Imagine taking your great-grandmother's famous cake recipe, you know which one: the one she was known for, the one everyone demands you bring to every family gathering. But as you read through it, you notice ingredients that seem problematic. Your sister-in-law is vegan now, so the butter has to go. Uncle Joe's doctor has him on a gluten-free diet. And cousin Sally swore off sugar two years ago.
You love your family and want to accommodate them all, so you start making changes. You remove some ingredients, substitute others. The final product might even look good. It might even taste decent. But one thing it absolutely is not: your great-grandmother’s cake.
We instinctively understand this about family treasures. When something precious is handed down to us, we want to preserve and protect it. We recognize that changing it fundamentally means losing it forever.
Yet across American Christianity today, the most precious inheritance of all is being edited for contemporary tastes. Some church bodies are treating Scripture like a recipe that needs updating rather than a treasure that needs guarding. They're removing ingredients that don't suit modern preferences, substituting others to avoid offense.
Driven more by politics and contemporary ideology, we are witnessing denominations continue to vote on which parts of the Bible to keep and which to ignore. Others declare certain passages, texts that guided believers for millennia, not just difficult but “harmful.” They remove biblical teachings about sin, judgment, and holy living while keeping verses about love and acceptance. They say they’re making Christianity more palatable, inclusive, and welcoming, but as they change the “recipe,” the inevitable conclusion will be a loss of what it means to be a Christian.
The Apostle Paul saw this coming. Writing to Pastor Timothy, he gave this charge: “Guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” (2 Tim. 1:14) Like a banker protecting valuables in ancient times, Timothy’s job was simple: Don't lose it. Don’t trade it. Don’t let anyone steal it. Just guard it so that it can be passed on to the next generation. This wasn’t about mere tradition, it was about life and death.
That deposit is the Word of God. The complete recipe of salvation — God’s Law and Gospel — must be preserved with every ingredient included. Not because Paul was stubborn or old- fashioned, but because the Holy Spirit revealed to him that our eternal destiny depends on receiving the real thing, not a sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan substitute.
Here's why this matters: When churches remove Scripture’s diagnosis of sin, they also remove its cure. When they minimize humanity’s desperate condition, they diminish Christ’s amazing rescue. The “bitter” ingredients (our inability to keep God’s law perfectly and our need for a Savior) make the sweet Gospel necessary. To reject and repudiate the Scriptures by picking and choosing which you desire to follow is to reject God himself and to claim authority over and against our Creator.
The pressure to edit comes from every direction. Universities teach that truth evolves. Social media mocks biblical values. Even within churches, voices urge us to “get with the times.” But getting with the times often means getting away from timeless truth.
So here’s what I recommend to all Christians, a solemn duty I remind my own congregation that it has: Hold your church leaders accountable to this noble task. Insist they preach God’s Word unchanged. Require them to teach you the whole counsel of God. Demand they guard the deposit faithfully, even if the message of God is uncomfortable to the world. Because at the end of the day, we’re not guardians of human opinion. We’re guardians of divine truth. God’s Word isn’t ours to edit or explain away.
Some recipes are too important to mess with. “Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.” (Proverbs 30:5-6)
