an offensive gospel

From The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss

We know that the message of Jesus is offensive to many. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:23 that the message of Christ crucified is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” That’s what the unadulterated gospel does because it offends the sinful bent of a person’s heart attacking it’s self-made nature in order to challenge the sin with a dying to self and finding new life. A person becomes a Christian when they let go of their defenses and trust that the humility of Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection are the only true means of salvation. That assaults our idea of the self-made man.

There is another offense of the gospel. This one is man-made, and not from Christ. The manner in which Christians speak and live can make the gospel even less palatable to the hearer by being offensive themselves. That same self-righteousness that we leaned on before we knew Christ raises it’s ugly head to dress us again in the ugly garb to defend ourselves in our spirituality. As Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes, it’s one thing to be persecuted for the sake of knowing Jesus (clothed in His righteousness) and another for being persecuted for being belligerently self-righteous in the name of Jesus (Matthew 5:10-12). This offensiveness creates an ungodly dividing wall of separation between the Christian and non-Christian; the sacred and secular; the haves and the have-nots. Rather than celebrating the image of God in all mankind and seeking the welfare of the places we live, work, and play, we become separatists creating holy blockades from the profane world. That’s offensive. That’s unbiblical.

The offense of the gospel of which I am interested is an offense where we no longer take a defensive posture against the world, but push into our culture with the confident power of the gospel to change lives, institutions, towns, and the culture. It is a “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” posture. It’s not fearful of the culture and cowering into little enclaves. Rather, it humbly recognizes that Jesus came, not to condemn the world but to rescue it (John 3:17). We get to enter into God’s rescue story seeing Him work in restoring lives to what they were created to be.

Until we go on the offensive with the truly good news and active participation in our communities, we will continue to be reactive against the ills of the day and offer little hope to a world unwilling to listen to defensive (and offensive) people.

Let the gospel be offensive on its own. We don’t need to help it along. It will do its work to challenge the heart where God desires. It’s freeing to know that we can take the positive offensive position. It’s more in line with Christ’s message and demeanor. It’s also a heck of a lot more fun because it frees us to listen to, work with, serve beside, and enjoy people rather than always putting up our guard and being defensive.