A Call to Adorn the Gospel

The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines adorn this way: “(1) to enhance the appearance of especially with beautiful objects.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to “adorn the gospel.” If the definition of adorn has to do with “enhancing” the appearance of something, can we in fact adorn the gospel? Can we enhance its appearance? Do we have anything of beauty or value that can make the gospel more attractive? I want to say no. I mean isn’t part of the “good news” of salvation through Jesus the fact that I, a broken sinner with nothing of value to offer God and no way to merit my own salvation, was reconciled to God because of Jesus’ sacrificial and atoning death alone? What could possibly make that message any more beautiful or attractive to someone who is without any hope at all? I know that Jesus commands us to make that message known (most of us are familiar enough with passages like Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8) but this idea of “adorning the gospel” has got to be just a good sounding catch phrase - something that sounds good from the pulpit, right?

Not exactly. In Titus 2:9-10 Paul was instructing Titus on how he should be teaching Christian slaves to live and wrote:

“Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.”

Now before I go on sharing any more of my thoughts, allow me to share a short quote from someone much smarter than I to help put this verse in its proper context. Hayne P. Griffin Jr. in his commentary on Titus shares a good reminder about the context of this verse that we often forget.

“It is unfortunate that many teachers or preachers have applied Paul’s teaching on slavery in his epistles to the employer/employee relationship in modern economies. Such applications dilute the tremendous power of the gospel as seen within the dark and unjust institution of slavery. The focus of Paul’s teaching with regard to Christian slaves must not be missed. Against the bleak hopelessness of this system of bondage, the Christian slave’s devotion to the gospel and resulting godly attitudes and actions serve to make attractive in an unparalleled way the ultimate freedom that is only realized in Christ.”

Paul had a message for slaves (men and women without any power, with nothing of value, and without any freedom) – “Your transformed lives in Christ can put the life-changing power of the gospel on display. So live in such a manner that those around you will see the gospel in everything you do.” [That’s the Matt Morgan paraphrase.] But I don’t believe that that was just a message for slaves. It is true that because of their position in life their transformed lives may have stood out more but I believe Paul would urge us all to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. As I mentioned earlier, no believer brought anything to God to earn his/her salvation. They all came empty, broken, and without hope. But upon receiving Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, and upon receiving the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, every true believer now has a transformed life in Christ. Paul intended for us to put that transformed life on display around others so that we might adorn the gospel and commend its transforming message and power to those who have not received it.

A key aspect of adorning the gospel implies putting yourself in places where others can observe the transforming power. What good would it be to adorn the gospel in private? Often times women will adorn themselves with make-up and jewelry, right? But how many of them will do this just to stay in the house all of the time? Instead they adorn themselves with these things so that when they are out in public and others see them they will notice their beauty. Christian believers as individuals and churches need to take note of this! We have to engage a lost world (and for the most part they aren’t in our church buildings). Have we done a good job adorning the gospel if the only time we left the house this week was to go to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and then again Wednesday night? Have we done a good job adorning the gospel if our only interaction with others this week was through our Facebook account? These are questions we need to ask ourselves. Is anyone (other than those who are already believers) seeing our transformed lives on display?

We also need to be asking ourselves this question as a church. There is another verse in 1 Peter that I think we often take out of context. While Peter was writing to some first generation believers in 1 Peter 2:9 he wrote,

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

We often apply this verse too individualistically. I firmly believe in the idea of the priesthood of all believers. The Bible is very clear that when an individual receives Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior that the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within that individual. We no longer need a priest to intercede on our behalf. The Bible tells us that Christ is now our high priest (Hebrews 3) and that we have direct access to the Father and to the Son. But it is also important that we do not overemphasize the individuality of this principle to the point that we lose sight of the importance of the church’s (both local and corporate) responsibility to be the representative of God and to adorn the gospel too. In 1 Peter 2:9 Peter is clearly talking to a group of believers. He uses plural words such as “race,” “nation,” and “people” instead of singular words to emphasize what this first generation group of believers was supposed to be. Our job as a church is to be a modern day representative of God that proclaims His excellencies. So then we must ask ourselves if we are adorning the gospel so that others can see the transformed lives of our congregation and are we together proclaiming His excellencies, or have we chosen to be content with simply ministering within our building for the last six months.

What really got me thinking about all of this was a passage of scripture I was recently working through in the Old Testament. In recently reading through the account of Moses on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 20 – 32 I found myself meditating on God’s instructions regarding the priestly garments. If it has been a while since you read through the account of Moses meeting with God on Mt. Sinai, I’ll remind you that God did more than give Moses the 10 commandments. The 10 commandments are what we remember most but God also gave other instructions to Moses during the many days that he was meeting with God on the mountain. Beginning in chapter 28 God goes into great detail about the garments which the priests are supposed to where. I believe a key verse in this chapter for our understanding of why God included this is when God says in verse 2, “You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.” God’s intention for the priests’ garments was that they were to be glorious and beautiful, and in order to achieve this the garments were to consist of:

· An ephod – made of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet linen (vs. 6) with two onyx stones (vs. 9) in gold settings (vs. 13) and with gold chains (vs. 14);

· A breastpiece – made of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet linen (vs. 15) with four rows of precious stones: ruby, topaz, emerald, turquoise, sapphire, diamond, jacinth, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper (vs. 17 – 20) all set in gold (vs. 20). The breastpiece would also have gold rings with gold chains attached (vs. 22 – 27);

· A robe made of blue (probably linen) (vs. 31) with decorative work on its hem of blue, purple and scarlet material and golden bells (vs. 33);

· A turban of fine linen (vs. 39) with a plate of pure gold (36 – 37);

· A linen tunic (vs. 39); and

· A linen breech (vs. 42).

It seems that God wanted His representatives on earth, the priests, to be adorned with the most beautiful and elaborate clothes as a testimony to God’s glory and beauty.

But an ironic thing is happening at the bottom of the mountain while God is meeting with Moses at the top of the mountain. While Moses is receiving the instructions from God about how His representatives, the priests, are to put God’s glory and beauty on display even in their articles of clothing, those very same priests are at the foot of the mountain crafting a golden calf as an idol for the people to worship. Instead of representing God and leading the people to see His wonder and majesty and to respond in worship to Him the priests were giving into the requests of the people and casting an idol for them to worship. What an amazing failure! The representatives of God charged with the responsibility of interceding for the people and putting God’s glory and beauty on display were not leading the people to God at all. Instead they were following the cues of the culture and giving the people something else to worship. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for these priests who seemed to have completely missed their call to lead the people to a majestic, powerful, and holy God who had already put his glory on display through the 10 plagues brought on the Eqyptians, the pillar of cloud/fire which was leading them through the wilderness, the parting of the Red Sea, the provision of the manna and the water from the rock, and then the thunder, lightening, and shaking of the earth that occurred when God descended upon Mt. Sinai. Instead they chose to provide a golden calf crafted by the hands of men as the object of their worship and affection.

There seems to be great power to draw men to God if and when believers in Christ will adorn the gospel. But it seems that we as believers and as churches we aren’t doing that. Most believers and churches seem to be falling into one of two categories. (1) Many believers and churches, rather than leading people to Christ through their transformed lives, are taking their cues from the culture in an attempt to be both cool and relevant. And although they may not be bowing the knee to a golden calf they certainly aren’t leading the way to Christ. Instead, they seem to be following a culture made up of sinful people and Romans chapter three is pretty clear that sinful people aren’t seeking after God. If a believer (or worse, a church) is following the culture they may not be bowing the knee to a golden idol yet, but I can guarantee you they aren’t getting closer to God. (2) Many believers and churches are adorning the gospel in the privacy of their own church buildings. They are genuinely loving and caring for one another and they are growing together in their biblical knowledge. The church is offering wonderful worship services and the congregation knows that they could show lost people the way if they would just come. But the problem is that no one who needs to see the power of transformed lives is seeing them because they are not in the church.

Ladies and gentlemen neither one of these two scenarios is going to build the kingdom of God and bring glory to Him. Believers in Christ have had their lives transformed by the power of the gospel and now Paul urges us to adorn the gospel of Christ. So we must ask ourselves if our lives are really truly adorning the gospel of Christ in such a way that others can see it?” If not, what changes do we as individuals and as churches need to make in order put the power of the gospel on display for a world that desperately needs to see it?