I recently saw on a Southern Baptist Facebook page a David Platt meme where he is quoted as saying, "We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the Gospel is American and how much is Biblical." I thought it was a really good quote. Nothing could be more Biblical than saying that the Word and the Word alone defines our Christianity.
Should the other side - the post-modern side - be rebuked, though, since their side contains some who are not professing Christians? Well in the west, Christianity has been so engrained that if one isn’t a Christian, there’s a good chance that they still have some kind of working knowledge of the Bible. Therefore they are accountable to scrutiny with their view of the Bible - and their morality in general - the same as the Christians.
The fact is that both sides can be accused of picking and choosing what to keep and what to discard based on what fits their own version of utopia. Many who would “amen” Platt’s meme are those rightly opposed to an old Americanized version of Christianity. But if opponents aren't careful, their opposition may only be in favor of a new Americanized Christianity. They may be after a 21stcentury love-centered red-letter Christianity that is only hard-hitting to the old side. And in that way, they may simply replace the old Pharisaism with a new one. We always have to be careful not to simply replace one mode of Pharisaism with another. Note I say, "we," because none are immune to this tendency.
Biblical Christianity
Without tossing out Platt’s statement all together, because I think he makes a good point that should especially be considered by the older side, I’d pear it down and restate it as thus: “We need to explore whether or not our understanding of the Gospel is Biblical.” That’s all. And that requires knowing the Bible. Biblical illiteracy among professing Christians in the Christian west is bafflingly low.
I think there are a couple of reasons for this:
I think there are a couple of reasons for this:
1. Church attenders don’t want to know the Bible. So they don’t listen when it’s preached, but are only in church to ease their conscience, and not to hear from Jesus as He speaks through His anointed preachers who expound His word.
2. Pastors don’t preach the Bible. They either preach series based on the latest bestsellers, never expounding entire books of the Bible which would lead their people through an end-to-end completion of thought based on an occasion of sacred writing. Or they preach based on their own opinions and angry passions regarding what they see as wrong with the world.
3. Churches and denominations are often only committed to the Bible in name only. I remember hearing in college of something called Bibliolatry, which is the worship of the Bible instead of the worship of the God of the Bible. The point is that we shouldn’t make too much of the Bible, and this is true. But it’s also true that we don’t want to make too little of the Bible. If we don’t let Scripture define the church’s mission, right and wrong for the individual and the world, and everything else, we’ll define these things somehow, based on some other criteria. In my experience, most of those talking about bibliolatry are those who aren't prepared to let the Bible define our standards for us. If the church were to get serious about the Bible’s message, believing that it gives a clear message that if followed would lead us into the Promised Land, the church would be more unified than it is. But instead, the visible church is divided because the Bible’s message isn’t heralded, and that is because the Bible’s message isn’t pursued, and therefore it is neither heard nor understood.
The Story
I was a youth pastor in my early 20s who was a cultural Christian from the time I was a teen. When a church in my home state brought me on post-college to work with youth and lead the music, they graciously gave me time to study God’s word so I could teach God’s word. Even in my cultural Christianity I just had a sense that the Bible was true. As I worked in this church and read the Bible, I came alive, because the story gave rise to certain clear conclusions about God, man, sin, the world, etc. etc.
Each book of the Bible has a unique genre and setting, but they all contribute to the same story, displaying a rather impressive unity even in the midst of the Bible’s complexity.*** In essence, and this is what I’ve been preaching now for the last 7 years in the pulpit, the story is this:
-God made man for Himself, to rule over His creation.
-Man ran away from God, in sin, following Satan’s temptation and his own reasoning. Now he has an innate rebellious nature in both thought and action.
-The Old Testament bears out this rebellion in detail through Israel’s history, while also establishing patterns for the coming redemption.
-Jesus is the God-man who came on a rescue mission to live a perfect life so as to be a perfect Lamb who, in his dying, reconciles men to the God from whom they’ve run. God is justly angry at sin, and yet merciful in offering His Son for the salvation of men. Through Jesus, men are brought into a just state with God as Jesus bore their sin and the punishment earned therein. In Jesus’ rising from death, He brings about a new creation where righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13).
-People who listen to Jesus and follow Him have, in the Holy Spirit, His presence with them until He returns to earth a second time to fully establish His new heavens and new earth.
-Until that day, they walk together in love, spurring one another on in love and good works, sharing His love with their neighbors, in hopes that they’ll repent and embrace Jesus, who to know is eternal life (Matt. 5:17). They can't fix every problem in the world, but they try to shine Jesus' light into their world, to effect change for good.
Gripped
When this story grips you, your prior agendas are shaken off (though you may at times fall back into those old patterns of thinking) and replaced by a better story. America isn’t God's Zion. And conversely, while the poor and marginalized in society need to be loved and cared for, more than anything they need Jesus. Rich, poor, man, woman, black, white, etc. etc., all need the real Jesus, because Adam's fallen pride is an innate fatal flaw in each one of us.
When you see this as the story, you see Jesus as the answer to life’s problems, because now you can see clearly to discern what are the real problems. The problems are not just in “them” (whoever "they" are), but in me. And just like Jesus is renewing me, He can renew all others if they’ll listen and consider the claims of the Bible in it’s clarity (which may require my sharing it).
Therefore you don’t think old-school American fundamentalists are the only ones with a propensity to get the gospel wrong. You assume all people can get the Gospel wrong. And the only way to get it right is to put yourself before Jesus and ask Him to cut the lines straight and set your feet on the true path. Fighting the tendency to spend all your energy calling out the problems, you begin offering the solution, because you know the solution. And His name is Jesus, who lives today, has spoken loud and clear, and is in the business of leading people into light.
Platt was making a good point that confronts many old-school American Christians. My prayer is that not only they but also all those who don't fit into that category will consider the point, because all of us have a propensity to miss the Bible’s message and get the Gospel wrong. Let’s listen to Jesus and follow Him into the truth.
*Robert Bellah, “American Civil Religion,” 1967, quoted in Mark Driscoll, Call to Resurgence, 10.
**Bellah, ed. Habits of the Heart, 2008 edition, 142f.
***See Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 22.
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