Are Evangelicals Losing the Gospel in Our Day?

The Gospel itself never changes; the way we share the Gospel must.

When preaching the gospel, many preachers today are talking less about forgiveness and getting to heaven and more about bringing God’s kingdom to earth and changing and healing the world in the here and now.

Is this a good thing?

No and yes. Let me explain.

The gospel is always the gospel of grace, which is about what God has done, and therefore about what we can only receive and never earn. On top of that, in Colossians 4:4, Paul asks the church in Colossae to “pray that I may declare the Gospel clearly, as I should.” Clarity on the proclamation of the gospel is always paramount.

Paul expresses his desire to present the gospel clearly, but also acknowledges that it’s not always easy to do that. My guess is that we can all relate. We all want to be able to clearly explain the gospel, but we’ve also been in conversations where, despite our best efforts, there still seems to be a significant disconnect with those listening to us. How do we move past that?

Changing How We Understand Communicating the Gospel

How do we clearly communicate the gospel in a way that connects to those around us? How do we ensure we really ‘get’ the gospel clearly so we can communicate the gospel clearly?

Although the gospel itself never changes, our understanding of the gospel can change, and the way we communicate it must change with the shifting cultural tides if the world around us is to clearly hear and receive the good news.

For many years, sharing the good news of Jesus for evangelicals meant explaining how his death and resurrection provided for the forgiveness of sin and the promise of heaven. Although forgiveness and heaven are just as true now as they have always been, how we communicate those truths is …

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