Day 2452 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


1 Thessalonians 2:4 NIV

I heard something months ago and it's stuck with me ever since, and in fact I think about it almost every day at this point. The problem with modern, progressive Christianity is that not enough people want to kill the preachers. If there's a better way to put it that explains the dangers of watering down the Gospel I haven't heard it yet! We're risking losing something that has eternal significance just to buy ourselves a little temporal appeal.

Yesterday we talked about how the message of the cross will always seem foolish and silly to those who refuse to humble themselves. But rather than letting people make that choice to reject the Gospel, many have decided to try and make the Gospel more appealing to them. This world-focused version of Christianity is doing everything it can to make people enjoy it. It’s rounding off the corners, softening the edges, and dulling the blow that God’s truth has.

But what are we losing in this effort to make Christianity more socially acceptable? What are we gaining? What are doing? We’re doing nothing but limiting the power and stripping the purpose of what the Gospel is there to do. It isn’t about making people comfortable or making the world like us. It has nothing to do with appealing to our broken human nature or bending to fit our worldly desires. It’s quite the opposite in fact.

It’s there to open our eyes to just how wrong we are. It’s there to hit us where it hurts and encourage us to learn from our errors and mistakes. But these days too many are more worried about people being mad at them for telling the truth than they are about the fact that telling them the truth is the only thing that can save them. So people are trying to rewrite the Gospel to make it more appealing to our world in order to avoid the hatred and strife and judgement that it will most assuredly bring.

That’s what doesn’t make sense to me about this whole idea of progressive Christianity. What are we progressing toward? What are we progressing from? Is that not just a fancy way of saying that maybe the Bible can be improved or that God’s truth should be updated? Well it shouldn’t. The simple fact is that God’s truth should change us to meet its requirements. We shouldn’t be trying to change His truth to meet ours. That’s where so many are going dangerously wrong these days.

This verse makes all of this really clear and really simple. God calls us to follow Him, to share His truth, and to point people to Him and He’s the only One that can save them. Not to follow the world, share what people want to hear, and live to point people to whatever makes them comfortable as that will only leave them lost and headed toward an eternity of suffering. He has entrusted us with the Gospel. He has given us the opportunity to walk differently than the world around us to show people that it can be done, and that it needs to be done. And at the end of the day, it’s all for His glory never our own.

We can’t start worrying about those who hate our faith and the message of the Gospel. That group will always be there and they will never ever consider changing their ways and turning to God. So why waste any time trying to find some way to appeal to them? Why strip away the power of God’s word or avoid His truth in order to try and please people who have no interest in doing better or leaving sin behind? That’s only time wasted that we could use trying to reach those who have not yet closed their hearts.

Look, we’re not here to change minds or win arguments. We’re here to humbly follow Christ and share His Gospel to those who are willing to take it to heart and be changed and saved by it. We can’t get distracted by those who are filled with hatred and denial. Doing so will only pull us in the wrong direction and keep us from helping those who are willing to be helped. Let the world hate us and the message He gave us to share. We’re here for the ones who can still be saved!

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