“He Gets Us,” but Should the Church Try to Market Jesus?

He gets us, but should the church try to market Jesus?

That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Well, hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Our phone lines are open right now. We'll be taking your calls for the next 25 minutes or so. So give us a buzz at 833-922.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. And of course, you can always email us at questionsatcorechristianity.com.

And Adriel, question for you. There's been a bit of controversy over the Christian commercials that aired during the Super Bowl last weekend, the ones that had the tagline, He Gets Us. And those TV spots are just part of a big multimillion-dollar evangelistic campaign. It's got a website. I'm curious, what are your thoughts about those ads and maybe on the campaign in general?

You know, Bill, I don't know. Did you watch the Super Bowl? I did not watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, but I heard all about these commercials. And so I went back and watched some of them.

I'm actually looking at the website right now. It seems to me like a lot of the criticisms aren't necessarily related to the content. Of course, I mean, there are going to be some people who are upset about the content, but mostly coming from people who are like, well, should we really have spent, should Christians really spend that much money on something like a Super Bowl ad?

And so I'll just say, I watched the commercials. I don't know what you think about them, but there was one about Jesus loving his enemies, basically, that showed all these images of people who were in conflict fighting. And at the very end of the ad, it said something like, Jesus loves the people we hate, which I thought was powerful, and especially in our very divided age, where we almost feel justified in hating other people. It's difficult for us to hear that Jesus loves the people who aren't like us, who don't think like us, who don't vote like we do, the people that we think are ruining the world that even them, Jesus loves and calls to himself.

There's a challenge there, I think, for everyone, so I thought that was great. I've looked at the website, and of course, people are going to have differences, theological differences here and there, but it seems like for the most part, it's really well done, and they're trying to get people plugged into the message of Jesus, even getting people connected to local churches. One thing I'll say, Bill, and then I want to get your thoughts as well, you know, Paul in Philippians 1, verse 15, he says this, Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here, and here he's in prison when he's writing this, put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. I think when it comes to evangelism, it's really easy for people to sit back and critique the way other people are doing evangelism. I once heard somebody say the best kind of evangelism is the kind you're actually doing, you know, because it's so easy to say, oh, man, you should have done it this way, or handing out tracts, you know, that doesn't work, or friendship evangelism, what are you talking about? Look, so long as the gospel is being preached, let's preach the gospel and pray that God uses things like this ad campaign to draw people to himself. God has used stranger things to draw people to himself, and so I think we should like Paul say, look, if Jesus is being proclaimed, in that I'm going to rejoice. Hmm, that's really well said, and you know, you mentioned Paul, think about his example in Athens on Mars Hill.

What did he do? He went to the culture of that day and reached them in a very unique, creative way, and I think Paul would not have a problem with this particular campaign because it really fits in with his own style of evangelism at times. Yeah, well certainly just the, right, becoming all things to all people, which is not watering down the message.

We don't want to do that. We don't water down the message of the gospel, the teaching of the Bible, but we make the word of God, sound doctrine, accessible. In other words, we help people to understand it, and that's what Paul did wherever he went, and that's what we ought to do as well.

Hmm, good word. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible, the Christian life, doctrine, theology, maybe some doubts you have about the Christian faith, hey, we are open to your calls. Here's the number, 833-THECORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Steve in St. Louis, Missouri. Steve, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Steve, are you there? All right, let's try going to Eric in Iowa.

Eric, what's your question for Adriel? Recently I was at a bookstore, I was looking at Bibles, and I noticed some Bibles that said Catholic Bibles, and I was looking at them, and I noticed they have some additional books compared to what we find in our Protestant Bible. I was wondering how the Protestants and the Catholics came up with a different set of, sort of, some different books. Catholics have some of the same books, but then they have some additional books.

I was wondering how they came up with those additional books compared to what the Protestant Bible has. It was a long process, so when we're thinking about the canon of scripture, you know, there have been different lists that have been given throughout the history of the church, and I mean list of canonical books, from really early on, actually. It wasn't until much later that the quote-unquote Roman Catholic Church authoritatively said these other books are a part of the canon as well. They've always been, sort of, there, and read kind of in a secondary sense, but not as canonical scripture. That's why Protestants have rejected these books, and I think rightly so. I think historically the evidence points towards not including these in the canon of scripture, and so it wasn't until much later, it was a process, but it wasn't until much later that the Roman Catholic Church said, no, these books are also included in the canon of scripture.

That doesn't mean they didn't use them prior to that. It's just there was no church council, if you will, that had authoritatively declared that these books were a part of the canon. That's one of the areas where there's a difference between Roman Catholics and Protestant Christians, and what you find is in some of those books that are included, you know, the Roman Catholic Church will make a case for some of their doctrines that Protestant Christians, and I would say historically many Christians have rejected, doctrines like the doctrine of purgatory and so on and so forth.

So yeah, it was a process, and it didn't just happen overnight. It was something that was a much later development, I would say, in terms of including those books, and then also saying these books authoritatively belong in the canon of scripture. And of course, we would say, I would say as a Protestant minister, that the church doesn't get to authoritatively say, you know, this book is scripture, that book isn't scripture. This is something that God himself does. The scriptures are self-authenticating. When God speaks, right, it's clear that it's his word, that the Spirit of God testifies to this reality. And so it wasn't that the church at some point was saying, you know, let's vote on which books we should include and which books we shouldn't. It was that these books, the books that we have in our canon, were the books that the church universally had received as the very word of God. And so we embrace them as such. Thank you for your question, and Lord's blessings.

You're listening to CORE Christianity. Just a reminder that our ministry is listener-supported. We don't receive money from a church or denomination. We don't play commercials. Radio stations don't pay us for the show. We actually depend on people just like you to keep us on the air. So if you're one of our regular listeners, we'd like to invite you to join what we call our inner CORE. Yeah, if you've been blessed by the broadcast, would you partner with us?

This is one of the ways that we can work together to get the word of the gospel out and encourage people in their Christian faith. The inner CORE is a group of people that supports us with a monthly donation of $25 or more. And those resources go towards us continuing to produce this broadcast as well as create written materials that we like to send out to our listeners that will build you up in your faith. And so thank you to all of you who have joined the inner CORE and continually support us with your gifts and your prayers.

It really means a lot to us. And if you've been blessed by the broadcast, would you consider joining the inner CORE? Love to send you a copy of that book by Dr. Michael Horton, CORE Christianity, which was really the foundation of this program a couple of years ago. And we'll send that to you as our gift if you join the inner CORE. To find out more, go to corechristianity.com forward slash inner CORE.

Again, corechristianity.com forward slash inner CORE. Let's go to Steve calling in from St. Louis, Missouri. Steve, what's your question for Adriel? My question is this, you know, as saints, we're working toward perfection every single day, you know, we never told no one we were perfect, but we're working on it. So with that being said, does the scripture that says the Holy Spirit would not dwell in an unclean, in an unclean person, does that scripture pertains to us as saints? That scripture, Steve, can I just go back to you? Do you know what, I'm trying to think of what verse specifically you're referring to, the Holy Spirit will not dwell in an unclean person. Is there a specific passage you're thinking of, or is this a general idea that you think the Bible teaches? Well, there is a scripture in the Bible that says the Holy Spirit will not dwell in an unclean temple, it actually says.

Okay. If I'm not mistaken. You know, that certainly, I mean, so the language of clean and unclean comes from the Old Testament first. It was the language of the cult, and when I say cult, I don't mean cult-like Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses. I mean the sacrificial temple worship of the Old Testament, Israel's cultic worship. And so the things that were clean, holy, sanctified, those were the vessels of worship that had been set apart for glorifying the Lord. That which was unclean in the Old Testament was that which was outside of the covenant community, if you will. And God sanctified his people. God sanctified that which was unclean. That was the process, this ritual process in the Old Testament of cleanliness. The reality is, us as believers in the New Testament, under the New Covenant, we're clean. In fact, Paul even goes as far as to say in 1 Corinthians 7 that the children of one believing parent are considered clean, otherwise they would be unholy. They're holy, otherwise they would be unclean. That's 1 Corinthians 7 verse 14.

So some of this language is picked up in the New Testament. Now that doesn't mean that we're perfect or sinless. And this side of heaven, we won't reach perfection, quote-unquote sinless perfection.

We're perfected in holiness the moment we enter into the presence of the Lord. But right now, here on earth, sin and indwelling sin still clings to us. Now does that mean that the Spirit of God doesn't live in us? No, absolutely not, because we've been washed, we've been sanctified, we've been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we still have that indwelling sin, but our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is, by His grace, putting to death those sinful deeds of the body day by day. That's what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 8. And so we can grieve the Spirit as believers. Paul says this in the book of Ephesians, but even as a Christian who struggles with sin, who wrestles with obeying the word of the Lord, the law of the Lord, you can, by faith in Jesus Christ, and are sealed with the Holy Spirit, and you can be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so that's the confidence that we have as the followers of Christ. And that's a present reality, having the Holy Spirit now. You think of the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, or Paul's exhortation in Galatians chapter 5, to walk in step with the Spirit.

And so each of us really, truly should rejoice in this magnificent gift that God has given to us as His people, His very own Holy Spirit, to seal us for the day of redemption and to fill us, so that we would walk in a manner pleasing to the Lord, producing that fruit of the Spirit in our own lives by the grace of God as we grow deeper in our understanding of Christ and His word. Thank you for your question, Steve. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You can email us a question anytime. Here's our email address. It's questions at corechristianity.com.

Here's an email from one of our listeners in Ohio. He says, Who is the church for? There are some in our church that believe that church is only for us believers and there's no reason to invite non-believers to come to the church and it's actually frowned upon. My wife and I have always felt we should be reaching out, inviting people to church to hear the gospel. We rejoice when the parents of children come for programs to attend the service as an opportunity. We've had outreach ministries in this community and we've had people come to our church as a result, but they have been looked down upon.

What do you think? Wow, what a great question and I think that there's a couple of ways to approach this. First, I want to say I hope that non-believers do come to our churches and that even if they don't understand everything that's going on and frankly, if we're worshipping the Lord in accordance with Scripture, I think there's a barrier there in terms of understanding. We're doing things like taking the Lord's Supper, feeding on the body and blood of Jesus Christ. If somebody's not familiar with Christianity, they come in, they hear us talking like that, they're going to say, Whoa, what are you guys talking about?

What does all this mean? Preaching, sitting down and listening to a sermon, someone exposit the word of God, that might be strange for someone. Different, that's not what we normally do.

There's a barrier there, yet I think that we ought to do everything that we do in a way that's accessible. That is, we're preaching the Gospel in a way that convicts the heart, even of those who are coming in from the outside, but also convicts those who are there, those who are a part of the church. First and foremost, I would say, the worship service is for the covenant community.

It's for the edification of the church, our gathering together with the people of God to worship the Lord because He's called us as His covenant people to worship Him, but that doesn't mean that it should be closed off to or inaccessible for those who are not Christians. Part of me gets this from just thinking about what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14. He's talking about the church, everybody's speaking in tongues, it's unintelligible. He says in verse 23, if the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. In other words, our worship services need to have intelligibility. Now there in the first century, he's talking about the gift of tongues and prophecy and so forth, but I think there's a general principle that we can take from this, which is, hey, in worship, don't be speaking in tongues.

Don't be speaking in a way that nobody understands. We want to communicate the truth of God's word and worship the Lord in a way that's pleasing to him, that's faithful to the Scriptures, but isn't driving people away or keeping people from accessing it. I would say that that's just really important for us to understand. The worship service is first and foremost for the covenant community, but it should be a place where we can invite others to come in and they're going to hear the gospel and they're going to be able to connect with that gospel. Maybe it's going to require a little bit more explaining, and that's why the relationship, the friendship is really good, and hopefully you're able to do that, but boy, we want our churches to be places that I think are welcoming and where people are connecting with Christ. Now let me say one other thing.

I'm passionate about this. I'm a pastor of a local church. The church may not necessarily be and isn't supposed to be the primary entryway for outsiders into the Christian life. I think if we make the church that, then we're going to be focused on how can we dumb everything down and make it so that people come in and it just doesn't seem strange or weird. Let's get rid of sacraments, taking the Lord's Supper, preaching.

Nobody does that. Why don't we show a movie instead? What we do is we begin to strip worship of what it is, and that's a serious, serious problem, and so we need to be mindful of that as we're thinking about worship and as we're wanting to bring people in. It's not that we're transforming the worship service so that it's just evangelistic, if you will. No, that evangelism should happen as you're equipped by the gathered assembly in church growing under the ministry of the word as you're equipped to go out into your community to meet your neighbors, to show hospitality, to extend the love of Christ and the service of his body to the people outside of the church so that they're connecting with Jesus, not just in the worship service but outside, around the dinner table, in the workplace. I would say that's got to be the primary connection point in bringing people to church so that they can grow deeper in their understanding of the Christian faith and get questions answered and be encouraged as Paul talks about there in 1 Corinthians 14. Thanks for that great question.

You know, Adriel, as you mentioned, the flip side of that, of course, is watering things down. My teenage daughter went to a large church that considers itself to be seeker-sensitive, and I said, Well, what did you think of the service? And she said, It was kind of like a rock concert followed by a TED Talk.

Oh, yeah. Okay, that doesn't sound like church to me. Yeah, I mean, what the church gives and proclaims is the crucified Christ. It's not self-help, right?

It's not, Here's a TED Talk to give you just some helpful information. No, the church proclaims the law and the gospel, the forgiveness of sins. That's what the church has to offer that you can't find anywhere else. And so when we strip that away, then we're left with, I mean, a TED Talk or something like that. But, you know, you can get a TED Talk somewhere else. That's not what the church is for.

Good word. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, you can leave us a voicemail anytime, 24 hours a day. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Jerry, who's calling in from Tennessee. Jerry, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hey Pastor Adriel, this is Jerry. I'm an evangelist and I came to Christ late in my 30s and it was by a miracle. God, you know, I'm like one of seven percent that gets saved after your mind has been decided for 30 years.

I got a radical conversion. But my question was, as you guys were discussing earlier about this Jesus Gets Us ad, and like you had discussed earlier, Paul says, I am to all people sharing the gospel to all people, rich, poor, black, white, you know, Greek, Roman. And he used different methods to share the gospel. And I heard that these people, Jesus Gets Us, spent a billion dollars. And I've been watching these ads pre-Super Bowl and during Super Bowl.

And I've been watching the politicalness that is involved in these ads and how they've been directed. And my concern is, though their intent may be well, Jesus talks about changing the gospel to meet people's agenda or preaching a false gospel. And my concern is when we look at church and the wokeism that has spread across and has been pervasive in the body of Christ in Bible schools, I see why they're doing it, but maybe they should be focusing on Jesus is here to meet your need and show prostitutes, drug addicts, show people who are homeless, show others, but still share the gospel, the true gospel, not a watered down or perverted gospel that will actually lead people to help. And I think the issue is, is the church is not doing their job on Sundays. They're more concerned about numbers, and they're less concerned about the true gospel. I've even been in Bible schools where I've seen this.

Jerry, I didn't mean to cut you off there, but I want to have time to respond. One, praise God for the fact that he brought you into his kingdom in your 30s. I praise the Lord for that. You describe yourself as an evangelist, love that you want to share the gospel and the true gospel.

I think you're totally right about that. We can't share a gospel that is not the gospel. You think about what Paul says to the Galatians, the message that they had begun to embrace, even though it was called quote unquote gospel, was heresy and was going to lead them astray. Now, my point is, there are many different ways to share the gospel, the true gospel. When I look at stuff like this ad campaign and the commercials that were put out there, they might not be saying things exactly the same way you want to say it, but what they were saying was true. The statement that Jesus loves the people that we often hate, that's true.

In fact, he calls us to love our enemies. In that sense, it's just communicating the truth of God's word. It seems to me like their approach is, what we're trying to do is create a conversation around who Jesus is to introduce people to the Jesus who often is, as you said, politicized. We want to use Jesus for our own agenda instead of faithfully preaching the true Jesus, the Jesus who confronts us in our unbelief, the Jesus who confronts us in our sin. So I didn't see anything objectionable about what they were saying.

It was just a different approach, right? Maybe we wouldn't spend the money to do a Super Bowl ad or something like that, but God help all of us to introduce the people around us to Jesus and the true gospel for their well-being. God bless. Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833, the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.