Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Cultural Relevance

Consider these words from Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, long time pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, England:

Our Lord attracted sinners because He was different. They drew near to Him because they felt that there was something different about Him…And the world always expects us to be different. This idea that you are going to win people to the Christian faith by showing them that after all you are remarkably like them, is theologically and psychologically a profound blunder.

From Preaching & Preachers (Zondervan, 1972)

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About Paul Edwards

Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of God and Culture in Detroit, Michigan and Founding and Teaching Pastor at Redeemer Church of Waterford, Michigan.

4 thoughts on “Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Cultural Relevance

  1. If a man be in Christ Jesus,he is a new creature, old things pass away and all things become new… Come out from among them and be ye seperate saith the Lord. The message has never nor will it ever change. They has been a great falling away however, why? May I suggest the falling away started in the pulpit over thirty years ago. Pastors started emulating other pastors to try to attain their success, without grasping the simple truth that “All good things come fron above” Some thought Jack Hyles was the answer, some thought GB Vick was the answer, others followed Bob Gray, or Bill Pennell, or John Rawlings, Billy Graham, Rex Humbard, Oral Roberts. We started preaching against slacks on women, long hair on men, mowing your lawn on Sunday, smoking, cussing, forsaking the assembling of ourselves together and numerous other worthy issues that needed attention. Where the problem came in was while we were against these things, and rightly so, many omitted what and whom we were for. The unregenerate person could come to a local church service and find out what we were against or who our favorite preacher was and not get the message that “Christ receiveth sinful man”. We had forgotten that it is God that builds a ministry. He uses different men in different ways to accomplish His will. When we started down the path of following man, many of them good Godly men, we lost our way. The previous bloger is correct, we are out of balance, but I ask a question, can we ever preach too much on “We have heard the joyful sound, “Jesus saves Jesus saves”?It is my position we have tried anything and almost everything EXCEPT Jesus Saves!!! When I pick up my old archaic, non- understandable outdated King James Bible {I know i just lost about 80% of you, but please allow me my ingorance and folly, you see I had the misfortune of being under the training of weak under educated men, from the backside of such places like Kentucky, Tennessee,Georgia who beleived that the God who could raise the dead, cause the blind to see, and save a sinful soul as mine, was also able to inspire, preserve, and present in perfection His Word, [and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us]to us on such a insignificant issue of absolute truth and eternal salvation, my loss} it still says that “by the foolishness of preaching” is pleases God to save them which are lost. Where is the premience? The lost!!!!!!! Then we teach. We have changed the Captain, the
    message, the methods, the book and the results. Is it any wonder He asks when the son of man returns shall he find faith on the earth. Indeed, even so come Lord Jesus.

  2. Good comments Paul and I agree. Here is what I gather going on in the emergent crowd. We can compare the Church and organized Christianity to the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. They feel that the “Church” in piety is saying we are saved and the world is full of sinners that are not as good as us. It seems that the Emergent is trying to emulate Jesus and hang out with sinner and not be judgmental of sinners. I think, they have are sincere in there efforts and their ideas. However, there are a few issues, these guys are not Jesus, they are not sinless, they are humans and can be influenced by the world. The greater issue for me is the “experiential” faith, contemplative prayer, Yoga and other historically pagen practices. Emergent says, the world does not like the church as a whole but they are spiritual and they like Jesus so they can come to Jesus on there own terms. Can we do that? or did God give us a way. Is Jesus and scripture relevant to me or are there absolutes? You said that right belief is the foundation of right behavior. I think the world focuses on the fallen Christians, Swaggert, Bakers, more recent Haggard and they say look at those guys, they have the “right belief”. So I can see their point of view when that type of hypocrisy is exposed. So while I don’t agree with a lot of these recent movements I want to stay balanced to make sure I am being honest in my criticism.

    BTW I tried to call in yesterday when you were talking about that Pastor and his 4 Million dollar home. The name it claim it crowd is another example if why we have the young crowd rebelling against organized church. I recently did some research on the movement and saw a video by Justin Peters (Google it) where he spoke to his University about Word of Faith. The last thing he showed was a video clip of Benny Hinn telling his crowd it is just as easy to get healed as it is to get saved and that one should NEVER separate Healing from Salvation. Justin (who has debilitating disease) made the point that all the people in that crowd who did not get healed now have to question if they are even saved.

    Anyway, I have to get back to work, Great Blog, Great show keep speaking the truth.

  3. The Emergent notion that how we “live” the gospel is more important than what we “believe” about the gospel (practice v. truth) is cogently addressed by John MacArthur in his new book The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception. Right belief is the foundation of right behavior. It is our faith, i.e. what we believe, that is the basis of our salvation, not our behavior (Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8,9). Take truth away and there is no basis for righteousness. The prevailing culture in America is adequate proof of that!

    If our doctrine is alienating the culture it is because they do not have ears to hear. Jesus’ doctrine certainly alienated many. He didn’t attribute the alienation to his failure to “live what he believed,” but rather to their failure to “believe,” and most importantly to the fact that they were not His sheep (John 10:25,26). The Apostles would laugh out loud at the notion of the Emergent crowd that the church can “focus too much on doctrine.” Jude said to “earnestly contend for the faith.” Some things are worth fighting for.

  4. Wow Paul, you have my head spinning with all the recent posts on being culturally relevant. Yesterday I had a discussion with a pastor out of the Emergent. The premiss was decipling vs missional and should we be “smarter” christians or “sending” christians. My comment was there needs to be a balance and that a lot of the recent movements have watered down the word or completely eliminated it to be more culturally relevant. The Emergent pastor argued that it could be that the great deception referred to in the Last days that christian are too “Biblically literate” or too “docrinally sound”. His whole discussion was that through the years churches have focused too much on doctrine while the culture around them fell further and further away from God. He said that christian’s started not really following Jesus, but it was more of a set of beliefs. It was good insight on how the emergent is trying to reach the world. I understand that whole missional idea, that our culture is no longer “Christian” but I think a lot of parts of these new movements, Church Growth, Emergent and others are becoming the world to reach the world. We as Christians are set apart, we are different from the world. We cannot change the message or remove “offensive” parts to ensure that Jimmy “unsaved” stays in the church. The methods can change but the message needs to stay the same.

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