Those false gospels and me

Mark Thompson’s excellent recent article, ‘What is the gospel?’, got me thinking along a number of different tracks. It stimulated me to ponder the relationship between the lordship of the risen Jesus and his saving work. It reminded me how common it has been in Christian history for people to confuse the gospel with its fruits or consequences.

But perhaps most of all it prompted some self-reflection on how I could maintain and increase clarity about the gospel in my own heart and practice and speaking (and writing).

I find it easy to read an article like Mark’s and tut-tut about those people over there who are confused about the gospel. Or even to start mentally cataloguing people into ‘holds to false gospel’ and ‘confused about gospel’ and ‘good egg’.

But the thing is we are all prone to getting muddled about the gospel (and about many things). While we live in this present evil age, we all suffer from a kind of entropy towards confusion or distraction or error—sometimes gradually or in small ways with small consequences; at other times more significantly.

So the more pressing question for me is not so much "Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys, so I can categorize people (including myself) accordingly?", but "How can I maintain and increase my clarity about the biblical gospel, and allow that gospel to shape all that I do?"

Very briefly, here are three things I want to do, and keep doing:

1. I want to keep reading the Bible, keep chewing over what it says about the gospel, and keep company with people who will sharpen me over this. (Mark’s article is an example of someone doing this at depth, which is why it’s so helpful.)


2. In the way that I speak and write, I want to avoid confusing the gospel with anything else—for example, with its consequences or fruits. I need to steer away from verbal flourishes or overblown rhetoric that says that this or that is ‘a gospel issue’, or that plays the ‘gospel’ card as a way of upping the ante in an argument. I don’t want to sow any confusion in people’s minds, or distract or divert them in any way from a crystal clear understanding of what the gospel actually is.


3. I need to keep articulating the gospel clearly and often to myself and to people I’m speaking to (whether publicly or privately). It has been said (truly I think) that what you talk about most is your ‘gospel’. I want people to be in no doubt that the news I most want them to hear (because I keep speaking and writing about it with clarity and often) is the salvation from sin won for us by the crucified and risen Jesus Christ. I don’t want it to be pushed to the periphery or in any way diminished in its clarity and centrality because I talk about other things most of the time.

Mark’s article triggered off these and numerous other thoughts. I hope you find it equally stimulating.