Some might raise the objection that contextualization is unavoidable. They’d argue that everyone is a product of his or her own culture. They’d say that no one is unaffected by their own culture, and it is arrogant to think anyone can “transcend” his own culture. To a degree, I’ll concede this point. It is true that no one can transcend his own culture, everyone is shaped by his own culture, and every Christian message is contextualized to that culture. Nevertheless, pressing this point too far leads to cultural relativism.

The Trojan Horse of Leftist Propaganda
I have been in full-time ministry for over twenty years. I spent the first five in collegiate ministry with CRU, which seemed to be on the cutting edge of evangelistic innovation. This is where I first learned about “contextualization,” the art of adapting the gospel message to a specific audience. I spent the next fifteen years planting and pastoring a new church in Cincinnati, OH. During this time, I learned the concept of “incarnational ministry,” where you immerse yourself in your target culture to “become Jesus” to them, learning their stories and speaking their language to communicate the gospel more effectively to them.
I planted my church in 2010, right at the crest of the “missional church planting” movement. Being partnered with the Southern Baptist Convention and Acts 29, I can attest that a whole generation of church planters and pastors were trained this way. And now, twenty years in, enough time has passed to evaluate the movement. As I’ll demonstrate below, my assessment is this. Contextualization, as it is commonly practiced, is a trojan horse for worldly propaganda that threatens the future vitality of the church.
Contextualization has changed the way modern Christians talk. Modern Christians don’t sound like the Bible when they talk. Our worship gatherings resemble evangelistic crusades where unbelievers are the primary audience. We speak in code, like the underground church in China worried that the CCP is waiting in ambush when they hear Christians talking like Christians. When preachers soften the Bible’s words to appeal to non-Christians, their churches follow suit. We use spiritual baby talk. And when baby talk is all you hear, baby talk is all you speak. This is how you contextualize the word of God right out of the church.
The Importance of Words 
Words are important because God speaks to us in words. God created the universe with words. The 10 Commandments were revealed with words. Jesus Christ is himself called “The Word.” John’s gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word. And the word was with God, and the word was God” (John 1:1). Salvation is communicated with words. The Bible’s use of the word “word” isn’t incidental. God’s words have power to create reality. Humans think with words. Words are the building blocks of theology. Therefore, manipulating words to distort truth is a serious issue because it’s an attempt to tinker with reality.
Paul spoke about this in 2 Corinthians. It says, “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word. But by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” This verse has a negative statement and a positive statement. Negatively, Paul says he’s “renounced” any tactic of salesmanship, verbal manipulation, or deceit to try to win converts. He refused to “tamper with God’s word” in any way. Positively, Paul’s was simply committed to an “open statement of the truth.” Paul refused to employ spiritually manipulative salesmanship tactics because he was an ambassador for the truth, not a peddler of propaganda.
Propaganda in the Modern World 
Propagandists specialize in these underhanded techniques, and no one does it better than the ideologues of the modern left. Their chief weapon is the manipulation of language. Just as God created the universe with words and rules his people by his word, leftists manipulate words to rule people in the reality they create. In other words, they are playing God. Saul Alinsky, a hero of the left, famously said, “he who controls the language controls the masses.” What are they trying to control? Everything. They want to control how we think, what we value, the ethics we live by, and how we are governed. Through the manipulation of language, leftist ideologues are trying to re-create society in their image according to their moral vision.
Scripture says it is evil to redefine ethics by manipulating words. Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” God forbids the use of words to upend moral norms. Doug Wilson says the fight of our day is a battle for the dictionary. In the late 1960s, Jacques Ellul, a French Christian writer, called it “Propaganda.”
The Tactics of Propaganda 
In his book, Ellul did an intensive study of the use of propaganda in many countries, notably Germany, the USSR, and the USA during WWII. His insights are still relevant because these tactics are still effectively deployed to deceive people in our day. Here are some of the most common tactics.
Borrow Social Capital 
Propagandists attach their message to a positive, agreed-upon social narrative. Ellul wrote, “Propaganda cannot create something out of nothing… It must attach itself to a feeling, an idea, it must build on a foundation already present in the individual.” The Civil Rights movement provides such a narrative for modern propaganda. LGBTQ activists have seized upon Martin Luther King, Jr.’s heroic martyr status and cast themselves in his image as the oppressed “sexual minorities” who are “fighting for justice and equality.” They steal the legitimacy of the civil rights narrative and twist it to support their cause. People fall before it because it feels righteous to support things like “justice” and “equality.” People who no longer believe in a transcendent God to give life meaning will find some semblance of meaning in supporting what they believe to be a righteous cause.
Appeal to Emotions 
Rather than focusing on logic, reasoning, and rational thought, propaganda focuses on emotions that can be subtly embedded in one’s unconscious mind. Bible-believing Christians who are committed to objective truth can naively assume that others do too. While we make appeals to texts of scripture, texts of law, rational arguments, and truth claims, the propagandists are telling stories. Stories have the power to shape our values and desires through narrative, symbol, and imagery. Hollywood knows this. They tell our nation’s stories, which is why the moral decline of Hollywood has always been about 20 years ahead of middle America.
Last March, Audrey Hale murdered six people at a Christian school in Nashville, TN. What are the facts of this incident? A woman who identified as a transgender man targeted Christian children for violence and murder. What is the narrative of this incident? When a talented and aspiring artist was victimized by the hatred of her conservative Christian parents who rejected her sexual identity, she became violent. Unfortunately, facts don’t win the day, emotions do. An emotionally moving story can provide a sympathetic “context” to justify any behavior.
About this point, Ellul wrote, “[A] distinction between propaganda and information is often made. Information is addressed to reason and experience. It furnishes facts. Propaganda is addressed to feelings and passions. It is irrational. To be effective, propaganda must constantly short circuit all thought and decision.” Ellul continued, “Propaganda… creates… compliance… thru imperceptible influences. It must operate on the individual at the level of the unconscious. He must not know that he is being shaped by outside forces. This is one of the conditions for the success of propaganda. But some central core in him must be reached in order to release the mechanism in the unconscious which will provide the appropriate action.” And that’s the ultimate goal. Action. Not truth.
Activism Above All 
There’s a reason why men like Jordan Peterson call them “Social Justice Warriors.” They really are warriors, fighting a holy war. Their battle is a cultural jihad, animated by religious zeal, waged through political activism. They believe in a Great Commission: “Go ye forth into the world and proclaim the gospel of diversity, equity and inclusion.” They have an eschatology: a humanist utopia governed by their perverted moral vision. They have a playbook: “Win at all costs.” They are not constrained by Western, Christian morality. Christian morality is not the code they live by, it’s the enemy they’re trying to defeat.
About this, Ellul wrote, “The skillful propagandist will seek to obtain action without demanding consistency, without fighting prejudice and images, by taking his stance deliberately on inconsistencies.” As far as public perception goes, consistency is overrated, because truth is not their goal. Leftists are not motivated by consistency, truth, or logical coherence. All that matters is achieving their pragmatic aims.
Through the words they say and the stories they tell, they’re trying to create a rival reality that removes the Christian God and replaces him with a deified state. This is the pool we’re all swimming in. This is the spirit of the age. Every day, we dine at the table of propaganda and we drink the wine of propaganda. Leftist propaganda is in our TV shows, movies, and music. It’s on the news, in our schools, and in our workplaces. It’s in our government, tech industries, big business, and social media. And, I’d argue, it’s in the church.
Gospel-Centered Contextualization 
Much propaganda has been smuggled into the church under the winsome guise of “reaching the lost.” If Christians are to become “all things to all men” to reach the modern world, it is assumed, then we must use their stories, symbols, and words to communicate with them effectively. Pastor Tim Keller is a well-known practitioner of contextualization, and we read about this in a 2001 article entitled, “The Missional Church.” This article has been massively influential for countless pastors and ministry leaders in the last 20 years.
Two parts of his contextualization strategy merit attention here. First, Keller says, we need to “speak in the vernacular” of the target audience, using their words and symbols to communicate the Christian message. Second, we need to “enter and retell the culture’s stories” to show how they are ultimately fulfilled in Christ.
For example, a common theme in our culture is the “American Dream.” To contextualize to Americans, therefore, an evangelist could “enter and retell” that story and point it towards Jesus. He could say, “Everyone wants the American Dream. Since we are created in God’s image, we are eternal beings, which means nothing in this world can truly satisfy us. We are only truly satisfied in a relationship with God.”
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Whether overwhelming circumstances tempt us to deny, distract, destroy, or even die, the God who never runs from trouble is he who holds us, his beloved children, in the palm of his sovereign, wise, and good hand.3 We can rejoice in knowing his sanctifying work replaces our love of escape with something far, far better: a courageous dependence on God! What could be better?

Daring escapes fascinate me. And why not? Escape plays a key role in most great stories. The hero falls into peril, the tension mounts as all seems lost, and just in the nick of time, a climactic escape occurs. Indiana Jones slides through the booby-trapped passage, straining backward to snatch his dusty, wide-brimmed hat. Princess Buttercup escapes the clutches of Prince Humperdinck moments before she’s forced to become The Princess Bride. Hansel and Gretel apply their own cunning to avoid the witch’s oven and escape with her jewels in tow.
As Christians, escape marks major moments in the story of our faith. Israel escaped from Pharaoh, Joseph from Potiphar’s wife, and Daniel from the lion’s den. Peter and Paul escaped from prison on multiple occasions. And down through the ages, every person who has faith in Christ will escape the worst peril of all, God’s wrath for sin. The miraculous escapes sprinkled throughout Scripture and life are given by God as wonderful gifts! I’m grateful for them. But I’ve also seen and experienced the ugly side of escape.
When I look back upon my life, I find countless examples of escape gone wrong. Running away is often my first instinct when trouble comes. But like you, I feel the need to better understand my heart’s obsession with escape. And like you, I want to trade my escapism for courageous dependence on God. Thankfully, by the grace of God, we can be changed from people who run from trouble to people who rest in Christ when trouble comes.
Four Escape Routes
Let’s explore four common ways we seek to escape rather than trust God in the ways that Paul described in 1 Corinthians 10:13. As you read, carefully think about how you have struggled with each one. Like me, you likely will see yourself (at least a little, and maybe a lot) in each one. Once we have a basic sense of each one, we’ll take time later to dig deeper into each of them.
1. Denial
If you have ever tried to sweep your problems under a rug, you’re in good company. Truly! Most people I know regularly hear the white knuckles of fear rapping on the door of their hearts. Even Christians who seem to have a rock-solid faith in God can become discouraged when temptations grow and trials persist.
Despite biblical instructions to renew our courage through God’s powerful grace, we can respond by pretending that everything is just fine. And we work diligently to keep up the façade and stay in denial. Though we pretend all is well, reality remains full of trouble.
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As the Israelites built these simple altars of earth or uncut stones and made offerings to atone for their sins and in thankful fellowship to Yahweh, His name would be remembered by the people, and He would come to them and bless them. Remember that the explicit purpose behind God doing everything that He has done for Israel in the book of Exodus was so that they may know that He is Yahweh. Through the plagues, the parting of the sea, the provision and protection in the wilderness, and now through His covenant with them at Sinai, God was revealing His holy name to them and, therefore, also revealing His holy nature and character.

It is a tragedy that worship is one of the most divisive and conflict-filled areas within the church. Of course, it is also understandable. We tend to fight most fiercely over the things that are most important to us. If the chief end of man truly is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, worship ought to be highest priority of all of God’s people, so it is not to be taken lightly.
I begin with the topic of worship because that is the overall theme of the second half of Exodus. In chapters 1-14, Yahweh rescued Israel from their slavery in Egypt and slew their oppressor, Pharaoh. Then in chapters 15-19, God led Israel through the wilderness to Sinai protecting and providing for them along the way like a shepherd over his flock. The remainder of Exodus takes place at Sinai, where God is outlining His covenant with Israel, detailing how they are to live as His treasured possess, a holy nation, and a kingdom of priests. We properly call that life of response to God’s salvation, worship.
However, let us make two important notes on worship that will serve us going forward. First, while the entire life of God’s people is to be lived in worship to God, there is a distinction to be made between daily, personal worship and the corporate, gathered worship of God’s people. Yes, we are called to offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices and to do all things to the glory of God, and yes, that is the all-encompassing daily and personal worship that God requires. Amen! However, we should note that Paul told the Corinthians that some of their personal habits of worship would not transfer to the gathered worship of God’s people. We can think of this example. A professional dancer ought to dance with excellence to the glory of God, which then becomes an act of worship; however, the Lord’s Day gathering would not be the time or place to do so.
We should also note that worship is not Burger King, that is, the ultimate goal of worship is not to have it your way. Because we are worshiping the Almighty Creator, who has spoken to us from heaven, we ought to be supremely concerned with how He desires and commands to be worshiped, not with how we would best like to worship Him. It is this principle that we see most clearly in the laws before us, which particularly dictate what kind of altars God would permit the Israelites to build for Him.
The God of Heaven: Verses 22–23
Having taken two weeks to properly introduce us to the laws that God gave in the Old Testament, we now begin to move through the portion of Exodus that is called the Book of the Covenant. As I noted last week, this section of Exodus both begins and ends with a discussion of Israel’s proper worship of Yahweh, their God and Redeemer, while the other laws in the middle focus upon laws of justice in dealing with one another. Our text begins with these words:
And the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven.
Here the LORD is referring back to His speaking of the Ten Commandments. Remember that God had the people consecrate themselves for three days in chapter 19 before He descended upon Sinai in thick clouds of darkness, with fire, thunder, lightning, and the blast of trumpets. He then spoke the Ten Commandments audibly for the entire nation of Israel to hear. But even though God did descend to speak directly to His people, notice that He still says that He spoke to them from heaven. They could not endure His complete presence but could only bear Him speaking from afar. Of course, truly they could not even endure that. Indeed, no one could, which is why God ultimately had to become flesh and dwell among us.
Recall that after God finished speaking, the people begged for Moses to be their mediator, speaking to God on their behalf and delivering to them the words of God. Moses embraced that role. While the rest of Israel shrank back in fear, Moses drew near to God. And now we have Yahweh speaking, not to all of Israel, but to Moses, telling the prophet His words for the people of Israel. Philip Ryken notes:
From this point on, Moses would do the talking. He was the mediator—the man who spoke for God. So whenever God had something to say to Israel, he would do it through his prophet Moses. In the chapters that follow, Moses applies God’s law to various life situations. But the first thing God wanted his prophet to do was to remind the people about who spoke to them on the mountain: It was the great God of the covenant. From this point on, everything Moses said was based upon this great fact, that God had spoken to his people. The Law did not come from earth; it came from Heaven, and for this reason the Israelites were obligated to obey.
EXODUS, 648.
You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, not shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. This ought to sound quite similar to the first two of the Ten Commandments. The First Commandment forbid the worship of any gods other than Yahweh Himself, while the Second Commandment forbid the making of images for worship. This commandment appears to be mixture between the two, and that should not surprise us. Recall that the Ten Commandments are summary of the God’s law, so that every other law is essentially a more detailed explanation of the principle of one of the Ten.
Of course, the Second Commandment described the likeness of the images being made, but here the emphasis is upon the material with which they are made. Idols were often made simply of wood, which Isaiah ruthlessly mocks, saying of a cut down tree: “Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it” (44:15). Yet precious metals like gold and silver were certainly preferable whenever they could be obtained. Douglas Stuart writes about this command:
Mentioning “gods of silver or gods of gold” represents a synecdoche and does not imply that these metals were the only materials from which idols were made. But since they the most common, they stood for all materials and helped the Israelites remember that no idol—no matter how lovely in appearance or expensive in composition—could be worshiped as representing a god. Beautiful, expensive things cannot be excluded from the command against idolatry by the argument that they are “appropriate to God” or that they “call him to mind because their excellence suggests his excellence.” That such a prohibition would need to be repeated virtually immediately after the Ten Commandments has been given is evidenced by Aaron’s construction of the golden calf days or weeks later (chap. 32).
EXODUS, 471.
Indeed, that is a point worth repeating. Just because items like gold and silver are precious and valuable to us, that did not inherently make them fit for worship. After the king disobeyed God’s command, Samuel gave this famous rebuke to King Saul:
Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.
1 SAMUEL 15:22-23
If that is true about the sacrifices and burnt offerings, which God Himself did command, how much more does the principle apply to things like gold and silver? I make this point because it seems to be rather common in evangelicalism today to apply the “it’s the thought that counts” principle to worship.
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