The Unadjusted Gospel

by Mark Dever

Responding to the perennial temptation to “tame” the message about Jesus, leaders such as John MacArthur, John Piper, Thabiti Anyabwile, and R. C. Sproul challenge Christians to hold fast to the faith by emphasizing the importance of maintaining a pure and unadulterated view of the gospel. Whether it’s looking back at the New Testament and the church fathers or forward to the church’s continued mission of faithful biblical preaching and thoughtful cultural engagement, the contributors draw on their extensive ministry experience to offer readers a thoughtful plea for safeguarding the message of the gospel in the midst of our pluralistic world.

Genres: Theology, Christian, Nonfiction, Christian Living, Christianity

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 30, 2014

About the author

Mark E. Dever serves as the senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Since his ordination to the ministry in 1985, Dr. Dever has served on the pastoral staffs of four churches, the second being a church he planted in Massachusetts. Prior to moving to Washington in 1994, Dr. Dever taught for the faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University while serving two years as an associate pastor of Eden Baptist Church.

In an effort to build biblically faithful churches in America, Dr. Dever serves as the executive director for 9Marks (formerly The Center for Church Reform, CCR) in Washington, D.C. 9Marks encourages pastors of local churches look to the Bible for instruction on how to organize and lead their churches. Dr. Dever also teaches periodically at various conferences, speaking everywhere from South Africa to Brazil to the United Kingdom to Alabama. Feeling a deep burden for student ministry, Dr. Dever often addresses student ministry groups at campuses throughout the country. He has also taught at a number of seminaries, including Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, AL, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, IL. Dr. Dever’s scholarly interests include Puritanism and ecclesiology.

Dr. Dever currently serves as a trustee of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; he also serves as a member of the board, vice-chairman, and chairman of the Forum for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. From 1995 until 2001, he served on the steering committee for Founders Ministries, a pastoral movement for biblical teaching and healthy church life within the Southern Baptist Convention. As Guest Senate Chaplain for two weeks in 1995, Dr. Dever opened the daily sessions of the United States Senate in prayer. He is a member of the American Society of Church History and the Tyndale Fellowship. He also held the J.B. Lightfoot Scholarship at Cambridge University from 1989 to 1991.

Reviews

[Christian Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An appropriate book for the 21st century. These men take the reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ and apply to the every day aspects of the Christian ministers life. With the brilliant minds that helped formulate this short book you will be blessed and challenged as you are called to think critically about the place of the gospel in all aspects of life. This book is encouraging as it written as a reminder for Christians to stay true to the gospel. I may be wrong, but I believe many of the chapters are formed from sermons or lectures that these men gave in the past. However, this does not take away from the book and for anyone who has listened to these men speak it will make it an easier read.

[Nathan Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent treasure of articles about the supremacy of the Gospel, unadjusted. I’ll reference these articles in the future.

[Rachel Menke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I attended the 2010 T4G conference but if you asked me about I wouldn’t be able to tell you much about it because it’s never been very memorable in my mind (which is weird because other T4Gs have made huge impacts on me). I have always assumed this was because I was serving as an exhibitor during the conference and was often distracted and not fully engaged in the conference.
As I read this collection of messages from the conference I realized that is half true...but I also found in my reading that a lot of these messages just weren’t what I was expecting. They are by no means bad, and certainly not heretical, but I guess I had different topics in my mind when it came to “The Unadjusted Gospel”.
The highlight messages for me were Thabiti Anyabwile’s helpful reminder on how “culture” should not adjust the Gospel, John MacArthur’s admonition on a theology of rest, John Piper’s fantastic breakdown on justification by faith alone being the gospel of Jesus, and hugely encouraging was the closing chapter from Mahaney on being faithful to “fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim 4:4).
Again this is not to say that the other messages were poor but they were not my cup of tea. I struggled to get through pages and pages of lengthy quotations from early church fathers in Duncan’s message. Mohler’s message operated on a wavelength above where my mind was capable of going. And Dever and Sproul had helpful content but it simply didn’t stick with me.
I love each of these 9 men dearly and their ministries have been hugely helpful to me. T4G is a wonderful conference. This book was worth the read - but I’d recommend the other T4G books more!

[Matt Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Unadjusted Gospel is a few messages from a conference from several years ago, but the message is for today. These eight messages remind us that we need to focus on the foundations of our faith. It reminds what our churches are meant to be, and that we are to run from synthesis with the world that sin usually comes in the form of a slippery slope and that the gospel is superior to the culture of the world. we cannot do this by our own power, but we must remain faithful.

[Josiah Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sproul, Piper, and MacArthur pass the baton onto Dever, Duncan, and Mohler in this cry to protect the Gospel. Each writer points to an issue where there is an affront to the Gospel and how we can avoid the pitfalls that will accompany them.

[Joel King · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly timely. The authors seek to remind pastors and Christians of the need for holding fast to the gospel as scripture describes, not allowing ourselves to be lured by the cultural whims of the day. A great encouragement for those in ministry but also a wonderful reminder for all Christians.