For example, these are four different Gospel articulations that I’ve used repeatedly in speaking and teaching. They are not definitions or creeds. They articulations that summarize and balance the content of the Gospel as I understand it. It’s language I want my hearers to hear frequently. Sometimes in phrases. Sometimes in whole sermons or lessons.

Announcement: The Gospel is the glad announcement that God himself, through Jesus, has done everything necessary to rescue his broken world and save its broken people from judgment and ruin. All persons are invited to believe this glad announcement, to be forgiven and to become a disciple of Jesus who is King and Lord.

God: In the Gospel, God shows us that he is the loving and gracious Father revealed in Jesus Christ his Son. This is the face of God that the Christian will look upon for all of eternity. In our Father, there is no condemnation or rejection for his Son or those who belong to God in him. Everything the Bible says about God is true, but for the Christian, God is Jesus in our experience. The Glory of God is the majesty and Glory of Jesus in the incarnation, his sufferings/resurrection and the scriptures.

Jesus: Jesus is our salvation. We say with Simeon: “My eyes have seen your salvation” as he held the infant Christ. Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. He lived a life we could not live and and died a death in our place. He was raised to make us right with God and give us life in God’s Kingdom. By his life, death and resurrection, Jesus has defeated the power of Satan, evil and condemnation. Jesus rules the universe today as the one true King and will return to rule over a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus commands all persons to repent and believe in him.

Kingdom: The Kingdom of God was announced and established by Jesus and it continues in human history by his authority and power. Salvation comes into history as the Kingdom of God takes root in the world. The Kingdom of God is the beginning of the new heaven and the new earth where God’s righteousness lives and salvation is experienced. Jesus invited all persons to come into this Kingdom, to live in its new realities and to work for its inevitable triumph.

This is some of the “foundational content” that should underlie whatever applications we make and whatever we say that reflects on the Gospel.

It doesn’t seem that it would be particularly difficult to put the Gospel in a place where, for example, if we talk about God without Jesus or the culture war without reference to the Kingdom or salvation without reference to the person of Christ, it would sound wrong.

So why doesn’t it?

(By the way, I’m not offering these articulations for theological autopsy. This is how I talk and unless you are an ordination committee I’m seeking to get past, don’t treat me like my articulations are up for theological pinata practice.)

I expect that this emphasis on my part will not endear me to some people, mostly on grounds that I am failing to see the significance of things like moral issues, behavior change and political causes. I’ve come to the point that I realize a discussion of the Gospel is going to have a predictable shape:

1) We all know the Gospel. It’s basic.
2) Once you’ve preached or taught the Gospel, then you need to deal with other things.
3) If you are constantly trying to bring the Gospel to the forefront as the main concern, you’re missing the importance of things like behavior change and obedience.

Or

1) Any message on any Biblical text is “the Gospel.”
2) You’re trying to push your theology over basic things like obedience and behavior change.

Or

1) The point is to get people to accept Jesus into their hearts, not turn people into theologians.

In my own tradition as I experience it in several hundred sermons a year, the Gospel is rarely articulated with Biblical priority or in Biblical balance with the rest of scripture. Good ideas from the Bible are common. Concerns of preachers and church leaders are heard every week. Frustrations with the decline of society or poor behavior of individuals is constant. Some form of the Gospel will frequently pass through these sermons in a place where the truth is seen, but it is also not uncommon to hear generic deism, pure moralism or behavior modification based on “Biblical principles.” Vague ideas like “living for God” or “being a good witness” are frequently referenced. As my readers have often heard, sermons without reference to Jesus are so common as to no longer be that shocking.

One of the most frustrating aspects of this decline is how often in 18 years of ministry I have addressed this topic of the Gospel specifically. Never underestimate the power of preaching to make little impact on deeply held beliefs. Clearly, this displacement of the Gospel is not perceived to be particularly problematic. Of course, these are people who have not been exposed to the Gospel-centric emphasis coming out of various places in evangelicalism or reformation traditions today. There is a reason so many of my good friends don’t emphasize the Gospel: to them “Gospel” is a word in front of singing. At most, it references a four step evangelism outline. It is not the central concept in the Christian life. Something like “Holiness” or “obedience” seems far more practical.

In the second post, I will share some of the ways I’ve tried to consistently articulate the Gospel over the years.

The news story is strange and tragic. Three college softball players go for a night time drive in the country. On an unfamiliar road, they take a wrong turn and drive into a pond….and drown.

There was a day before. A day with no thought of drowning. A day with family and friends. Perhaps with no thought of eternity, God or heaven. There was a day when every assumption was that tomorrow would be like today.

My friend Gary has been the night dean at our school for more than 20 years. His wife has been in poor health, but he has been a workhorse of health. He’s walked miles every day, eaten a vegetarian diet and always kept the rest of us lifted up with his smile and constant focus on the joy he took in his salvation.

Two weeks ago, the doctor turned to him and said leukemia. Today he stands on the crumbling edge of this earthly shadow, looking at the next world, fighting for his life with all that medicine and prayer can offer. Our prayers for him as a school community have been continuous, because we never thought there would be such a day.

There was a day before he heard “leukemia.” A day of work, chores, bills, hopes of seeing a grandchild, prayers for students, love for Suzi. Not a thought that the journey of life contained such a surprising turn for him.

And on that day, Gary was full of faith, full of a servant’s heart, ready for many more days or ready for this to be last one before whatever was around the corner.

We all live the days before. We are living them now.

There was a day before 9-11.

There was a day before your child told you she was pregnant.

There was a day before your wife said she’d had enough.

There was a day before your employer said “lay offs.”

We are living our days before. We are living them now.

Some of us are doing, for the last time, what we think we will be doing twenty years from now.

Some of us are on the verge of a much shorter life, or a very different life, or a life turned upside down.

Some of us are preaching our last sermon, making love for the last time, saying “I love you” to our children for the last time in our own home. Some of us are spending our last day without the knowledge of eternal judgment and the reality of God. We are promising tomorrow will be different and tomorrow is not going to give us the chance, because God has a different tomorrow entirely on our schedule. We just don’t know it today.

Who am I on this day before I am compelled to be someone else? What am I living for? How am I living out the deepest expression of who I am and what I believe?

My life is an accumulation of days lived out of what I believe is true every day.

Gary lived every day with the story of Jesus nearby and the joy of the Lord a ready word to share.

When the day came that “leukemia” was the word he had to hear, he was already living a day resting in the victory of Jesus. That word, above all earthly powers, cannot be taken away. It speaks louder and more certainly the more the surprising words of providence and tragedy shout their unexpected turns into our ears.

Live each day as the day that all of the Gospel is true. Live this day and be glad in it. Live this day as the day of laying down sin and taking up the glad and good forgiveness of Jesus. Live this day determined to be useful and joyful in Jesus. Live this day in a way that, should all things change tomorrow, you will know that the Lord is your God and this is the day to be satisfied in him.

Sunday’s lectionary lesson for the Gospel is a little “blah” as a preaching text. I’ve heard healing and miracle stories allegorized, turned into prosperity Gospel texts and used for every kind of questionable lesson on faith. I think we can do better.

I have some individual ideas, but none of them are really revving my preaching motor this week. So you take a swing of the bat.

What can we do with Mark 10:46-52 as a text for preaching the Gospel? Ideas. Illustrations. Applications. Themes. I’m open for suggestions.

UPDATE: Why the LCMS choose the ESV. I doubt that it was the Piper endorsement.

I have this nagging feeling that the English Standard Version isn’t as good a translation as I’ve previously thought.

My experience with the NLT has me in major regrets that I’ve got my students using the ESV, that there isn’t a cheap textbook version of the NLT, etc.

I’m using the NLT in preaching most of the time, but when I read the ESV for personal study, sermon preps, classes, etc…..something just isn’t right. I’m wondering if I’ve been “marketed.” That is, I’ve bought the impressive ESV marketing version of itself, but the translation isn’t living up to its own press.

Is it really clunky….and awkward? Do people really have problems reading it? Is it stylistically difficult? Does it do all of the things it accuses other translations of NOT doing? Is it just not up to its own press clippings?

Scott Mcknight recently came right out and said it: We do translations by tribes:

“NRSV for liberals and Shane Claiborne lovers;
ESV for Reformed complementarian Baptists;
HCSB for LifeWay store buying Southern Baptists;
NIV for complementarian evangelicals;
TNIV for egalitarians;
NASB for those who want straight Bible, forget the English;
NLT for generic brand evangelicals;
Amplified for folks who have no idea what translation is but know that if you try enough words one of them will hit pay dirt;
NKJV and KJV for Byzantine manuscript-tree huggers;
The Message for evangelicals looking for a breath of fresh air and seeker sensitive, never-read-a-commentary evangelists who find Peterson’s prose so catchy.”

By that list, I’m an NLT guy. (I’ll complain about the NLT some other day. Basically- we need MORE EDITIONS GUYS. Way too few choices.) I don’t want to just play this game. I am honestly wondering if the ESV is more C+/B- than I’ve suspected.

So, this ISN’T a ” tell your favorite translation” discussion. Please, please don’t give your “translation testimony.” This is a “What’s your experience using the ESV?” discussion, with a special invite to the long unheard from critics- who have used it.

What’s your experience with the ESV?

Paul the Apostle, II Corinthians 1:3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. 7 We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us. 8 We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. 9 In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. 10 And he did rescue us from mortal danger, and he will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in him, and he will continue to rescue us. 11 And you are helping us by praying for us. Then many people will give thanks because God has graciously answered so many prayers for our safety. (New Living Translation)

The question and answer post gave me a lot of food for thought. One question was about my experience at Advance 09 and what I had to say to younger leaders after that conference.

It’s sometimes very hard to put into some kind of reasonable form the tensions and opposites that often occur in ministry. For example, when you go to a conference like Advance 09, the entire idea of the conference is the missional advance of the church: winning new converts, baptisms, evangelism, new church plants, new ministries, mission involvement, saturating and influencing the culture. It’s a mission for the highly motivated and the capable. Yes?

But then I come back to my church and look around. It’s people struggling with finances, health, family problems and jobs. Ordinary Christians, many of whom aren’t particularly gifted to do much that would require assertive, outgoing, confrontational tactics. These are people who have aging parents, broken down cars, bad news on medical tests, children with drug and mental health problems and concerns about what more is going to happen to them tomorrow.

There’s a lot of trouble and brokenness among the sheep. A lot. You don’t hear that at the conferences. At the conferences you hear that the sheep need to get off their butts and get out there and be the church. But when you come back to your church, if you are a person with a heart, and not an insensitive shepherd who beats the sheep, your heart is broken for them. You want to comfort them. You want to feed them, tend them and help them find refreshing waters and green pastures.

I’ve always been torn along these lines. It’s probably why I could never bring myself to push churches to do the things that it took to be really successful. When I thought about going to ask Andy to teach a Bible study, I always thought about his problems with his teenage son and his dad’s cancer.

We have a mission. A Great Commission with clear directions to make disciples and plant churches across cultures. And we have broken, hungry, weary, beat-down sheep; at least many of them.

I don’t know the answer to this, but there are some things I believe are worth sharing.

II Corinthians 1 is a very helpful passage. Comfort is incorporated into the mission. The comfort that God offers to his people becomes part of the testimony and the missionary equipment they take with them into the world. The comfort of God becomes more than words. It becomes a ministry of comfort to others.

I believe this speaks deeply to how Christian compassion differs from worldly compassion: it reveals the heart of God for hurting people, and gives imperfect, broken sheep something wonderful to say about God and his people.

We see a direct discussion of this tension in II Corinthians 4:7-18.

7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. 1 2So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.
13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (New Living Translation)

Several years ago, the great missiologist Ralph Winter spoke on a topic with a title similar to this: “How Well Must We Be To Go?”

The core of the message was that all missionaries are broken. There are, of course, factors and events that matter in any aspect of ministry, from going overseas to working in the nursery once a quarter, but the issue of our own pain and brokenness aren’t disqualifying. I must admit that, pastorally, it is hard for me to hear this and put it into practice with the broken people that I know.

But Paul is wise to tell me that I am not called to beat the sheep until they go down the road on mission or to ignore pain and hurt. I am to hold up the transforming “great treasure” of Jesus that is alive and working in the midst of the hurt and brokenness of his sheep. Jesus generates the power for ministry in broken, hurting people through the Gospel and the Holy Spirit. It is a transforming and empowering hope that cannot be explained.

I’ve always had a hard time understanding how those who suffer keep going strong in the cause of Christ. I know such grace doesn’t come in advance, but at the point of need. I have, however, seen it many times. The senior adult who has a stroke and won’t give up their Sunday job greeting visitors. The family with a child in constant need of medical care who gives money and time to serve others. The widow who faithfully works in the ministry of feeding the homeless. The family experiencing marriage and family problems who insist on helping lead worship. The man who loses everything in business and now wants to start a Men’s ministry. The laid off worker who takes groceries to poor families.

It is the power and beauty of Christ, not the power of guilt or ambition inspired motivation. It’s a great part of the way the Kingdom is to work in this world. Sheep- hungry, weak, weary, dying sheep- are on mission so that the Shepherd can be magnified in his care, comfort and hope.

There’s a critical balance here, one that we should seek to make in prayer and preparation. If we love the people we minister to and with, we will treat them like sheep and we will treat them as missionaries. Jesus does that perfectly in his relationship with his disciples, and we should pursue his example and pray that we will be shepherds and disciple-makers like him.

Note: Adrian Warnock preaches the Gospel. He also made a great picture

In a few days, I’ll gather my chapel preachers together for our orientation to the preaching work of the year. As I do every year, I’ll tell them to preach the Gospel. I’ll hand out “Two Ways To Live” and talk about the difference between preaching morality and preaching the Good News of Jesus.

Most of these men know and understand my burden that our students, many of whom we will only have for a year, get a clear and Biblical presentation of the Gospel throughout the year. They may consider me a bit of a “Johnny One Note,” but they want our kids to hear the Gospel as well. All of us, however, will use some of our preaching time to emphasize other messages in the Bible: moral lessons, character qualities, lessons to apply while a student, relationship wisdom, etc.

As important as it is to preach the Gospel, the fact is that there is more than the Gospel in the scriptures. When we are in the business of teaching the scriptures, we need to know how to preach the Gospel, and how to preach it from anywhere in the scriptures. But we also need to know how to preach what is NOT the Gospel, but is still of value.

1. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that doesn’t obscure the Gospel. My greatest concern is that my preachers understand that if they preach the story of Samson, they must preach the Gospel of Jesus and not the Gospel of making good decisions. The relationship between the Gospel and the law is basic here. Those good things in all of those stories are easy to preach and easy to apply, but in the scheme of the Gospel, they can benefit our lives temporally, but they cannot save. No amount of principles or lessons will deliver us from our inability to keep the law.

It’s important to let the law be true and helpful without letting it begin to sound like the “Good News” of obedience. It’s essential for a preacher or teacher know how to move from law to Gospel without contradiction or confusion.

2. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that points to Jesus. David, Moses and Samson have lessons for us. But where they fall short, Jesus perfectly fulfills all they tried to be. The lessons in Biblical stories are seen in their characters, but they are seen in the Gospel only in Jesus. One greater than David or Moses or Abraham is here.

This means we need to develop a skill that preachers of another era prized and practiced: connecting Biblical characters and stories to Christ. I can offer no one better than the Puritans or Spurgeon. Read Thomas Watson, for example, and watch how his mind is always moving through whatever part of the Bible he is using toward Jesus. How can these characters illuminate Jesus and the Gospel?

3. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that recognizes the power of the Gospel. There is power in lessons and examples: namely, my power to follow them. That means, of course, a very imperfect and inconsistent power. There is power in the Gospel: the power that saves, that raises the dead, that remakes the world. God’s power. The power of the Holy Spirit.

How do I get my students to appreciate that only God can save them, change them, raise them and finish all the work that he started? One way is by not leading them to believe that wisdom, proverbs, lessons, principles and other things of value can bring the power of God in the same way.

4. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that shows the difference between human effort and faith. Faith is resting upon God’s promise. It is receiving the gift of God. Faith is placing hope in God himself and what he alone has done and will do. In following any lesson in scripture, we are urging obedience, often on the premise of the necessity of faith. But with the Gospel, if we are Protestants, we are urging faith alone in Christ and his grace alone.

The preacher wants to fuel and fire up faith, but faith rests and believes at a level much deeper and fundamental than it imitates, works or obeys. Our preaching should never discourage obedience, but the lasting quality we want to build up is faith first, and everything else later.

We also must be sure not to confuse faith and works, faith and obedience, faith and repentance or faith and intention. While there is a proper emphasis on practice as a path of faith, the Bible goes to great lengths to declare the nature of faith distinctively, even as it recognizes that faith always exists, in an imperfect relationship to, obedience, repentance and so forth.

5. We must preach what is not the Gospel in a way that does not distort or neglect the proper role of what is not the Gospel. There is a proper place for all of the Bible that is not, in itself, the Gospel. We don’t want to lose the characters, the lessons (which the New Testament says are there to help us), the law or anything else in a constant emphasis on Jesus and the Gospel. We want the scriptures to honestly be what they are and say what they say. I am surprised how some preachers will defend the distortion of a text if they are bending it toward Jesus in some way. We must be good workmen with the text and allow the text to say what it says and be what it is. Properly understood, it will testify to Christ and the Gospel without efforts on our part that damage the plain meaning of the scripture.

One last note: The emphasis on expository, verse by verse preaching raises many of these same concerns. If we stake out a book that is mostly law, we must know how to keep the Gospel primary and not spend 6 months in the law without reference to the only one who keeps the law, the only one who fulfills the law and the only one who forgives the law.

NOTE: Despite the fact that this post is law, you should still read it

I want to talk about a specific problem in preaching and teaching: the problem of preferring law over Gospel.

I consider the primary problem with preaching and teaching in my Southern Baptist tradition these days to be an obsession with (or addiction to?) preaching the “law.” To put it mildly, it’s brutal out there. In many churches and ministries, you’re getting clubbed into putty with the law and hearing slightly less Gospel than what you’d get in fifteen minutes of country music, all courtesy of a preacher who has no excuse not to know better.

I’m using the simple Lutheran “law/Gospel” division here: all of scripture is either what God commands/demands under penalty or what he promises/provides freely by grace. This is law and Gospel. “Do” or “Done.” Moses or Jesus. God the accountant older brother or God the Father of the Prodigal. Advice or announcement. Sinai or the cross. Threat or comfort. Blessing or curse. You do it or else. God did and praise.

If you get this, Luther said, you are a theologian even without the degree. So if you don’t know this, learn it, and if ou learn it, use it. Go to New Reformation Press and get you some Rod Rosenbladt or, if you’re up for it, the book by Walther. (Lutherans can make suggestions for the rest of us on this.)

There’s a lot to discuss with this topic, because I believe genuine discipleship, which has aspects of law to it, grows out of and lives in the Gospel, not the law. (Think of Gospel as soil and law as fence. How does your garden grow?) The Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom, and the King has a moral law. So I’m not simplistic. I sometimes hear people that I really respect do things with the Law-Gospel distinction that makes my skin crawl and that sounds like weird dispensationalism.

But let’s get this clear: I’m going to err on the side of the Gospel, not on the side of the law, so just expect that and understand it’s why I love Capon and Zahl. And don’t think it’s an easy thing for me to be consistently Gospel centered in my own life. God has really humbled me on this one through events in my own family. I have so much law stuffed in me from growing up Baptist that sometimes I’m useless. I could preach a great “beat-you-around-the-ears” law sermon in my sleep. When I hear preachers pummeling their people with the law and acting like the Gospel isn’t in existence anywhere in scripture, I understand how you can know better, but still get to that point.

For one thing, most of us have heard so much law preaching that we’re drowning in it. Most Baptists love it, too, or say they do. “You really told them today, preacher. You let ‘em have it” or my fave as a young preacher-boy “You really stepped on our toes today.” I must not have done it right then, because the law KILLS you, not annoys you, so you can be resurrected, not corrected.

I could name preachers all day who made their reputations on being law preachers, and they are popular because we love to hear someone preach our congregation or youth group right into the ground. When our people sleep and our youth group doesn’t care, we love to hear someone come in with the big stick and humble those uncaring sheep. Right?

Law preaching is powerful. It feels powerful. Even when it’s done poorly and just amounts to nagging, it makes the preacher feel like he/she is doing something. That’s one reason it’s so popular- you’re telling them what to do. You’re like Moses hitting the rock. Look what I did, you bunch of stubborn yokels. And joined with invitationalism and revivalism, it works. It fills the altar with crying students. I brings people down to get baptized for the 5th time and really mean it this time.

The Gospel, on the other hand, takes the power out of your hands. It’s the announcement of what God has done. You aren’t powerful at all. You’re one loser telling a bunch of other losers that they are going to be treated like winners. Bread for the thieves. Pardon for the unquestionably guilty. Love for rebels. You’re announcing that everyone gets paid the same. You’re issuing banquet seats to people who have no right to a ticket because they are dirty and sinful. You’re telling sinners that the lamb of God has paid the bill and it’s not going to appear on their charge anywhere.

You are telling people it is too good to be true, but it is too good and completely true, and it changes everything.

Apparently this must not be very exciting to a lot of preachers, because they just don’t enjoy preaching it (and often enjoy saying why they despise free grace.) I’m not saying they never say “Jesus died for you,” but it’s not a finished salvation given as a gift to sinners with nothing put empty hands. It is, as I usually hear it, something Jesus did that made salvation “possible.” Possible. If salvation is just “possible,” I’m toast. Burned on both sides.

If I can go to hell, I will. It’s that simple. (Sorry Catholic friends, but that’s what happens when you keep reading a thread like this. You should have turned back the first time I said “Luther.”) If Jesus closed hell by taking it upon himself for me and anyone else who believes, if hell has been conquered and sin/death defeated by the resurrected/reigning Jesus, then I can be saved. Because God does it and God promises it. (I’m enjoying the fact that I’m irritating some readers right now. See, the Gospel can be fun.)

What I hear in the pulpit is a lot of phrases like “get your priorities and values straight” or “do what pleases God.” This kind of talk can make some sense once we’ve been to the cross and understand the Gospel, but it is deadly if you put your hope in such efforts.

Remember this: Discipleship will put you in despair without the Gospel. Discipleship that’s rooted in law will just drive you into despair or Pharisaism. Discipleship needs to grow out of the Gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit magnifying Jesus and the love of God.

You can recognize law preaching because it’s always full of references to the Bible being a “handbook for life,” full of principles for a successful life. If your Bible is just a handbook for life, throw it away.

The Bible is the story that delivers us the Gospel. It’s point is to get you to Jesus, the one mediator between God and man. It’s a big book to get you to a short message. You buy the whole field, but the treasure is the Gospel, not the book of Judges or financial principles from Proverbs. Once you have the Gospel right and you know what preaching is all about, then you can read and preach Leviticus or Malachi or whatever you want, as long as Jesus is in his proper place and the message is the Gospel, not the law, or the old covenant, or this week’s good advice.

I really think we have an army of preachers who think that people ought to come hear them “preach” about various life questions and issues. How to have a great family. How to get along at work. How to use money. How to discipline kids.

Why would I want a preacher to tell me anything about these things? Why are preachers talking about sex, politics and what Jesus wants you to eat? Can anyone admit that the preacher’s ego is often inflated to dangerous level when we let his/her advice about politics or parenting become legitimate material for preaching.

Preach the Gospel, brother. Then sit down, be quiet and let’s do something else. We can pray, sing or go eat. All good.

The Bible is about the Gospel. You are about the Gospel. Give me enough of the law to make the Gospel good news, though I’ll admit I’m not one of those people convinced that we need to try and recreate Bunyan’s conversion. I’m with Spurgeon on that one. Our job is to keep the Good News out there.

Law preaching demotes the preacher, often abuses the congregation, denies them the Gospel and offers a false hope in things like “getting serious about pleasing God.”

Law youth ministry is a waste of your time. If all you’re doing is trying to make kids behave, make good choices and buy into the church as a place to hang out, then by all means, get another job. Or be honest and just say you’re a moralistic therapeutic babysitter carrying out the wishes of the church to not have any kids make bad decisions.

What is ministry? Get them to the Gospel and Jesus, sister. Let Jesus decide if they need to be in jail or not.

In other words, it’s an unmitigated disaster unless the Gospel is heard louder, longer and much clearer than anything else.

I’d really like to apologize to anyone- and there are a lot of these people- who ever showed up at church and heard the “good news” that if they would take their talent and use it for the Lord, they’d be blessed. Or if they surrender their all to Jesus, they’ll be happy no matter what happens. Or if they will stop making excuses and get serious about following Jesus, they can please God.

Really, I apologize. We’ve got better news than that.

We’ve got the news that if everything sucks, asteroids hit the earth, you die, the economy tanks, no one at work likes you, Christians are jailed, your computer breaks and your kid turns out to be a lawyer, you still can’t stop the Good News of what God has done for you.

We’ve got the news that God has declared religion out of business. We’ve got the news that the church has nothing to offer or say except the Gospel, so that should simplify your search for a church. We’ve got the news that at the end of the world, there’s going to be a party for you and me, where we’re going to be embraced, loved and taken to the new heaven and the new earth completely on the free grace of God in Jesus.

We’ve got the news that the law has been satisfied and love is what remains. Faith, Hope and Love, and the greatest of these is Love, because we know who he is. Death has become resurrection. A world of hurt has become a new heaven and a new earth….in the GOSPEL.

Can we preach this please? My soul needs it and I am not alone.

I’ve always been encouraged that there is so much discussion of the Gospel in the Christian blogosphere, but I’ve been disappointed where most of that discussion has focused. I’m sure there’s a great need to clarify the differences between Piper and Wright on the nature of justification, but I doubt that the church on the corner has many people walking in the doors who particularly care. (Oh, I know that the theologians among us can tell us why they should care, but the theological class has never suffered from a lack of confidence in the significance of their particular areas of interest, yours truly included.)

There are, however, areas of largely untouched Gospel proclamation and application that are walking into churches and sitting across from you at Panera Bread; areas and issues usually avoided and left unexplored. I rarely- never?- hear them addressed, which is what this blog is for, right?

I’m sure very few readers have failed to have I Corinthians 6:9-11 brought to their attention multiple times, mostly because it contains specific references to sexual sins and that those who “practice” and “indulge in” them will not inherit the Kingdom of God (one of Paul’s rare mentions of the Kingdom). If we could put aside for a moment the debate regarding exactly what sort of sexual sin Paul is describing or how we need to shout the sinfulness of sin louder than the world, there’s something else rather extraordinary about this passage, particularly given the portrait of the Corinthian church that emerges in the New Testament.

To the point, the Corinthian church, for all its lack of mature leadership, division, indulgence in the sins common in Greek culture and raucous abuse of the Lord’s Supper, must have, at least at some point, been a pretty good place to repent of serious sin and become an accepted part of the Christian community. As the NLT puts it, “Some of you were once like that,” “that” being the sins listed in that passage. “But now….” those same persons were in the Corinthian community hearing this letter.

In other words, repentance happens somewhere, if it happens, other than just in your head and heart. The Corinthian church appears to, at one time, have been one of those places.

This may shed some light on the situation in I Corinthians chapter 5, where Paul says the Corinthians are “proud of” their acceptance of a man living in a Jerry Springer-esque relationship with his step-mother. Acceptance of the sinner may have been the Corinthian’s strong suit if chapter 6 is any evidence, and their lack of discernment and leadership may have let them to sometimes tolerate too easily- even gladly- what they should have sometimes excluded as incompatible with belonging to Christ. In fact, a number of passages in these letters leave the impression that the Corinthians’ acceptance of real sinners and their patience in dealing with real sin may have gone off track without unified, mature leadership.

What I want you to see, however, is that their acceptance of sinful, repenting, in-the-process-of-changing new believers was a legitimate and importance application of the Gospel. We don’t just arrive at the destination; we travel the road and the road may be less than a straight line. The Christian community into which the Corinthians were all baptized as converts was, at any one moment, a community of persons moving from one kind of person to another; a community of persons acquiring in real time the inheritance and realities given them in their union with Christ in baptism and faith.

Our only other choice is to assume that the person who was “once” on the list in chapter 6 was excluded from the community until they became the new “you” of the same verses. There are Christians and communities that strive to be this very thing: communities where all transformation is instantaneous and the stated rules render the process of repentance and personal transformation unspeakable…unless it is finished. This, by the way, is the genius of Paul’s “sin lists,” which always counterbalance the “big” sins with what we would judge as more mundane sins, by human comparison. Of course you must exclude a persistent sexual sinner, but “greedy” people? We can work on that as we go along. No need to make a big deal about that sort of thing.

I’m not suggesting that Paul or any New Testament writer was advocating that anyone in leadership would be in the process of committing scandalous sin. The pastoral letters are clear on such matters. I am suggesting, with good evidence I think, that the Corinthian fellowship contained persons who entered into the Christian journey as they repented from real sins, and that such repentance was ongoing and, I’m certain, imperfect. That the church is to be a “hospital for sinners” and not a ward of healthy people telling stories of their former illnesses is a challenging calling.

Now I have more than a Bible study in mind this morning, and I want to get to the point. I think there are sins we virtually don’t talk about at all simply because we don’t want people in the process of repenting of those sins around us or our families, and so we fail to see that the church as community is, in many ways, much more like the moralistic, judgmental secular world than like the movement that grows from Jesus and his world-altering Gospel.

Consider the sin of domestic abuse, both emotional and physical. I believe it’s one of the great unmentioned sins in the church, because it is one of the great plagues of the culture. Christians don’t have a lot of verses on this one because the Bible was written in cultures that seldom defined abuse as we do today. Abuse of women and children- and occasionally men- is rampant, common and even accepted in many cultures. I am fairly certain I could walk- not drive- to the homes of several families I know that are dealing with this right now, including prominent families in churches.

Have you ever talked to a counselor- secular or Christian- about how they feel about abusive men? I have two books on emotional abuse on my bedroom shelves right now. Both say the emotional abuser will almost certainly never change and the victim/woman must divorce and leave such a man no matter what he says.

That is the message of the culture to the family that is struggling with emotional/verbal or physical abuse: no change possible. Get out. End it and start over. To do otherwise is the enable the abuser to continue the cycle of abuse.

Now I understand this, and I have advised many women to get out and have called social services on behalf of young people. I am not that guy who says “submit and take it,” so don’t write me with stories of how churches and pastors said stay and wait for him to change. I am basically on your side and I respect your pain and loss. I just have another problem.

I deeply disagree with the hopelessness of the typical scenario. I believe Christ and the Gospel can change the abuser. I believe it, I’ve seen it, and- hang on- I want every church to have some kind of niche in their community- aside from a professional counselors office- where such repentance can go on. I want support for the abused, and I want some community for the genuinely repenting abuser. If we say no abuser ever tries to repent, then we deny the Gospel, and that’s a big deal.

Maybe a Samson Society. Maybe a Celebrate Recovery relationship. Maybe a Promise Keeper’s small group. Maybe a healing prayer service. Maybe a prayer partner. Maybe a mentor or accountability group. Someplace where it can happen in the real world, with other men, and not just in a counselor’s office where it’s unlikely he’ll hear the Gospel.

If there isn’t such a place for that man who seeks to repent of his shabby and rotten treatment of his wife and family, then what business do we have preaching the Gospel to that man? What business do we have reading him I Corinthians 6:9-11?

Oh, I know. Your mind is already going where mine went long ago: the who catalog of sins that our culture has placed in the “pariah” file. Pornography addicts. Sexual abusers. Violent criminals. Sociopaths. Child molesters.

No fellowship of mere humans can create the community where everyone can repent openly. It’s just not possible. Some sins and their consequences are too controversial and dangerous, even in the process of sincere repentance. Most churches are too imperfect to love every sinner as they should be loved. No church can turn an eye to realities of risk and recurrence.

God bless those in prison ministry and those who can go to the men and women no church can allow in, but are there churches seeking to call out and equip those persons for that ministry? Even if it that ministry can never result in joining the church’s formal, 3-D fellowship? (By the way, once again, one can see certain advantages to the Catholic way of doing church. It may fall short, in some of our assessments, in the quality of “typical” community, but it also may be much more accommodating to the person who, truly, can only come to confession, receive the sacraments and then must leave, or to the person who can’t enter a fellowship at all.)

I wonder how many who hear preachers inveigh against viewing internet porn are also sitting in a fellowship where there is a place one can confess, experience acceptance and become accountable for such a struggle with sin? How many are sitting in a place where Paul could write I Corinthians 6:9 with a modern list of shocking sins, but no one can say “I was one of those, but thanks to the Gospel I heard and experienced here, I am that no more?”

This is a real challenge, because the world is full of bad things and as often as we are accused of being rigid and Puritanical, we are also accused of being sloppy and naive with forgiveness. (Listen when someone on death row claims to have been forgiven by Jesus.) As Jesus shaped, Gospel loving people, the scandal and shock of forgiving real sinners is one sign we are getting it right. If the Corinthians went over the line and into the ditch, I’m just glad they were on the right side of the road. For too many of us who claim to be Jesus’ followers, there is very little mercy for anything resembling the prodigal unless he comes home looking very good and sporting a nifty testimony. We don’t want to be in the business of cleaning that kid up.

In most of the churches I’ve served, someone has been convicted of a crime and gone to jail. Some of those persons were sitting in the church’s pews the weeks before. Paul Zahl says you would be very surprised to discover how many people you know have spent a night in jail.

You’d probably be more surprised to learn that the woman next to you at the gym is there because her husband verbally abuses her about her weight. Or what your best friend’s husband is doing on that work computer. Or who is on the sex offender’s registry because as a 22 year old public school coach they had consensual sex with a 17 year old student. Or who is addicted to prescription medications. Or who punched their 15 year old son in the jaw. Or who is paying the mortgage having sex with strangers off of Craig’s list. Or who is a three time convicted shoplifter. Or who was arrested for a DUI last month. Or who smokes pot every day.

Yes, most of us don’t want to think about it, because these are messy, life dominating sins, scattering trails of wreckage behind them that no one wants to become involved with. But we preach the Gospel to them when we preach it to anyone.

We have a Word to hear, an aisle to walk, water to be washed in and a table to come to, but do we have a people gathered around that Gospel who will strive to make a community of repentance possible?

NOTE: For those who are interested in this topic, the life’s work and especially the recent writing of Dr. Larry Crabb is invaluable.

Please know: I am speaking to “leavers” in much of this book, i.e. people who have left or are leaving the church. If your orientation is totally “unquestioned loyalty to whatever my church says or does” an you’ve never considered leaving, I’m definitely on a different page.

This topic is giving those outside of the church who still relate to scripture a positive way to think about reapproaching the church on this issue.

What should be the relationship between the Christian and the church when it comes to the Bible? Here’s a simple saying that’s helped me understand the balance: We should “check in” with the church, but not necessarily “buy in” to everything the church is saying about the Bible.

How do you “check in,” but not “buy in?”

For starters, we’re humble and teachable. We know that we need to be taught and we don’t carry the idea that because the Holy Spirit can speak to one person we assume that’s the normal Christian life. It’s not. Paul told the Corinthians that what was already in the Bible was there for their example and their benefit.

Beyond that, we remember that the church often- not always, but often- is the place where we will find those called and gifted to teach the Bible. God the Spirit gives teachers to the church as an encouragement and a resource. Their most basic job: teach the Bible to God’s people and equip them to live the Jesus shaped life.

We should also remember that hearing and interpreting scripture is sometimes a solo project, but usually it’s a group project. I know that most Bible studies can seem like a waste of time, but the realistic anchor of the experiences of others can keep us out of the ditches.

Next, we should keep in mind that the church has often conserved the lessons, truths and evidences of God’s work in the past. Yes, it may be very biased and unbalanced, but we still should “check in” to see what the church’s confessions, biographies, stories, mentors, saints and examples can teach us. It’s a living library there for our use.

Finally, we should remember that even if the church isn’t a place we are comfortable or that we can associate with regularly, it is still moving in the same direction we are toward the Kingdom of God. We may find ourselves on very different roads, but the direction is the same. Our purpose should be to live in peace, to encourage one another, to share our stories and to rejoice/weep together on the journey. Not all pilgrims travel in the same group. Some want to be alone. Some want a small band of friends. Others are comforted and helped by large numbers. God’s Word speaks to all of us and holds all of us together. We should learn to journey to the Kingdom in peace, not in conflict.

You are welcome to comment on what I’ve written, but keep in mind this is a long way from all I have to say about the church and its contribution to Jesus shaped spirituality.