\u201dFinally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable \u2014 if anything is excellent or praiseworthy \u2014 think about such things.\u201d Philippians 4:8, NIV<\/p>\n
As Christians, we\u2019re used to thinking that the only cultural mandate is found way back in the book of Genesis (1:28), but there\u2019s another one in the New Testament that may be even more directly applicable in our day and age.<\/p>\n
In Philippians 4:8, Paul lays down a challenge to every believer. Notice he doesn\u2019t distinguish between the \u201csacred\u201d (Christian stuff) and the \u201csecular\u201d (non-Christian stuff). No, he simply says that we\u2019re to look around our world, and support \u2014 in thought, and, by extension, word and deed \u2014 those things that are \u201cexcellent or praiseworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
I think if Christians would do this, our world would be far more in the grip of Jesus and his love. Paul knows that if Christians spend their time supporting the best our culture has to offer, including the arts, then our witness to a watching world will be infinitely stronger than if our response to the world around us is largely antagonistic.<\/p>\n
How freeing is Paul\u2019s advice! It means if a book, movie, play, game, or whatever is \u201cexcellent or praiseworthy,\u201d then we\u2019re commanded (yes, commanded) to lend our support to it. Paul wants us to interact with the culture in a truly meaningful way, \u201csalting\u201d the best parts of it \u2014 not create an artificial version of culture where we feel safe from \u201cthe world.\u201d God is Lord over culture, and Jesus is there in it. As Madeleine L\u2019Engle has written, \u201cTo be truly Christian means to see Christ everywhere, to know him as all in all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201dFinally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable \u2014 if anything is excellent or praiseworthy \u2014 think about such things.\u201d Philippians 4:8, NIV As Christians, we\u2019re used to thinking that the only cultural mandate is found way back in the book of Genesis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[746,117,1457],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}