Redeeming the culture

This has been a long time coming, and I have now recently finished this blog that I started in October!!! So here it is completely finished!! (Just because I started it in October does not mean it is going to be some GREAT blog. Fact is, is that I haven't worked on it since October. While I was going through some of my previous blogs I came across this one and decided I would try and finish it to the best of my ability.)


A couple of weeks ago I went to a Biola apologetics lecture. Its actually a 7 week class that I signed up for. Each Thursday night there is a different speaker. This weeks lecturer was Mike Erre. He is the pastor for Rock Harbor church and he talked about redeeming the culture. I am going to do my best and write up a readers digest version of what he talked about. Mike Erre brought up a lot of good points. He brought up so many obvious yet intelligent topics that the church tends to look over. He started the night out by talking about what culture is. Culture is the sum of everything - a set of ideas that are true, right, or ideal. One of the reasons why culture is drifting further and further away from the church is due to the fact that the church is no longer answering the questions that the culture is asking. The church is still stuck on the questions which are no longer relevant. We as Christians need to learn how to contextualize the scripture, yet still holding on to the main gospel message. He then gave three useful postures: 1. Observe 2. Engage 3. Incarnate For the first posture he gave the example of Paul when he was in Athens. Paul observed how the Greeks lived and began to make note of what a religious people they were. Taking notice of all their idols and graven images to Zeus, and Hera and the many other Greek gods. Paul also read some of their famous poets and philosophers. People like Plato who were very influential in the Greek culture. He then explained how Paul engaged the Greeks. In Acts 17 when Paul stood up and began to preach he didn't start off by preaching stuff that they did not understand. He began by talking about things that would put him and his audience on common ground. As his sermon progressed he began quoting their own writings back at them! Thus showing them that Christ is Lord of all truth. Its is during this time that one must then talk about Jesus. Christ was God incarnate. He overcame the world as we also are to overcome the world. However, He didn't conquer the world by making war, rather by sacrificing Himself. So we also must sacrifice ourselves for God. Whether it be by giving up an addiction or as the early church did, martyrdom. This is where Jesus differed from the Pharisees. There were three different types of Pharisees: 1. the ones who insisted on separating themselves. However, by separating themselves they were no longer able to affect the world for God. Christ did not seek to separate himself from the world, but rather He dined with the sinners and offered mercy and forgiveness for their sins!2. The zealots who wished to over take culture, but they also were ineffective because they left no room for forgiveness. Christ also did not try to take over the world the way the zealots attempted to. 3. Then there were the Pharisees who embraced culture as apart of their religion. Christ also did not embrace culture. He sought to redeem the culture! There is a balance between these three different attitudes towards culture. To be overbearing on one and then forget the other two is ineffective.

It’s about maintaining a balance. However, not a balance of mediocrity, rather of equal extremes (I hope you don't mind me quoting you Mr. Fry!). Redeeming the culture isn't a politically correct revolution. The disciples and the early church were brutally killed for trying to redeem the culture. Christ Himself suffered the worst death that any of us could imagine! If they had the guts to kill God Himself, how much more will they do to us? “18If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” LORD strengthen me Your servant!!