In every generation, it seems that Christians are out of step with the culture. Their views on morality are usually outdated. Their opinions seem doomed for the wrong side of history. Is it the religious gatekeepers that keep Christianity in the past? Or is it God Himself? Or is the Bible the problem?

Christians claim that they worship an unchanging God who communicates timeless truths. To many, that seems like an excuse for people who refuse to adapt, but is it? Let’s consider why Christianity can’t keep up with the times. And why it shouldn’t.

1. How long would you follow Jesus if He wore skinny jeans?

At first, the idea of a trendy God seems like just what we need. But how long would you follow Jesus if He wore skinny jeans? We need a classic God not a trendy one. A God who keeps up with the times is like a dad who tries to talk and dress like his teenage son. God makes no attempt to keep up with the times because He exists outside of time. As Moses said, “from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). Because God exists outside of time, he doesn’t change. He says, for instance, “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6) and Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Because God doesn’t change, you can be confident that He won’t change His mind. He’s not like an adviser who’s telling you to put everything in crypto one month, and then get out of it the next. You can rely on what He says.

2. What would be the value of reading a Bible that needed to be rewritten every 20 years?

Every generation finds something in the Bible that they find old-fashioned. There’s a moral or philosophical line that’s moved culturally and people want the Bible adjusted to keep up with the times. But what would be the value of reading a Bible that needed to be rewritten every 20 years? Any time people find something in the Bible that they don’t like, they usually point to an obscure Old Testament verse like the prohibition about men clipping the edge of their beards (Leviticus 19:27). If we allow men to trim their beard edges why not allow everything else as well? What they don’t realize is that the Christian Bible contains an old covenant which governed God’s relationship with ancient Israel in preparation for the Messiah and a new covenant which governs His relationship with His people since the Messiah came (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:6-13). Christians don’t ignore the restriction on eating shellfish, for example, because they believe it’s outdated but because it’s not part of the new covenant. There are things in the Bible that Christians no longer have to follow, but it’s the Bible itself which determines what those things are. If people can just arbitrarily discount the commands that they don’t like, then the Bible isn’t a holy book anymore.

3. What could Christians contribute to culture if they just blindly followed it?

When talking about a biblical command that feels outdated, it’s easy to level the charge that Christians are on the wrong side of history. But that assumes that we can look into the future and predict how historians will judge us. It also assumes that the consensus of history is always right. C. S. Lewis called that chronological snobbery. Christians are explicitly called to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). That mindset has helped Christians contribute to society in countercultural ways that were later deemed to have been on the right side of history. The early church became famous for the babies that they rescued despite the fact that abandoning them was culturally acceptable in the Roman Empire. It was Christians like William Wilberforce who helped to abolish the slave trade in the 19th century despite the opposition to his stance.

There will be times when Christians misinterpret the Bible and when they fail to consistently practice what the Bible teaches. But we don’t need Christianity to keep up with the times any more than we need a trendy God or Jesus in skinny jeans. The Bible gives timeless truths from an eternal God who can both critique and inspire every generation and every culture.

If this is new to you and you think it’s something you’d like to explore, I’ve written a free 12-week course called The Unstuck Life that walks you through the essentials of Jesus’ teachings in daily bite-sized messages that you can read or watch by video. To learn more, go to www.gracebc.ca/getunstuck.

In awe of Him,

Paul