All His precepts are sure;
They stand fast forever and ever,
And are done in truth and uprightness." Psalm 111:7-8
Airplane pilot Captain Dale Black in his book Flight To Heaven recounts the remarkable experience he had at age 19. He was the only survivor of a horrendous airplane accident. In the days following the accident he was in a coma. He came out of his time of unconsciousness feeling radically changed spiritually but without any recall of what happened to him while he was away.
Due to a head injury his memory was impaired for several years. But gradually his memory of the accident and where he was during the coma came back to him, including memories of heaven:
"While in heaven, I somehow realized that knowledge is flawed and did not seem to be of great significance. Truth is what prevails and has supremacy in heaven....
Just one of the things I somehow seemed to "understand" was that heavenly order was everywhere and in everything. I understood in my heart that God's will was perfection and His Word was the source of all creation. As I considered all that I had seen, I understood that the Word of God was and is the foundation for everything. God was the heart of heaven. His love, His will, His order." Dale Black, Flight to Heavenp. 104.
That heavenly order, that perfection in creation, that solidity and security of God's Word as the foundation of all that is sure and lasting is what the psalmist describes here. (Though God's Word isn't mentioned directly in the psalm, it is through the Bible that we have the record of all the things the writer praises: God's graciousness and compassion [vs. 4]; the record of the covenant He made with people [vs.5]; the power of His works [vs.6] etc.)
Postmodernism, the reigning cultural philosophy of our time, contradicts the possibility of such overarching truth. It (postmodernism) developed out of Modernism, another way of interpreting all that exists.
As a person whose thinking was formed when modernism was the predominant philosophy, I find myself understanding and agreeing with modernistic thought and methods of reaching conclusions more than with postmodernism. But its apparent truths also break down. For example, one of the tenets of modernism is its deification of science: "The knowledge produced by science is 'truth' and is eternal" (#4 of the second list in this article). Of course, in order to discuss that statement, we'd have to first define the word "science." If, for example, science includes the theory of evolution, I would find myself disagreeing.
God's truth, on the other hand can, I believe, stand under scrutiny and is consistent across the disciplines. As the psalm writer says:
"The works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them... The works of His hands are verity and justice; All His precepts are sure. They stand fast forever and ever and are done in truth and uprightness." Psalm 111: 2, 7-8.
I choose to believe that the way things are, are as described in the Bible. It is my foundational truth. I have staked my life on it. Upon what "truth" have you anchored your life?
Postmodern thought is creeping into the church. The postmodern church often self-identifies as "emergent" or "emerging." I found the book Why We're Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be (Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, Moody Press, 2008) an excellent resource to help me identify aspects of postmodern thought that are infiltrating the church and the dangers they pose to evangelical Christianity.
Do your 8-12-year-olds have daily devotions? Point them to Bible Drive-Thru.
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