Should We Water Down the Gospel?

In a conversation yesterday, a friend of mine mentioned that we "don't want to water down the gospel." As I considered those words later, I realized that we probably never defined what we really mean by that. There are probably at least two things we may mean by it. The latter appears to me to be the biblical way of discipleship.


Scenario A: We water down by permanently removing portions of what believers (or potential members of the body of Christ) ought to receive. We never feed them any proteins, or not enough of the various vitamins to sustain them. In the process, they are malnourished because they lack a balanced, wholesome diet. In spiritual terms, this diet may be that we teach them they should be nice people, and think of God as a really great guy that is an example to follow. This "pandering to the consumer" may include the addition of foreign elements to encourage consumption. "We're overcooking the vegetables until the vitamins are gone and add sugar on top so they'll eat them."


Scenario B: When our son was a few months old, Ly started introducing him to "solid food" ("cereal" that looks more like powder). She mixed the cereal with plenty of baby formula (OK, so we're baby formula-ing things here). We never intended that he would not one day eat Jaegerschnitzel and Spaetzle. However, because his body was not yet able to handle meat, etc., we gave him what he could take in small portions, mixed with plenty of what his body is already comfortable with. If we didn't, his body would reject it (yup, spitting up or diarrhea). Note that watering down is not about changing or leaving out, but about providing smaller amounts of the real thing in a manner that will actually be digested rather than rejected, and delaying other things (e.g., honey) until the baby will not be in such great danger of developing allergies. The aim is that we learn to eat the real thing. Instead of saying "Great is Thy faithfulness" which may be obscure to the audience, and therefore be blended out as they listen, we may say "God, you do exactly what you said you would do, and we can trust you to take care of us." If the well-tried line is going to be lost on them, and the latter wording will bring the concept across, is the latter maybe the right "watered-down" version that will start them growing until one day they can grasp the whole range of meaning of "God's faithfulness" - using that term or not?


As you will have guessed, it seems to me that we probably should water down the gospel. However, since the term has such a bad rap, we're going to waste a lot of energy and spend a lot of time explaining it if we actually call it what it is.


1 Cor 3:2 - I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren't ready for anything stronger. (NLT)