A Cultural Challenge

Ross Paterson, AM-CCSM International Director. Posted on 1 May 2009.

One of the most important tasks that we face as believers in any generation is the challenge to check our culture and review whether it differs from what the Bible teaches us. When we have done that, we may well have to change the way we live our lives. By ‘culture' I do not mean a national or a family culture. I mean that culture that we have accepted or been taught to accept as believers in our generation. That culture defines how we think we should behave as Christians.

Let me give a clear Biblical example. I have often referred to Acts 11:19, which is a classic case of a group of believers whose culture dictated the way they behaved, even though that behaviour was in significant conflict with what Jesus Himself had taught them. Acts 11:19 says: "Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only". In this passage, believers who loved the Lord deeply and sacrificed for Him because of that love went to share their faith in cities which (in at least one case) were only partially Jewish. In fact the Jewish population were the smallest of the people groups in the city. And yet these believers only preached to their own people, the Jews, not to the other citizens, who also needed Jesus. In other words, there was a culture that declared how they should behave and what were the ways in which they should serve the Lord. And that culture was in powerful contradiction to the word of the Lord Jesus, who said in Acts 1:8 that the gospel should be preached to the ends of the earth, to Jew and Gentile alike.

It is easy for us to criticize them in retrospect. It is much more difficult for us to look at, analyse and change our own spiritual culture when it makes us behave in similarly non-Biblical ways. And yet this is important, because our spiritual culture controls the way we act, the way we approach the world around us. In that light I have found very helpful some comments I read recently from Selwyn Hughes. He writes:

"What is the purpose for living? It is to be aware of God, and aware of others... so the question I want to put to you today is this: How aware are you of others? ...If we are to discover and develop God's greatest purpose for our lives, then we must bring our concern in line with His concern... Put your hand in the Hand of God. Realise that God's highest interest is in people. Decide now to make God's priority your priority; and make people, not things, your primary concern."

In a real sense those statements define according to the Scriptures the culture in which we should live and move and have our being. How simple it all is. Our Christian culture should make us more and more aware of God, causing us to be ‘God-chasers'. And, secondly, it should inspire us to be aware of others, to care for them, to reach out, etc.

It is a powerful exercise indeed for each of us to measure our lives against those priorities - regularly! A passion for God and a passion for people. Could it be that a failure to walk in that way results in insufficient emphasis on world mission in our generation, so that comparatively few resources in terms of people, prayer and finance are actually channelled towards mission? Has our culture ordered us to focus on other things, especially, perish the thought, putting self at the centre of our universe - in a ‘spiritual' way, of course? It probably is. If I have grown up in a context where mission is not taught as of critical importance, obviously I will not regard it as important.

There is then a challenge in 2009 to fight to change our spiritual culture. Does it accord with the culture of the Bible, or is it more defined by other forces, by the world around us? I believe that is a vital key and challenge that the Lord Jesus is giving to His church today.

Let me give you three specific steps for culture-checking:

Firstly, meditate on the words of Selwyn Hughes above: "What is the purpose for living? It is to be aware of God, and aware of others."

Secondly, join with me in praying: "Lord, let not wrong information rob me of Your highest purpose in my life, especially where that includes specific involvement in Your mission to the nations and to China."

Thirdly, read carefully through the pages of this magazine and ask the Lord to speak His word to you.

Amy Carmichael said: "If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love." Help us, Lord.