The God We Keep Explaining Away

Have you ever noticed what happens when a preacher is embarrassed by God? It’s just like when a teenager is embarrassed by his parents. Dad speaks and addresses him in front of his friends, and before anyone has time to process his words, the son jumps in.

“What he really means is...”

“He’s from a different generation.”

“He doesn’t always say things the way he intends.”

“He didn’t mean it like that.”

At first, the interruptions seem harmless. Perhaps even gracious. But after listening for a while, something becomes painfully obvious. The kid really just doesn’t trust his father to speak for himself. Everything he says must be explained away or translated into something more acceptable.

I cannot help but wonder whether we have begun treating God the same way.

There is a habit I have noticed in the modern church that I cannot seem to ignore. God speaks. Then we explain Him away.

I am not talking about the faithful work of preaching or the careful labor of exegesis. Every pastor is called to explain what God has said. That is the very task of biblical preaching. I am talking about something fundamentally different.

I am talking about our strange impulse to soften God whenever His words collide with the spirit of the age.

God speaks to us in Scripture with unmistakable clarity, but before His words have time to settle upon our consciences, someone always rushes in to reassure us that He surely didn’t mean what it sounded like He meant.

It happens so often that we scarcely notice it anymore.