Al Mohler ~ Discerning Culture

• Coral and scarlet snakes look almost identical, but one is poisonous and one is harmless.
• Discernment is knowing what's a truth issue and what's a taste issue. One of the signs of maturity is discernment.
• 5 WRONG ways to discern culture:

1. Lets get completely wet. Let's just assume that it's fine.
2. Let's stay completely dry. Let's completely separate ourselves from the culture.
3. Lets just take a dip. Just drop into the culture where it's convenient - assuming you can dry off.
4. Let's take a sip. (You can't just "sip" a culture. It takes serious study.)
5. Let's just watch an aquarium. Just looking at the culture from the outside doesn't really help. You have to get in and learn all of their symbols, the way they think etc.

• Matthew 22:23-46
• The two main criteria for influencing our culture comes down to "love your God" first and "love your neighbor".
• Nothing tells us so much about ourselves than our loves.
• We have to become somewhat adept in the culture to reach the people - because they are in the culture...they ARE the culture.
• Our citizenship is in heaven, wherever we are, we are still resident aliens.
• We could just sit around, waiting for the heavenly city, but we must realize that it is on earth that we must work to make God's love known.
• Our knowledge is not limited to what this world tells us. We don't examine the Bible with the culture, but the culture with the Bible.
• God established different cultures differently and REVELS in it.
  
• God is ruling over all cultures. All cultures, however, are fallen.
• Every culture becomes a source of seduction.
• We were created to create things, but then we look at all of the "wonderful" things we create, and think of ourselves as "creator".
• All of our music, art, architecture etc will pass away...will burn.
• We are not saved from culture - we are saved from sin. We are left in the culture to be agents of God's love.
• We are not to be "lone rangers". We should be in a church where we can grow/encourage each-other.
• Discernment means we are like fish, swimming in a large, toxic sea. We don't jump out of the water (culture), we are there to change it.
• You will never be away from the culture. It will be there wherever you go. But we are called to have discernment to step back from it. We need "detox" from time to time.
• Until Jesus comes, we are to be discerning Christians in a fallen world.