Entrusted With the Gospel

by Sharon Ingram

For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

Paul states here that he has been entrusted with the gospel. As Christians each of us have also been entrusted with the gospel message. We have been commissioned to take this message to all nations. I see it as an honour that Almighty God would entrust such an important message to me. I want to make sure that His trust in me is not misplaced and that I do deliver the message he has given to me. I want to make sure I am delivering the full and correct message though.

In our desire to see people become Christians, it is easy to be tempted to alter the message or water it down a bit to make it more palatable and acceptable to others. We never see Paul changing his message to make it sound more acceptable, although he did make sure he used an appropriate method for each audience he gave the gospel to. We too can make our style of presentation appropriate to our listeners, but we must not compromise the full truth of the gospel. God has entrusted us to deliver this message in its entirety.

One of the reasons we sometimes present a more acceptable gospel is because we think that we are personally responsible for bringing people to a point of repentance and accepting Jesus, so we tell them what they want to hear to get them to that point. However, our responsibility is  actually to proclaim the gospel and it is the Holy Spirit’s work to bring conviction upon the recipient of the gospel and call them to respond. So let us be good stewards of the message entrusted to us. Go and preach the full gospel and trust that the Holy Spirit will do His work in calling people to respond to the message.