I often and even of late, have heard responses from people who are looking for a new church home - “I am looking for a church that teaches the Bible.” These or similar words tell me that there must be churches out there that do not teach the bible or do not value the Scriptures as they should in their churches.
I am set to wondering at this sorry plight we are in. I ask myself; “What has gone wrong with evangelical churches; what has happened that some churches are no longer biblical in that they do not teach/preach the Scriptures?” We then can ask, “what has caused this shift from apostolic tradition and solid orthodoxy where the bible was central and was the churches complete and sufficient authority?”
I came across this answer, which I believe hits the nail on the head so to speak. Francis Schaffer, a biblical scholar, pastor and author who passed away in 1984, gives us this statement in his book, The Evangelical Disaster. This is right on cue as we see this disaster unfolding in so many churches today.
Here is the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for this – namely accommodation. The evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age. First, there has been accommodation on Scripture, so that many who call themselves evangelicals hold a weakened view of the Bible and no longer affirm the truth of all the Bible teaches – truth not only in religious matters but in the areas of science and history and morality… This accommodation has been costly, first in destroying the power of the Scriptures to confront the spirit of our age; second, in allowing the further slide of our culture. Thus we must say with tears that it is the evangelical accommodation to the world spirit around us, to the wisdom of this age, which removes the evangelical church from standing against the breakdown of our culture. [Grace quotes].
How true this is. May we stand firm to the truths of Scripture and never accommodate cultural mandates that despise the commands and truth of Holy Scripture.