Is Modern Christianity Missing Something? – LIVE Q&A for December 5, 2024

Is Modern Christianity Missing Something?

A question from Fiona…

Hi Pastor Guzik, my name is Fiona. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of modern Christianity, and I wonder if we’re missing something important. It seems like many churches today focus a lot on comfort and personal success, but I’m not sure if we’re really digging into what the Bible says about true discipleship and sacrifice. Do you think modern Christianity has lost something essential in its pursuit of culture and convenience? What should the church be doing differently, or what do you see missing from (or overemphasized in) the Christian culture at large?

Fiona is largely correct, but here are some thoughts I have on this:

• We must be careful about being too critical of the church, of the community of Christians, either of the past or the present.
• There are an estimated 2.4 billion Christians on earth – obviously, not all of them are born again, not all of them live as disciples of Jesus Christ.
• Yet in some sense, it has always (or, it has often) been that way.
• It was that way in the apostolic, New Testament church!
• What was needed then, and what is needed now, is an emphasis on discipleship.
• Being a Christian isn’t just a matter of getting a ticket to heaven; it is living life as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus isn’t just something that someone “adds” to their life; Jesus becomes their life, and they become His disciple.

Something that is missing, or at least neglected: The purpose of church gatherings is the edification, the building up, the maturing of the saints.

Ephesians 4:11-12

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,

• The first purpose of the church meetings, church gatherings, is to glorify and honor God.
• The second purpose is the equipping, maturing, building up of God’s people.
• And, it’s also good to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5).

Discipleship doesn’t only take place at church meetings – not at all! But I believe that must be a foundation for the work of discipleship.

If there is anything missing, it is an emphasis on real, Spirit-filled discipleship.

How can we learn to love others?

How can we learn to love others, in a time/world when trying to love is getting more and more difficult by the day? What’s changed which has made loving others more complicated & challenging?

Thank you for your question. I can give you my thoughts on this. I don’t present myself as some kind of expert on the modern culture, but I can answer the question from how I see things. There are deep divisions in the Western world and in particular in the United States. To some people, loving people on the other side feels like surrendering to them, or putting our stamp of approval on everything they think and do. A great thing for Christians to reclaim in the present day and age is the ability to truly love others with whom we disagree. I don’t mean a phony, superficial love. I don’t mean the kind of love that says, “You can tell I love you because I always tell you how awful you are.”

It’s true that love will tell the truth, including the truth about what’s wrong in other people. But there is an easily discernible difference between a person who says they love you, but everything they say about you and to you is negative, and the person who really does love you, and will tell you something that’s negative about you when it’s necessary and appropriate. It has been said that even a dog knows the difference between their owner accidentally trips over their dog and when the owner deliberately kicks a dog. Some people pride themselves on being as nasty as possible to the other side, saying, “Well, that’s how I love them. I’m telling them how wrong they are.” Again, this difference is hard to quantify, but it’s not so difficult to discern.

As Christians, we need to pray that God would give us the ability to love our enemies and those with whom we disagree, and that we’d truly be able to live it. Some people on the other side are our enemies. They desire our defeat, politically and culturally. We need the ability to truly love those people without approving or yielding ground to them, but nevertheless displaying true love.

How should we respond biblically when leadership seems hesitant to take action against spiritual abuse within our church?

Based on how you phrased it to me, which may be different based on more specific information, I would encourage you to bring your concerns clearly and respectfully before the church leadership and see how they respond. If they respond in an open, welcoming way, even if they do not necessarily agree with you, I think that gives you something to go forward with. But if you believe that there is significant spiritual abuse in the congregation you attend, and the church leadership is either blind to it or approving of it, then you might need to find a different congregation.

The definition people use for spiritual abuse today is kind of a moving target and seems to be covering a wider reach all the time. I have no doubt that some things which are called spiritual abuse are not, and I likewise have no doubt that other things which truly are spiritual abuse are being excused under other names.

How can a Christian husband practically love his wife the way Christ loves the church?

How can a Christian husband love his wife the way Christ loves the church? Can you make that practical, able to be implemented?

I think I can make it practical. These things come from both my own study and attempts to live it out in my own Christian life. I would also recommend reading my Enduring Word Bible Commentary on Ephesians 5. In order love your wife the way that Christ loves the church, you need to really consider the fact that you and your wife are one.You’re one in Christ.

Genesis 2:24 – “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.”

Jesus used the same phrasing to describe it in Matthew 19, and Paul emphasizes the oneness of the husband and wife, especially in regard to the husband’s thinking, in Ephesians 5. This means that you must constantly bring your wife into consideration. You shouldn’t think of yourself in isolation, but you should think of you and your wife together as a unit. You’re one.

Here’s how it translates out into practical, daily acting and thinking. Don’t think about what’s best for you and don’t think about what’s best for your wife. Think about what’s best for both of you together as a unit. When there’s some dispute or something to be worked through in a marriage relationship, the husband should not be thinking, “What’s best for me?” nor should he be thinking, “How can I give in to my wife and just please her?” No, that’s not the idea either. There needs to be a sober, prayerful, Spirit-led understanding on part of the husband. “Lord, help me to understand what’s best for us together, not me in isolation, and not my wife, just by ourselves, but what’s best for us.” When that thought really begins to dominate your thoughts and actions in marriage, you’re going to see that you very logically love your wife as Christ loved the church. This emphasis on oneness in marriage is deeply important.

​​How can we tell if a worship song is touching our spirit and not emotions?

This is a very insightful question. I don’t know if I have a good answer to that. There are some people in our broader Christian family who make no distinction between the soul and the spirit. They say that they’re just different words for the same thing. I would disagree with that, although I do recognize that there is no one single definition of soul in the Bible, nor is there no one single definition of the human spirit in the Bible. Those terms are used interchangeably at times in the Scriptures, in referring to the non-material aspect of the human being. But I believe there are also places in the Scriptures where the terms soul and spirit are used distinctly from each other.

So, I agree with you that there is a distinction between the soul and the spirit. Some things can appeal to us on a soulish level that really don’t have anything to do with the spirit. Other things can appeal to us on a spirit level, but have very little to do with the soul. Your concern is valid, because generally speaking, in the Christian world today, there’s a lot of soulish display in church services, whether it’s preaching or music or something else. It’s engineered to appeal to the emotions. Friends, people can be deeply moved by music, by literature, by poetry, by environments, by art, and by many things that have nothing to do with the Lord or spirituality. In fact, sometimes people are moved in ways that are dark and demonic by those things. So, I guess it’s difficult to discern.

Hebrews 4:12 – 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.

This verse talks about the ability of the Word of God to make this slice, to cut right between soul and spirit. That refers to the precision ability of the Word of God. The Word of God is so sharp that it can make that distinction. I’m never that sharp. We need to ask God to give us discernment.

The Bible says that one of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of discernment. Hebrews 5:14 also says that we are trained in discernment. So, I think it is a spiritual gift which may take sort of some development curve, and there’s also a sense when the Bible talks about the training of discernment in a believer.

As your life is filled with God’s word, as you are consciously reliant upon the Holy Spirit, it’s fair to ask Him, “Lord, as I worship You in this environment, I want it to be something truly of the Spirit, not only of the soul.” Now, I also want to say that soul does not contradict spirit. In other words, something can be soulishly edifying and blessing while also being spiritually edifying and blessing, which is the best. But the point is, just because it’s soulishly edifying does not necessarily mean that it’s also spiritually edifying. That is why we pray for discernment.