We Are Not God’s PR Guys

Randy Alcorn, in his introduction to Mark Galli’s book God Wins, wrote about how preachers should not skip the doctrine of hell just because it seems to paint a negative picture of God:

Our job is not to be God’s public relations manager or make Him popular. The Almighty doesn’t need us to give Him a face-lift and airbrush His image. “But surely it isn’t bad to try to make God look good, is it?” The question is, look good on whose terms? God has His own terms. Our task is not to help people see God favorably but to see Him accurately…

God has appointed us to faithfully deliver His message, not to compose and edit it. He has already written the message– it’s called the Bible. Who are we to spin it and tame it, or presume to be more loving than Jesus, who with outrageous love took upon Himself the horrific penalty for our sin?

God’s position is already taken; we need not apply. We do not own the Christian faith. It isn’t ours to revise. God’s word wasn’t entrusted to us so we could give it away piecemeal, giving the next generation with the leftovers. If we go on decade after decade parceling out fragments of the faith, what will be left? When we abandon truths Christians once died for, will we no longer have truths worth living for?