Barna is rarely encouraging. Today is no different. On holiness...The adults most likely to say they know someone they consider to be holy are those who describe holiness primarily as possessing a positive attitude toward God and life. Adults who think of holiness as a spiritual condition are among the least likely to identify anyone they know as holy.
posted by Matt Friedeman @ 10:18 AM
4 comments
'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world. (William Booth)
4 Comments:
Interesting stuff...not surprising, but interesting.
Knowing that the gate is straight and the way narrow, there will likely remain a minority that understands, much less seeks, holiness - although without holiness no one will see the Lord.
Thank God for His holiness, for without His, I have none...or at least none worth anything.
I agree with Barna that teaching (and preaching) can go a long way to "correcting" this problem - but the doctrine most often missing or misunderstood is that of "the fear of the Lord."
If folks had a proper understanding of who Christ is, they'd then understand who they are, and the desire for holiness would follow (Isaiah, for instance).
Here's the portion of Barna's piece that I found the most interesting:
"'“Revolutionaries” were classified on the basis of meeting 11 specific criteria. They had have a clear sense of the meaning and purpose of their life; describe their relationship with and faith in God as the top priority in their life; consider themselves to be "Christian"; read the Bible regularly; pray regularly; deem their faith to be very important in their life; contend that the main objective in their life is to love God with all their heart, mind, strength and soul; describe God as the "all-knowing, all-powerful being who created the universe and still rules it today"; have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is important in their life today; believe that when they die they will go to heaven only because they have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their savior; and say that their faith in Christ has "greatly transformed" their life.'"
Descriptors that once applied to every-day, run-of-the-mill Biblical Christians are now reserved for the most "radical" among us. "Born agains" are less committed, as are "evangelicals," according to Barna's categorizations.
That's tragic.
Oh, Barna always discourages me. I'm sure he's pretty close to correct (although I question the phraseology of almost ALL polling...think you can get the results you desire no matter what), and that is just...discouraging.
My question to you is do you think that you can truly understand the full gospel if you don't know about the holiness of God? It may not ever be possible to fully understand it, but I think that you must have some limited understanding of it from scripture to understand awesomeness of the gospel.
Hi Barna:Sence you touched the subject reporting on"Holiness" may I ask you, have seen the following ? The book & movie "The Hidding Place " ?And a great sermon titled "Keep your underware on" by Franklin Graham (who preaches in the state of Georga & over TBN TV) You might think this sounds funny but it is not "true holiness" best I ever heard. But we all need more. I believe truely so.Fromboblee "bobnmargel@yahoo.com".I bought the DVD to bless our youth at church WOW very good. Hope you get to see it & hear it. Keep looking up for the Day of all days.
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