We Must Engage With Skill

One of our responsibilities as Evangelical Christians is to engage the culture for the cause of Christ.  Of course, we are to be always gracious but at the same time we must never waver from the Truth of Scripture.  The truth of Scripture is the only authority to which we can appeal.  The secular world, by definition, is devoid of this Truth.  The term evangelical by definition means a Christian who directly engages the culture with the gospel (as opposed to the term fundamentalist, which is a Christian who retreats from the culture).  

As Christians today, we find ourselves having to talk about things which previous generations would only whisper about behind closed doors.   We cannot retreat from these conversations –

we must engage.  We cannot shrink away.  Engage is something different than debate.  I’m not much for debate at all.  Engage simply means to participate or become involved in.

We must engage the culture with the gospel, and the truth is that you engage the culture every time you leave your home.  If you participate in any form of social media, or even text messaging, you’re engaging the culture without even leaving your home.  If you turn on the TV, the culture is attempting to engage with you.

Therefore, it’s not a matter of if you’re going to engage the culture as a Christian, but a matter of if you’re going to engage skillfully.  To be honest with you, our churches in America are not in such a poor shape because they’ve been beaten up by our culture over the past generation, but rather, because they have not been skillfully defended.  We must engage our culture with skill because few would disagree that we are living in the midst of a cultural revolution.  

Increasingly, the culture is setting its sights on Christianity.  It’s no longer possible to be a Christian who does not read the Bible, as if that were ever truly possible in the first place.  It is one thing if a pastor poses a question to you about the Bible for which you cannot form a response.  But it’s a different thing entirely if a non-Christian pokes holes in your faith and you are not skilled enough to defend it.  You must read your Bible.  There is no other way to acquire the necessary biblical skill which our culture demands.

Blessings, 

Pastor Bruce

bruce.cullom@gmail.com