To be biblical is to be relevant. If a church has become irrelevant, it is because they have become unbiblical. The more faithful we are to God and His Word, the more we love Him and our neighbour, the more relevant we will be.
The most relevant, cutting edge, high-impact, boredom-shattering ministry a church could ever have is to understand Scripture and faithfully, passionately proclaim it to this generation! If we are failing to reach the lost, it is probably not because we lack expertise in understanding the culture. When we are told today to put more emphasis on authentic relationships, the reason should not be because culture says so; God’s Word has always said so (e.g., Matt. 22:39; 1 Thess. 2:1-12). The biblical strategy is for us to go out of our churches to befriend unbelievers and win them to Christ, not to restructure church services to cater to unbelievers.
It has never been our knowledge of or adaptation to the culture that saves people. If it was, we should all despair, for who can ever have enough expertise in the latest trends? Take heart, the gospel alone is “the power of God unto salvation” (Rom.1:16)! It will always seem like “foolishness” to the world, “but to those who are called,” our Redeemer is powerfully relevant. He is “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:18-2:5).
Are our churches conforming to the culture or transforming the culture? Let’s transform our lost world by holding forth the eternally relevant word of life (Php. 2:16)!
Other related quotes:
John Piper:
I have a deep confidence that the best way to be lastingly relevant is to stand on rock-solid, durable old truths, rather than jumping from one pragmatic bandwagon to another.
John MacArthur:
Too many modern preachers are so bent on understanding the culture that they develop the mind of the culture and not the mind of Christ. They start to think like the world, and not like the Savior. Frankly, the nuances of worldly culture are virtually irrelevant to me. I want to know the mind of Christ, and bring that to bear on the culture, no matter what culture I may be ministering to. If I’m going to stand up in a pulpit and be a representative of Jesus Christ, I want to know how He thinks—and that must be my message to His people, too.