Contents
Summary........................................................................................................................................1
Applied Review..............................................................................................................................2
Fluency as Discipline.....................................................................................................................4
Bibliography...................................................................................................................................6
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1
Summary
In his book Gospel Fluency, Jeff Vanderstelt addresses an issue many Christ followers
would probably prefer not to think about. Defining “gospel fluency” as the “need to know how to
believe and speak the truths of the gospel—the good news of God—in and into the everyday
stuff of life,”1 Vanderstelt calls Christians to a higher standard. Taking a unique approach to this
idea, Vanderstelt compares gospel fluency to language fluency. One must immerse oneself into
the life and culture of that which they are trying to be fluent in, whether that be a language or the
gospel. Building on the idea of gospel fluency, Vanderstelt states that it happens in three areas,
“Gospel fluency begins in you, gets worked out within community, and is expressed to a world
that needs to hear about Jesus.”2 Beginning with you, to strive for gospel fluency, one must
identify the thoughts that are not of the Lord and replace them with truth. Vanderstelt offers four
questions to help an individual through this process, referring to this as tracing your sins from
fruit to root. Referring to everyone as unbelievers, Vanderstelt is making the point that even
Christians have areas in which they do not trust God. In the Foreword, Jackie Hill Perry summed
up gospel fluency by stating, “Being gospel fluent inevitably shapes how we live, which then
affects how we engage with the world around us.”3 To be gospel-fluent, one must trust God in
every area, which will ultimately show in how we live our lives.
Applied Review
As with several of the books read in this course, this book revealed areas in which I need
to focus more attention. The author writes, “There are spaces where we don’t trust his word and
1 Jeff Vanderstelt, Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Wheaton,
IL: Crossway, 2017), 23.
2 Ibid., 43.
3 Jackie Hill Perry, “Foreword,” in Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of
Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 12.
2
don’t believe that what he accomplished in Jesus Christ is enough to deal with our past or what
we are facing in this moment or the next.”4 I have never thought about the fact that there are
areas in my life where I don’t trust God. For me, some of these areas are easy to pick out, as they
cause me anxiety.
Something that stood out to me was when the author wrote about our battle being
spiritual. He offers four steps that the Bible tells us to do in the battle, the first being to take
captive our thoughts and examine them. This is a process that I have started. I am better at
recognizing the lies of the enemy and am trying to bring them into submission (step two). I
believe that the next step in speaking the gospel to myself is to go back to Vanderstelt’s chapter
on the root to fruit, working through the questions in the areas of my life where I know for sure I
do not trust God. I need to begin by replacing the lies and fears with the truth of who God is and
what He does for His children.
Another point that the author addresses is eating to remember. I have recently felt that
God is asking me to have meals at the table with my family. We often sit in the living room and
watch a show together, as by the end of the day, we are all tired and want to veg out. It has been
hard to give this up, even knowing that God is leading me to have family dinner, with discussion
and study. When reading this chapter, it felt like a punch to the gut, reading, “He is the bread of
life that meets our deepest needs and satisfies our greatest longings. Every meal is meant to
cause us to remember and worship Jesus.”5 I will begin by making sure our table is cleared of our
schoolbooks every afternoon, allowing for use of the table at dinner time. We will share dinner
4 Jeff Vanderstelt, Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Wheaton,
IL: Crossway, 2017), 20.
5 Jeff Vanderstelt, Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Wheaton,
IL: Crossway, 2017), 136.
3
as a family at the table each evening. Using Bible-based dinner conversation cards that I have
purchased, we will engage in conversation as a family.
Beginning with the dinner conversation cards, I will be speaking the gospel into the lives
of my family. It occurred to me during this reading how many opportunities I have to speak the
gospel to my family, and yet I often miss the chances, instead focusing on what the individual
could change or try. It is my responsibility to speak the gospel into my children’s lives, to raise
gospel-fluent children who can speak the gospel into the lives of others around them.6 I will also
switch my focus from consequences to conversation, focusing on sharing scripture regarding
God’s expectations for our actions, behaviors, words, etc.
If I want others to be gospel-fluent, I must be, as the author describes, “being with others
who know and love Jesus, speak about him often, and commit together to regularly remind one
another of the gospel when they forget.”7 I need to be the individual who speaks of Jesus often
and regularly reminds others of the gospel. I must begin with myself in order to speak the gospel
to the church or my neighbors. One way I plan to speak the gospel into my church family is by
facing tough issues with scripture. When someone shares with me something hard in their life, I
often sympathize and tell them I’m sorry they are walking that road. I must change this mentality
and begin to share with them where Jesus is in the struggle.
The Bible offers the best advice in all circumstances, yet I offer only my words and not
God's. If I love and respect the Word and deem it more important than mine, I should be offering
advice from it and not from myself. Regarding my neighbors, I believe the first step is to speak
to them, get to know them, and pray diligently for them. I believe the best way to speak the
gospel into their lives is to live out my faith in actionable ways. Not just in my neighborhood but
6 Ibid., 137.
7 Ibid., 134.
4
anywhere I go. If someone is not able to see Christ in me, I doubt I will have much opportunity
to use words to speak the gospel into their life.
Fluency as Discipline
The first thing that comes to mind is the idea of daily affirmations. This is a common
thing in the homeschool community, and I believe that this is something I can utilize to cultivate
gospel fluency as a discipline in my own life. Daily affirmations are a list of statements that you
recite each day that speak the truth. As this idea builds in my mind, it may likely shift. I will
begin by listing out Biblical truths that combat the lies I often find myself believing. Lies such as
I am forgettable, my daily affirmation would be based on Psalm 33:13, God sees all mankind. I
might write, “You are seen. God sees you. (Ps. 33:13).” Reciting these to myself every day will
be one way of using the Word to battle the enemy.
The second step will be to be more diligent in scripture memorization. This would benefit
my own spiritual life, but it would also allow me to easily speak the gospel into other’s lives as
well. I will write my chosen scripture on three index cards. One index card will be placed on my
bathroom mirror, one on the dashboard of my car, and the third will be used as a bookmark for
my Bible study. By placing the scripture in these three places, I will be reminded multiple times
daily to work on memorization. Vanderstelt writes, “Our battle is spiritual, and so are our
weapons.”8 Memorizing more scripture will help in the battle. You must fight the spiritual battle
with the spiritual weapons, one of which is the sword, the Word of God.
8 Jeff Vanderstelt, Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life (Wheaton,
IL: Crossway, 2017), 104.
