Derek Thomas

The gospel plus women should wear hats in church.

The gospel plus you must do it this way and not that way.

The gospel plus worship style that conforms more to prejudice than to principle.

And so on, and it can be very subtle and it creeps in.

And it creeps in by little gossipy statements that we make.

You know that church that we went to or that group of Christians, you know they didn't do X or they didn't do Y. And these are not issues of first principle.

These are secondary things.

They're issues of prejudice.

And before long, we're saying you cannot possibly be a Christian unless you do X or you do Y or you do Z. And Paul is addressing that subtlety.

It can creep in.

The gospel plus a certain…

moralistic, therapeutic deism, as some have termed it in recent days.

It's not so much now the purity of the gospel, but a belief that certain styles and certain rules, manmade rules, rules of a certain religious tradition, and unless these are kept and kept rigorously and kept to the full,

There cannot be an assurance of salvation.

Well, let me ask you a question.

Are you passionate about the gospel, or are you more passionate about other things?

things that are very dear to you.

I have plenty of prejudices.

I have plenty of things that I'm more comfortable this way than that way.

But are they fundamental things of the gospel?