If you are unfamiliar with the title, picture the total look of unbelief your kids or grandkids give you when you try to discuss music, electronics or most other current topics with them. They may be too polite to roll their eyes, but rest assured they are mentally assigning you to a former backward and probably worse era in their view. If they are not so polite you might hear the terms codger, geezer, out of touch or dinosaur. However, some younger people are actually buying “retro” clothes and listening to vinyl records.
It is quite normal for each generation to want to be unique and “with it” and consider elders out of the loop or worse. Ironically, the Baby Boomers who used to say, “Never trust anyone over 30” are now in the rearview mirror with the rest of us.
This is all somewhat silly and harmless until it comes to our spiritual life. The Apostle Paul set the standard for all New Testament Christians on Mars Hill in Athens (Acts 17:19-31). He began by returning to the very first 4 words in the Bible, (vv 24-26) very anachronistic indeed! He was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection but was mocked and sneered at by most of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers (v 18, 32). For a few of them this new old teaching brought them to become believers (v 34).
The challenge for New Testament Christians today is to adhere completely to sound doctrine (1 Tim a4:16) (Tit 1:9) (Tit 2:1) (Eph 2:20) without binding tradition and burdens on others. The Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees were very anachronistic in their desire to preserve the Law of Moses but invented so many additional traditions that they broke the command of God (Mt 15:3-9) and neglected justice, mercy and faithfulness (Mt 23:23). In their zeal to “protect” the gospel of Christ, some groups today confuse doctrine and methods. If everyone believed that they could not use electricity or motorized vehicles now because the Apostles didn’t, many souls could never have heard and obeyed the good news via cars, radio and TV. Christians today need to be diligent in doctrine without becoming didactic and dogmatic in restricting methods used to spread the gospel (Rm 14:1, 12, 13). To teach that one can only use the King James Version of the Bible because it was “good enough for Peter and Paul” is anachronistic but dogmatically wrong.
Jim Bailey
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