From the Pastor's Desk

Seeing Culture Through the Lens of Scripture                                          September, 2026

Every Christian lives within a culture. We are surrounded by ideas about what is true, what is good, what makes us happy, and how we should live. Some of those ideas may reflect biblical truth, while others directly contradict it. The challenge is that the longer we are surrounded by the values of our culture, the more normal they begin to seem. This is why Christians must continually ask not simply, "What does our culture say?" but, "What does God say?"

Paul gives us this instruction in Romans 12:2: "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Notice the direction of influence. We are not to allow the world around us to determine how we think and then reshape Scripture accordingly. Instead, our minds are to be transformed so that we increasingly see everything around us through the truth God has revealed. Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." Scripture provides the light by which we evaluate the path before us.

The temptation, however, is to reverse that relationship. Rather than allowing Scripture to evaluate our culture, we can begin allowing culture to evaluate Scripture. When a biblical teaching becomes unpopular, uncomfortable, or contrary to the prevailing opinions of our day, we may be tempted to soften it, reinterpret it, or simply ignore it. Yet Paul reminds us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." If Scripture is truly the Word of God, then we do not have the authority to bend it to fit the changing values of the world around us. Instead, we must allow it to teach us, correct us, and even confront us when our own thinking has been shaped by something other than God.

This requires discernment because cultural influence is often subtle. Paul warns in Colossians 2:8, "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ." Every idea we encounter must ultimately be measured against Christ and His Word. This does not mean Christians should withdraw from culture or assume that everything around us is evil. It means that we engage the world with our Bibles open, receiving what is good, rejecting what is false, and refusing to call good what God calls evil or evil what God calls good.

The question, then, is what lens we will use to understand the world around us. Culture changes constantly, but the truth of God does not. May we become people who know God's Word well enough to recognize when the thinking of the world conflicts with it, humble enough to allow Scripture to correct our own assumptions, and courageous enough to stand upon what God has said. Rather than reshaping Scripture to fit our culture, may God continually use Scripture to reshape us so that we can live faithfully for Christ within our culture.

 -Pastor Mike Schoenfeld