Scripture Engagement

It's almost Easter, but here I am writing about a serious topic - how the Western church has become syncretistic i.e. it has mixed the surrounding culture in with its culture to form a mix of biblical Christian beliefs and secular beliefs. Here are some areas where I think we are being invaded by the surrounding world view: A certain cynicism about miracles, so healing is thought not to be real, but in someone's imagination. This is a result of secularism, and what Paul Hiebert called 'the flaw of the excluded middle' in his article on the subject, which shows that Westerners don't believe in the middle realm between supernatural and natural. The Bible, however, constantly mentions dreams, angels, unclean spirits, and so on, which are very much to do with this middle realm A kind of intellectual belief in evolution that makes us want to believe any advance is good, not only in technology, but also in morality, world view, spirituality, and so on. There is no b...

I don't know if you're preaching on Easter Sunday? And I don't know what your congregation is like, but imagine you're preaching in an honour-shame context on Easter Sunday. What would you say? How would you explain the efficacy of the work of Christ on the cross? You wouldn't mention Christ 'paying the price for our sins'. Noooo You would mention restoration to a new family, the family of God You would mention a sense of belonging to that family You would mention that Christ's death took away our (collective) shame and restored honour to both God and to us (collectively) You might mention that Christ (as representative of a new humanity) succeeded where both Adam (representative of humans) and Israel failed You might mention that as our elder brother Christ paved the way for us to share the honour that belongs to him You probably would mention that we now have access to the Father, and have the same right to the privileges that Christ won fo...