Are You Going to the Philistines?

The Scripture, as to all, is so full a direction, that Christians need not go down to the Philistines to whet their tools, nor to be beholden to unwritten traditions, or to the writings of pagan philosophers, for directions what to do, how to worship God, or manage any part of the conversation, either as to their general calling, or as to the particular relations.
Matthew Poole

The thing that strikes me so often is that the church doesn't bother to approach the Bible and base their lives upon it. I've been struck by this again and again, especially recently. So often I'm told that people "can't afford" to have more than two children. I recently had this from a recently married couple in my church. They will have children - they want them - but not yet. They are not yet in the right financial situation.

Individually that may be true. But as a culture, the church is not obeying the Word. We do what we want and not what God has commanded. We do what seems right in our own eyes. We are not only in the world we are of it.

The church is called to be DIFFERENT. That means that we are NOT THE SAME. We do not offer what the world offers. Or rather we should not. We should not think the way the world thinks.

Thinking differently means that we focus our thoughts on things of God. We shouldn't just avoid the "bad" stuff (though that's a great start) we need to actively meditate on the things of God (see Philippians 4:8). Obviously a big part of this is reading the Word, and commiting it to memory so that you can mediate on it "day and night". But it also means taking in things that are virtuous, things that build us up in the faith. Listen to sermons. Read inspiring biographies. Watch a docomentary on Genesis (or any other book in the Bible). Watch a Christian movie - a real Christian movie, one that actually quotes scripture and makes referrence to God in it somewhere.

We spend far too much time and thought amongst the Philistines. Think about how much TV you watch. How much is produced by Christians? How much has a Biblical worldview? (That would be an even smaller percentage.) We spend so much time and effort inbibing the culture of the world, and so little the culture of God.

Make a resolution. Resolve to take in less of the material of the Philistines, and more of the Bible, and other materials based squarely on it.