Powerful or Powerless

“For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

When you pick up your Bible, do you ever stop and think, this book is literally alive?

The word of God is living and powerful.

Stop for a moment now, and read and really meditate on all the words in Hebrews 4:12.

The words of the Bible are literally God-breathed. All of them. (See 2 Timothy 3:16).

Knowing this, why do so many Christians, churches, and ministries try to reach people through worldly wisdom and philosophy?

We seem to strive so hard to be hip and culturally relevant, hoping to attract people using virtually the same methods the world does. It seems like we're trying to make Jesus "cool" to people using hip bands playing the latest modern "Christian" music. But how regenerative and spiritually transforming has worldly philosophy and hip music proven to be?

We're known by our fruit.

Over the last twenty years of my walk with Christ, I have witnessed first-hand, churches or believers who claim; "preaching the gospel the same old way will not work on this current generation; we have to say and do things differently now."

And I have seen one such "culturally relevant" church close its doors forever. Fruitless, powerless.

This particular former church was situated in the middle of the downtown in their city. They played hip, cool music. Served great coffee. Tried to love people. And they made sure the name on the door sounded nothing like a church or a ministry. They said, "We don't want anyone to know we're a church. Our part is to play music and serve coffee. God's part is to do the rest."

And God shut them down. Closed their doors.

Preaching the gospel and making it a priority to pray we're not part of their game plan.

Since then, I have seen worldly wisdom and philosophy slowly creep back into the Church in subtle, diabolically camouflaged ways. "We have to do things differently now" they say.

2,000 years ago, Jesus' Disciples never tried to reach people through philosophy. Even in his day, the Apostle Paul did not use philosophy as a means of connecting with the philosophers in Athens.

“Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:18-31)

It says that Paul "preached to them Jesus and the resurrection." And he preached repentance, and God's judgement of the world, by Jesus Christ. 

Paul was a well read, extremely intelligent man, who could have easily debated with these wise philosophers on their level. 

But instead, he preached Jesus. 

In another letter to the Church at Corinth, Paul said:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18-24)

Here's the bottom line: 

"It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe."

Paul said:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16)

While it may seem old fashioned or un-hip to preach the "foolish" message of the Gospel, that alone is where the power of God to salvation is.

Only the word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart—which is where we will truly connect with people. Everybody hurts. Everyone has experienced loneliness, pain and rejection. Everyone wants to be loved.

Sow to the spirit, not to the flesh.

Worldly philosophy and man's wisdom is absolutely powerless, and will fall flat at their feet. Fruitless.

—God is Love and Love Never Fails.