When we talk about segments of the population not having a Bible in their language, our thoughts usually gravitate toward remote villages and local dialects. However, language is about more than just the words that are spoken. Ultimately, translating the Bible is about making God’s word relatable in a way that fosters understanding and encourages people to explore a closer walk with him.
It is human nature to prefer a simple explanation – even when it’s wrong – to a more complex one. As a result, it can be easy to ignore inconvenient truths when they muddy the waters of how we would prefer to see a given situation.
With the war in Ukraine, it is simpler to see Ukrainians as valiant heroes fighting in defense of their homeland and Russians as the evil invaders bent on destruction. To be sure, there is a good bit of validity to both characterizations. However, neither side is without fault in this war, and it’s vital that we don’t lose sight of the gray areas in which the truth often resides just because the world seems simpler in black and white.
It’s worth noting that humanity’s original sin occurred in large part because Satan offered Adam and Eve a shortcut to the knowledge and status for which they longed (Genesis 3). After all, it seems doubtful that the devil would have had the same success if he’d offered them night classes and hours of study to become like God and know good and evil. Instead, he offered them a piece of fruit with the promise that one bite was all they’d need to become like God, and they took it without much hesitation. In many ways, we continue to struggle with that same temptation today.
Perhaps Tim Keller’s most famous quote was his observation, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
I invite you to embrace and proclaim the two biblical facts Dr. Keller noted.
Chick-fil-A made news again this week—complete with calls to boycott the fast-food chain—in response to ire over the company’s stance on diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI). Of course, Chick-fil-A is no stranger to such controversy, but this time it came from those who have typically been on the other side of the outrage. The company’s DEI policy garnered attention on Twitter and quickly went viral from those who assumed that it pushes similar “woke” policies to those often denounced by conservatives. Erick McReynolds, the company’s vice president of DEI, was a focal point of the controversy, though more for the existence of his position than for anything he said or did.
What’s most peculiar about the recent outrage, however, is that there is nothing new about Chick-fil-A’s stance. Their DEI policies date back to 2020 and do little more than formalize their long-held position that they do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexuality, physical condition, or a host of other descriptors. That approach is good for business, good for the gospel, and also what every company is required by law to do when it comes to hiring staff and serving customers.
In his Breakpoint article yesterday, Colson Center President John Stonestreet highlights a remarkable initiative by Princeton professor Robert George. John describes Dr. George as “perhaps the leading Christian legal thinker of our lifetime.” He is a brilliant cultural analyst and stalwart follower of Jesus.
Dr. George is responding to Pride Month by announcing what he is calling Fidelity Month. This initiative will launch today with a Fidelity Month webinar open to the public at 2 p.m. EST. The group’s purpose is “to establish June as national ‘Fidelity Month’—a month dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, our country, and our communities.”
Yesterday we discussed ways to use our resources and influence in voicing our disagreement with unbiblical immorality. Today let’s consider the positive side of this cultural coin. As MLB player Clayton Kershaw said in a recent statement, we can “show what we do support, as opposed to maybe what we don’t. And that was Jesus.”
When I served as a college missionary in East Malaysia, those I sought to reach were not my enemies. To the contrary, they were people for whom Jesus died and who deserved to know the One I knew. I was simply a beggar helping other beggars find bread.
In the same way, in cultural conflicts, our opponents are not our enemies. Satan is the enemy; those who reject biblical truth are his victims. This is why “speaking the truth in love” should be our daily aspiration and mantra (Ephesians 4:15). Rather than fighting our opponents as cultural warriors, we should love them as cultural missionaries sharing God’s word and grace in the place and time he has assigned to us.
The same technology that threatens to make internal monologues a thing of the past has also been used to help a mute person speak and even enable a paralyzed person to walk, reminding us once again that the potential tradeoffs in these developments can be more complicated to weigh than they appear at first glance.
My call today is for us to renew our commitment to thinking and living biblically, whatever the consequences in our broken, post-Christian culture. To this end, let’s close with a reflection from Billy Graham: “Early in my life, I had some doubts about whether or not the Bible was really God’s word. But one night in 1949, I knelt before a stump in the woods of Forest Home, California, opened my Bible and said, ‘O God, there are many things in this book I do not understand. But by faith, I accept it—from Genesis to Revelation—as your word.’
