For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:16, KJV)

Today you will hear much about the supposed need to “contextualize” the Gospel that it might be more readily accepted to a given culture. Rubbish. Here’s the emerging problem with the man-centered “gospel” of the new evangelicalism in a nutshell:

the gospel is timeless, but we have to communicate to people in a way that is understood…separate the message from some of the extra-Biblical trappings…the Holy Spirit is essential in this, but [a negation by the way] we are involved in the process to some extent. Otherwise, God would just have the Holy Spirit do all the work.

God the Holy Spirit does do all the work but only through obedient believers willing to die to self and let Him use them as empty vessels filled with Christ. To do this means we simply must be open to more than mere intellectual “contextualization,” we must be willing preach the Biblical Gospel of the historic orthodox Christian faith from the Scriptures alone regardless of the culture or the personal cost.

But you see, in the new evangelicalism we don’t want to do that anymore because people will get mad at us. To quote my teacher Dr. Walter Martin: “Poor baby.” I tell you in the Lord that until we humble ourselves and let God use us as the bond slaves [Gr. doulos] we are in Christ then we are not going to see His converting power. There will never be any power to convert anyone behind pragmatism.

Paul Washer said it well using a touch of hyperbole and incidentally on TBN and right in front of Todd Friel and Kirk Cameron of WOTM who were both squirming a wee bit themselves. Washer said that he would teach his missionaries that the kind of Gospel preaching God honors is sending a man into the town square with nothing but a Bible where he preaches Jesus Christ and Him crucified until people are either converted or he is stoned to death.

So the question really is: Got faith?