When my wife and I were first married, I decided to cook for her one evening. I made a garlic stir-fry that she said was very good, but when we cooked it again later, she said it wasn’t nearly as potent in terms of the garlic flavor. I had misread the recipe and put 2 tablespoons of garlic salt in the dish rather than 2 teaspoons. While the dish wasn’t necessarily bad, the difference between the intended amount and actual amount of one ingredient dramatically altered the dish. Ingredients matter.

I do see a parallel in the theology of Christianity, however. We who think precision in matters of food is important might look at our understanding of the gospel or of theology in general and think that precision doesn’t matter. As long as you love Jesus sincerely, you don’t need to know all that nerdy theology stuff. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores the precision with which Jesus himself spoke. After all, the rich young ruler in Matthew 19 showed considerable interest in Jesus and had even kept the commandments! What a great guy! Churches today would put that guy in leadership immediately. When Jesus told him that he must sell everything he had in order to follow him, the man went away sad, because he had lots of stuff (19:22).  It was the precise words of Christ that caused the rich young ruler to leave, but it was the same precise command, “follow me and I will make you fishers of men” that caused Peter, James and John to drop their nets on the beach to follow Jesus. We must not be afraid to be clear. We don’t want to get the gospel wrong in an effort to make people like it.