05/17/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1WoGZoYTfc/?mibextid=wwXIfri
A Reader's Question
A dear reader sent me this photo and asked a question that was both heartfelt and deeply important.
He wrote:
"Would this woman be welcomed in your church?"
This question cuts deeper than it seems. Because it doesn’t just ask if the woman in the photo would be welcomed—it asks us what kind of Gospel we actually believe.
If our Gospel is about clean people for a clean place, then no—she wouldn't be welcome.
But if our Gospel is about a Holy God saving unholy people, then she has every right to sit beneath the Word, just like the rest of us who were once no different from her.
You see, the issue isn’t her tattoos, her piercings, or her past. The real issue is whether or not we understand what the Church is, and who it is for.
Christ did not come for those who thought they were righteous. He came for the sick (Mark 2:17), for the outcasts, for the ones society had written off. And if this woman walks into a Church hungry to hear the Truth—then she’s not just welcome; she is the very kind of person the Gospel is aimed at.
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? … such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified…” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11)
Read that again: such were some of YOU. Not “some of them.” US. Every one of us—dead in sin, bound in lust, pride, addiction, vanity, rage, self-righteousness. We may have worn a tie and carried a Bible, but we were just as lost. And if we forget that, we no longer understand Grace.
This woman’s presence in the pew may offend some churchgoers’ traditions—but it doesn't offend Scripture.
What offends Scripture is a self-righteous heart that sees the outside of a person and forgets the depth of their own depravity.
“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)
And yet let’s be clear—welcoming her is not the same as affirming her life.
God does not accept us on our terms. He calls us to Repentance. He calls us to die to self.
But how will she ever hear that call if she’s not even allowed to sit in the room?
Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). So if she comes through the doors and hears the Gospel faithfully preached—the real Gospel, the one that calls sinners to lay their lives at the foot of the Cross—then let her come.
The Church is not a country club for the refined. It’s a battlefield hospital for the wrecked. And God doesn’t use good people. He redeems dead people and makes them new (Ephesians 2:1–5).
So the real question isn’t whether she would be welcomed in our Church.
The question is—would Jesus be welcomed if He walked in with her?
Because if our Church wouldn’t welcome the bruised and broken… it wouldn’t welcome the Savior who bore their wounds.
Let her in. Let her hear. Let God do the work only He can do.
We’re not gatekeepers of the Cross. We’re beggars who found bread, and now point others to the Table.
Let’s never forget where we were when He found us.
Let him who has ears to hear, hear.
Jeremiah Knight
The Reformation Resurgence
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