We enjoyed a break of almost an hour and then gathered together again to sing “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand” and to hear Mark Dever’s session. He discussed the temptation to improve upon the gospel. His talk was built upon five “calls” that are dangerous to the gospel—five ways churches may be tempted to adapt or shrink or expand the gospel message in order to make it more palatable.
The First Call - Make the gospel public. The question here is: what is the gospel about? This call is all about our mission. These people believe the gospel is to save not individuals but the structure of our society (and here Dever suggested N.T. Wright as an example of a person who does this). They ask How much of the kingdom will we see before Christ returns? But we will never by our actions bring in the culmination of the kingdom of God because this waits for the return of Christ. To get the church to focus on repairing passing structures in a world under the curse of God, is to cause churches discouragement and to distract us from the work of bringing God glory by preaching the gospel and seeing people converted and reconciled to God. As Christians we need to preach the gospel and preach it as we’ve received it.
The Second Call - Make the gospel larger. The question here is: did Jesus come only to save our souls? What is at stake here is the core of the gospel. People here think through a Christian worldview, which is great. But implications of the gospel are sometimes referred to as part of the gospel. This is not so great! These are people who would affirm what we mean by the gospel but they would want to say more. Dever mentioned Chuck Colson as a person who is an example of this. We must always be clear to distinguish between the core of the gospel and its results.
The Third Call - Make the gospel relevant. The question here is: how will people be saved? This affects our outreach and what it will be like. It’s an issue of contextualization. Many people begin with the idea that the gospel appears irrelevant to people. But the gospel already is relevant to every person on earth. We do not need to make it any more relevant than it is! Our call is to give the message faithfully trusting that it is relevant.
The Fourth Call - Make the gospel personal. This is an individualism that ignores the role of the local church. This is true of people from Harold Camping to George Barna. Our participation in a local congregation normally validates or falsifies our claim to trust in the gospel of Jesus Christ. What message allows you to think you’ve accepted it if you don’t in a committed and Christ-like way love your brother? Many people today ignore the fundamental congregational centeredness that is so critical to the biblical understanding of church. A wrongly personalized gospel leads to a wrongly personalized church. Being vague about the church can hurt our understanding of the gospel. There is a personal component to the gospel, of course, but it is not a call to radical individualism.
The Fifth Call - Make the gospel kinder. Here the question is Why does God save us? It has long been assumed that the purpose of the gospel is to save the greatest number of people from hell. The follow-on to this is that we should do whatever we can do to save whoever we can, but where we go wrong is not just in ensuring people hear the gospel but trying to make sure that they make a visible response to it. But our responsibility is for faithfulness in preaching the message, not in ensuring that others accept it.
The long and the short is simple. We need to preach the gospel as it has been given to us. We do not change it, modify it, grow it, shrink it or do anything to make it better. Our task is simply to take it the way it has been given to us and to believe in its power to affect lives.
Comments (7) »
1. Matthew
April 16, 2008
4:27 PM
While I didn’t listen to this talk and so can’t judge it as well as you can, I think it’s unfair to say that people who respond to these “calls” are necessarily trying to make the Gospel more palatable to people. There are those who are doing to in order to make the Gospel more palatable to people, and I think that they can get in line behind those who lead little children astray for their big heavy necklace.
I think that in many cases (and especially among people who are pretty firm in their theological groundings like N.T. Wright or Chuck Colson) they are simply trying to be faithful to the Bible and to Jesus’ preaching of the Gospel. If Dever quoted Scripture in support of his points, I would like to see them— because I see Jesus making the Gospel public (Matthew 25), larger (Luke 4:18-21, 7:18-23), contextualized (just about all the parables), personal (John 8:1-11), and kinder (Matthew 11:28-30). Even Dever made it larger by pointing out the need to commit to a church and brotherly love in that context.
I understand the need to hedge in our Gospel preaching so that we’re not all over the place or just catering to what people want to hear, but if we say the Gospel is only about the individual’s escape from hell and entry into heaven, we’re ignoring huge chunks of our Bible and the whole “in between” part of the Gospel.
2. donsands
April 16, 2008
4:58 PM
” ..it is not a call to radical individualism.” Amen.
Christ died for His Church. He loves the whole Church, and so must we. We have brothers and sisters in all nations, and in heaven, and one day we will all be together for one purpose, to extol our Lord and Christ, and to see His glory.
What a day that shall be!
3. Jared
April 16, 2008
9:59 PM
Was Dever implying that implications of the gospel (i.e. cultural engagement, politics, urban renewal, feeding the poor) are not things that the church should involve itself in as a corporate entity?
In other words, these activities are fine for the individual but not for the church gathered. That is what I heard, but I’d love to be corrected.
4. Stephen Newell
April 17, 2008
1:05 AM
Jared,
No, he was saying the implications of the gospel are not the gospel itself. That’s one of the errors of the “social gospel” that is still being perpetuated. Instead he was emphasizing that these things are caused by the gospel, not that they are part and parcel of the gospel.
Matthew,
I do think you need to listen to Mark’s presentation before making the assertions you made in your second paragraph. What he actually said is different from what you seem to think he means.
5. Church Planter
April 19, 2008
12:53 AM
I am a church planter in an urban context. We are a church plant out of Fellowship Bible Church from which came the book “The Church of Irresistible Influence.”… a book all about building bridges and engaging the community. As an offshoot, and in our own unique way we are all about engaging the city and putting hands and feet to the Gospel. We/I talk all the time about proclaiming and demonstrating the Gospel. I do know very clearly what is and is not the Gospel— and what is to be considered implications of the Gospel. However, I think this Dever message along with some other conversations I’ve been having is a needed rebuke and exhortation for me to tone down the “demonstrating the gospel” talk and be more precise and articulate in this area. This will please the Lord, help me, and model for our people an accurate definition of the Gospel. In fact, I am going to re-record a vision cd that we pass out for this reason. Thanks Mark.
6. Bethany
April 23, 2008
1:29 PM
Speaking of the Gospel, what is it? The comments here seem to agree on an unstated definition of the Gospel and the conference takes as its the central theme the Gospel, yet I can’t find it defined on the conference website or here.
7. Jon
April 23, 2008
10:27 PM
Bethany, it was clearly defined many times at the T4G conference, especially in Mark’s speech. (Although I agree, it should be defined on the website). The gospel is: that God created man, man fell, now is sinful from birth and separated from God, and because of that man deserves God’s just wrath, but because of God’s mercy and love, He offers salvation though his son, Jesus - fully God and truly man - who lived a sinless life and offered himself as a sacrifice and substitute for those who believe. Those who repent and turn from their life of sin, place their trust in Jesus as their savior, and make him lord of their life are reconciled to God and are seen as righteous because Jesus has taken their place.