I’m nobody special—just an ordinary reader of the Bible who losers the fight with my own sin from time to time. I know I’ll never be perfect, yet I cling to Christ’s words: ‘Strive to enter’ (Luke 13:24). Still, I’ve noticed a pattern that scares me even more than my failures.
First the scene: a church that boasts of being “enriched in everything,” “not lacking any spiritual gift,” with lights, loud cheers, slick slides, fresh building plans, and a silent chorus of spend, spend, spend.
Then the problem: a man sleeping with his step-mom, proudly, openly—or the preacher who cheats this way and that, slickly justifying himself when caught; had he stayed hidden, he’d still be at it.
Then the prescription: “Hand him over to Satan.”
Then the reason: “So the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” (1 Cor 5)
Paul is not embarrassed. He isn’t worried about tomorrow’s headline. He puts holiness ahead of inclusion, purity ahead of popularity, and—most shocking—he calls the brutal act of exclusion an act of love.
Holiness still trumps inclusion.
The cross is supposed to hurt
We love the cross as jewellery, tattoos, stadium choruses. We hate it as diagnosis—like the dentist’s high-pitched drill: “Will it hurt?” “Yes, and for good reason.”
The New Testament never softens the edge: “The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” (1 Cor 1:18)
It offends the natural heart before it saves it.
First the wound, then the balm.
First the accusation, then the pardon.
First the death, then the life.
When we reverse the order—comfort first, correction later—we lose both. A gospel that never offends is a gospel that never converts. The patient who refuses to sit still will not heal.
Corinth 2.0—same story, new century
Fast-forward 2,000 years. The vocabulary has changed, the playbook hasn’t.
- Revision A: “Paul was locked in his culture; we live in a kinder era.”
Tell that to the Nigerian village where shots rang out last week, or to the convert whose house was torched for refusing to add “just a little” to Christ alone. The playbook hasn’t changed—only our comfort has. - Revision B: “God is doing a fresh thing, and the Spirit is saying…”
- Revision C: “We must protect the vulnerable feelings of ________.” (fill in the blank)
Suddenly the text that once cut becomes clay we shape.
Suddenly “grace” means “never make anyone uncomfortable.”
Suddenly the church mirrors the world, and the world yawns—because it already has its own PR department.
Jude saw it coming: “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3)
“Once for all” is legal language—like a final will, not a working draft.
If the apostleship and the canon are finished, any “new light” that rewrites the old light is darkness.
The chemo that kills the patient
Some call this process “progressive revelation.” A clearer label is what one pastor-friend dared to call it: hermeneutical chemotherapy.
The drug is meant to target bad cells; instead it kills the very immune system—Scripture—that keeps the body alive.
By the time the patient feels better, the cancer is everywhere.
We see it in churches that bless what God calls sin, in leaders who twist Paul to fit the sexual revolution, in scholars who recast justification as a membership badge instead of a divine verdict. Picture them standing before Christ, résumé in hand: “Payment for services rendered.” Beside them, the ones who know better—knees bent, palms empty, whispering only, “Thanks.”
The common thread: emotion first, text second; the mind left loose so the heart can feel affirmed.
The common result: neither truth nor love remain. Unity becomes a greeting-card sentiment; when the wind of real testing arrives, the pretty words collapse and the “we are one” chorus turns to silence.
Athanasius and the lonely rock
History gives us company. In 325 the church ruled that Jesus is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God.” By 350 the emperor and most bishops were ready to wave the ruling away.
One man said no—Athanasius, exiled five times, branded “Athanasius contra mundum” (against the world).
He kept contending, not because he was mean, but because the gospel was true.
A generation later the tide turned; the creed held.
The rock outlasted the waves.
Luther did the same in 1521: “Here I stand, I can do no other.”
Spurgeon did it in 1887, walking out of the Baptist Union over downgrade.
R. C. Sproul refused to sign evangelical-ecumenical statements that fuzzied the gospel, even if it cost him podium space at “Together for the Gospel.”
John MacArthur kept steering the Strange Fire conference through blistering criticism because he feared a charismatic re-write of the Holy Spirit’s real work.
Bishop Binyam Belete (Ethiopia, 2023) led five million believers out of the national council when it tried to smuggle “many paths to God” language into its charter—he now faces government pressure for refusing prosperity-gospel licences tied to state lotteries.
Pastor Aryn Nanty (Myanmar, 2021–today) keeps baptising converts in jungle clearings after rejecting the junta’s order to preach “national unity first, Jesus second”; his building was sealed, his name is on a watch-list, but the underground services continue.
They weren’t angry for anger’s sake; they were jealous for the glory of God and the souls of men.
What you and I are actually called to do
Read the Book as it stands—clear, for every tribe, every tongue, every time-zone.
Let it accuse us first; we start by reading it, but keep going and it ends up reading us.
When we fall—and we will—run back to Christ, not to a user-friendly edit of Him; trust that the real one knows best.
Speak that text to others, even when it shrinks us in their eyes; unashamed, yet slow to quarrel.
Contend without becoming contentious—warn twice, then shake the dust (Titus 3:10). Don’t turn the field into a rock-removal project; sweat spent there steals seed-time and witness.
Leave final verdicts to the Judge who never misreads a heart; our job is only to help eyes see, not to settle eternal accounts.
The gospel needs no update; it needs witnesses who stay at their post after the emotional wave has rolled on to the next hashtag.
The invitation—both hard and happy
The cross still offends.
It offends me when it exposes my pride, my selfie-heart, my itch to be liked—when I chase the kingdom of social-media applause instead of the Kingdom that comes first.
But that same cross still saves—completely, finally, without additives.
God’s Word needs no remix; it is His Word because He is the Word of Life.
I am only dust—less than dust—yet this dust pile will one day be what God intended: spotless, sinless, standing in His presence.
Until then the call is clear: preacher and pew-sitter alike, urge one another to stand on what is already revealed, sealed once for all by blood and honor, fixed in the presence of a reverence that never shifts.
If you feel the offense, don’t run.
That pain is the scalp of the Surgeon, preparing you for life.
Come to Him empty, angry, broken, tired.
He will not edit the diagnosis, but He will pay the bill—in full-trust to be true.
“To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)
Stand there. The tide that looks irresistible always goes out again, and the Rock underneath is still the Rock.
