“Failure Through Compromise”

Compromise can quietly weaken faith and judgment, showing how small concessions can lead away from the clear demands of Scripture.

By Jason Hensley

Read Time: 7 minutes

What do you think of when you think of compromise? With a community as diverse as ours, there’s bound to be a wide range of answers. Maybe you think about bringing two disagreeing parties together and helping them trust one another. Maybe you think of the contrast between compromise and collaboration, with compromise often seen in a negative light, whereas collaboration carries more positive associations. Or maybe you think about losing what is true, with compromise suggesting that aspects of the gospel are given up repeatedly until the gospel is no longer recognizable. In one of these cases, we seek compromise, whereas in the other two, we avoid it.

The problem here stems from the fact that we have one word that describes different things. Certainly, working together is a good thing. Losing the Truth? Not so much. Nevertheless, because one word can stand for such a wide range of ideas, people will often use it with one of those meanings in mind, without specifying which one they actually meant. For me, and maybe for you, with my experience in our community, I’ve found that “compromise” often takes on the latter meaning—the one that indicates a degradation of Truth and God’s principles—both in what people say to me and often how I perceive what they’re saying.

A Strong Stance

Just to give you a few examples, in A Sound Mind, L.G. Sargent wrote about early Christadelphians:

Believing they had the ‘Truth,’ they stood apart from all the churches, refusing any compromise of their distinctiveness or any association which could lead to their being regarded as merely one ‘persuasion’ among many. They rejoiced in being “the sect everywhere spoken against.”¹

Here, Brother Sargent described a refusal to compromise as a positive thing—through this refusal, Christadelphians were able to maintain their distinctiveness and preach the truth to those around them. Writing about the Book of Joshua, John Ullman stated, “There can be no compromise with divine Truth. One may feel the urge to deviate, even from the loftiest of motives, but such action will not be tolerated by God.”² Similarly, many of our community’s works describe the period of the Judges as “failure through compromise,”³ and rightly so. God commanded the Israelites to refuse treaties with the Canaanites and to remove them from the land. They didn’t, and because of that compromise, the Canaanites had a poor influence on God’s people. This way of viewing Judges became so ingrained that a former editor of this magazine even wrote a book on this period, titled Failure Through Compromise.⁴ Even though the title is an apt way to describe that time period, it’s difficult to escape a negative picture of compromise with that phrase imprinted in our minds.

Yet, our community’s feelings about compromise go deeper than just a handful of books and a defense of Truth. Going further than some of the other writers, H.P. Mansfield cautioned against compromise in general—not just compromise of the Truth. He wrote:

We can be deluded with the desire for peace, and depreciate the storm which is sometimes necessary. Because the desire is so great, we can set about compromising the requirements of Yahweh to obtain it, and forget that Yahweh is in the storm. But there can be no divine peace with people who set themselves against Yahweh or His Word… Let us compromise with such and there will be no true peace; let us fail to uphold the standards of God in doctrine and practice, and we will fall on evil days.⁵

As brother Mansfield makes clear, he isn’t referring simply to doctrine; he’s also referring to practice. Compromise to him thus takes on a darker meaning: compromise in anything meant giving up some of what God had given, and God’s ways cannot be compromised.

Let me be clear: I didn’t quote the writers above to offend or diminish their contributions to our community in any way. I have deep respect for all of those whom I referenced, and that’s why I chose them. I wanted to make it clear that throughout our community, over many decades, we’ve consistently emphasized that compromise is wrong, and whether or not that was exactly what those authors meant, experience suggests this is often how we have interpreted these teachings and ideas.

Missing Something

While it’s true that we can’t ever compromise on Truth, nor should we want to, it’s also true that we can allow our community’s overarching feelings about compromise to color our thinking and actions to such a point that we find ourselves following an approach that doesn’t necessarily reflect Scripture. Have you ever said, “I’ll never compromise”? Or made the blanket statement that God hates compromise? Biblically, however, compromise, in certain situations, isn’t just not wrong—it’s actually what God wants. For instance, consider the following situation: “Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison.” (Matthew 5:25).⁶ Do you see the idea of compromise here? How can this verse actually work without compromise? It’s not as though Christ is saying his listeners were to overwhelm their accusers with all the evidence for their side until the accuser gave up—he’s saying they needed to work something out with them. That’s negotiation. That’s compromise.

Again, in 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:5). This, too, sounds like a compromise, a situation in which two people agree to something difficult because they believe in working together.

Perhaps the most famous Biblical compromise is the decision of the Jerusalem Conference. Remember the story? Paul argued with a group of Pharisee believers over whether or not Gentile followers of Christ should be circumcised. Gathered in Jerusalem, the leaders of the community concluded that the Gentiles should be asked to follow certain aspects of the law but did not need to be circumcised (Acts 15:28-29). Just let that sink in a little bit. Can you imagine some of the reactions when Gentile believers received this message? Some would have perhaps been thankful they didn’t need circumcision. At the same time, however, some likely would have been angry that they had to follow any of these vestiges of the Law of Moses. Why couldn’t they eat food sacrificed to idols? Why did it matter if their food was strangled? Surely that had nothing to do with following God in faith.

Yet because these things mattered to the Jewish brothers and sisters, Gentile brothers and sisters chose to give up a little bit of their freedom. And Jewish brothers and sisters chose to give up a little bit of their exclusivity. Their belief in God and God’s character, namely, that He is a God who wants peace among His followers (Romans 12:18), led them to relent a little for the sake of reaching an agreement.

What does that mean for us? It means that this whole approach, that compromise is wrong and always leads to failure, is unbiblical. It’s true that God’s Truth can’t be compromised, but sometimes compromise is necessary to bring the followers of God’s Truth together. Sometimes we have to give a little bit, not give up the first principles, but be flexible in our expectations and our practices, in order to bring peace. After all, it’s not for nothing that Scripture calls the gospel “the gospel of peace.” (Ephesians 6:15); peace is the fruit of the Truth itself. In other words, our grasp of the Truth affects us in such a way that it leads us to seek ways to work together as believers.

Introduction to This Issue

So, in this issue, we have a number of articles that will help us recognize the value of community and, in so doing, encourage us to work together further and accept (maybe even embrace?) those moments of compromise. In our Life Application section, Josh Sullivan writes about taking advantage of opportunities to do good, and Russell Li describes how “Auntie Gong” came to understand the gospel and thus joined our community. In Exhortation and Consolation, Ruth Hensley writes about Hagar, emphasizing that while the story of Hagar is indeed about Hagar, it’s ultimately about God.

Moving on to Back to the Original, Mark Vincent writes about the Proverbs and how the way something is said can impact how memorable it is. For Stuff that Works, James Styles builds on the Camp Kaio story by describing how weekly Kaio nights have helped their family and ecclesia to build that sense of community around the Scriptures. Will Rundle writes this month’s First Principles article regarding angels and their inability to sin.

This month’s Bible Studies section has Ben Brinkerhoff continuing his series on Romans, this time looking at how Christ condemned sin in the flesh. Ben Kitchen begins a new series on Ruth, considering how Boaz’s role as the redeemer presents Ruth and Naomi’s story in a different light than it’s typically understood—and shows a little bit of how Israelite community functioned. In the Moms’ section, Nancy Brinkerhoff writes about loneliness as a mom and our need for community.

As we move into the latter section of the magazine, Anna Tikvah will continue Held in His Hands with chapter 3, and we’ll have one article on the Christadelphian Preaching Campaign in Tobago (reminding us that our community is greater than just our local ecclesias). Finally, George Booker continues his consideration of New Testament characters with a look at Peter.

These articles help us to look beyond our current circumstances and to recognize that we are part of a global community. As such, our ecclesias and regions bring together a highly diverse group, united by a love for the Lord Jesus and the Truth about him. We’re a family, built on a common foundation. And even in a family, compromise can help hold us together and also bring us closer when we’ve split apart.

Jason Hensley