Shane Rosenthal

What Is the Most Important Thing Taught in the Bible?

If you ever feel discouraged about your lack of progress in the Christian life, remember the words of 1 Corinthians 15. Let the words you find there bathe you once again as you reflect on Christ’s accomplishments, rather than focusing on your failures. He died and was buried in your place. Though you feel unworthy and condemned, in Christ you are graciously accepted and reconciled. And he not only bore your sin but was also raised again to new life, objectively—for you. It has already been accomplished.

If I were to ask you to write down the most important things taught in the Bible, what do you think you might include on your list? Worship, prayer, discipleship, faith, heaven, grace, the Trinity?
Now this next question is a little harder. Which of the topics that appear on your list would you end up placing at the very top? In other words, what is the most important topic in all of Scripture? Would you be able to come up with a single answer to that question, or do you think it’s just too difficult to rank biblical topics in this way?
Jesus himself said that some matters of the law were weightier than others.
You may be tempted by the thought that because the Bible is God’s inspired word, all its precepts are of equal weight and value. Yet, Jesus told the Pharisees, “You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law:  justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). Now of course it wasn’t that tithing mint, dill, and cumin were unimportant things, but according to Jesus they apparently carried less weight and significance when compared with the much more important themes such as justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
There is also another passage in Scripture where a lawyer asked Jesus which of the commandments found in the law of Moses was the greatest. And as you may recall, Jesus didn’t end up saying that all the commandments were of equal value and importance, but he instead cited the words of Deuteronomy chapter 6, which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This he said, “is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:36-40).
There is an important distinction between the most important commandment in the Law and the most important thing in all of Scripture.
Perhaps, then, following Jesus, we could say that “loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength” is the most important thing in all of Scripture. Well, if we consider carefully the lawyer’s original question, he didn’t actually ask Jesus, “What is the most important thing in all of Scripture,” but rather, “What is the most important commandment recorded in the Law of Moses?” This, as we’ll see, is an important distinction.
The thing we should notice at this point, however, is that Jesus didn’t seem to have any difficulty ranking various biblical themes in the order of their importance. And so, in light of this, what do you think every Christian should place at the very top of their list? What biblical idea should be considered the thing of first importance?
The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the most important thing in all of Scripture—the gospel.
Thankfully, we don’t have to go through the difficult process of weighing and comparing all the doctrines of the Bible in an attempt to answer this question, since the apostle Paul has already done the heavy lifting for us in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 15:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures… (1 Cor. 15:1-4)

According to verse 1, Paul makes clear that he is writing to the Corinthians in order to remind them of the gospel of Jesus.
In many churches today the focus ends up drifting away from the gospel to other things.
Now, I’m convinced that in far too many churches in our day the gospel appears to be taken for granted. And because it’s something that many pastors simply assume that everyone already knows, over time our focus ends up drifting away to other things—
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Blessed Are the Pure in Heart?

If you are in Christ, these are not words of condemnation, since you have been washed and renewed in him. You are now already clean and pure, not because of your own merits, but because of God’s gracious intervention on your behalf. Do you still struggle with sin? So did Peter! In fact, not long after Jesus pronounced him clean and pure, Peter ended up denying Jesus three times. And yet, he was later completely restored. Our right standing before God is found exclusively in Christ.

How should we interpret Mt 5:8 which says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”? This teaching comes from Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, and it appears in the opening section of that sermon commonly referred to as the Beatitudes (which is an old English way of referring to the state of “sublime blessedness”). But most of the time I’ve interacted with this verse over the decades, I must admit that I’ve often come away feeling condemned rather than blessed, for if only the pure in heart end up seeing God, then what hope is there for someone like me?
What’s odd is that the Bible itself raises this very question in Prov. 20:9 when it asks, “Who can say I have kept my heart pure, that I am clean from sin?” Jeremiah appears to answer this question negatively when he says, “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jer 17:9). So then, how should we interpret Jesus’ words in Mt 5:8?
In the first 8 verses of Matthew chapter 5, we read the following:
Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’
Too often, I think, we read the Beatitudes as if Jesus had told his followers that they would be blessed if they become meek, contrite, or merciful, and insofar as they work hard to purify their hearts, etc. But this isn’t what Jesus is saying in this passage. Unlike Moses, Jesus isn’t promising his followers future rewards on the condition of obedience to his commands. In fact, as you study these words closely, you’ll discover that there aren’t any commands or imperatives to be be found here in the Beatitudes. Commands and imperatives lied at the very heart and center of the Mosaic covenant. Moses, you may recall, told the people they would be blessed if they kept the law, and that they would be cursed if they did not. After hearing the law proclaimed by God himself at Mt. Sinai, the people responded by saying, “All the words Yahweh has spoken we will do” (Ex 24:3).
But Jesus is not a new Moses. Rather than promising future blessing as the reward of obedience, Jesus first blesses his people and calls them to live in the light of this new reality. This is the fulfillment of the “new covenant” prophesied by Jeremiah: “The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke” (Jer 31:31-32). This covenant, according to the prophet, was NOT going to be like the Sinai covenant. Here in Matthew 5, it’s important for us to notice that Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount, not with legal obligations, but gospel blessings. And this becomes even more clear when we consider Jesus’ audience.
At the opening of Matthew 5 we’re told that as Jesus saw the crowds, “he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them…” For most of my Christian life I pictured Jesus standing on the top of a hill as he delivered the Sermon on the Mount and addressed the crowds below. But the words of this passage instead make clear that when the crowds began to follow Jesus on this occasion, he decided to leave them behind as he climbed to the top of a nearby mountain. Then he called for his disciples to join him (Mt 5:1, Mk 3:13, Lk 6:13), and when they arrived, he sat down and began to teach them (Mt 5:2).
Have you ever pictured it this way? Jesus isn’t standing, he’s sitting. And he’s not preaching to the masses, but to a smaller group of disciples who specifically responded to his call. He’s in a remote location, away from the crowds, teaching his followers while he’s in a seated position. In other words, it’s actually a much more intimate setting.1 According to Mark, while Jesus was on the top of the mountain, “he appointed twelve whom he also named apostles” (cf. Lk 6:13). In my thinking, therefore, the Sermon on the Mount was first intended as a kind of ordination sermon at the time the twelve were selected and appointed as apostles.
And yet, who were the men Jesus ended up appointing to this new office? Recall for a moment Peter’s comment when he first saw Jesus perform a miracle. “Depart from me,” he said, “for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8). This is the kind of person Jesus selected to become one of his apostles. He didn’t choose super-saints, but ordinary sinners like you and me. But how could Mt 5:8 possibly be received by someone like Peter as good news? If Peter is truly aware of his sin, wouldn’t this statement throw him into despair?
First, I think we need a quick refresher course in the theology of the Old Testament, starting with Psalm 15. This Psalm was penned by David sometime around 1000 BC, and in the first few verses we read the following:
O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? 2 He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; 3 who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend…”
As numerous other passages make clear, the people of Israel continually failed to live up to this standard, both individually and corporately. No one walked blamelessly and did what was right from the heart.
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Finding Christ in All of Scripture

John 5:39 is one of the most important verses in all of Scripture since it provides us with this crucial interpretive insight. This one verse helps us to see that the Bible isn’t a self-help manual, but instead should be seen as a compelling drama in which Jesus is presented as the central character. As John makes clear throughout his Gospel, he’s not merely a good teacher, but is the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14), the Lamb of God (Jn 1:29), Jacob’s ladder (Jn 1:51), the Temple of God’s presence (Jn 2:21), Israel’s bridegroom (Jn 3:29), the source of living water (Jn 4:10), the bread of life (Jn 6:48-50), the light of the world (Jn 8:12), and the good shepherd who came to give his life for wandering sheep (Jn 10:11).

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life…If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me (John 5:39, 46).
In the above passage from John chapter 5, Jesus told the religious leaders of his day that they had essentially missed the main point of the Bible. In their view, Scripture was seen almost exclusively as a rule of conduct, which is why in sources from the Second Temple period it was often referred to as “the way.” In one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, we find the statement: “If then the secret way is perfected among the men of the community, each will walk blamelessly with his fellow, guided by what has been revealed to them, that will be the time of ‘preparing the way in the desert.’” (1QS 9:18-22).
The problem with this approach is that no one has ever perfected his or her way, and no one has ever been able to walk blamelessly, just as David confessed in Psalm 143:2 when he wrote, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.” What’s interesting is the fact that the author of the above Qumran scroll ended up citing a verse from Isaiah 40 related to Israel’s coming Messiah, but he ended up applying this passage to himself and members of his own community. In other words, he made the same mistake that Jesus spoke of in John 5—he missed the Bible’s main point.
Isaiah chapter 40 opens with a grand announcement of God’s solution to Israel’s problem. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned…” So, if David was correct when he said that no one living is righteous before God, then how could Isaiah proclaim such a message of good news and comfort? The answer is that God had graciously decided to intervene on behalf of his people. This is why the Bible, though it certainly does contain rules for conduct, shouldn’t be thought of primarily as a moral guidebook for life. Instead, we need to see it as a dramatic rescue story.
This becomes clear in verse 3, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” First of all, we should notice immediately the “way” spoken of here is not “our way” but the way of the LORD. Yahweh is the one who is coming to rescue and redeem his people in the midst of their sin. As you may recall, Jesus specifically applied this verse to the role of John the Baptist who prepared the people for his arrival (Mt 11:10, Lk 3:4).
But if John is the fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3, then what does this imply about the identity of Jesus himself? John’s role was to prepare the way for the LORD, and to make a highway for God himself. According to Isaiah, when God would eventually arrive on the scene to rescue his people, “the glory of the LORD” would be revealed. This is precisely what we find in the opening chapter of John’s Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory…” (Jn 1:14). In no uncertain terms, Jesus is being presented as Yahweh incarnate. Though “all we like sheep have each gone astray” (Is 53:6), “his way is perfect” (Ps 18:30). Therefore, Jesus is the divine protagonist of this grand rescue story. He doesn’t merely show us the way, but he “is the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6).
I’m convinced that John 5:39 is one of the most important verses in all of Scripture since it provides us with this crucial interpretive insight. This one verse helps us to see that the Bible isn’t a self-help manual, but instead should be seen as a compelling drama in which Jesus is presented as the central character. As John makes clear throughout his Gospel, he’s not merely a good teacher, but is the Word made flesh (Jn 1:14), the Lamb of God (Jn 1:29), Jacob’s ladder (Jn 1:51), the Temple of God’s presence (Jn 2:21), Israel’s bridegroom (Jn 3:29), the source of living water (Jn 4:10), the bread of life (Jn 6:48-50), the light of the world (Jn 8:12), and the good shepherd who came to give his life for wandering sheep (Jn 10:11).
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The Mormonization of American Christianity

When we look at the claims of the apostles recorded throughout the New Testament, they appear to follow this same approach. Rather than appealing to their own feelings or internal experiences, they continually pointed to that which they heard with their ears, saw with their eyes, and touched with their hands (1Jn 1:1, 3). In Acts 2:22, Peter says this: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know.” In verse 36 he went on to say that we can know “for certain” Jesus is the promised Messiah, not because God will reveal this to each of us through some kind of personal encounter, but because Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection were seen by numerous eyewitnesses, and also happened to be foreseen by the Hebrew prophets of old.

In 1835, just a few years after the initial release of The Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith published a supplemental volume called Doctrine & Covenants in which he claimed to have received the following revelation from God:
Cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things; did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?… Behold, I say unto you that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right, I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you: therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right, you shall have no such feelings…
This, of course, is the origin of the popular Mormon doctrine of the “burning in the bosom.” As a result of this verse, most of the Mormon missionaries who’ve arrived at my doorstep over the decades have encouraged me to pray to God, asking him to confirm the truth of The Book of Mormon by means of an internal experience of this kind.
What’s fascinating is that last year when I conducted a poll of nearly a hundred Christians at a variety of different events here in the St. Louis area, the majority of those I interviewed ended up describing faith as a kind of subjective feeling or experience. When I discussed this topic on Episode 4, “Is Faith a Feeling,” I mentioned the fact that in my own study of this issue, I wasn’t able to find a single occurrence of the word “feeling” anywhere near the word “faith” in most English Bible translations. Even when I searched for different versions of the verb “to feel,” and substituted alternatives for the word “faith” (such as “faithful,” “belief,” “believer,” etc.), I still couldn’t find a single passage in which “faith” and “feelings” were within 200 words of each other.
On episode 28 of The Humble Skeptic podcast, I discuss the relationship between “faith and experience,” and in preparation for that program, I decided to run a search for any appearance of the word “experience” within 200 words of “faith.” Only one verse appeared across a variety of English Bible translations, namely, 1Peter 5:9. Beginning at verse 8 this passage reads as follows: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (ESV).
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The Story of Us

Rather than focusing on Christ’s death, burial and resurrection as testified by a multitude of reliable witnesses and written in advance throughout the Scriptures, many Christians today have chosen to proclaim a different gospel entirely. This new and improved gospel is The Story of Us. This story is one that is perceived to be much more credible and effective than the story of Jesus, because, unlike the story of Jesus, it can’t be refuted. 

In her book, Spirituality for Dummies, Sharon Janis writes, “In a nutshell, spirituality relates to your own personal experience and relationship with the divine…Dogma can muddy the waters of a spiritual path.”1 Similarly, in his book Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch writes that “leaders, ministers, books, and even the Bible itself are not authoritative sources.” In fact, he claims that God specifically directs us to, “Listen to your feelings…Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differ from what you’ve been told by your teachers, or read in your books, forget the words. Words are the least reliable purveyor of truth.”2 Madonna apparently agrees with this advice. In her song, “Bedtime Story,” she sings, “Words are useless, especially sentences. They don’t stand for anything. How could they explain how I feel?”
Of course, if words are so useless and unreliable, perhaps we could ask why Madonna and Neale Donald Walsh felt compelled to use so many of them. But the more important question to ask is why so many people in our day are attracted to the view that feelings and experiences are more important than words and ideas. Taken to the extreme, this is actually a recipe for anarchy. As just one example, if the words of various “traffic laws” begin to be thought of as “useless” and drivers end up focusing more on their own internal feelings (such as “the need for speed”), then a simple trip to the grocery store will increasingly become hazardous to your health.
The preference for feelings and experiences over words and ideas is ubiquitous in our day, even in the sphere of American Christianity. Doctrine is presented as cold, dull, and divisive—what we really need is an authentic “personal relationship with Jesus.” Unfortunately, few seem to have noticed how similar this is to the “spiritual-but-not-religious” approach of writers like Sharon Janis and Neale Donald Walsch. At the end of the day, spirituality relates to our own personal experience, which is why it holds our interest. Dogma, on the other hand, is rooted in the beliefs and ideas of other people, which is inherently more complicated and definitely less captivating.
If you think about it, those who suggest that doctrine is cold, or that “dogma muddies the water of true spirituality” are actually guilty of spreading their own doctrines and dogmas. Curiously, it’s a kind of “anti-dogmatic” dogma, but at the end of the day, it’s dogma just the same—words and ideas are being employed in order to affect the way we think. So while it’s common to hear, even in conservative Christian circles that “true Christianity isn’t a bunch of doctrines, it’s a personal relationship with Jesus,” perhaps we should follow up that assertion with a few questions, such as: “Who is Jesus?” “Was he a man, an angel, or God incarnate?” “Is he still alive?” “Did he actually atone for sin or not?” All these doctrinal questions simply can’t be avoided.
Nearly a century ago, J. Gresham Machen observed that “What many men despise today as ‘doctrine’ the New Testament calls the gospel.”3 His point was that the gospel, which lies at the very heart of our faith, is itself an announcement of a particular set of facts. In fact, the word “gospel” (Gk. euangelion) simply refers to the announcement or proclamation of “good news.” Paul famously gives a succinct summary of the gospel message in 1st Corinthians 15:
I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you—otherwise you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me… 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.
We should pay close attention to the specific “words” and “sentences” employed in this important passage, since it happens to convey the beliefs and ideas of the earliest Christians. Specifically, Paul decided to unpack the main tenets of the gospel, which he calls the thing of “first importance.” He’s not attempting to generate religious experiences or to inspire certain feelings but is simply reminding the Corinthians of a particular series of events that had recently transpired. These events had to do with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, which had been announced centuries in advance throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. And he concludes by saying that if Christ was not actually raised from the dead, then Christianity is a waste of time—“your faith is in vain.”
So, according to the very clear words of 1st Corinthians 15, Paul didn’t think of the gospel as a spiritual tool for lifting you up when life gets you down. He didn’t provide us with tips and instructions to deepen our relationship with the divine or suggest that we follow our hearts wherever they happen to lead us. No, the thing of first importance was that Jesus died for our sins, that he died and was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures. And, of course, all this is dogma.
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Sprinkled Nations & Speechless Kings

It’s a well establish fact of the universe that the ruling class prefers to hear the sound of their collective voice. They spend a great deal of their time making decrees, utterances, proclamations, and often appear in front of the camera telling you what to think or how to behave. But according to Isaiah, Israel’s messiah would inspire monarchs around the world to shut their mouth for once. And astonishingly, this prophecy actually came true! Think about that for a moment. Certainly, the sprinkling of the nations lies at the heart of Christ’s mission, but the fact that he also left kings around the world speechless is definitely something worth celebrating at this time of year. And, Lord willing, his story will continue to shut their mouths—and ours as well.

Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. — ISAIAH 52:13-15
Because I was raised in a secular Jewish home, I was basically unfamiliar with the story of Jesus throughout my childhood. In fact, I even recall a time in high school when I wondered about the meaning of “Good Friday” which was printed on the calendar hanging right there on the wall in front of me. Then it struck me—Good Friday must be the opposite of Friday the 13th!
A year or two later, I stumbled on to various passages in the Old Testament that seemed to relate to the idea of a coming messiah who would suffer and die for the sins of his people. And of all the texts I studied, the one that stood out for me as the most significant was Isaiah’s famous “Song the Suffering Servant” recorded in Isaiah 53. In coming months I’ll devote a few episodes to this topic, but in this article I’d like to focus on the very beginning of this famous song, which actually starts in the last few verses of Isaiah 52.
When I first encountered this section of Isaiah’s famous prophecy, I immediately made the connection to Jesus. So I began to discuss it with various Rabbis, asking them about the identity of the suffering servant. That’s when I discovered that most contemporary Jews interpret this passage metaphorically (Isaiah essentially personified the suffering of the nation of Israel as a single individual). But as I later discovered, ancient Jews both before and after the time of Christ believed this passage spoke of Israel’s coming messiah.
In Isaiah 52:13, we read, “Behold, my servant shall act wisely…” but when Jews of the second century AD translated this verse into Aramaic, it was rendered, “Behold my servant, the Messiah…”  Now, based on the way they continued to interpret that passage, it’s clear that these Aramaic translators were not Jewish Christians, nevertheless, they did end up affirming, not only that Isaiah’s Suffering Servant referred to the coming messiah, but also that “our iniquities will be forgiven on account of him,” and that in the process, he would hand “his life over to death.”
Among the treasures of the Dead Sea Scrolls are found a number of hymns and poems that reflect on various passages of the Hebrew Scriptures. And one hymn in particular is included in multiple scrolls, which is helpful because some of these scrolls are fragmentary, and that which is missing from one scroll can be replaced with the text from another.
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The Megachurch Century

“…the dominating controversy within Christendom will be between those who give full weight to the supernatural reality at the heart of all Christian dogma, practice, and thought, and those who try to convert Christianity into a naturalistic religion by whittling away the reality and comprehensiveness of its supernatural basis.”

100 years ago to this very day, something important happened that dramatically changed what people have come to expect from church here in America and around the world. On January 1st, 1923, Aimee Semple McPherson opened the doors of Angelus Temple in Los Angeles. With a large auditorium containing over 5,000 seats, this new facility instantly became the largest church in America of its day. Over the next few years, “Sister Aimee” would end up drawing impressive crowds through the use of what she called “illustrated sermons,” which included stage props, toe-tapping music and her own charismatic personality. But what has been the result of this century-long confusion of church and theater? How have “celebrity pastors” changed what we expect of ministers and clergy, and how have concepts such as “seeker-sensitivity” affected the way we worship, evangelize and make disciples? These are some of the questions I’ll be exploring over the course of this new year as I reflect upon the the impact of the modern megachurch movement.
Some years ago I produced a White Horse Inn episode that focused on Aimee Semple McPherson’s unique approach to ministry titled, “That’s Entertainment” which included a thoughtful commentary by W. Robert Godfrey mixed with a variety of soundbites from McPherson herself (you can find a link to that episode at the end of this article). It’s fascinating to listen to audio clips from that era, since what seemed so fresh and relevant a century ago, now seems so quaint, outdated and irrelevant to modern ears. One is left with the question, was that a church service or a vaudeville act? Sure it ended up attracting large crowds, but what was it in fact that the crowds came to see? Did they come to be equipped and discipled, or to be entertained as they watched the show?
Speaking of shows, in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman wisely observed that “In television, perplexity is a superhighway to low ratings. This means that there must be nothing that has to be remembered, studied, applied, or worst of all, endured. It is assumed that any information, story or idea can be made immediately accessible, since the contentment, not the growth of the learner is paramount.” That is a keen observation, particularly in light of the fact that many of our churches have exchanged the historic Christian liturgy for some new updated version of The Jesus Show.
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What is the Most Important Thing Taught in the Bible?

If you ever feel discouraged about your lack of progress in the Christian life, remember the words of 1 Corinthians 15. Let the words you find there bathe you once again as you reflect on Christ’s accomplishments, rather than focusing on your failures. He died and was buried in your place. Though you feel unworthy and condemned, in Christ you are graciously accepted and reconciled. And he not only bore your sin but was also raised again to new life, objectively—for you. It has already been accomplished.

If I were to ask you to write down the most important things taught in the Bible, what do you think you might include on your list? Worship, prayer, discipleship, faith, heaven, grace, the Trinity?
Now this next question is a little harder. Which of the topics that appear on your list would you end up placing at the very top? In other words, what is the most important topic in all of Scripture? Would you be able to come up with a single answer to that question, or do you think it’s just too difficult to rank biblical topics in this way?
Jesus himself said that some matters of the law were weightier than others.
You may be tempted by the thought that because the Bible is God’s inspired word, all its precepts are of equal weight and value. Yet, Jesus told the Pharisees, “You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law:  justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). Now of course it wasn’t that tithing mint, dill, and cumin were unimportant things, but according to Jesus they apparently carried less weight and significance when compared with the much more important themes such as justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
There is also another passage in Scripture where a lawyer asked Jesus which of the commandments found in the law of Moses was the greatest. And as you may recall, Jesus didn’t end up saying that all the commandments were of equal value and importance, but he instead cited the words of Deuteronomy chapter 6, which says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This he said, “is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:36-40).
There is an important distinction between the most important commandment in the Law and the most important thing in all of Scripture.
Perhaps, then, following Jesus, we could say that “loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength” is the most important thing in all of Scripture. Well, if we consider carefully the lawyer’s original question, he didn’t actually ask Jesus, “What is the most important thing in all of Scripture,” but rather, “What is the most important commandment recorded in the Law of Moses?” This, as we’ll see, is an important distinction.
The thing we should notice at this point, however, is that Jesus didn’t seem to have any difficulty ranking various biblical themes in the order of their importance. And so, in light of this, what do you think every Christian should place at the very top of their list? What biblical idea should be considered the thing of first importance?
The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the most important thing in all of Scripture—the gospel.
Thankfully, we don’t have to go through the difficult process of weighing and comparing all the doctrines of the Bible in an attempt to answer this question, since the apostle Paul has already done the heavy lifting for us in the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 15:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures… (1 Cor. 15:1-4)

According to verse 1, Paul makes clear that he is writing to the Corinthians in order to remind them of the gospel of Jesus.
In many churches today the focus ends up drifting away from the gospel to other things.
Now, I’m convinced that in far too many churches in our day the gospel appears to be taken for granted. And because it’s something that many pastors simply assume that everyone already knows, over time our focus ends up drifting away to other things—things that are more practical, relevant and me-centered.
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