The Hebrews after they came out of the culture of Egypt had learned that culture well. When Moses went up on Mt Sinai, the Hebrews decided that they wanted an artistic representation of God, in the form of what they knew best—a calf, just like the culture of the Egyptians had. Hence the no graven image command. We do the same today. We use the culture of the “Egyptians” and make our graven images of God so we can worship Him. We are to worship in Spirit and Truth and in the real Temple, Christ, not one crafted by mans hands {art}.

Moses wanted to see God’s glory. God said no. But to us , Jesus is the radiant glory of God and if we have seen Christ we have seen God. Dare we portray God now in images of our minds Art) instead of Spirit and Truth of the Word alone? I believe we need to be very careful here and the divines of Britain knew that when they developed the regulative principle. Though it is not in the Scripture per word, the precepts and concepts are most definitively there.

Elders has more than one meaning. I was not using it in the terms of church leadership. I was using it in the terms of the elders of a society—older people.The 5th command is honor your parents, but I am sure you understand that that is the basics of authority. Parents are the first ones you submit too, but that is not the last. If you can not submit to parents, how can you be expected to submit to policeman, rulers, teachers, elders of the church? The 10 Commandments entail more than their literal sense as Jesus showed. when I said elders , I was referring to the basis of a society under control of the older, more matured folks of that society, not the young rebellious strand as is today. god himseldf says that grey hair is a crown of honor in so many words.Wisdom comes with age.

Thanks Mike

36:1 “Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the Lord has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.” 2 And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.”

Exod. 35:30-36:2

It is without question that God desires us to praise him with our art. The design of the temple and everything relating to it showed about God. More visual displays of God’s character include sacrifice, Jesus’ miracles, communion, water baptism as explained by Paul, miracles done by Peter, Ezekiel and stomping on his model city and laying on his side, Isaiah had to walk around naked…

God uses symbolism, acting, and even fine arts to show who he is in the Bible. It seems that the point where we don’t totally agree is two fold.

1. The regulative principle
2. The definition of elder

I have a problem with the regulative principle because I don’t find it in the Bible. So the definition of the regulative principle makes it invalid. I’ve read Mark Dever on this, and have great respect for many pastors that believe this, I stand unconvinced that the regulative principle is Biblical.

According to 1 Timothy and Titus an elder is a very specific thing. Not just an older person. They are a man, above reproach, following God, etc… Of course every Christian should submit to the authority of the elders God has placed over them. Secondly the 5th commandment tells us to honor our parents. In my case both my father and grandfather are fully supportive and advocates of my ministry, and my other grandpa is Mormon, whom I love but cannot submit to his theological convictions for me.

I would ask, why not use the word pictures Christ used? You stated that Jesus and others used Scripture and told it to many people in ways they could understand. Could you give me an example of the many ways? Yes they would use the spoken language of the people, but most knew Koine Greek anyways. I suppose if they would have had sign language they would have used signing to speak to the deaf, and Braille to the blind. Paul said He preached Christ crucified and nothing else. This doesn’t seem like He used all kinds of methods except the Word. The fact is that other Corinthian preachers used all kinds of cultural means, fine speech, fancy words, rhetorical styles , and Paul condemned that.

There are not many ways to tell truth. God is a God of words. He spoke. His Words are set before us in the Holy Scriptures. If we believe there are other ways to truth and ways of expressing truth then we may tend towards error, which is what happened to the medieval church. We speak the law to show sin. We do not really need to demonstrate with word pictures that you shall not lie, kill, fornicate or show a film, sing a lewd song etc. Unregenerate people understand that without visuals. What the law does is say that this is wrong. The Spirit then convicts the heart. Then depending if grace is bestowed they will either accept or reject the Good News of Christ, now seeing and understanding their plight, condition and sinfulness before a holy God.

I like your poster. God does love sinners, and we are all sinners. I believe where some of our different angles lie are in the role of the church. I believe the church is to equip the saints so that THEY can go into the entire world and preach the gospel to all. It is not to call the unsaved into the church. A little leaven works its way through the whole batch. But when we go out we do not go out to be part and parcel of a culture that is anti-christ. We are to be salt and light, not of the same substance of the world. It is said that one dying of AIDS or one that has come to see the depth of their sin and their hopelessness does not care if another dresses like he does or watches the same movies . This is the least of his worries. And if the only way we can reach other is to conform to their cultural whims, then salvation is not yet what they are looking for. My point is culture has nothing to do with salvation. People must come to see the depth of their sin and their position before God. This takes doctrine and words, not dress, movies etc. To believe this is needed to get a hearing is to say that I cannot talk to anyone about life and God unless I do the same cultural things that they do.

When I speak of pop culture, I am not only or even primarily speaking about the things of culture, but rather of the attitude of that culture. The things are just the expression of the attitude or philosophical assumption. I grew up in the 60’and 70’s. I was part of the “rebellion”. We were anti-establishment—meaning anti-traditional everything. Church, government, sex, values, family etc. That attitude never really left as far as what we formed. We formed Pop culture and the elders of the society had no answer for they were no longer grounded in any truth either—just tradition. So the “kids” took over. This is the sins of the fathers being visited on the 3rd and 4th generations. This is what pop culture represents. If you are younger, then you know of nothing different. A fish has no concept of what wet means. So unless we now listen to God , not to our own understanding, we will perpetuate the sins of the last 50 years and worse yet—in the church. I believe this is all going to play into the great apostasy of the church, especially as we are headed for a one world society, especially after this election.

In closing, there is a difference between following elders that are in direct disobedience to God and following elders within the framework of the 5th commandment and the commands dealing with authority.

I think we are coming at this from two different angles, and I hope this can help get us on the same page—because it seems that our thoughts on this are more alike than different.

Look at this post ( http://blog.ministrygrowers.com/2008/01/28/the-revised-poster-of-love/)

We aren’t trying to use the newest, coolest movie or brand to teach a message, instead, we’re using what I like to call a visual parable. Jesus used all kinds of shocking word pictures to explain to people the depth of their sin, and his huge amount of mercy, so that they could repent and come to him. Both Jesus and Paul looked to the scriptures and the Truth revealed to them by the Spirit (the later I’m not claiming for myself), and told it to many people in ways they could understand.

If Jesus had gone to the well in the way dictated by his elders, he would have stoned the adulterous woman. After drawing a line in the sand Jesus would have picked up the first stone. Paul would have been too busy praying on the street corners and tithing his herbs, so he wouldn’t have preached the Gospel over the whole known world.

The fact of the matter is that the elders can be just as sinful as the young people. Just as selfish and self-righteous. There are so few older Christians to guide the church, that most churches are functionally impotent, and unable to proclaim the truth, and raise up disciples.

At my church, we need a Godly older person so badly. To share the wisdom, insight, and knowledge of a life time lived at the coat-tail of Christ. Unfortunately that kind of person is harder to find than Waldo in Bellingham. So we pray that God would raise us up in wisdom, discernment, and knowledge of Him.

I assume that you’re older than me by the way you write, and your website. I see the points you’re making, and I’m wondering what kind of a culture that you’re trying to leave for the generation that will follow you. What is your hopeful legacy to leave behind?

Scripture and Christ as well as the Apostles and Prophets did question all this, be it rulers or culture. They knew that there was one God that stood outside nature and culture. His law applied to natire , kings and culture. The moral law judges cultures. Cultures are not sacred and when they are evil , they must be changed. Again , I assert that the philosophical underpinning behind pop culture is of the world and thus evil.

Just as the Hebrew mid wives knew it was evil to kill babies no matter what the Paroah said, so we must reject a cultural philosophy no matter what the culture says. All cultures want to be sacred, and none more so to.day than pop culture.

As the Israelites wanted kings so that they could be like the other cultures, so many today want pop culture in the church so that they can be like the nations culture–its idol.

The Word stands against this attitude, and so must the church. God will give us what we want just as He gave a king to Israel. But that led Isarel on the eventual path of judgement and conquest/ exile.

Let’s be relevant to man’s condition—not his cultural loves. That never changes. That is what Christ is relevant to and for. Correct culture will spring from that—from the freedom from addiction and lust for cultural whims.

Exactly. Man is fallen and therefore all he does is tainted with sin. This would include culture.and some strands more than others. culture is not amoral. Since man is under the wrath of God and suppresses all truth in unrighteousness, dare we believe that our culture is something we should see as pointing to Christ, especially a culture that is of youthful rebellion. Let’s not confuse contemporary with pop. One can be “up to date” without being entrenched in pop culture.

The Hannah Montana movie, from what I hear {and this is using pop culture correctly} is nothing but a 50 yr example of how pop culture applauds the user of it. “are you having a great time!?” she asks repeatedly, as the audience applauds and cheers itself. It is a self seeking, self glorifying, youth glorifying culture. Again I ask—why use it when it points to itself? This is why you have those that say “I will not go to church unless the music is such and I can dress as such, and they have to have a latte café.”

Again, culture is to be guided by the elders of a society, not the youth and this is Biblical. We are being disobedient to the commands of God here, and saying that because it exists makes it necessary to use it, is a fallacy. What if we use that reasoning for every thing else in the world?

So yes, we use the culture in a way that shows the futility of it , the unrighteousness of it , thus showing the Law and man’s inability to keep that Law and the wrath that abides on him an therefore the need of a Redeemer.But to use it as a vehicle to reach God and the unlost is not proper and at the least must be used with the utmost of discernment. Did Paul sit in the Roman baths to evangelise?Did Christ? That would have been a pop cultural thing. Did he go to the Roman/Greek plays? That would have been the popular thing to do. Did he engage in pagan temple worship as we engage in pagan music styles and trends? Do we think that paganistic behavior only applied to them?

Truth is didactic. God states it– we obey, no questions asked. But man is sinful and thus uses the dialectic to concur with his reasoning and to “that what seems right to man”. We need to chase after Christ and the Truth, not the culture for that is chasing after the wind. As soon as you think you are relevant–it changes. The love we have for culture (pop) is proof of the idolatry that is in our hearts. And yes–this can apply to traditional culture too, but it usually doesn’t, at least not in the force that it does with pop culture. Truth and the discerning of that truth. That is what the church needs—not pop cultural relevance.

I agree with you that Pop is here to stay. But why does the church have to use it to point people to Christ. Truth does that, not culture. I am not saying everything with pop is wrong either. But the philosophical underpinnings of Pop are of the world. It is conducive to me-ism and culturalism, neither which is of God. Christ did not come to redeem culture. He came to redeem men. We are to point people to Christ with the law and the gospel, not culture.

Yes we need to know out culture and be discerning with it. Paul knew his culture but that doesnt mean he used it freely in the church. If anything , he used it to prove the fultility of their ways and thoughts. If we wish to use pop that way, then fine. But that is not the way we are using it. We are loving it

Technology is not the same as culture. Culture uses technology and pop culture does not have the corner on that. Muslims use computers as do Buddhists and they are not pop culture. Pop culture is a mind set, a philosophical view, and the artifacts of it are a manifestation of that mindset.