Friday, March 15, 2013

Making God Believable to the Jews and the Greeks

Paul said that the gospel doesn't make sense to the Jews and the Greeks in their unregenerate state. He said that the Spirit is needed to give the gospel explanatory power to people.

This gives me a thought to all of those who want to make Christianity resonate with our modern/postmodern generation. If the problem is that evangelicalism doesn't have much explanatory power among the current generation, does that mean that evangelicalism isn't Christianity? Does it mean that it is only a type of Christianity, although legitimate for its own generation, that no longer works for ours (assuming that Christianity can be assimilated to culture by chopping off particular elements that were historically seen as necessities of its truth)? Or does it simply mean that we are dealing with the same situation with which the apostles were dealing, mainly a culture of disbelief that must have the Spirit of God to produce belief within them?

The first question is an obvious, No. It would be a non sequitur for one, and it clearly follows from what Paul says that no unbeliever, or false believer for that matter, would find the gospel, and therefore much else in apostolic Christianity (see 1 John) for that matter, as making much sense to him.

If the first question is answered negatively, that means that there is no way to judge the legitimacy of the second question's claim, except by how much it looks like the apostolic Christianity that the world rejects by virtue of its inability to receive the things of the Spirit. One can always edit apostolic Christianity to become more believable to the unregenerate and disbelieving, but that's not Christianity that has been applied, but Christianity that has been rejected and an adapted or hybrid religion that incorporates elements of Christianity into it. Hence, Christianity really isn't adaptable, and when one attempts to do so, he merely supports the unbelieving in their unbelief.

The last question is the unpardonable question among those opposed to historic Christianity, as it will not want to ponder the point that perhaps all of these people are void of the Spirit. That's because it's really a modern liberalism that assumes an over-realized eschatology, where every professed Christian is Spirit-filled, and have no need to concern themselves of that question. They also have no need, due to this over-realized eschatology, to fear that God may be displeased with them lopping off doctrines that are seen by the Bible as necessary to understand the true God, Jesus, and the gospel.

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