“Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29
Below you will find a memorable quotation from one of the most perceptive books on critiquing the modern culture that I have read in recent years–Above All Earthly Powr’s: Christ in a Postmodern World. Although this volume is almost twenty years old, it still delivers a timely evaluation of modern culture. Prof. David F. Wells, of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, writes about the power and authority of the Word of God, and, how the culture–both inside and outside the church–truly suffers when the Bible is neglected. He thoughtfully observes,
“For it is certainly the case that the Word of God, read or preached, has the power to enter the innermost crevices of a person’s being, to shine light in unwanted places, to explode the myths and debits by which fallen life sustains itself, and to bring that person face to face with the eternal God. It is this biblical Word which God uses to bring repentance, to excite faith, to give new life, to sustain that life once given, to correct, nurture, and guide the Church (Jer. 23:29; 2 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:12; Jas. 1:18). The biblical Word is self-authenticating under the power of the Holy Spirit. This Word of God is the means by which God accomplishes his saving work in his people, and this is a work that no evangelist and no preacher can do. This is why the dearth of serious, sustained biblical preaching in the Church today is a serious matter. When the Church loses the Word of God it loses the very means by which God does his work. In its absence, therefore, a script is being written, however unwittingly, for the Church’s undoing, not in one cataclysmic moment, but in a slow, inexorable slide made up of piece by tiny piece of daily dereliction.”
David F. Wells, Above All Eartly Pow’rs, 8-9
You might think that taking the time to read this critique of modern culture is a colossal waste of your time! You might reason, instead, that as Christians we should just forcefully engage the culture with “both barrels blazing!” and forget analyzing what we know to be false! Now it is true that as Christians we should engage the culture. But let us not neglect to study the underlying assumptions of our enemy–(i.e.) the advocates of a Postmodern ideology–with its exaltation of the self and its rejection of all Christian revelation. And so, I would argue that it is well worth your time to read this significant book. Above All Earthly Pow’rs is the fourth volume in an ongoing series of theological tomes that David Wells has written over the past thirty years that document the demise of Western culture and how our lasting hope is only to be found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
— Dr. Marcus J. Serven
Source: David F. Wells. Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005.