Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Scripture
Al Mohler discusses a Christianity Today article (subscription only) on people not listening to the Bible anymore. Two key quotes from Mark Galli's CT piece:
This situation reflects the fact that we no longer want to hear that we are sinners that need to have our character reformed. We are all so happy with ourselves that we just need "a little guidance" for a rough patch. That's not even cheap grace, that's no grace. If we are not sinners, then grace is not needed.
The church caters to this because the church more and more appears in need of audience becasue audience fills the plates and pays the pastors and staff. We have quit leading and started following. We no longer lead people to Christ we beg them for attention.
What a lack of faith that represents, it means that we assume that the Christian life is not as attractive as the alternatives out there, so we have to bend the Christian life to be more attractive. If we do not find the Christian life attractive, what will none Christians find?
I need to pray now.
church leadership scripture sin
It has been said to the point of boredom that we live in a narcissistic age, where we are wont to fixate on our needs, our wants, our wishes, and our hopes—at the expense of others and certainly at the expense of God. We do not like it when a teacher uses up the whole class time presenting her material, even if it is material from the Word of God. We want to be able to ask our questions about our concerns, otherwise we feel talked down to, or we feel the class is not relevant to our lives.What this reflects is a deep, deep problem. There is no question that the Bible often is not directly relevant to a specific situation, but that is not the point. The point is that being a person steeped in scripture is one vital and important aspect of developing character and character gives us the tools to behave as a Christian in a situation where we do not have direct guidance.
[...]
It is well and good for the preacher to base his sermon on the Bible, but he better get to something relevant pretty quickly, or we start mentally to check out. Don’t spend a lot of time in the Bible, we tell our preachers, but be sure to get to personal illustrations, examples from daily life, and most importantly, an application that we can use.
This situation reflects the fact that we no longer want to hear that we are sinners that need to have our character reformed. We are all so happy with ourselves that we just need "a little guidance" for a rough patch. That's not even cheap grace, that's no grace. If we are not sinners, then grace is not needed.
The church caters to this because the church more and more appears in need of audience becasue audience fills the plates and pays the pastors and staff. We have quit leading and started following. We no longer lead people to Christ we beg them for attention.
What a lack of faith that represents, it means that we assume that the Christian life is not as attractive as the alternatives out there, so we have to bend the Christian life to be more attractive. If we do not find the Christian life attractive, what will none Christians find?
I need to pray now.
church leadership scripture sin
