Nothing New Under The Sun

                                        Nothing New Under the Sun

In a recent printing of the 'Woodstock Sentinel-Review' paper, I read an article entitled 'Desperate Christians Lose Message'.  In the article, the author expressed an interesting view on modern day evangelism.  He states that the way in which the church communicates to non-believers is 'virtually incomprehensible' to most modern people. He goes on to say that if we are to continue preaching the gospel in the modern world, the 'core message' of the gospel must be 're-thought and re-cast', that 'Old ideas and forumlae have either to be dumped or radically reinterpreted', and that 'every religion is a metaphor for God and the innate divinity of every human being on the planet', since humans are undergoing a ‘constant evolutino to a higher state of being and a maturity of wisdom.’  This wrong view of God and of man echoes the ideas that are so prevalent amongst much of unbelieving society today, and it brings up a couple of questions. One, Is the world of today truly so different that it needs a completely different gospel? And two, even if the world is different, has God, the author of the gospel, changed in such a way that the core gospel message is no longer relevant?
    To answer the first question, we must take a look at the statement that man is undergoing a 'constant evolution to a higher state of being and a maturity of wisdom'.  Is there actually evidence that man is becoming wiser as time progresses?  It is certainly true that technology has advanced with time, but that is to be expected...a man may go for a walk and get further and further with every step without changing the core makeup of his body.  The exercise may strengthen the outer shell of the man, but the inside stays the same. In the same way, mankind may get further and further in the fields of scientific and technological discoveries, and yet the core structure of mankind and society stays basically unchanged.   Man is still just as much driven by pride, love, hate, lust, greed, selfishness and power as it has ever been.  As high-tech as the outer packaging may become, the core of man stays just as 'immature in wisdom' as it has ever been.
    The second question is an interesting one. Has God changed? Is the God that we know now the same God who sent his son to die on the cross for the sins of a lost and sinful people? Let us think through the implications of such a claim. Harper would have us believe in a God who can be found in every religion in the world. In this case, this is a completely different God than the one about whom Christ says in John 14:6 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me'.  We must assume, then, that we are now speaking of a God removed from the God of the Bible.  We are speaking of an abstract God of whom there is no biblical or any other sort of evidence.  What society has done is separated God from the saving work of Christ.  The 'God' that modern man wishes us to preach is now either a God of judgement, who has no means of saving his people, or a powerless God who looks down at the world and cannot do anything about the mess that man has made of it.   If God has indeed changed in such a way, every person living on the face of the earth may as well hang their heads in despair and consign themselves to hell, for a God such as the one described here is not the loving, saving Father of the Bible.  If men wish to allow for the saving work of Christ, then they cannot believe in the God they profess. This God cannot logically exist.
    However wrong the premise of the article may have been, that is not to say that it didn’t have a nugget of truth within it..  William Cowper said ‘A fool must now and then be right by chance’. In this case, I tend to think the only thing this particular fool was correct about was his statement that religious communication can be difficult to understand for many modern people.  Although his way of making the language ‘understandable’ to the modern ear was to change the meaning completely, there is still something to be mined from his statement.  A fairly new comer to the reformed church myself, I know firsthand how confusing it is to be thrown into the world of the ‘Catechism’ and the ‘Proto-evangelium’ and many other technical terms common in reformed theology.  As far as communicating the faith goes, I would encourage the church of God to make sure every new-comer to the church has a simple, but working knowledge of the gospel before filling in the technical information.  At the same time, however, it must be understood that the church is not a place to feed milk to infants...it is a place to feed good strong theological food to growing Christians.  When I say that the church should make new-comers comfortable with the foundation of their faith before building on it, I do not mean to say that the church services should always be kept simple for the sake of new Christians.  However, it would be a wonderful if every church had more opportunities for these new Christians to be taught the basics, thereby allowing them to better understand the Gospel in its fullness.  Perhaps something as simple as an elder who takes a moment to walk up to a guest and say, ‘did you understand everything in the sermon?’ or, ‘is there anything about the message that you would like me to explain?’.  It would also be a very wise thing to have a ‘Introduction to the faith’ bible study available to those who need it.
    In conclusion, what the article called the ‘lost message’ has not been lost at all, except by those why reject it and try to change it as much of modern society has done.   Man has not changed, and God has not changed. The Gospel message is just as relevant today as it was when it was first written.








><>RileyRose<><