I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the
one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different
gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing
you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if
we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we
preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so
now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you
accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:6-9)
I’m not sure Paul
should have been so astonished. The Israelites went from “We will follow You!”
to “Let’s make an idol” in less than forty days. How many days passed between
the conquest at Jericho and the failure at Ai? Joshua’s farewell address to the
Israelites was estimated to have been given in 1375 BC, which is the same year
that Micah and his mother (Ephraimites) made an idol of silver. Have you
noticed the common thread in these events? The people of God looked around and
decided they wanted – needed – to be more like the world. They needed –
deserved – the world’s stuff.
I’ve noticed a similar cycle in broader history. Whenever “the Church” seeks worldly goals or even the best of goals but in a worldly manner, there’s trouble. Whenever the Church moves away from worldly goals and worldly methods, the outcome is positive. The problem is, there’s a lot more pressure for the Church to move toward the World than for the World to move toward the Church.
One of the worldly ways of doing things right now has been brought to us by Social Media. How many friends do you have? How many likes do your posts get? As a writer, I’m told that I need – absolutely must – build a platform of followers so that publishers know in advance that there will be sales for my stories. If you’re not liked and followed, you’re nothing. I have a friend who doesn’t think Betsy DeVos is a good choice for Secretary of the Department of Education. She recently challenged me with “proof” that Mrs. DeVos is a failure… some students booed her at a speech she gave.
Put aside the gross failures of logic in the details of the argument, the point was that if you aren’t “liked” you are garbage. If you aren’t liked, you should be granted no power. It doesn’t even matter if only ten out of a hundred don’t like you. Or ten out of a thousand. Your objective contribution means nothing unless you gain the subjective approval of the masses.
I suspect we all do it. I find myself doing something similar even as I write this short essay. As I type what I want to say, red and blue lines underscore some words. The red lines mean I spelled something wrong. The blue mean that there’s a problem with my grammar. “In order to” always gets marked. If I get rid of “In order,” the grammar checker is happy. Over and over, I accommodate the program. Its approval means that my writing is “good enough.”
The Church suffers from this same problem. People call us to be “seeker-friendly” – to find ways to make the people of the world like us. Supposedly, in doing this we can draw them away from the world, but the problem is that we become more like the world. We turn away from the Truth that is found in the Bible to gain the approval of those who say we must follow their rules. Let those who preach a different gospel from the one found in Scripture be eternally condemned – no matter how many people in the world like it better.
I’ve noticed a similar cycle in broader history. Whenever “the Church” seeks worldly goals or even the best of goals but in a worldly manner, there’s trouble. Whenever the Church moves away from worldly goals and worldly methods, the outcome is positive. The problem is, there’s a lot more pressure for the Church to move toward the World than for the World to move toward the Church.
One of the worldly ways of doing things right now has been brought to us by Social Media. How many friends do you have? How many likes do your posts get? As a writer, I’m told that I need – absolutely must – build a platform of followers so that publishers know in advance that there will be sales for my stories. If you’re not liked and followed, you’re nothing. I have a friend who doesn’t think Betsy DeVos is a good choice for Secretary of the Department of Education. She recently challenged me with “proof” that Mrs. DeVos is a failure… some students booed her at a speech she gave.
Put aside the gross failures of logic in the details of the argument, the point was that if you aren’t “liked” you are garbage. If you aren’t liked, you should be granted no power. It doesn’t even matter if only ten out of a hundred don’t like you. Or ten out of a thousand. Your objective contribution means nothing unless you gain the subjective approval of the masses.
I suspect we all do it. I find myself doing something similar even as I write this short essay. As I type what I want to say, red and blue lines underscore some words. The red lines mean I spelled something wrong. The blue mean that there’s a problem with my grammar. “In order to” always gets marked. If I get rid of “In order,” the grammar checker is happy. Over and over, I accommodate the program. Its approval means that my writing is “good enough.”
The Church suffers from this same problem. People call us to be “seeker-friendly” – to find ways to make the people of the world like us. Supposedly, in doing this we can draw them away from the world, but the problem is that we become more like the world. We turn away from the Truth that is found in the Bible to gain the approval of those who say we must follow their rules. Let those who preach a different gospel from the one found in Scripture be eternally condemned – no matter how many people in the world like it better.
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