Questions & Answers

Someone asked me why I had posted a series of questions as my last entry. They were of the opinion that the questions were self answering. While that may be the case for a lot of people, it is certainly not the case for the culture at large. I would dare say that there are a lot of people out there that would answer these questions quite differently than I would.

Take for example the first two questions. They are closely connected-
Why do we have to be "relevant" to the culture around us?
Isn't scripture relevant all by it's self?
I would argue that while we should not try to preach the gospel in a way that would deliberately drive people away, neither should we water it down so much that it just becomes a "feel good" speech, or maybe some kind of motivational pep talk, leading the hearer to believe that God is ok with them just the way they are. We do not become more relevant just because we look to entertain people with a funny sermon that satisfies their "felt needs", to the point that it is almost unrecognizable as the gospel. The gospel is by nature devisive, and some will find it offensive. What happens when we make the gospel unoffensive to all? It ceases to be the gospel at all. I found the following paragraph at this blog. It says in a much more concise manner than I could ever do, the importance of maintaining solid Biblical doctrine.

The Church needs to express with strength and clarity the nature of God, Christ, and the gospel in terms of propositional truth claims and then demand that the world submit to the Person who embodies that truth or suffer eternal consequences. That is what god has placed us here for. Since the stakes are eternal, the truth should be maintained as purely as possible and expressed in the clearest and most concise of terms. When this is no longer taking place, the Church becomes irrelevant for it has lost its essential purpose. It is no longer salt or light. If we have nothing certain to offer the mass of floundering humanity on which they may hang their faith, then what on earth are we even doing here? If in our effort to be relevant we lose our uniqueness and purpose then we are no longer relevant at all.

I guess I sort of got into answering the question about watering down the gospel too. I will post more later.