No One Needs Your Coffee-Cup Theology

When your “evangelism” is cultural relevance and not the Gospel, of course this is an issue! How in the world can we tell people about Jesus if coffee cups don’t say ‘Merry Christmas’?!

By now, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly heard some chatter about this season’s design of Starbucks cups. It has literally dominated the attention of many Christians. Yes, you read that correctly, Christians near and far are losing their ever-loving minds over the design of a simple coffee cup.

According to many Christians, because overpriced coffee is sold in cups that do not say ‘Merry Christmas’ on them…

Christ’s Gospel cannot go out
our God, the Creator of the universe, just cannot reach people
our all-powerful God is too impotent to convert the lost
all hope of reaching the lost is gone

As ridiculous as that sounds, that is exactly the message Christians are sending when they get drug into nonsensical arguments about some image on a cup. When your “evangelism” is cultural relevance and not the Gospel, of course this is an issue! How in the world can we tell people about Jesus if coffee cups don’t say ‘Merry Christmas’?!

Friends… If you think that you need to boycott every Starbucks because they’re declaring a “war on Christmas”… If you now concede that you cannot effectively evangelize in Starbucks now under these conditions… If this is you, please do the Gospel a favor and stay home, for your coffee-cup evangelism is no evangelism at all.

Does it bother you that we’ve come to a point in American “Christianity” where we expect a secular coffee company to evangelize and churches to offer fancy coffee?

Instead of waging your own war on Starbucks with your clever little tricks like telling the barista your name is ‘Merry Christmas’ so they call it out loud (DON’T BE THAT GUY), take that effort and open your Bible (be sure it’s a reliable translation, The Message doesn’t count). If you open the Bible and actually read it, you’ll find…

that salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9)
that all people believe in God, there are no atheists (Romans 1:18-31)
that the law is the schoolmaster that leads the unbeliever to Christ (Galatians 3:24)
that salvation results when we repent and believe (Mark 1:15)
that we can only be saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9)
that outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ and being covered by His sacrifice, there is only eternal hell (John 14:6)

And friend, when you see those and other Gospel-centric verses, you will see how ridiculous your argument truly is. Of those Gospel truths, which of those has anything to do with a paper cup?

Or maybe a better question, have you considered how many people have just died and gone to hell while you were pre-occupied being culturally relevant?

Does it bother you that we’ve come to a point in American “Christianity” where we expect a secular coffee company to evangelize and churches to offer fancy coffee? (If that doesn’t sober you up, put down your computer and find the closest Bible-believing church and learn how to evangelize or email us for help.)

If this post describes you, repent. Turn from your sin of selfishness, as if the Gospel’s effectiveness depends on your wit, and simply proclaim the Gospel so that the lost may be saved (Romans 10:17).

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to my local Starbucks to share the Gospel.

Soli Deo Gloria!