Gospel Relevance Quotes

I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it's because we don't dare them, not because we don't entertain them. It's because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what do they do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?

If the gospel is old news to you, it will be dull news to everyone else.

Naive optimism and pervasive pessimism are both to be avoided, therefore. It's not an easy balance to maintain, to be asked to work away in the Ninevehs of our lives without being so conscious of the coming cataclysm that we are not serious citizens of our communities and nations. By living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doing the most relevant thing we can do by way of helping. (There are civic and other chores to be done, of course.) Day in and day out, the gospel is the one thing that is most relevant, and we are to be of good cheer.

Every dimension of the gospel is relevant to one or more of our social and political problems of our time.

If we're not reaching the same people Jesus reached, then we're not preaching the same message Jesus preached.

The gospel is never about everybody else; it is always about you, about me. The gospel is never truth in general; it's always a truth in specific. The gospel is never a commentary on ideas or cultures or conditions; it's always about actual persons, actual pains, actual troubles, actual sin; you, me; who you are and what you've done; who I am and what I've done.

I think for far too long the Church has concluded that Christians don't need the gospel, it's simple what non-Christian people need in order to be saved.

Those people who think they know the Gospel, and it doesn't have any meaning for them, they're the people we have to find a way to touch, to invite once again to the embrace of Christ.