The Contemporary Relevance of God's Word

Many in our day believe that the Bible, God's Word, has to be "made" relevant to today's cultures and societies. However, in the attempt to "make" God's Word relevant the final outcome is twisted Scripture, twisted meaning, and therefore twisted application. The great news is that God's ministers only need to be faithful in accurately handling the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15) and it will be relevant because it is the eternal contemporary (1 Peter 1:23-25).


One example of just exactly what I am talking about is clearly seen in this blog which I read this morning and this blog which I posted last week which defines the characteristics of the heretic and apostate Ralph Waldo Emerson of the 19th century and still has perfect and piercing application to the heretics and apostates of the 21st century.


I'll give a few quotes from both blogs in order to show this wonderful truth about the accuracy and reliability of God's Word.

More to the point, Emerson had ignited an intellectual explosion the year
before, when he was asked to deliver the annual lecture to the Phi Beta Kappa
Society at Harvard. That address, "The American Scholar," was widely understood
to represent a declaration of independence for American intellectuals. No longer
should American thinkers be slavishly dependent upon European patterns, Emerson
declared. This was the time for the emergence of the American Scholar, a new and
advanced form of the human thinker; a scholar who would "plant himself
indomitably on his instincts" and refuse to be "timid, imitative, tame." A year later, Emerson rose to deliver his address to the Divinity School. Speaking to
young men studying for the ministry, Emerson repudiated Christianity and called
the young ministers to trust their own spiritual instincts and to free
themselves from the Bible, from belief in a divine Christ, and from any remnant of orthodox Christianity (source, emphasis mine).

A fifth characteristic of these people is that they are instinctive in
their actions – “…and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning
animals…” (10b). These people are not motivated by the Word of God (inspiration) but by their instincts for accomplishing their agenda. These people operate by the flesh and not by faith. Their way seems right but it ends in death. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. They think that they are promoting themselves and that God is pleased with them forgetting that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. God is never pleased when people attempt to do His will their way. It is a dangerous thing to operate by instinct rather
than inspiration. These people are instinctive in their actions (source, emphasis mine).

Do you see the relevance of God's Word without having to "make" it relevant?