To Hear and Do Differently
Recovering the Lost Word, Reforming the Lost Church
It’s not easy to stand out from the crowd. Sometimes the effect of the crowd makes you not want to find what is truly there in God’s Word. But if you truly seek to hear and obey the Word in your generation, you will almost certainly look strange. You may also find that there are things in the Bible which “got lost” within your generation for a reason. Why? Because if people really heard and did some of those things, it might just turn the world upside down. And that wouldn’t be convenient at all.
Culture and Belief
There are many things which Christians believe or practice merely because it is the predominant belief or practice within their church circles or the wider culture of their time.
Some of these things may seem relatively innocuous, like what car you drive or what food you eat. Other things may seem equally innocuous, like whether a child plays more video games than reads books, or how you dress. We seldom notice the way such things can often be indicative of a trajectory of much deeper theological and moral compromise, even without thinking about it.
So afraid are we of “legalism”—the asserting of extrabiblical rules and commands onto the Christian life—that we easily drift into a kind of apathy in how we engage with culture, picking up the habits of the world subconsciously. The way you live, the things you do or don’t do, the way you talk or don’t talk, the way you dress or don’t dress, ultimately ends up shaping what you think or don’t think, what you believe and don’t believe.
We have often basked in our freedom to do whatever we want, citing Paul along the way, that “All things are lawful,” without citing his main point that “not all things are helpful” and “not all things build up.” (1Cor. 10:23). There are many ways you can live your life which are not technically “sinful” but which may likely lay the pathway for compromise further down the line.
The cultural trappings we imbibe can be like bad friends who mislead you down the wrong path. As Paul says, citing the Greek poet, Menander: “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’” (1Cor. 15:33). To not be misled by the cultural voices and practices and traditions which surround us means rejecting different ways of life, ways which tear down life all too easily:
“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.”(Psalm 1:1-2)
Many read these verses and think, “but I don’t take counsel from wicked people” or “but I don’t sit with the scoffers”. But in allowing themselves to be utterly drenched in the spirit of the age through various media and lifestyle choices, they may find their commitments and convictions slowly change over time, having been subtly propagandised by the ocean of content in which they swim (or drown).
There are worldviews embedded in much of what we do which, if left unchecked, will attempt to “disciple” us in a different direction than God’s Word. Look around you sometime and ask yourself how much of what you or your Christian community does which is rooted in God’s Word, and how much is rooted in the conventions of their generation?
We may set out with good intentions to meditate on God’s Word “day and night” but over enough time, a passive approach to cultural life soon impedes upon and misleads us. This is why we have seen so many churches compromising on feminism, abortion, LGBT+, Critical Race Theory, etc. in our time, because such things became mere “optional” cultural opinions to many Christians, things you could have “a different opinion” about without further consequence, like supporting this or that football team, or preferring this or that flavour of crisps.
Where are the Trusted Leaders?
It is to the leaders of the churches that we have looked to provide shepherding for us with regard to some of these things. But in many cases (thanks in no small part due to the unofficial policy of cultural “engagement” in effect over the last few decades) it was the leaders themselves who first opened the door to compromise in the first place.
We tend to look at the trusted voices, the people who have been around longer than us, who have built or led things over a sustained period, and we tend to conclude that they are trustworthy on cultural “grey areas” too.
It is a good (and Biblical) thing to honour and trust the leaders who go before you when the fruit of their life and ministry is good and faithful and God-honouring.
But there are moments when you may find yourself reading something in the Bible and thinking: "But no one believes or practices that. No one talks like that. We don't even have a category for that! We almost act as if it doesn't say that at all..."
At such times, we may be tempted to think:
"Surely Leader-so-and-so is more likely to know better than me here…?"
"Well, Movement-such-and-such doesn't feel the need to apply those verses today so how important can they really be…?"
"If this is what we should be believing or practising then surely more Christians would be doing it…?"
"If God really meant what the Scripture seems to say there, then surely there would be some fruit to show among those who put this into practice today?"
Well, not necessarily. If we're reading our Bibles correctly, we will see that oversights over the hearing and application of God's Word are manifold and occur in different ways in every generation.
It's also true that sometimes we are deceived by the perceived goodness of the fruit in Leader-so-and-so. Sometimes, the fruit is not as good as it seemed. Sometimes, it was just not-so-bad fruit which looked like good fruit compared with the more obviously bad fruit they saw or tasted elsewhere. Sometimes, it was good fruit for one season, but not so good for another season.
In any case, good fruit in one or even many areas does not imply a quasi-papal infallibility for that leader or church or movement. It's not that Leader-so-and-so might have missed things; they will have missed things. They will have failed to apply things. And so will we, given enough time. That’s why God keeps raising up new faithful leaders each generation (cf. 2Tim. 2:2).
Our duty is to do our best to hear the Word and to do it, however inconvenient it will seem in light of our own context. The Church has many different branches with many different members, even as we are imbued with the same spirit (1Cor. 12:4-6) and as we together have the mind of Christ (1Cor. 2:16).
Rediscovering the Word
To those who discover emphases in the Bible for which they currently see no existing frame of reference in the churches or leaders they have hitherto trusted, they might first look at church history beyond recent decades or centuries.
Quite often there are precedents which have been entirely forgotten based on applications of Scripture which have become lost in the Minas Tirith library, as it were.
Swathes of the Church seem to have moved on without them and, we may think, seem to have gotten along ok. But after a while, in a new time, that neglect is likely to come back to haunt them in some way, when there are new challenges and new consequences to attend to.
The truly authoritative gauge for truth, of course, is not "history" (past or present) but the Word of God. Still, history does act as an important litmus test for how the Word has been heard and applied in contexts which are not burdened by the prevalent preconceptions of our age (see C.S. Lewis much-cited point on "chronological snobbery"). It’s helpful to see where most of the Christians our generation actually look like the weirdos, and to find kinship with those who went before us long before the trusted leaders of our own time. This reminds us of G.K. Chesterton’s famous definition of tradition: “the democracy of the dead”.
Thankfully, there are an increasing number of faithful Christian leaders emerging today who are seeking to recover what has been lost. Like when Hilkiah unexpectedly found the lost Book of the Law (2Kgs. 22:8), such leaders may find themselves surprised to “find” aspects of God's Word—whether theological doctrine, political emphasis, story, law, even “inappropriate” tone[!]—which have long gone forgotten by those around them.
It takes courage not only to see what has been lost but to do something about it. It is especially difficult to do this without unfairly reviling our contemporaries, without failing to show honour where honour is due, yet refusing to sweep the emphases of God's Word under the rug for fear of causing offence.
To those who see what has been lost, the challenge is not merely to complain about that loss and expect others to see it in theory, but to put what has been “found” into practice in one’s own life and community first, and to build from there.
You will probably look crazy for a time, as Noah did, as Moses did, as Jeremiah did, as Jesus did, as Paul did. You will almost certainly be attacked for it too, often by those who you thought were on the same team. This is what tends to happen when you stand out against compromise or neglect because it exposes those who refuse to see it, or who see it but refuse to do anything about it.
In time, if such reformational pioneers are indeed being truly faithful to the Word of God over and above the knowledge and praises of (wo)men, and if they are truly willing not merely to hear it but to put it into practice, then they will have built something which will not only produce good fruit but will survive the storms of the future.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matt. 7:24-27)
Jesus really did mean what he said. And woe to those who refuse to heed it just because no one else in the playground happens to be doing it right now.