In the sermon excerpt from yesterday, I asked if you could point out THE major error in what Tony Campolo said. I only received one response, and it was a good one. However, it wasn’t the specific thing that I was looking for. Here is the answer:Campolo wrote:
“The first thing out of Jesus¡¯ mouth when he started his ministry¡ªMatthew, Mark, Luke, check it out¡ªthe first thing he says is, ¡°I have come to declare the kingdom of God is at hand.¡±
Did any of you catch this? Did you think to take up his challenge and “check it out”? Let’s look at Matthew and Mark today (Luke tomorrow) to see exactly what was the first thing to come out of Jesus’ mouth:
Matthew 4:17:
“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”“
Mark 1:14-15:
“Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
So if you isolate the things that Campolo “forgot” to quote about Jesus’ first words in these two verses, here is what you would have:
“Repent, the time is fulfilled; repent and believe in the gospel”
This is huge. A Gospel without repentance is no Gospel at all. But not only does Jesus highlight repentance in these verses, but also faith: “believe in the gospel”
So, in summary, Tony Campolo badly misquoted scripture. The whole premise for his sermon was based on these verses, and it seems it was a very false premise. As I said yesterday, Campolo should know better. Indeed, I think he does know better. How could someone simply ‘misread’ such clear scriptures? That is what is so scary!
Here is a quote from famous Bible commentator Matthew Henry taken from his commentary on the forementioned verses in Matthew:
“The subject which Christ dwelt upon now in his preaching (and it was indeed the sum and substance of all his preaching), was the very same John has preached upon (Mat_3:2); Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand; for the gospel is the same for substance under various dispensations; the commands the same, and the reasons to enforce them the same; an angel from heaven dares not preach any other gospel (Gal_1:8), and will preach this, for it is the everlasting gospel.”
