Not Just Good Theology, But Good Theology Delivered Well
I heard the man long before I saw him. “Repent or go to hell!” came blaring from the bullhorn in his hand. Throngs of people swirled around him as they passed him on the street corner. He paced back and forth, a sandwich board draped over his shoulders, both sides proclaiming “Jesus Saves” in simple, bold, black text.
I wondered in that moment if anyone had ever bothered to stop and talk to the man. Had his efforts genuinely won anyone over? Had his megaphone truly magnified the Jesus he proclaimed? Or was his bullhorn simply making the world around him tone-deaf to whatever message he might have to offer? I fundamentally believed his theology to be accurate, but the deafening noise of his bullhorn made me wonder if even he had become immune to the weight of his own message. I wasn’t questioning his theology, but I was questioning his delivery. He had good theology, but good theology delivered poorly.
It’s easy to find fault with such an approach, it’s shortcomings painfully obvious. There’s a flip side, however, to the man shouting on the street corner, a flip side that far too often goes unnoticed. There’s not only good theology delivered poorly, but there’s bad theology delivered well, and both are equally destructive.
Good Theology Delivered Poorly
What does “good theology delivered poorly” look like? Consider again the man with the sign, yelling at people as they walk by, “Repent or go to hell.” This is, in fact, good theology. God requires the repentance of sin (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15) and the confession and belief that his son Jesus Christ is Lord (Rom. 10:9–10) to go to heaven. So, yes, when we refuse to repent of our sins, we are rejecting the very truth of God, his nature, and his commands, and the consequence for doing so is to be eternally separated from him. That is good, accurate, straight-forward theology.
But the man’s delivery? That’s a different matter. I doubt that standing on the street corner, yelling, and condemning humanity as they pass by is winning too many people over. You could consider the Pharisees of Jesus’s day in this category. They were people who knew the law, knew what God desired by way of sacrifices and following his commands, but the Pharisees were notoriously good at beating people over the heads with all the ways they were failing. Condemnation and shame were the names of their theological games. They might have had some good theology, but they delivered it poorly more often than not.
That is one example, but there are other ways to deliver good theology poorly. Consider experts who write in such obtuse language that their audiences can barely understand what’s being said. And when readers can understand, they conclude that God must be boring and uncreative, which benefits no one.
Bad Theology Delivered Well
Now, what does “bad theology delivered well” look like? Consider the prosperity gospel as one example, which teaches that if you believe enough, donate enough, and pray enough you will attain health, wealth, and power. In other words, your increase in faith is in direct proportion to God’s increase of favor over your life. That’s bad theology. Terrible theology, actually. It’s a perversion of the gospel, lacking any consideration for the realities of not only our own suffering but also the suffering of the Christ we claim to follow. It emphasizes immediate comfort over long-term obedience, the temporary over the eternal, and our own selfish gain over God’s glory. The prosperity gospel effectively reduces God to a genie in a bottle.
But the delivery of that bad theology? Oh so smooth. The people who are peddling the prosperity gospel are some of the most gifted communicators of our day. Also consider the teachings of some mainline pastors who may deny the inerrancy of the Word, ignore the realities of hell, and cloak issues of gender and sexuality in culturally celebrated arguments rather than biblical ones. These progressive pastors did not amass the large followings they have online by being dull as dirt. And preachers of the prosperity gospel aren’t filling churches the size of stadiums because they are blubbering communicators who can’t form a coherent thought. On the contrary, they are often well-spoken, articulate, welcoming, charming. These are people who understand how to appeal to both the intellect and emotion through the spoken and written word, and they know how to do it masterfully.
This was the devil in the garden. “Did God really say . . . ?” he asked in Genesis 3:1. He planted the seed of doubt and unbelief to Adam and Eve. He was the originator of peddling bad theology, but man, did he sound so good when he said it—bad theology delivered so well it appeared good, good enough that Eve bought the lie, thereby ushering sin into the world and all its corresponding destructive consequences.
Good Theology Delivered Well
Both approaches are two sides of the same theological coin: good theology delivered poorly on one side and bad theology delivered well on the other. Both sides are destructive. Good theology delivered poorly leads to condemnation, and bad theology delivered well leads to deception.
Good theology delivered poorly is like the frog landing in a pot of boiling water; it’s intolerable because it’s so blatantly repellent. Bad theology delivered well, on the other hand, is the frog in lukewarm water; it’s subtle, barely perceptible at times. The heat—and the bad theology—keeps rising, but you don’t notice it until it’s too late. Bad theology delivered well isn’t obnoxious like its counterpart. No, it’s far more sinister and seductive, and that’s why it sells. But both are destructive and counterproductive to the advancement of the gospel.
If we are to be people truly committed to following Jesus, then this is a coin toss we cannot afford to make. We must choose a third way, and that is the way of not only good theology but good theology delivered well. This must be the framework from which we function in our daily lives.
How do we operate from that mindset, though? First, we must know the Word of God. We must know and recognize truth—God’s truth. Second, we must rightly divide that truth (2 Tim. 2:15), acquaint ourselves with it, know it like a bank teller knows an authentic piece of currency from a counterfeit. Third, we must test the spirits (1 John 4:1–3) and walk in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). Fourth, we must be discerning and wise, “shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16). We must know our theology, meaning we must know what we believe about God and that what we believe is actually true of him. Lastly, once we know rightly, we must communicate rightly. We must be people who not only know good theology but people who know how to deliver that good theology well.
The Way of the Master
Jesus, of course, was the master of good theology delivered well. Take, for instance, the story of the woman at the well found in John 4. Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman, the kind of woman that a good Jewish man shouldn’t have even been talking to. But there she was at the well, in the heat of the day, avoiding the usual gathering times when other women came to draw water. Why? Because she was a marked woman. She had had five husbands and was working on her sixth. She wasn’t exactly the most upstanding citizen according to the customs of the day.
But there was Jesus, still associating with her, still talking to her, still telling her about the mystery of living water. He didn’t gloss over the issue of her many husbands. He spoke plainly of her sin but also told her of the remedy for her sin. She was drawing physical water, but he led her to himself as the well of living water. Full of compassion, tenderness, mercy, truth, and grace, he lovingly and gently revealed her need for repentance. Jesus rightly knew the truth and then rightly communicated the truth. That’s good theology delivered well.
Here’s the tricky thing about good theology delivered well, though: It still wounds. Good theology delivered well still means there is conviction. The woman at the well had her sins illuminated; she experienced conviction. But she still went off to town and proclaimed to everyone, “He told me all that I ever did.” (John 4:39). Jesus laid bare all she had done wrong, which normally would make a person want to hide in shame, yet she did not walk away condemned. She was still somehow drawn to him. Convicted, yes, but she walked away compelled to say to anyone within earshot, “Come meet the man who changed me!”
Good theology delivered well may wound, but bad theology delivered well and good theology delivered poorly will kiss you with the kiss of death. Theirs will be a Judas kiss, a kiss of betrayal, a harbinger of the destruction yet to come should you choose to fall for either side of that coin. “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses,” writes Solomon (Prov. 27:6 NIV). Good theology delivered well is a wound from a friend with the intention of healing. But things like the man on the street corner or the preacher on the stadium stage preaching the prosperity gospel are enemies multiplying kisses. We must seek the third way, slicing that coin in half and seeking to follow Jesus. We must not only know our theology but know it well and communicate it well. Our aim is good theology and good theology delivered well.
Courtney Yantes spends her days as an event planner, coordinating events and conferences designed to inspire change and promote access for people with disabilities. She graduated from William Woods University with a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s in business administration. She enjoys writing, traveling, and generally organizing anything she can get her hands on. She is a lover of all things Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and relishes a life free of social media accounts.