Who Is Out of Step?

 

 

Who is out of step?

The Word or the World?

To many it is the former:

The outmoded Word.

 

To confess to something

Is to denounce something else

To commit to Christ Jesus

Is to denounce self.

 

The post-modern preacher

Is obsessed with being relevant

The scriptures must be retrofitted

To lure the unrepentant.

 

It is therefore necessary

To make the Scriptures come alive

And make the Bible relevant

If the church is going thrive.

 

The Word is out of step

And so too is the Church

And while the Bible is unappealing

The world has the experts.

 

The church’s predicament

Is caused by an advancing World

And its old fashion ideologies

Are now considered absurd.

 

They worked well for a time

But before the enlightenment,

Now the World’s eyes are opened

They are more resistant.

 

 

Who is out of step?

Clearly it must be the Word

With its archaic and ancient views

One is forced to concur.

 

Given all that went before

The Word will have to be adaptive

If to an enlightened World

It wants to be attractive.

 

No wonder it is being diluted

By the softening of its decrees

By many who should know better

Possessing academic degrees.

 

For every possible vice

Some leeway is found in the Word

To legitimize that specific practice,

Kudos to the World!

 

Now the distinction is indistinct

Re the church and society

The two have become one

And that’s an unholy disunity.

 

The church is out of step

And so too is the World

And what hope there was for the latter

Is by the former obscured.

 

Obscured by stark compromise

Due to scholastic intimidation:

“The fool has said in his heart…”

Therein lies the biblical injunction.

 

 

No need to make the Word relevant

It has been so for every age,

No one has to make it come alive

It produces life at every stage.

 

Counter to the initial folly

One is dead without the Word,

If you can show me a dead that is alive

Then kudos to the World!

 

Stewart Russell © November 15, 2021