The Contemporary vs. the Eternal

Pastors and churches

in our hectic times are harassed by the temptation to seek size at any cost and to secure by inflation what they cannot gain by legitimate growth.

The mixed multitude cries for quantity and will not forgive a minister who insists upon solid values and permanence. Many a man of God is being subjected to cruel pressure by the ill-taught members of his flock who scorn his slow methods and demand quick results and a popular following regardless of quality. These children play in the marketplaces and cannot overlook the affront we do them by our refusal to dance when they whistle or to weep when they out of caprice pipe a sad tune. They are greedy for thrills, and since they dare no longer seek them in the theater, they demand to have them brought into the church. We who follow Christ are men and women of eternity. We must put no confidence in the passing scenes of the disappearing world. We must resist every attempt of Satan to palm off upon us the values that belong to mortality. Nothing less than forever is long enough for us. We view with amused sadness the frenetic scramble of the world to gain a brief moment in the sun. "The book of the month," for instance, has a strange sound to one who has dwelt with God and taken his values from the Ancient of Days. "The man of the year" cannot impress those men and women who are making their plans for that long eternity when days and years have passed away and time is no more.

Verse

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.Psalm 119:105

Thought

Contemporary and Eternal. Are they compatible? The challenge is to recognize and communicate the eternal without contemporary or traditional forms letting in syncretistic or current worldview error.

Prayer

Father, Your Word is my light along the way. It keeps me from detouring into the momentary popular or the hoary traditional. Increase my sensitivity to perceive Your light. In Jesus' name.