17/06/2025
The Gospel Dissected One Letter at a Time:
A Review of “The Gospel from A-Z”
by Brandon Murillo
I’m pretty sure everyone has heard of the Gospel, even you. No matter who you are or where you are, I’m sure you would be familiar with what it is. The books of the Gospels in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are certainly one of the most important collections of books of all time. Many people give importance to, read, and study them as they contain the Gospel (which originated from the words Good News in Old English). The Gospel is the core message of Christianity as it talks about how God had acted through the Lord Jesus Christ, His begotten Son, who lived, died, and resurrected. This was done so humanity can be saved from sin and be reconciled in a restored relationship with Him.
However, both the Gospels and the Gospel are quite long with a lot of key messages and foundational truths that serve as the backbone for the entire Christian faith. I had to admit I hadn’t even read the Gospels cover-to-cover. With this in mind, I think that “The Gospel from A-Z” can come in handy as it makes a summary of the Good News and its key themes such as our sinful nature, salvation from it, and redemption through God’s grace and mercy. As per what the author herself described it, it’s “for those who want to learn and explain the entire gospels without having to read an entire book.”
The aforementioned product can be quite unconventional as it isn’t a book but rather a box set with 26 cards. But why 26 cards? Each postcard-sized card represents one letter in the alphabet. The cover case of the box has differing shades of black and dark gray with an outline of a black cross with its title in the center. Each of the cards has the main text with differing fonts, designs, and shades of gray, black, and white in its front side. However, the backs carry the same cover design. It actually looks like a deck of playing cards all-in-all.
Speaking of the design, I was extremely impressed with it, especially on how all of the elements- from the color to the margins to the fonts to the spacing- looked very well combined. The presentation was coherent and finely crafted. The cards themselves were all clearly made of high-quality and durable cardboard with a glossed or matted finish.
After I finished reading all 26 cards, I have a few comments on the contents of it. I saw a lot of recurring themes here that were just repeated time and time again, just from a different angle or viewpoint- such as that we must admit and confess that we are all born sinners and that Jesus Christ is our only Lord and Savior. I remember seeing that main idea in nearly all of the cards.
I also remember seeing the idea that there is nothing we can do by ourselves to go to heaven due to our sinful nature. It got expounded through repeating the themes that are mentioned below. The only real way to go to heaven is to ask for forgiveness, confess that we are sinners, and repent. Doing good deeds without taking into account of God's grace and mercy is worthless and not counted if we want to go to heaven. There’s also another theme that states that we are automatically assigned to hell at birth due to our sinful nature. Which is why, once again, we must be born again through repentance.
The contents in the cards are nice and thought-provoking indeed. However, I think they can be better if the cards actually discuss events in the Gospels itself like the life, death, and resurrection of Christ instead of only talking about heavy topics like sin, repentance, confession, and others. The tone isn’t formal like one you would expect from a textbook, but it rather had something like a conversational tone you would expect from a post. The author had even originally created them through social media. I think that this can serve as a better hook for the audience since the ordinary Filipino isn’t typically fond of reading long or heavy material.
𝐈 𝐠𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 “𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐀-𝐙” 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐢𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝. 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥, 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭. I hope that this product and others such as this can be effective in introducing and showing people what the Good News and Christianity is.
