A Half Gospel is Still a False Gospel

Recognizing the Enemy's Tactics

The Enemy's Strategy Revealed

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis gives us an inside look into the tactics, strategies, and goals of the enemy. This summary is sobering on so many levels:

"Dear Wormwood... Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours—and the more 'religious' (on those terms) the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cageful down here."

— C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (HarperOne, 2001), 34-35.

Lewis's fictional demon Screwtape reveals something profound: the enemy's primary strategy isn't to make us explicitly anti-God; it's to subtly shift our priorities until good things become ultimate things. It's a masterclass in spiritual subversion that happens so gradually we rarely notice the shift.

When Good Things Become Ultimate Things

First, I'm reminded of the great danger of taking something that is good and turning that good thing into an ultimate good. Even good things, when turned into ultimate things, can and will become idolatrous things in our lives. This is the way the enemy works.

Just take a moment and list out the good things in your life. I'll start:

1. My family - I love my wife and kids, and it's my greatest joy to live life with them.

2. My ministry - What a joy to study and teach God's Word.

3. My friends - Laughter is a balm to a weary soul. Good friends who are unimpressed with you but love you nonetheless are priceless.

4. My work - The fact that I can provide for my family is something I have deep gratitude for.

5. Basketball, football, and video games - Honestly, I love fantasy football season. I love playing and watching basketball. And it is so fun to play video games with my kids.

None of these things are inherently wrong. In fact, they're blessings from God. Yet each one can become an idol if we're not careful.

The Enemy's Opportunity

The place the enemy loves to create a foothold and take advantage of an opportunity (Eph 4:27) is to take good things like what I just listed out and make them ultimate things in our lives. The enemy wants to disconnect us from the One who has given us all of this good—God Himself. Quickly we can begin to elevate these things or hold them as leverage with God, saying we will only follow Him as long as He follows along with our desires.

This sounds absurd, but honestly, isn't this exactly how it works in the darkest and deepest chambers of our hearts? We pray, "God, I'll be faithful if you just make sure my kids turn out right," or "I'll serve in the church as long as my career doesn't suffer." These conditional commitments reveal our true priorities.

This is the tactic of the enemy: subversive and deceptive. It's rarely dramatic or obvious; it's incremental and insidious.

The Deeper Danger: Hijacking the Gospel

But there is an even greater danger that lies under all of this that Lewis points out. When we take the Gospel and turn it into a means to an end and not the end in itself. In other words, when we attempt to hijack Jesus and His message as a tool (means) to achieve our own worldly goals and parade this as if it is the full Gospel.

It isn't.

We see this happening in countless ways in our culture. Some reduce the gospel to a pathway to personal prosperity or success. Others make it merely about social justice without the personal transformation of hearts. Some focus only on individual salvation without community impact. Still others emphasize moral transformation without the grace that makes it possible.

Compromising the True Gospel

We undermine the gospel when we condition the good news of Jesus' victory over sin and death with anything else. Even good things! When we attach to the gospel our desires for a family, our desire for provision through our work, or when we associate the victory of Christ with our perspective of the good life, we in fact compromise the Gospel.

The Gospel is literally the "proclamation" or the "announcement" of the victory of Jesus. It starts with what Jesus has done. It invites us into the work of Christ. And it ends with the Kingdom of Christ. Everything else—no matter how good—must flow from this center, not compete with it.

Jesus as Both Means and End

Friends, Jesus and His message is both the means and the end. Jesus is the goal, and His Word is our guide. Anything less than this is a devastatingly deceitful tactic of the enemy, leading us deeper into our own ambitions and away from the heart of God.

We're all susceptible to this drift. It happens in our churches when programs become more important than people. It happens in our families when appearance matters more than authentic faith. It happens in our personal lives when comfort outweighs calling.

Finding Our Way Back

So what do we do? We read God's Word with honest hearts, ask the Spirit of God to give us godly wisdom, and do our very best to rightly order all of the very good things that God calls us to under the kingship of Christ.

This means regular self-examination: Are we using faith to achieve our worldly goals, or are we pursuing Jesus Himself? Have our good gifts become ultimate idols? Has our understanding of the gospel become conditioned or compromised?

When we recognize areas where we've drifted, we repent—we turn back to the full gospel, the unconditioned good news that Jesus has conquered sin and death, and that through Him, we can be reconciled to God and participate in His kingdom work.

The enemy wants us to settle for a half gospel, a compromised message that serves our ends rather than God's. But we must remember: a half gospel is still a false gospel. Jesus deserves our whole hearts, not just the parts we're willing to surrender while we pursue our own agendas.

Only the full, uncompromised gospel—with Jesus at the center—has the power to transform our lives and our world. And that's a truth worth fighting for.

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We can fight the tactics of the enemy with the ancient virtue of humility. This is why I wrote my first book, The Hidden Peace. In it I unpack the origin story of Satan and how hidden pride can actually entrap all of us.