Faith is Content Based

One thing that is missing in the Church today is an insistence that worship be content based (propositional). Preaching has become topical and often moralistic. There is a failure of many pastors to insist that their congregation know the contents of the bible.

Unfortunately many of our churches are beginning to almost worship the “unknown god” like the idol Paul found in his travels. It is widely documented that many youth cannot describe any of the contents of Christianity.

This is a truly sad state since God’s son Jesus, fully God himself, took on human flesh (incarnation) and dwelt among us.

The gospels contain an extensive interaction between Jesus and humanity. If there was not enough revelation in the Old Testament to know something of God then surely there is after reading the gospels.

The sad state of the moralistic preaching of today is that it is not morals that make people good it is being in relation the Father that makes one start to become good. One cannot separate sanctification from the knowledge of God like the church wishes today.

Actually one cannot even know to the fullest extent what is “good” without knowing God. Many truths about ethics can be found by reason, but some truths about ethics can be found only in God’s revealed will.

It is not as if there is something strange or wrong about this (that God has set ethics into place) since God created the universe according to a purpose. To know right and wrong to the fullest extent is to understand something about who God is.

So to divorce morality from the knowledge of the living God is a futile effort. It is great folly to just go out and seek to do good without first standing in a relationship with God. All relationships of meaning are based on knowledge of the other. You cannot have a fulfilling relationship with good without first knowing facts about who he has revealed himself to be.

It is not surprising that the sermon has lost its place at the center of worship. Since we do not want to have knowledge of God we instead wish to have 15 minute bites of moral advice.

Actually preaching is of the upmost importance since God has always intended to be worshiped in “spirit and truth”. There is no true worship of God without truth and God cannot be worshiped in truth without knowing facts about him.