Are churches watering down the Bible?

Question (long question summarised): The so called watering down of the Bible in our churches? True or false? Is it true that our preaching and feel good services are taking us as a church away from Gods promises?

Response:

It is, of course, impossible to make any comment that applies to EVERY local congregation in the Western world, so no matter what I write as a broad/general reply to the question, there will be exceptions. I don’t believe that there is an intentional “watering down” of the Bible, but I do believe that there is a shallowness in a lot of teaching from church pulpits. In some cases, this shallowness comes from a lack of solid theological training and understanding on the part of the preachers (many “Bible Colleges” teach only the interpretation of Scripture that sits well with their Denomination’s theological worldview), in some cases it comes from a liberal theology that has permeated some Denominations’ training institutions and in some cases it may well be that pastors are hesitant to preach truths that may make some in the congregations uncomfortable. The blame does not however, rest solely with the preachers. We live in a consumer driven, cafeteria style church world, where congregations are mobile – if the preacher teaches stuff that I don’t like or perhaps is too convicting, I simply take my “business” elsewhere; shop around until I find a church where I can feel “comfortable”. This attitude does (even though I know it shouldn’t!) have an effect on what the preacher is willing to preach.

There is nothing wrong with a “feel good” service, however we must understand that if teaching only ever makes us feel good, we are not being exposed to conviction or correction and we all need a bit of that and probably need it more often than we’d like to admit. I accept that some churches make their public services “seeker friendly” and place their discipling and teaching in the church’s small group programme. That’s fine, as long as the small groups do teach that which may bring conviction and correction as well as those wonderful aspects of the Christian message that do, by their very liberating and life-giving nature, make us feel good.

Pastors are always under pressure to “grow” their churches to be bigger and better than the rest. Now growing a church, increasing the size of the congregation, can’t be such a bad thing, but we must never lose sight of the simple reality that we are called to make DISCIPLES not to simply make converts! Jesus didn’t seem to mind losing people out the “back door” because of His teaching. In John 6 we find His disciples facing some “straight / convicting” teaching and telling Him that "...this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"(Jn 6:60). The next thing you know, a lot of them reacted to the teaching by deciding to leave.... “From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him” (Jn 6:66).

Pastors shouldn’t hold back on teaching the full breadth of Scripture, the full counsel of God – some of which will make us feel good, some of which may not, and congregations shouldn’t simply move on because the teaching is hard (ah! for an ideal world!!!).

One of the great lacks that I see in the church today is holiness and I believe that the reason for its absence is that “...this is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"(Jn 6:60). I’ll leave that issue there – to go on will make this a VERY long answer!

We must remember that the gospel message has never and will never change. However, the way that it is presented must change and have some relevance to the society/culture in which the church operates. So we get a church that plays loud music and modern songs and some people believe that this, in itself, is a watering down of the message. Music that is loud is not inherently bad any more than music that is quiet is inherently good. Likewise “old songs” are not good because they are old and new songs aren’t bad because they are new. Sure, a lot of “new” songs that we sing are filled with nothingness and poor theology – but so are some of the old songs and hymns. The reality is that some of the “new songs” have deep and good Biblical/theological truth, just like some of the old ones. New, loud, multi media churches are not watering down the message by the method that they employ, just as quieter and more traditional methods don’t ensure unwavering solid truth in the service. Look beyond the method, consider the message. The standard set by every church should at least meet the D A Carson’s description of Paul’s teaching “... he taught the burden of the whole of God’s revelation, the balance of things, leaving nothing out that was of primary importance, never ducking the hard bits, helping believers to grasp the whole counsel of God that they themselves would become better equipped to read their Bibles intelligently, comprehensively......”