Good News in a Swamp of Opinions

Opinions are the currency of sports talk, politics talk, “state of the church” talk, and any-other-hobby talk. All of these make their money by peddling opinions. But the gospel offers a better way.

Much of our cultural anxiety stems from the constant barrage of opinions that pass for entertainment or even education. We get disoriented because we inhabit a world where opinions are the currency of sports talk, politics talk, “state of the church” talk, and any-other-hobby talk. All of these make their money by peddling opinions. Neither Tucker Carlson nor Rachel Maddow are news reporters. Ben Shapiro and Stephen Crowder are YouTube opinionists. Stephen A. Smith, Shannon Sharpe, and Skip Bayless are all in the sports opinion business in the middle of the workday. Doug DeMuro makes his money with opinions about cars. Every sphere and industry, including the ministry and church sphere, has its builders of brands, podcasts and platforms, with hours and hours and hours of opinions. It’s especially interesting how much time and spiritual and mental energy Christians (like me) can invest in opinions, when we are people of good news not “good opinions.”

The Gospel is News not Opinion

News is objective reality. Opinion is a certain subjective perspective on reality. For example, the news from the weekend is that the 49ers lost to the Eagles in the NFC Championship game. That is news, the objective reality. News just is what it is. Now, my opinion or subjective perspective is that the Niners would have won if their quarterback Brock Purdy hadn’t been injured. That’s my opinion. Opinions can be right or wrong, informed or uninformed. Another way of talking about opinion is belief. My belief is that a healthy Brock Purdy would have led the Niners to victory. I have reasons for that belief, but the belief is something debatable. The reality is not debatable. The score was 31-7 Eagles, and that’s that.

The gospel is not about Christian opinions. The story of Christianity is a news story about God the Son being conceived in the womb of a virgin in Israel, being born in a barn, and fulfilling the promises that God had been making for thousands of years. The gospel is an announcement that God in Christ is reconciling the world to himself. The news is that Jesus is the God-man who died for sinners on the cross and was raised from the dead. That’s the announcement. The king is here. You can have opinions about the reality, but the reality simply is the reality. You can believe it, or you can not believe it. Yet the facts don’t change. The gospel is not a private religious belief, but a public service announcement. Jesus says, “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

The Only Reasonable Response

If the gospel is true, the questions become: How will you respond to the news? How will you respond to the news that Jesus was God the Son in human nature? How will you respond to the news that, unlike you, Jesus lived a life without sin? How will you respond to the news that Jesus was crucified so that your sin could be forgiven? How will you respond to the news that Jesus rose from the dead? How will you respond to the news that he will return?

The only reasonable response is to repent and believe in the good news. Repent is an intimidating religious word that simply means, “turn around.” It means that you acknowledge that you’re going the wrong direction and then you turn toward the right direction. “Repent and believe” means “make a U-turn.” This past summer, our family was driving from Chicago to LA, and we stopped for a bunch of landmarks along the old Route 66. At one point, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we got back on the interstate. Soon (thankfully) we realized we’d gotten turned around. Our maps app confirmed: we were going the wrong way. We responded the only way a reasonable person would respond: we repented. We found the next exit and reentered the freeway going the opposite, correct way. Repentance means recognizing that you’re going the wrong way and to exit that way, so you can turn around. To believe means that you get back on the highway going the opposite way of the wrong way.

“Repent and believe” is the first call of the gospel. It’s the ongoing call of the gospel. When we follow Jesus, we get sidetracked, sideswiped and turned around all the time. We constantly recalibrate with the truth of the Bible to confirm, that, yep, yet again, we’re going the wrong way. We acknowledge: I got my priorities mixed up again. I fell into that old pattern of sin and selfishness again. Time to exit and turn around. We let the good news disciple us. If the good news isn’t discipling us, one of those sources of opinion, analysis, and advice will try to disciple us instead. That vortex of TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube recommendations aims at getting us to consume and lust and care about everything but what matters. This can include Christian opinions and advice. Books and podcasts and conferences can be helpful. They often are helpful. But they are not themselves the gospel.

We must feed on the reality of good news. It’s the only way toward life like God intends for us. We see this in the life of Jesus. The central part of Jesus’s story started when Jesus heard the word of his Father in his baptism: “You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.” If the gospel is true, you hear the same words whispered over you every week under the preaching of the Word and at the Table of communion. You don’t need wallow in the consuming swamp of opinionism. If you are in Christ, the objective reality is settled. You are a child of God, and that doesn’t changed based on the ebbing and flowing of your opinions about God, or anyone else’s opinions about you or anything else.