THE CONSEQUENCES OF BLESSING

 

 

A Barna investigation revealed that only 17 percent of churchgoers had heard of “the Great Commission” and knew what the term meant.

 

How do we interpret this finding and many similar findings regarding the Bible ignorance of the average churchgoer? I think that the knowledge of the Bible is not a top priority for most.

 

Why not? We can blame the pastor, but he teaches his congregation for perhaps only an hour weekly. We then must assume that the average churchgoer simply doesn’t care enough about the Bible.

 

For about ten years. I have managed two Facebook groups devoted to answering questions about the Bible and the Christian faith. It is rare to get a question from anyone. They just don’t seem that interested.

 

For about 13 years, I’d set up an easel in Washington Square Park, NYC, in the center of NYU campus to entice students and others into a conversation. It used to be very engaging as many would stop and talk. However, over the years, even that dried up. I would stand for 1-2 hours, trying vainly to entice others into a discussion.

 

What had caused this pervasive drought? For one thing, the universities had been indoctrinating their students into postmodernism, which denied any objective spiritual/moral truth. Instead, you had to find your own “truth,” what “works for you.”

 

This meant that it was futile to learn what others had found for themselves. This constituted a betrayal of the “truth” you were to find within yourself. No need to waste your time at someone else’s easel to hear their answers!

 

Now that everyone has their own answers, the answers naturally became more diverse, especially in regard to sexuality. One size - marriage - no longer fit all. Instead, everyone had to find what worked for them, even if it only worked for this week.

 

With this worldview in command, traditional wisdom, which narrowed the choices to universal truths, took a hit. Christianity was increasingly seen as rigid, antiquated, and even hateful - an organized religion where One size, with its restrictions, was supposed to fit all.

 

Of course, these social changes didn’t take place in a vacuum. Where our next meal is not at stake, we begin to think more about self-actualization. Where our needs have fallen have surrendered to our confident control, we tend to burst with pride and arrogance. No need to conform, not even to God. Free at last from the restrictions of truth, even of conscience!

 

In the absence of meditating on the Word of God, the Church had become vulnerable to the thinking of the culture. Consequently, God’s blessings have attracted maggots. Perhaps we now need for affliction.