Cheapening the Gospel
I took a nap today. I’m not much of napper, but sometimes amazing things happen when one stops to rest. For instance, today I dreamt about someone getting very angry at the church over something that seemed minuscule to most others. In an effort to bring understanding to the situation I said, “I believe he’s angry because we’ve cheapened the gospel.” And I woke up feeling so aware of the ways that we do strip the gospel of its value.
Let’s brainstorm a few of those. First let me clear what I mean by cheapening the gospel. The truth of Jesus’ redemption and renewal cannot actually lose any of its value, right? Sometimes the way we think, believe and therefore live implies that the gospel is less than perfectly magnificent. Does that make sense? I think it will when we dig in.
Sin
We can diminish the value of the gospel in our eyes when we treat sin lightly. I want to preface this with a warning against legalism. I am not promoting an atmosphere that requires perfect “rule following” or marginalizes those who are struggling. In fact, these are both ways of mistreating the good news of Jesus. The salvation of Jesus is one of grace, mercy and infinite love. But that grace was so costly. We have to remember that the paycheck earned for a moment of sin was death and that Jesus bore that payment for every moment of sin, ever. It can be so easy to laugh at or wave off certain sin issues; many have even been normalized within church culture. The truth is that Jesus life, death & resurrection simultaneously provide payment & forgiveness for our sins while warranting brokenness over them.
Diluting the gospel by mixing it with other messages
No other religion can maintain the aforementioned tense duality. As far as I can tell (though I’m far from an expert), they either require a person to perfect his or herself in this life or the next, or they excuse brokenness as part of character or destiny. Their gospel really is cheap. In a world where morality is a thing, immorality can neither be okay or conquered in human strength, no matter how many lives we live. If reincarnation offered sanctification, the world would become steadily more moral, when in fact the reverse is happening. I know I’ve digressed a little, but this includes any other cause extraneous to the gospel that we try to add to following Jesus, such as a lifestyle, methodology (such as a parenting practice) or patriotism. They all dilute the gospel if we try to live them or share them together.
Dulling the Gospel
The gospel is sharper than any two-edged sword. It is offensive. It steps on our toes so to speak. Sometimes the way we speak of the gospel is as if we tried to scrape the edges of the gospel against a jagged stone to dull it, to make it less sharp. This has super broad implications, but a few worth mentioning:
The fact that the very “best” and “worst” persons need an equal portion of grace but are equally undeserving of it can be hard to swallow. Most of us don’t realize it until we’re confronted with it, but it’s easy to have a “type” of person that we subconsciously view as unsaveable. Of course most of us would’t say it that way, but when you shake the hand of a transvestite in church who is working out their faith in believing they are who God says they are (or insert someone that you love more easily from afar: abortion activist, sex offender….) then it’s easier to see the unbelief in your heart.
God does ask for obedience from you, but rarely asks you to require it of others. As God’s servant, you are asked to serve Him faithfully. (Of course God looks gently on you when you fall flat on your face much like a Father watching child learning to ride a bike, so our obedience should never be out of cowering obligation or proud religiosity.) He also tells us not to worry about the servant laboring next to us. Except in a few rare situations, He teaches us in scripture that our business is with our own stewardship. When we treat others like they need our help being sanctified, we’re not truly believing that the Holy Spirit can do His job. This is true for individuals and also groups. Feeling like you need to “help turn around” or save a church, study group or anyone else is a dangerous thing. I’ve been there, so I feel like I can humbly tell you to set that burden down with much gladness; take heart! Jesus already saved them friend!
Godly Parenting
The exception to the above is parenting. This is another place in which the tension of the seriousness of sin amidst the freedom of grace is difficult to pass on. This isn’t a post on parenting, so I’ll get straight to the point: Neither parenting methods that discipline strictly for (near) perfect children nor allowing children complete freedom to learn from their own mistakes teach the fullness of the gospel. The gospel is confrontational but gentle, absolute while freeing. I don’t think there is only one perfect way to disciple our children, but as believing parents we can strive to live out the paradoxes of Jesus’ truth and model God’s parenting to our children as best we can.
Filtering the Gospel
Building on the idea that the gospel is offensive, we do the gospel no justice with our cultural preconceptions. We can’t help their existence, but we can help how tightly we hang on to them. What do I mean by this? Well, the Bible was written thousands of years ago by many different people (inspired by God of course) in a times and cultures radically different than our own. However we have made a habit of deciding what it “means” based on o ur modern understanding. Now the truth of the gospel is simple enough for a child to understand, but scripture is also complicated enough to occupy the brainiest scholar for a lifetime. So I’m not saying that we all have to study every word in it’s original language or something in order to be a good Christian. (I totally love it though.) But I AM saying that we should challenge ourselves to understand better all the time, however small our effort may be.
When you come across a Scripture that western Christianity or your denomination can’t explain, are you wiling to recognize that a God-inspired collection of books written thousands of years ago might have more to it than we can easily understand? In the name of the inerrancy of scripture we cling to things that are actually tradition rather that truth. We cheapen the gospel with our cultural filters. I still maintain that we should always prove scripture with scripture and hold the Bible as absolute truth, but sometimes this means that our Christianity will be offended. To recognize the gospel for its true value, we have to acknowledge that it is beyond human comprehension and that we will often have to rethink our interpretation of it.
I have to be honest, (in addition to some of the challenges we’ve faced) my husband has challenged me in this the last couple years. He is so good at putting down church-culture norms and asking what the Bible ACTUALLY means. I’m so grateful for it! He is willing to listen to teachers and study things that are ignored most Sundays. I’m slowly learning that the bigness of the gospel is worth holding my current understanding more loosely and opening my mind & heart to a scripture that cannot be easily explained. I hope this is making some sense. If you’re close to me, you’ve probably lent an ear to the verbal processing of some of that. If you’re not and you’re curious, just shoot me a comment or an e-mail.
Let me sum up:
And to think all of this started with a little cat nap! The point of this post-nap virtual ramble:
Obviously the good news of YHWH God will never lose its value. But are we shortchanging it with unbelief? If we were to focus on trying to get every detail “right”, we would still fail and get distracted from what God wants for us. So I’m not saying God wants for us to gather knowledge to remedy this. He wants our heart to be humble and devoted to Him. And setting our hearts and minds on him (fixing our eyes on Jesus), means we have to willingly undergo refining, not just in our behavior (which is external) but in our belief (which is where it all begins).
