Month: March 2025

In the previous blog, we looked at the need to guard the treasure (gospel) we have been given. We began to look at Paul’s example of guarding the gospel as he guarded it against additions.  We continue with Paul’s example as he guards it against subtractions and distortions.

• Guarding against subtractions

Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism (Acts 18:24-25 NLT).

Being eloquent does not make you right! Apollos had embraced and proclaimed a gospel with holes in it. He knew some things correctly and proclaimed them boldly, but he did not know all he needed to know to proclaim the authentic gospel. He was sincere but also sincerely mistaken. Luke then tells us that Priscilla and Aquila came to the rescue. 

And he began to speak out boldly in the synagogue. But when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately (Acts 18:26). 

Apollos, being teachable, took their instruction and changed his gospel presentation. From Luke’s record of his ministry in Achaia, we learn that “he greatly helped those who had believed through grace, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ” (Acts 18:27-28).

When we reduce the gospel to a few points to accommodate an audience that is used to soundbites, we risk redacting it. Since the gospel of Jesus Christ is his narrative, how much of his story can we leave out and still have the gospel? Obviously, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had different answers to that question. I think Mark, with the shortest gospel, would be shocked to hear that we can now share the gospel with one verse.

• Guarding against distortions 

Paul’s Epistles were letters to young believers explaining and applying the gospel. Paul’s purpose was not to share the gospel in his letters but to draw out gospel implications and applications to life in Christ’s kingdom. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, he deals with several problem issues along with practical implications of the gospel message, such as correctly handling gifts of the Spirit and conducting worship in these new assemblies called churches. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul deals with misperceptions surrounding the resurrection. We can be grateful for their confusion since it gives Paul a chance to enlighten us all about our resurrected bodies. However, the critical issue at stake is not just the future state of believers but the denial of the resurrection of Christ. Paul argues that denying the resurrection for believers distorts the gospel since it discounts Christ’s resurrection. If there is no believer resurrection, he argues, there is no Christ resurrection, resulting in a distorted, counterfeit gospel.

Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. (1 Corinthians 15:12-14)

The early Church fought against many heresies that taught incorrect beliefs about the nature of God, specifically of Christ. To protect the gospel against these heresies, the Church convened what historians call the Seven Ecumenical Councils to hammer out the essential gospel message, including Christ’s claims of deity and humanity. Some heresies claimed that Christ was divine but not really human, and others claimed he was human but not actually divine. A quick search of what the early church faced turns up gospel distortions (heresies) called Ebionism, Docetism, Gnosticism, Monarchianism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, and Nestorianism. Whew! 

The first Council of Nicaea, convened by the emperor Constantine I in 325, created the Nicene Creed, the gold standard and the basis for what we now call the Apostles’ Creed. This Creed establishes the doctrine of the Trinity and gives a gospel outline that we can fill in with additional relevant content. We will look more at this Creed when we explore the gospel’s content in a later blog.

A more familiar “Monuments Man” is Martin Luther. Tormented by his guilt over sin, Luther struggled to find peace with God, even as a Catholic monk. After studying the Book of Romans, he discovered that the gospel offered salvation based on grace rather than performance. Initially, Luther did not intend to break from the Catholic Church or start a reformation, but he did want to clean up the gospel message. The Church didn’t initially start out to distort the gospel, but like barnacles on an ocean-going ship, the gospel attracts distortions that we must continually clean up.

Today, when we try to abridge or abbreviate the gospel, we can wind up redacting it, leaving out essential parts. This is easy to do, especially when communicating with a biblically illiterate audience. By leaving out vital chapters of the narrative, we present a distorted gospel, not an abbreviated one. For example, when we say, “All you need to know is that Christ died for your sins and rose again,” we are redacting, not abbreviating the gospel.

We all need to be Monuments Men guarding the treasure in our generation, protecting the gospel from casual additions, subtractions, or distortions. We must not let our culture and traditions determine the gospel we understand and proclaim. It is not an American or an evangelical gospel. It is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and his kingdom regardless of the audience.

Later blogs will examine current additions, subtractions, and distortions (which I will refer to as gospel pathogens) that compromise the gospel and diminish its power.

As World War II raged, Hitler’s commanding generals began to steal art en masse. Hitler formed an outfit explicitly tasked with the systematic looting of art and cultural artifacts across Europe. The Parisian Museum, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, was designated as the central storage unit for all the treasures that the Nazis plundered. But the Nazis also hid their loot in salt mines across Germany and Austria.

Their stolen booty included works by master artists Rembrandt, Picasso, Matisse, Johannes Vermeer, Van Gogh, and countless others. The collection even included famous works like Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child sculpture. They were all pillaged from city museums, public galleries, and private collections.

To protect cultural artifacts from the ravages of the war, the American government formed a special task force called the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives Section (MFAA) of the Allied Expeditionary Forces.

Nicknamed the “Monuments Men,” the unit was responsible for protecting cultural relics like churches and museums, assessing damaged art inside demolished cities, and initiating restoration projects.

The Monuments Men were not trained soldiers. They were art curators, collectors, academics, and historians committed to protecting and recovering Europe’s artwork — several lost their lives in the process^.1

The Apostle Paul was a Monuments Man! He protected and proclaimed the gospel treasure. Paul was concerned that, over time, the gospel would become distorted and compromised (defaced). In Paul’s letters, we find a constant theme of clarifying and defending the gospel. Knowing it would be a constant battle, he challenged Timothy to take up the same responsibility to guard this gospel treasure in his generation.

Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you. (2 Timothy 1:14; also 1 Timothy 6:20).

As Paul guards the treasure, he reveals three ways we deface the gospel: additions, subtractions, and distortions. Let’s examine each one.

1. Guarding against additions

Paul and Barnabus had just returned to Antioch from their first missionary journey, during which they had spread the gospel to Jews and Greeks. The gospel had taken root and believers were growing in their faith. But now, back in their sending church, they encounter a challenge to the gospel they had been proclaiming.   The issue was not so much the content as it was in the required response – which affected the content.

Believing Jews from Jerusalem had come to Antioch to add circumcision to their faith in the gospel. They claimed that without circumcision, a person could not be saved. Requiring circumcision added works to faith and merit to Christ’s righteousness.

In a typical Bible understatement, Luke says in Acts 15 that Paul and Barnabus

• had no small dissension or disputation (KJV).
• disagreed with them, arguing vehemently (NLT).
• were up on their feet at once in fierce protest (MSG).
• were livid (me).

To clarify and protect the gospel, a delegation of leaders from the Antioch church, including Paul and Barnabus, went to Jerusalem to consult with the apostles and elders. They had to clarify the essential gospel message in order to export it beyond Judaism and out to the nations (Acts 1:8). If the gospel was to cross cultural boundaries with a power, it needed to be free of religious traditions and cultural baggage.

When the Jerusalem leadership convened, Paul reported how the gospel they preached had the power to convert Gentiles and his version of the gospel did not include circumcision. Peter’s conclusion: “But we believe that we(the Jews) are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they (the Gentiles) also are” (Acts 15:11 ). Verdict:  Circumcision is not essential to the gospel, leave it out.

Armed with a letter from the Jerusalem leaders, the delegation returns to Antioch with clarity on the gospel, with no additions. But Paul did not let down his guard. He knew it would come up again and was looking for it. Sure enough, it did with the church in Galatia.

Jewish believers again attempted to add works of the Jewish law to the gospel. When a group from James in Jerusalem came to visit the church in Galatia, they, along with Peter, created a two-tier faith. The higher level was for those who added works of the law to their justification and the lower level was for those who just had faith. Paul was incensed. 

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ (Gal 1:6-7).

Peter’s error clarified the gospel and gave us key verses like Galatians 2:20.

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

We, too, must guard against adding our ideas to what it means to embrace the gospel. Over time, we tend to add a little here and there until our cultural baggage compromises the historic gospel. 

A current example could be adding the phrase “Invite Jesus into your heart” as the response to the gospel. It is certainly not at the same level as adding circumcision, but an addition nonetheless. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to say that. It most likely came from an inaccurate understanding of Revelations 3:20, and it became ensconced by the classic painting by Holman Hunt (1853) of Jesus standing alongside a Gothic wooden door. This Light of the World painting was a common picture in hospitals, homes, and churches (we had one in my home growing up). Countless sermons used this picture to show how to respond to the gospel. As we will explore later, the gospel’s invitation is that we join him in his grand story, not that he joins our little story.

The following blog will look at guarding against subtractions and distortions.

¹ For a fuller story, read this article in the Smithsonian Magazine (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-monuments-men-180949569/)