reality that undermines our perceptions and causes us to rethink all of existence.
Such an understanding of the gospel can do a lot of good work for us. But there is also a temptation here that I want to name in order to avoid it.
Specifically, when we say the gospel is an epistemological crisis we might be tempted by Gnosticism, reducing the gospel to knowledge. Now, to be clear, Gnosticism isn't 100% off the mark. There's a reason why Gnosticism blended with Christianity. There are points of contact.
For example, Paul describes the gospel as a mystery. Consider Ephesians 3:1-12, where I've underlined the gnosticy, epistemological parts:
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—
Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Which means that Christianity isn't a Gnostic, mystery cult. What was once hidden has been made manifest. It’s a scandal, to be sure, but these things were not done in a corner. The mystery is now News, democratically and universally available to everyone with ears to hear.