Skip to main content

Jadaizers and being Culturally Relevant

Just some food for thought..

I was talking to my friend yesterday about the dangers of being too culturally relevant as a church. My husband likened it to the Judaizers of the New Testament. Remembering that the Judaizers were trying to tell the Gentiles that they had to look and act a certain way in order to be truly saved. Sometimes a church can perceive our culture saying to the church that the church needs to be just like the culture in order for people to want to be there and to get saved. Just an interesting comparison.

My thoughts about the need to be or not be culturally relevant is that I come back to the questions, "Who is the one who saves?" Do we save? Or is God the one who saves? By attempting to be more and more culturally relevant, I think it is easy to put our trust in ourselves rather than God and to think that it is our efforts, not God's that bring someone to salvation. But, that isn't true. It isn't Biblical at all. It is by grace through faith that we are saved--it is God's work that saves us--not our own.

Comments

Kim said…
I couldn't agree more. I have recently come to the conclusion that on the issue of salvation there seems to be very little difference between the RCC and most mainstream American evangelical churches. They all want to make salvation dependent upon some action we must take. Also, if you look at some of the more "relevant" churches you often find members starving for the Word. It is a very sad paradox.
February 2, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comparison of Verses

Tonight I was reading the Mom's Bible again (NCV) and compared this verse: NCV Ephesians 5:22-24 22 Wives, yield to your husbands, as you do to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. And he is the Savior of the body, which is the church. 24 As the church yields to Christ, so you wives should yield to your husbands in everything. NIV Ephesians 5:22-24 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. The Message 22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewis...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grieved

Why is it that my generation (I belong to Gen X) and generations after us always seem to think that they know more than the generations that have come before us? Why is there such a lack of respect in our generation for our elders? Why do we think that the liturgy of the church and hymns are irrelevant? It is ironic to me that the emergent movement is saying that the seeker sensitive movement is irrelevant. It seems as if it was only a few years ago when it was the seeker sensitive movement that said to the traditional church that it (the traditional church) was irrelevant. I'm reading a book with all of these big words and I want to be honest--I didn't understand a lot of it. I'm not dumb. I understood most of it, but the author was assuming a lot of background knowledge on the part of the reader. Most of the time I learn deep theological concepts and then I have to store them in my "attic" (as Autumn would say) because there isn't enough room in the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

ESV, NIV, or NASB and then there's the ICB, ESV or NIrV...which should we read?

I am so thankful for my friend's question about the ESV vs. NASB and NIV. I couldn't remember the difference so I went to look it up. I knew that John Piper and Tim Keller, both pastors and authors that I deeply respect have switched over to the ESV. All of the churches that we have attended over the past few years PCA or Reformed Baptist have also switched to the ESV. I did find a blog that explained the differences and that helped me ( http://thefoolishgalatian.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/niv-vs-esv-and-why-piper-switched/ ) I knew why I didn't like the KJV--it was written in the days when writers were paid by a patron and that often slanted the translation. The NKJV, from what I understand, is a revision of the KJV that uses more modern language. Most churches I have attended used the NIV until the ESV came out. The blog I found explained that the ESV is a more literal translation---like the NASB. The NASB is a very literal translation. The ESV has come to be consid...
Post a Comment
Read more