Many years ago, although to me it doesn’t seem so long, I worked as a program director and disc jockey at a radio station in Missouri. There was always a radio on, as our “on air broadcast went throughout the radio station. Every room, (even the restrooms) had a speaker to hear what was going out to the public.
Most of the time no one ever really listened - unless there was a mistake. Let something or someone “mess up” and it was like lightning striking…you heard it loud and clear and you couldn’t ignore it. The person “messing up” might not have realized they made a mistake, but everyone else did. A little misquote, verbal stumble, or Freudian slip was like an alarm. I guess that’s why I can have the TV on and not hear anything until something unordinary comes through those speakers.
Yesterday I was half-listening to the news while they were running the story of a Christian bookstore’s refusal to sell a “Christian” magazine because of the cover. The cover and feature story was of women preachers and how inspirational, influential, and revolutionary they were. The bookstore had taken them off the shelves feeling they went against their sponsoring church’s beliefs.
But it was the reaction of the customers that made me perk up to listen. There were the normal “first amendment rights” comments, and those of “gender improvement”, etc. I’m not even going to debate those points, because the one statement that really hit me hardest was the woman who said …“It’s time for the church to catch up with the world”.
It reminded me that many in the religious world today think that it’s the job of religion and the church to “keep up with society”. The Bible, I believe, teaches the opposite. Society needs to keep up with the word of God proclaimed through His church. Jesus designed the church and all of its teachings. Who designed the ways of the world? Satan did that, of course. I don’t think, in spite of this lady’s thoughts, that the church needs to “come up to the worlds’ standards”.
There are many brilliant people that want “change” in this country, not just in politics, but in Christianity. They would like to make religion “more palatable”, less exclusive, and less intrusive for people today. The Bible never taught any of these things. For the church to “catch up with the world” would mean to follow the teachings of men not God. Jesus warned against that very thing in Mark 7:6-8…He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men." The church doesn’t need to catch up to the world, the world needs to catch up to the church!
Pray that we never lose sight of the “Truth”. And the only way to do that is put your eyes, ears, and heart into the scriptures. That’s the way to put “change” into society. WE ARE the instrument of change when we obey the scriptures. Society, nor anyone or anything else can withstand the power of the Word of God.
I heard the sound bite of that lady, now please let me leave you with a couple more I have heard: “Use it or lose it!”…read your Bible, don’t take anyone’s word except God’s;
Second… “Popular is not always right… and what is right is not always popular!”
2 Tim 4:3-4… For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Bob Chilton