Being a Christian in Today's World

Our world today is very different from the world of the early Christians.  Our society is dramatically different from that of the people who wrote the Scriptures.  While most of the early Christians didn't travel more than a few miles from their birthplace, today people travel worldwide.  Some people travel further to work each day than most early Christians traveled in a lifetime.  We truly live in a global society with the internet linking people all over the world and television exposing us daily to other cultures.

Few Christians in early America ever met someone who was not a Christian.  Their entire village or town was often made up completely of Christian believers.  Support in trials and difficulties was almost always encouraging and included an admonition to seek the Lord.  Today, however, we live in a secular society.  In our workplaces, most people are not Christian.  In public schools, many (if not most) of the children have never been to church and never been taught about God.

So what does it mean to be a Christian in today's secular world?  Is it different than being a Christian in Bible times or medieval times or colonial times?  Our environment has certainly changed in the two thousand years since Jesus lived on this earth, but Jesus Himself has not changed.  His moral laws never change.  The life He has called His people to never changes.  “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.”  (Hebrews 13:8)

The Word of God, too, will stand forever unchanging.  Look at II Timothy 3:16-17.  “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  Notice two things about those verses.  First, it says all scripture.  Not just some of it, not just the lovely blessings, but all of it.  Secondly, it says is profitable.  Not “was profitable” but is profitable.  That means right now!  What God wrote for the Old Testament saints is profitable for us too.  What He instructed the early Christians, He means for us too.

When you read the Bible, do you ever discount any of it?  Do you ever think, “That was just for the early church” or “That only applied to the Corinthians because they had such and such problem”?  That's not what God says.  He says that “all scripture is profitable.”

Second Timothy, chapter two, verse five, reminds us to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God.”  Any question about Christian conduct can be answered by a careful study of God's Word, remembering that every verse is profitable and applicable to us today.

Let us not be afraid to step out by faith in obedience to the instructions we find in the Bible.  Sometimes, we refuse a certain portion of the Word because of fear of “what others will think.”  Jesus said in Matthew 10:33, “But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”  Let us be diligent that we never find ourselves in that dreadful position!