From: Amy MacAdam

 

It is refreshing to read that not all have lost their minds....Here are words that edify from John MacArthur from a recent interview.  Sorry, I couldn't resist inserting some of my own remarks in red.  Q: What are the unique challenges or difficulties of preaching to a postmodern culture?

A: First of all, you have to understand that when you talk about a postmodern culture, that's an academic assessment of the culture. The average Joe doesn't have any idea what that means. All he knows is he's pretty much free to think and do whatever he wants. That's how postmodernism filters down to the guy in the pew. It's not a philosophy - it's a lifestyle. The average guy just knows that the culture doesn't care what he does. The movies he sees don't make a moral judgement on on anything except somebody's intolerance. So he's free to do whatever he wants in the society, and nobody can tell him what to be or what to do, and the bottom line is that he should feel good about himself. That's what filters down.

But all this goes completely against the grain of his conscience and his reason, and ultimately what he knows to be true. The unbeliever's conscience is a reality, and even reason tells him that there have to be some absolutes. The bottom line is that expository preaching confronts the amorality of postmodernism with an authoritative message of absolute truth. It's not a question of debating. It's not a question of trying to find some way to sneak that in. It's an issue of confronting this kind of thinking with the absolute authority of Scripture and then letting the Spirit of God make the application to the heart.

Q: What are the advantages of expository preaching in a postmodern culture?

A: Expository preaching is the only thing that is going to change anything. There isn't any other way to affect people positively aside from hitting them with that kind of authority. In my own preaching, my objective is not to court the postmodern mind.(!) My objective is to confront it - to hit it stone cold in the face with truth. It is irrelevant to me how the person thinks. It is only relevant to me how they need to think. So I am not going to play around with their sensitivities to postmodernism.

At a recent Bible conference, I spoke on the exclusivity of the gospel, and I set forth the distinctiveness of Christianity. And afterward some guys who were seminary students and philosophy majors came up to me and said, "What's really interesting about your message is that you gave us a philosophy of thinking, a worldview. But we've never heard anyone give that kind of worldview without a very intricate philosophical defense." And I said I didn't need to give an intricate philosophical defense, because this is exactly what Scripture says, and there is no need to defend Scripture. You just proclaim it. (AMEN!)