Can You Make The Gospel Relevant?

Thinking Fellows

1517 Podcasts

History, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Apologetics, Theology

4.6 • 817 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

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Summary

In this episode of the Thinking Fellows podcast, Caleb Keith, Adam Francisco, Bruce Hillman, and Scott Keith discuss the relevance of the gospel in contemporary society. The conversation delves into the roles of law and gospel, cultural contextualization, and the challenges faced by churches in effectively communicating the gospel message. The Fellows emphasize that while the gospel itself cannot be changed. They also discuss the potential roadblocks that can hinder understanding, the importance of context in evangelism, and the dangers of conflating the gospel with law.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Thinking Fellows podcast.
0:21.8	My name is Caleb Keith, and The Thinking Fellows is brought to you by the 1517 podcast network of shows.
0:28.7	You can go to 1517.org slash podcasts to see all of our shows there.
0:34.6	Today I am joined by Adam Francisco, Bruce Hillman, and Scott Keith to discuss our topic,
0:41.6	which is a question this week. Can you make the gospel relevant? This is a common, I think, like,
0:52.1	position or a common thing I see from, I'm just going to call them American churches in general,
0:58.1	which is that the church needs to do a better job of making the gospel relevant in and to people's lives.
1:05.6	It's usually positioned as an evangelical sort of issue or an evangelism and missions issue.
1:15.0	And then, you know, maybe borderline with those two things, apologetics as well, is, is relevancy part of that.
1:24.5	I think there's a short answer to this, and then there's obviously the longer
1:28.6	wise. The sub-answer to this, too, is are there things that churches do inadvertently
1:35.9	to try to make the gospel relevant, and what are the limits of changing the style or the look or the feel of your church in regards to the relevance
1:48.6	to the gospel. So whoever wants to take the question. The question behind the question is
1:54.3	should or can Christianity be made relevant? Because like the gospel is the gospel, right?
2:02.0	Is that what we're kind of, should?
2:03.3	Is this kind of user-friendly or what,
2:06.4	seeker-friendly kind of question?
2:08.0	Is that what we're?
2:09.1	Oh, man.
2:10.4	Yeah, because I hear it in two senses.
2:13.1	I hear it in like the sense of, you know,
2:15.8	is the gospel intrinsically in need of relevance on the one hand,
	...

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