One of the best instructional passages of Scripture we can take heed of comes to us in the book of Romans chapter 12 verse 2 which says “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world…” indicating that they were at that time conforming to the practices of the society in which they lived.
I attended an ecumenical service some years ago and at this service in one of our major ‘Mainline Churches’ the priest was heard to say that because they were involved in the worldly new age practices that is so prevalent in our society today, they were in fact being a ‘progressive church’ To my way of thinking they were doing the opposite of Romans 12:2, they were in my opinion, conforming.
The bible speaks of ‘coming out from among them’ Does that mean cut yourself off from the society around you? Of course not, to do that would be to deny the commission of Jesus to “Go and make disciples” (Matt 28:20) a message so poignantly delivered to us last week by UNOH. It means to live by a standard far above what we see around us. The remainder of Romans 12:2 tell us how to do that “ Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world….. but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” that is be transformed into the ways of God, conform to His standards and so on.
We have been studying Acts for quite a while now and the principle we can learn from living the Spirit filled life is that by the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we can, when we are among people who disagree with us, be led and directed by the Spirit to achieve that transformation and the non conforming the Paul talks about in Romans 12.
To suggest that conforming to the pattern of this world is progressive, that may be alright for the service club or footy club, but I don’t see it as being very biblical or being beneficial for the Christian Church.
The question we must ask is “are we conforming or are we transforming’ I am convinced that the latter shows the real progressive Christian.
Blessings
Blair
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