Time and again, the church has been faced with a need to have a theology that’s both relevant and scriptural. The desire for a message that’s relevant to people is not out of place because any knowledge that’s irrelevant to man is a sheer waste of time. More so, God wouldn’t be saying anything to man if it wasn’t relevant to him. But the dilemma lies in getting stuck with the word ‘relevant’ while pushing the word ‘scriptural’ far away into dead silence. That way, the church seeks to know what’s relevant to the people from the people; which is a fatal route to compromise. Not only does this lead to compromise, it’s an affront on God’s wisdom and omniscience. Doesn’t an all knowing God know what’s relevant to man without consulting him? What do we think we are doing when we begin to hear from men to preach to men? It’s quite interesting that men don’t know what they need at times. Back in high school, I recall how we mocked Mathematics by asking if it would be relevant in everyday life. We were wrong, but our lack of interest was the very reason why such thoughts crept in, in the first place.
And that’s the real problem.
The world is saying God’s word is not relevant to them because they are not interested! I wish I could scream this so loud in your ears right now. The bible is so explicit and clear on this reality – the world is not interested in God. Ignorance is the reason why the church isn’t responding appropriately to these questions about relevance. We feel the best way to serve an unbelieving world and generation is to change our message or adapt it to their whims and desires, but that’s erroneous! Such an attempt is the reason why we have a multitude that’s both churchy and worldly – a profound form of godliness. The messages are nothing more than human philosophy and wisdom with some verses of the bible sprinkled on them like sugar on the dough. We are busy saying what they want and then adding verses like the icing on the cake so we don’t sound totally humanistic and secular. Sometimes, I think to myself: ‘Why are we acting as though our issues are peculiar?’
This disinterest, lack of affection and desire for God’s word isn’t new. The children of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years and they rejected God’s word and His faith, till the whole generation that came out of Egypt perished in the wilderness. Guess what? God didn’t change His message in spite of their unbelief and stiff-necked disposition. He kept speaking and they kept disbelieving. And He kept speaking. And He is still speaking. Jesus ministered to the Jews at a time in history when the lies of the sects of the Sadducees and Pharisees, with the Herodians, and Priests had gained root. They rejected Him and His word – ‘He came to His own but His own did not receive Him’ (John 1:11), but He kept speaking to them without compromise. Today, as the voices of unbelief blare loudly on the airwaves, and the tweets and grams of pessimism, skepticism, and doubts compete for our attention on social media:
‘The bible is not relevant again!’
‘It was Paul and the rest that came up with a story’
‘There was no Jesus’
‘We need our own bible that can address our own issues’
Let us remind ourselves that, the bible is still relevant.
It has never been irrelevant, and will never be.
For a minute, consider some of the things the bible teaches:
Salvation; Faith & Hope; Love; Forgiveness; Repentance, etc. What about godly Instructions concerning marriage, parenting, citizenship, work, money, etc. Question is, which of this is now irrelevant?!
God is still speaking the same things.
He is not sending any other bible.
It’s the same ancient word inspired by His Spirit
GOD HAS SPOKEN IN HIS SON
You either believe or perish.
God forbid I’m politically correct!
Does this make you uneasy?
If yes, then you have also been ensnared by the current wave of deceit and error looming all around us. You must have fallen victim of the constant assault on the faith that’s being strategically promoted by the powers that be. But listen to Jesus dear friend, ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.’ (Matthew 24:35). So, God isn’t about to change His mind. Now, can we talk about the relevance of God’s word?
I remember the story of a young man that was bitten by a rabid dog. He was taken to the hospital and the doctor prescribed an injection to be taken over a period of time but the young man was negligent and didn’t complete the dosage. The absence of symptoms made him lose interest in the whole thing but he was about to pay with his dear life. The symptoms of rabid kicked in fully later and he was barking like a dog. He died. True story.
You see, just like the doctor, GOD HAS A DIAGNOSIS. He says the world is in sin and darkness. Not only does He have a diagnosis; He also has a prescription – His gospel by which men are made righteous and brought into the light. But the world has a choice to accept that diagnosis. The world isn’t feeling the full weight of sin and death at the moment, (though the evidence abounds all around us in the evil and wickedness oozing out of the cosmos on a daily basis), so they are acting unconcerned.
But I wish that young man had somebody around him to constantly let him see the relevance of the injections. I wish there was someone around him who wouldn’t dismiss the need for that treatment, but would be a voice reminding him of the need for it.
You see that kind of voice? That’s what Christ sent His church to be to this world groping in darkness! They have been diagnosed but they want something else because the full symptoms of spiritual death hasn’t kicked in. Instead of trying to change the report; we are to keep showing them perhaps, some would come to repentance. The condition of man in every generation will not change – ALL HAVE SINNED AND FALLEN SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD. And the solution to this will also not change – BEING JUSTIFIED FREELY BY HIS GRACE THROUGH THE REDEMPTION THAT IS IN CHRIST JESUS (Romans 3:23-24). Man will always be in need of salvation. We are living in a digital age but the heart of man is not yet digital; it’s still the same heart Christ came to fix. The heart of man is still desperately evil and wicked as it was in those days (Jeremiah 17:9). Our so called modern day problems aren’t really peculiar.
I’ve heard people say divorce rate is increasing these days. I agree, but so is birth rate too! The population of the world has spiked since the days of Christ and His Apostles, so there’s bound to be more of the problems they dealt with, but not much is different! People had been divorcing since the days of Moses, and Jesus said it was because of the hardness of their hearts (Matthew 19:8; Mark 10:5). Guess what changes the hearts of men? THE GOSPEL! So, the more there’s divorce, the more we need the message of the bible!
What about the issue of infidelity in marriage? It’s not new! The bible calls it sexual immorality or adultery. It an age long issue. What about domestic abuse? Rape? Homosexuality? All these issues are almost as old as humanity itself, but God’s ultimate and all time solution is the GOSPEL OF JESUS! This is God’s answer to the sin problem or the wickedness in the hearts of men.
Interestingly, we have been forewarned and adequately prepared for times like this, in the same bible. So, it turns out the bible is relevant enough to even answer those asking if it is relevant. Let’s see some verses:
2 Timothy 4:2-4; “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”
These are the times we are living in; people are no longer enduring sound doctrine. The cry for a practical or pragmatic teaching which is mostly an offshoot of secularism is only a deflection from their real need – the GOSPEL. The moment we start dancing to their tune as a church, we are already rehearsing our swan song. The church of Christ will become irrelevant the moment we seek to be relevant to the world outside what the word instructs us to preach and teach. Jesus didn’t change His message because of the rejection of men. In fact, for Paul, some of his audience tagged his message foolishness, and they were demanding earthly wisdom; something more pragmatic and ‘relatable’!
1 Corinthians 1:22-24; “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Paul didn’t enrol in a school of Philosophy to astonish, daze, or match the wisdom of the elites of his time; rather he preached Christ crucified to them. When the world rejects the bible message as irrelevant to them, we have to show them THE ETERNAL RELEVANCE OF THE MESSAGE, instead of watering it down with sensual or earthly wisdom. If we corrupt the word with humanistic ideologies and secularism, we’ll lead men to embrace a pseudo faith and belief system. Paul explains this at 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Did you see that? People’s faith will be in the wisdom of men and not in the power of God if we do not stay with proclaiming Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Christ is the wisdom of God! Elsewhere, Paul says he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God to save.
Romans 1:15-17; “So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”
The world in all its astounding discoveries, staggering feat in research and advancement in different fields cannot find salvation or righteousness in their wisdom. The gospel remains the only way by which a man would be made right with God. How is this not relevant today? We must never fall for the ‘relevance’ trap. We must remind ourselves regularly that our message is RELEVANT to the degree that it is SCRIPTURAL.
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