“There are crocs absolutely everywhere”

NOTE: Iran has apparently conducted a significant cyberattack against a US company, a first since the war began. As more is known, I will provide an update on the war and a biblical response in an article on our website later this morning.

If you live where I live, you waited for the rain to end yesterday for hours on end. But it could be worse: people in the Northern Territory of Australia are being warned to stay out of rain-fueled rivers in their area because, as one official put it, “There are crocs absolutely everywhere.”

Social media in the region is filled with images and videos of crocodiles floating down streets and galloping across roads. Residents are being told to “assume any waterway may contain a crocodile.”

There’s your devotional thought for the day.

If you pay much attention to secular culture, you might feel the same way about the moral issues of our time. It seems you cannot watch a television show without meeting LGBTQ characters normalizing LGBTQ ideology. Advocates for “reproductive healthcare” (abortion) are active on every platform. Non-evangelicals view evangelicals in decidedly negative ways.

One response is to align our beliefs with our critics, adopting the liberal theology we have been discussing this week and taking positions on moral issues that our secularized society will affirm. Or, we can embrace biblical truth and seek redemptive ways to engage our fallen culture for the advancement of the gospel.

How do we choose the latter?

Four types of cultural engagement

In a perceptive recent article, Mere Orthodoxy editor-in-chief Jake Meador identifies “four types of Christian cultural engagement.” To summarize his nuanced and thoughtful analysis:

1. Populism: Making disciples who make disciples in a multiplying movement that eventually influences the culture for Christ.
2. Separatism: Raising up individual believers who care for other individual believers in pure Christian communities with no aspiration toward cultural transformation.
3. Revanchists: Seeking influence within significant institutions to influence culture for Christ.
4. Reformers: Participating in the life of the community and nation by promoting the common good through partnerships aimed at “specific goods.”

Here’s my point: each of these types of cultural engagement can be biblically appropriate in particular contexts, but each can also be a distraction from our missional purpose.

The Apostle Paul, for example, illustrates all four:

• He reminded the Ephesian elders that he spent time with them “teaching you in public and from house to house” (Acts 20:20), illustrating the populist emphasis on personal disciple-making.
• He wrote letters to leaders and churches focusing on issues within their particular faith community rather than the larger culture.
• He spent more time in Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, some of the leading cultural centers of the day, than anywhere else.
• And he partnered with missionary associates and churches to advance his mission and the kingdom of God.

However, Paul refused to allow one approach to keep him from adopting a different model when appropriate. He made disciples in homes (Acts 20:20) but also proclaimed the gospel publicly before Jewish and Roman leaders to his personal peril (cf. Acts 23–26). He spent time in cultural centers but also focused on less prominent communities (cf. Acts 17:10–15). He partnered with fellow believers but also embraced opportunities for individual proclamation and persuasion (cf. Acts 17:16–33).

(For more, please see my latest website article, “Should we be culture warriors or cultural missionaries?”)

Five practical steps

I say all of that to say this: When we submit every day to God’s Spirit, asking him to lead us into our most effective engagement with our culture for Christ, he will use us in ways we might not expect but should always embrace. Our most significant witness today might be a brief conversation in the elevator or at a colleague’s desk. Or it might be our public stand for biblical morality in the face of secularized condemnation.

Paul testified, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). His example is recorded in Scripture as God’s invitation to us today.

To embrace it, let’s take these practical steps informed by Meador’s analysis:

1. Identify your spiritual gifts, best talents, and personal passions. These are often (though not always) the resources God will use in fulfilling your kingdom assignment today. (For more, please see our online spiritual gifts test here and my wife’s latest blog, “You have a kingdom purpose.”)
2. Prioritize personal relationships that encourage personal discipleship. It’s been said that every believer needs a Timothy (someone they are discipling), a Paul (someone who is discipling them), and a Barnabas (someone who is encouraging them).
3. Embrace spiritual community. Discipleship advances through shared accountability as “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17).
4. Seek your highest place of cultural influence through personal and professional excellence, then model the character of Christ with the lives and activities you impact.
5. Partner with like-minded believers to advance the kingdom through gospel proclamation and engagement.

The American writer Edith Wharton observed, “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Jesus is “the light of the world” (John 9:5), but we are privileged to reflect his light to our fallen culture.

The darker the room, the more urgent and powerful the light.

To reflect the light of Christ effectively, let’s remember that we must be the change we wish to see. In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis spoke some truth I need to keep in mind daily:

“A man can’t always be defending the truth; there must be a time to feed on it.”

How will you do both today?

Quote for the day:

“If our culture is to be transformed, it will happen from the bottom up—from ordinary believers practicing apologetics over the backyard fence or around the barbecue grill.” —Chuck Colson

Our latest website resources:

• The slippery slope of Canada’s fall toward 100,000 assisted deaths
• When tornadoes threaten our faith: A surprising discovery about doubt and fear
• Six words that changed the world: A reflection on spiritual “magic” that transforms our souls
• Iran, war, and the surprising growth of Christianity
• Mojtaba Khamenei: How the “Shadow Prince” became Iran’s new leader: A reflection on the priority of personal character