There is a Spurgeon quote from Zechariah 3 that I absolutely love. I’ve shared it about every time I’ve preach on that text. Here it is unaltered from the pen of Spurgeon:
“So it is with the child of God. What is he at the best? Till he is taken up to heaven, he is nothing but a brand plucked out of the fire. It is his daily moan that he is a sinner; but Christ accepts him as he is: and he shuts the devil’s mouth by telling him, ‘Thou sayest this man is black – of course he is: what did I think he was but that? He is a brand plucked out of the fire. I plucked him out of it. He was burning when he was in it: he is black now he is out of it. He was what I knew he would be; he is not what I mean to make him, but he is what I knew he would be. I have chosen him as a brand plucked out of the fire. What hast thou to say to that?’ Do observe that this plea did not require a single word to be added to it from Joshua.”
This is my edited…I’ll just share the smaller portion that I edited:
“…‘Thou sayest this man is [charred] – of course he is: what did I think he was but that? He is a brand plucked out of the fire. I plucked him out of it. He was burning when he was in it: he is [charred] now he is out of it…”
I changed the word “black” to “charred” and I did it intentionally because every Sunday I know that I’ll have those with darker skin in our congregation. So am I a sell-out? Am I just being a politically correct social justice warrior afraid to offend millennial snowflakes? Am I too worried about offending someone? Should I just man-up and boldly proclaim what Spurgeon said in the original and forget if it might offend someone who is being too sensitive?
I don’t think so. Here is why I changed the quote. I don’t think for one second that Spurgeon had any racist undertones in this quote. He didn’t for one moment intend or even have in his mind to equate “black” with “sinful”. But that’s how one could read/hear it. And so because of that I change the word to “charred” because that is Spurgeon’s meaning. And I do that because I don’t want there to be any stumbling block but the gospel of Christ.
Should someone with dark sin be able to read this Spurgeon quote and read it with grace and understanding and realize it isn’t meant to make any racial point? Absolutely. But do I really want them to be going through those mental activities while I’m preaching on such a great truth as our rescue in Jesus?
There is a difference between being cautious and sensitive and changing words which could needlessly provide offense. It’s not unmanly or cowardly to work towards this. It’s being pastoral and caring. It’s an effort to meet people where they are. Where we have a problem is when people begin changing the meaning of a text (or quote) because it could cause offense. That is cowardly.
We don’t get jewels in our heavenly crowns for offending people. Because offense is never to be our work. We’ll get some jewels because of boldly proclaiming the offensive gospel—but the offending isn’t in our authority. And if I can work to clear a path for a hearing of the blessed gospel in all of it’s fullness I’m going to do it. I’ll tweak a quote from the Prince of Preachers if it means we better hear the voice of the King of Kings. And I’ll do that unapologetically.
—
Photo source: here
