Romans 14:14 I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.
Many of my independent, fundamental Baptist brethren have made issues and doctrines out of our culture or the change in our culture. They will make these areas a focal point in their preaching or writing. They will preach against them as though there has been a doctrinal dissertation written in the Word of God. However as the Bible clearly teaches in Romans 14:14 that there is nothing unclean of itself - this means that someone may consider something unclean or wrong while another believer may consider the same thing to be clean or right. But the thing or issue is not unclean by itself, this would also include our culture or the change in that culture. It only becomes unclean by a person esteeming it to be unclean. The emphasis is on the person making something or an issue unclean, not the object itself. The Greek is written in the middle voice showing that the emphasis is on the person and not the object.
The Bible is always very plain in what is right and what is wrong or what is clean and what is unclean. The extra-Biblical preaching and writing is destroying the effectiveness and impact of today's Christians by elevating their man-made traditions to be equal with the Word of God. Instead of embracing the change in culture and allow that change to help them to minister in today's society they resist the change and fight against it. This in turn limits their influence and opportunity to help and encourage God's people. This resistance to change and constant fighting with culture has been used to destroy the unity of God's people. The disunity of God's people has in turn limited God in using them.
Let's take as a cultural issue women wearing pants. There are those IFBx Preachers who still are fighting the change in American culture and will wrest the Scriptures to try and prove that it is wrong for women to wear pants. By fighting against culture and the change in culture and not embracing that women who wear pants can love God, can be submitted to their husband and can serve God to a great capacity they have diminished their own influence and effectiveness. When looking at the issue of how a woman is to dress in a Biblical way - modesty is taught, an inward submissiveness is taught, pants or the length of her skirt or dress is not taught. I am sure those that still are fighting culture and the change in culture can give me the chapter and verse in the Scripture and tell me what kind of pants that Jesus wore. Maybe they were Levi's or Calin Klein jeans?
For all the talk of change being wrong, you’d think that it was a predominant biblical issue or doctrine. 2 Corinthians 3:18, "we all…are changed…from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" This is good, right? Change is necessary in the Christian life except for those who have it all figured out and are now living in a state of perfection. (Philippians 3:13) And let’s not forget that Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Paul were powerful agents of change. Of course all change is not necessary or good and We are not to be given to change. (Proverbs 24:21)always changing jobs, always changing spouses, always changing churches, etc. and we are to live a planted life. (Psalm1:3-4, Psalm 92:13)
But what about changing because of the culture? Everyone does it, even those who rail against it. How many churches in America have lighting, heat and air conditioning? These are cultural changes and yes, it was pleasing to the flesh and because of the flesh and culture we made the change. We had no spiritual or scriptural reason to do it, the Apostle Paul’s churches never had any of them, but we made many common sense changes that would make us more appealing in our culture.
There are those who will disagree with what I have written in my blog, but if you are honest with yourself it is the change in culture that has brought about blogs. Yet by logging on the internet, chatting on fourms, twittering, Facebooking or blogging you have embraced cultural change but yet will still hold some man made doctrine higher then the Word of God.
Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
Many of my independent, fundamental Baptist brethren have made issues and doctrines out of our culture or the change in our culture. They will make these areas a focal point in their preaching or writing. They will preach against them as though there has been a doctrinal dissertation written in the Word of God. However as the Bible clearly teaches in Romans 14:14 that there is nothing unclean of itself - this means that someone may consider something unclean or wrong while another believer may consider the same thing to be clean or right. But the thing or issue is not unclean by itself, this would also include our culture or the change in that culture. It only becomes unclean by a person esteeming it to be unclean. The emphasis is on the person making something or an issue unclean, not the object itself. The Greek is written in the middle voice showing that the emphasis is on the person and not the object.
The Bible is always very plain in what is right and what is wrong or what is clean and what is unclean. The extra-Biblical preaching and writing is destroying the effectiveness and impact of today's Christians by elevating their man-made traditions to be equal with the Word of God. Instead of embracing the change in culture and allow that change to help them to minister in today's society they resist the change and fight against it. This in turn limits their influence and opportunity to help and encourage God's people. This resistance to change and constant fighting with culture has been used to destroy the unity of God's people. The disunity of God's people has in turn limited God in using them.
Let's take as a cultural issue women wearing pants. There are those IFBx Preachers who still are fighting the change in American culture and will wrest the Scriptures to try and prove that it is wrong for women to wear pants. By fighting against culture and the change in culture and not embracing that women who wear pants can love God, can be submitted to their husband and can serve God to a great capacity they have diminished their own influence and effectiveness. When looking at the issue of how a woman is to dress in a Biblical way - modesty is taught, an inward submissiveness is taught, pants or the length of her skirt or dress is not taught. I am sure those that still are fighting culture and the change in culture can give me the chapter and verse in the Scripture and tell me what kind of pants that Jesus wore. Maybe they were Levi's or Calin Klein jeans?
For all the talk of change being wrong, you’d think that it was a predominant biblical issue or doctrine. 2 Corinthians 3:18, "we all…are changed…from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" This is good, right? Change is necessary in the Christian life except for those who have it all figured out and are now living in a state of perfection. (Philippians 3:13) And let’s not forget that Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Paul were powerful agents of change. Of course all change is not necessary or good and We are not to be given to change. (Proverbs 24:21)always changing jobs, always changing spouses, always changing churches, etc. and we are to live a planted life. (Psalm1:3-4, Psalm 92:13)
But what about changing because of the culture? Everyone does it, even those who rail against it. How many churches in America have lighting, heat and air conditioning? These are cultural changes and yes, it was pleasing to the flesh and because of the flesh and culture we made the change. We had no spiritual or scriptural reason to do it, the Apostle Paul’s churches never had any of them, but we made many common sense changes that would make us more appealing in our culture.
There are those who will disagree with what I have written in my blog, but if you are honest with yourself it is the change in culture that has brought about blogs. Yet by logging on the internet, chatting on fourms, twittering, Facebooking or blogging you have embraced cultural change but yet will still hold some man made doctrine higher then the Word of God.
Titus 1:15 Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
We need more writing like that. You hit the nail on the head with that one Brother. This issue has to be addressed or the Baptist movement will eventually kill itself.
ReplyDeleteThanks John for your comments.
ReplyDeleteI remember all those occasions back in our “we’re the most separated” days, how we always set aside whatever good another church or Christian was doing, just so we could still poke at whatever lack of “standards” they exhibited.
ReplyDeleteI remember during the occasion of one of our most popular visiting preachers, back in 1997, it drew spectators from just about every other IFB church that was within a days driving distance. I remember how we quietly snickered at those other brethren who showed up with blocked haircuts (as apposed to ours tapered - always), who wore mock turtle necks, or “colored” dress shirts (as apposed to our strict standard of white or powder-blue dress shirts with tie - always), who we never failed to “quiz” on how effectively they were spreading the gospel to there area, constantly trying to pick out all the right and wrong phrases they’d use that indicated to us whether or not they were soul winning “correctly”.
In many other areas we were always searching for ways to constantly reinforce our belief that there was no other church or group of Christians that were serving God and representing Christianity as effectively and biblically as we were. We’d even poke at other IFB churches administrating the biggest numbers of foreign missionaries, blind ministries, deaf ministries, elder saint ministries, and so on, but all of that would be set aside in our minds if their women had two much makeup or jewelry, or a slit in her skirt, or one of their men had so much as a mustache or blocked haircut. Even then, we believed all that stuff just got in the way of simple soul winning and “dunking” - chasing the numbers, making sure we were the BEST.
Ronnie that is very true. Instead of edifying the brethren we were so critical.
ReplyDeletewith you on this brother
ReplyDeleteSometimes we are a funny people and fight against the wrong things...
ReplyDeleteYes, I have in mind a particular incident of a teenage girl coming to church to be baptized after getting saved. She had on "too much" make-up and was wearing a mini-skirt. A couple of the men, including the preacher decided to joke her. This is why I now have a difficult time finding a church I trust. I guess her attire was more important than her heart. I guess at the moment of salvation, she should have just KNOWN BETTER....
ReplyDeleteThis has stood out in my memory for years, because it was not the first of this type of incident. It seems maybe these people were superficial. I'm glad God looks on the heart. The ones snickering were the ones who needed to change. Sorry, but thanks for the opportunity to express this.
The "miniskirt" comment reminds me of another such embarrassing, and recurring, episode during our IFB days. Our Labor Day and Memorial Day picnics were, and still are, a great tool to encourage new converts and/or members to grow in fellowship with the rest of the church. As an IFB church, at that time, we had a hard time having these picnics while politely maintaining (enforcing) strict fundamentalist dress standards, especially where our newer, “worldly” converts were concerned. I mean think about it. In modern America, while the temperature is in the high 80’s or 90’s, who would be inclined to attend a PICNIC wearing cotton casual slacks and a collared shirt? or for ladies, a knee length skirt or dress, close-toed shoes, hoes, a brassiere, t-shirt and blouse?
ReplyDeleteFor bus captains and Sunday school teachers, we had the two-sided task of getting as many of our students, riders and new families to these picnic as possible, while still trying to figure out how to cordially, yet still awkwardly, “enforce” the dress standard just for this occasion. What a mess. I haven’t been to one of these in a long time, so I’m not sure if it is still handled the same way. I’m not even saying it’s wrong, because the flip side of that coin is the concern over teenaged bus girls showing up in their “daisy dukes” and bikini tops. As a more biblically centered church, I’m still not sure how this one should be handled. Perhaps no change at all is necessary and we should just accept the fact that being a NT Christian is sometimes peculiar and requires a little courage on our parts to maintain biblical modesty and good taste, no matter what the rest of the world finds appropriate at picnics.
At that time, those of us in the “inner-circle” were constantly competing in the areas of salvations, baptisms, and how many of our new people we could get to as many church functions and activities as possible. Church picnics were no exception, which is what the huge mistake was. Bus Captains and Sunday school teachers would all be in a race to get as many of “their people” to these picnics as possible - some of them having no idea that “to bare the thigh” is an abomination - and it would just turn into a mess of snickering, pulling people aside and embarrassing them, embarrassing ourselves, even making some people angry. No matter, though, because at least they were present for us to “count”.
It really wasn’t about encouraging them in the Lord and inspiring them to be “more like Jesus”, rather it was about making our own numbers look good, at every possible opportunity. Anyone else ever have such an experience?