AMERICAN CULTURE

American Culture:

Whether we like it or not or whether we agree or not, culture is constantly evolving.    It is an entirely different culture than 1961 when I started first grade at Nettleton Elementary in Jonesboro.   It is so very different.

Culture is always changing and developing.   Business has to take this into account and adjust and modify and change or they will die.  The founder of Quaker Oaks wanted to keep selling oats in bulk out of big barrels in general stores.   A new generation wanted to prepackage the oats.   A new generation won the argument.   Educational institutions have to consider the changes and make modifications.   In 1961 there was segregation in the schools.   Such is no longer true.   Thus, schools change and modify.    Government has to move with the changes.    Politicians cannot talk the way they did in 1961 and get elected.   The very make up of our political system is so different.   Medicine has changed a lot since 1961.   I do not want my doctor to go by the knowledge of 1961.   I want him to be educated and use the tools at his disposal for 2014.  There were no personal computers, cell phones, internet or cable TV in 1961.   Today, we all use these tools on a regular basis.  Life is so different today and one thing for sure is this:   in the year 2100 life in America will be so different than it is now.   Life is a mighty river that moves onward and no man can change that.   What will be God only  knows.   I trust the Lord.

The first century world is so foreign to our age and time here in the United States of America. Their culture might as well be another planet and our world to them would seem like a fairy tale or science fiction. We cannot go back to their time and they cannot come forward to our world. We cannot restore the church of the first century and nor should we try. The church is made up of humans and not a time or culture. As humans we are unique today, just as those early saints were in the first century, in the world in which they lived.   The church today is nothing like what they were in the first century. That might shock some and some may not agree. But, I urge study and reflection of the first century world and the church of that age and I think if you do your homework you will see that we are nothing like them in the practical aspects of daily life and the work and worship of the church.  Most today cannot imagine life in the church without church buildings, songs books, pews, pulpits, ministry staff, technology, transportation, the English language, the King James Version, the New International Version, and the 5 minute Lord's Supper on Sunday with processed unleavened  bread and Welches grape juice.   However, I assure you all of this was foreign to the first century world. 

There are concepts that existed in the first century and those same concepts or truths are alive today.   God exists, the Bible is the Word of God, Jesus is the Son of God and Savior of the world, we are saved by the grace of God through the atonement of Jesus Christ and His death on Calvary.   Our acceptance of that atonement is the new birth as taught in John 3:1ff.  We then as God's children seek to live a spiritual life, ever growing.  We seek to live a moral life.   We seek to let our light so shine before men that they may see our good life and give glory to God  (Matt. 5:13,14).  We seek to be servants and relieve the suffering of this world  (Matt. 25:31ff).   We seek then to go forth and proclaim the good news of salvation to all the world  (Lk. 4:43).    We as Christians shall never get it all right.   We shall never know all the Bible and we shall never live a spiritual or morally perfect life.   That is fact.   We walk in grace and are saved by grace  (Eph. 2:8-10).

The above thoughts is why it is so ridiculous for people in the church to be fussing and fighting over so many silly things.   The root of 90 percent of all the infighting in the church is found in jealousy, envy, bitterness, hatred, ego, ignorance, and sometimes mental illness.  Churches bring shame on themselves and all the body by such absorbed  activities. I assure those that are so engulfed in their silly arguments and traditions,  that such will fade into dust, be soon forgotten and die along with all those who propagate such nonsense. 

Let us follow the Bible.   Let us really follow the Bible.   Let us walk in the Spirit and live lives of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.  These are sacred truths that were true in the first century and that shall be true until the end of time.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."  (Gal. 5:22-23).

*Allen Ashlock, 2014