Do we need to break the Gospel down to make it clear?

Matt Smethurst writes on The Gospel Coalition site:

“When it comes to the gospel, we don’t need to dress it up to make it cool. We need to break it down to make it clear.”

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/3-reasons-avoid-evangelism/

The context of the comment is in an article about why we can sometimes struggle with and seek to avoid evangelism. At this specific point, he is trying to describe the importance of contextualisation, getting to understand people where they are and show them how the good news answers their felt needs by addressing their real need. In that respect, I agree with Matt and overall, the article is helpful.

However, the statement quoted above is spectacularly unhelpful and indeed, I’m not sure that it says what he intended to say.  It is true of course that we do not need to dress the Gospel up. We don’t need to try and make it cool. However, nor do we need to break the Gospel down. It already is clear.

We don’t need to break it down because it is clear, it doesn’t need to be simplified. The glorious good news is that God made this world good, made us in his image and when we rebelled against him, this God of love intervened in the person of Jesus who by dying on the Cross in our place and rising again defeated sin, Satan and death.  How simple can you get? The people of Paul’s ay considered this message to be so simple as to be foolish and offensive.

It doesn’t want breaking down because in fact, separating things down into their component parts is not always the most helpful way of understanding them. The Gospel holds together as a single and compelling narrative. In fact, I don’t want to take this part of the Gospel and apply it to that part of my life and so on. The whole Gospel needs to be applied to the whole of my life.

So don’t dress up the Gospel and don’t attempt to break it down either. Trust in the clarity and beauty of the message. Simply proclaim it. All of it.