Compromise is one of the largest problems of the modern “evangelical” church.

It isn’t entertainment carried on to attract numbers. It isn’t marketing tactics taking over instead of evangelism. As serious as these and other problems are—and they are—the spirit of compromise is an even more basic one. Indeed, why does one depend upon entertainment instead of truth to attract the lost? A willingness to compromise truth for numbers. Why do people rely on marketing principles rather than Scripture to draw men to Christ? You’ve got it—they are willing to compromise truth for success. Compromise is a significant issue, indeed, we might say, the basic issue today.

But compromise also may be found in the ministry of counseling. People who are willing to become certified by the state simply in order to receive third-party insurance funds compromise themselves for money. People, who are unwilling to stand for the sufficiency of the Scriptures in order to receive the approval of others who scoff at those who do, compromise. These and endless other compromises of the truth of God are made by those who seek to find ways of amalgamating Scripture with the unbelieving systems of counseling set forth by people who know nothing of the saving power of Jesus Christ. Some even compromise the integrity of the Scriptures when they knowingly misuse passages in order to support teachings and methods of counseling that are unbiblical. At its heart, counseling eclecticism is compromise. Some preachers even avoid counseling altogether, justifying their failure to properly shepherd the flock by echoing the statements of those who erroneously speak of “The Primacy of Preaching.”

Compromise is rife in the pulpit itself. Men who preach nice, soft-as-cream-puff essays, or who present truth in cardboard-like form with little or no application—not to speak of specific application—often do so out of a spirit of compromise. “It’s truth,” they (inwardly) reason, so God may use it without the necessity of driving it home to people who might become offended if I do. And, to think of presenting God’s Word in red-hot second-person form . . . “unthinkable! That’s utterly taboo! You just can’t get that personal with people! You might drive some away.” Avoiding passages of Scripture and difficult doctrines, with which it is known that members of the congregation disagree, is another form of pulpit compromise.

Thank God compromise isn’t universal in Bible-believing circles! Here and there, standing out from the crowd, are those stalwart leaders who will not compromise truth for reasons of popularity, success or anything else. It is they who hold God’s truth and God’s Name to be of greater importance than anything else. They seek not popular acclaim—and often get the opposite from the majority—but the future “well done” from God.