“Paul says to note God’s severity.  Mark it down.  Remember it.  Consider it.  But we are disobedient.  Because God’s severity is not as warm and fuzzy as God’s kindness, we not only don’t study or contemplate it, but we don’t even note it.  We live in a day and age when, from pre-seminary all the way through seminary, prospective pastors are fed the pabulum of church growth.  Then once they hit the playing field of ministry they are fed it more and more.  From books to classes to seminars to conferences, the church is absolutely consumed with growing at all costs.  Forget whether the members of our churches have any real depth or substance to them; we just want to be able to measure and count the three Bs:  buildings, budgets, and butts in the seat.  The Bible does say a few things about churches and growing in those ways, but today this has become the prevailing mind-set of ministry in evangelicalism, and it is a biblically perverted, missionally distorted mind-set.

This avoidance of the difficult things of Scripture–of sinfulness and hell and God’s notable severity–is idolatrous and cowardly.  If a man or a woman who teaches the Scriptures is afraid to explain to you the severity of God, they have betrayed you, and they love their ego more than they love you.”  Matt Chandler in The Explicit Gospel, pg. 41.