Dave’s Monday Blast – August 8, 2021
There is an all out assault on truth and Biblical Truth going on in our culture today. It has become conventional wisdom in our postmodern-post Christian culture that all truth is personal and subjective. This claim that there are no absolute truths is itself an absolute truth claim of course. And it fails not just logically but practically. If all truth is subjective, how is the rule of law to be enforced? What makes one ideology (such as radical jihadism) wrong and another right?
The Denison Forum comments: “This malignant denial of objective truth is metastasizing through the body of our society. It renders the Bible a diary of religious experiences that Christians have no right to “force” on others. It makes life from conception to death whatever we determine it to be, fueling the drive for elective abortion and euthanasia. It makes sexuality whatever we determine it to be, fueling the drive for LGBTQ acceptance and celebration. And it makes evangelism the intolerant “imposition” of our values on others.”
If I were Satan, I would follow precisely this strategy in separating American culture from the Biblical worldview upon which our nation was founded and the Biblical morality that is essential to our flourishing. The Apostle Paul predicted that the “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3 – 4). Of course those days are now upon us. In such times it begs the question, what shall we do?
The apostle continued: “As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (v.5). These instructions are preserved in God’s word not just for Timothy but for us as well.
Let us unpack this passage:
1. “Always be sober-minded” in the Greek means to be “self-controlled in every situation.”
2. “Endure suffering” can be translated “bear affliction and distress patiently.”
3. “Do the work of an evangelist” is a present-tense imperative to share the gospel with every person we can in every way we can. The more people reject God’s grace, the more they need God’s grace.
4. “Fulfill your ministry” means to “accomplish your assignment from God.”
As fallen people, we cannot fulfill these priorities in our own abilities. But as Spirit-filled followers of Jesus (1 Corinthians 3:16), we can do all things through the one who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13).
If you were more self-controlled, patient, evangelistic, and missional than you are today, what would change?
