Last night I had a conversation that confirmed again the necessity of our mission at Sacred Saga Ministries. I was conversing with a student in my Introduction to Theology class that I teach online at Tozer seminary. This student is in his mid-thirties and involved in ministry. He is the son of a Baptist pastor and as such has grown up in the church for all his life.

As the class was discussing the things being learned this semester he commented that he felt overwhelmed by all the material which he was being exposed to. He said, as one who has grown up in the church, that the only theology his church taught was John 3:16. He had no concept of what the discipline of theology entailed, nor did he have any knowledge of the rich tapestry of the nearly two thousand years of history of God’s dealing with humanity. He said that as he was learning just a little about the subject, he felt that he had been robbed or cheated.

This morning I was chatting with a former student who is now the pastor of adult education at a vibrant evangelical church in the San Francisco Bay area. As I shared my conversation of last night he observed the dearth of Bible literacy in the adults to whom he ministers—not only do they have no sense of history or theology, they are even unfamiliar with the basic biblical narrative and the individual stories with which I grew up in Sunday School.

About a decade ago I had a lengthy conversation with Grant Osborn, New Testament professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Osborn made the observation that evangelical scholarship is at a level it has never before attained—we are now able to go toe-to-toe with liberals and hold our own. We are even producing works that have become standards outside the evangelical community. But, he continued, in the churches we are entering a new dark age with reference to the knowledge of Scripture. I would add that the dark age with reference to theology and history has been with us for quite some time.

Scripture, Theology, and History—these are topics I am passionate about and I am utterly convinced that any Christian should have more than a passing interest, definitely more than a “Ho-Hum, that stuff is so boring” attitude. If we look at the fourth century we see a theological phenomenon and mentality that we cannot today comprehend. But in Constantinople during  the fourth century everyday Christians were self-consciously amateur theologians! Gregory of Nyssa (d. 395)  one of the key theologian-bishops who helped establish the truth of the full deity of Christ in the Church’s understanding against the heresy that said that the preincarnate Christ was a created being, observed:

The whole city is full of it, the squares, the marketplaces, the crossroads, the alleyways; rag dealers, money-changers, food-sellers, they are all busy arguing. If you ask someone to give you change, he philosophizes about the Begotten and the Unbegotten; if you inquire about the price of a ______ you are told by way of reply that the Father is greater and the Son inferior; if you ask, “Is my bath ready?” the atten­dant answers that the Son was made out of nothing.

“On the Deity of the Son” PG xlvi, 557b

Today even in the church, theology is ignored, while I love the worship and praise songs as an expression of heartfelt devotion to the Lord, they are generally theologically anemic when compared to the hymns of old. And while we as evangelicals (rightly) focus on a personal relationship with the Lord, we ignore (to our peril) the wisdom and theological meat of the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed and the Chalcedonian definition (we after all have no creed but the Bible). As American evangelicals we have, in the words of evangelical church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette, “tended to ignore developments which ha[ve] taken place in Christianity in the Old World after the first century.” (A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 4:428). We have become a people rootless and without identity and without belief beyond “bumper sticker” spiritual slogans. I say this to our shame.

We live in an age that has discounted the entire concept of truth as real apart from personal determination. Things are no longer understood as true or false, but only as “true for me.” The late Anglican missionary bishop Lesslie Newbigin observes of this idea, “the relativism which is not willing to speak about truth but only about ‘what is true for me’ is an evasion of the serious business of living. It is the mark of a tragic loss of nerve in our contemporary culture. It is a preliminary symptom of death.” (The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 22).

When I was in high school I read the book of Revelation numerous times. I was especially interested in the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor. For each of the churches, save the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, the Lord had a severe rebuke. The Church at Ephesus’ problem was truth without love, at Pergamum, Thyatira the problem was heresy—false doctrine that undermined the truth of the gospel. Sardis was living on its reputation but had all but died spiritually. The problem at the final church, that of Laodicea, was perhaps the most pernicious,

3:14 “To⁵¹ the angel of the church in Laodicea write the following:⁵²“This is the solemn pronouncement of⁵³ the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator⁵⁴ of God’s creation: 3:15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot.⁵⁵ I wish you were either cold or hot! 3:16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going⁵⁶ to vomit⁵⁷ you out of my mouth! 3:17 Because you say, “I am rich and have acquired great wealth,⁵⁸ and need nothing,” but⁵⁹ do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful,⁶⁰ poor, blind, and naked, 3:18 take my advice⁶¹ and buy gold from me refined by fire so you can become rich! Buy from me⁶² white clothing so you can be clothed and your shameful nakedness⁶³ will not be exposed, and buy eye salve⁶⁴ to put on your eyes so you can see! 3:19 All those⁶⁵ I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent! 3:20 Listen!⁶⁶ I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home⁶⁷ and share a meal with him, and he with me. 3:21 I will grant the one⁶⁸ who conquers⁶⁹ permission⁷⁰ to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered⁷¹ and sat down with my Father on his throne. 3:22 The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’” (NET Bible)

The city of Laodicea was wealthy. It lay at the crossroads of trade routes in the Roman province of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). It was famous for its production of black wool, and also became a the ancient equivalent of a modern regional banking center. But there were problems

The place often suffered from earthquakes, especially from the great shock in the reign of Nero (60 AD), in which it was completely destroyed. But the inhabitants declined imperial assistance to rebuild the city and restored it from their own means. (Tacitus, Annals. xiv. 27.) The wealth of its inhabitants created among them a taste for the arts of the Greeks, as is manifest from its ruins; and that it did not remain behind in science and literature is attested by the names of the sceptics Antiochus and Theiodas, the successors of Aenesidemus (Diog. Laërt. ix. 11. § 106, 12. § 116). . . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laodicea_ad_Lycum)

While wealth is portrayed in the Old Testament as a blessing from God. It is not an unmixed blessing. It brings with it the dangers of self-reliance as opposed to spiritual dependence upon the God who gave the wealth. It also can mask underlying spiritual poverty, as the Lord’s rebuke to the Laodicean church reveals.

The condition of the church at Laodicea looks frightfully like the evangelical church in America today. We are rich—even by the standards of contemporary consumerism. Even those of us who struggle week to week to make our paychecks stretch over all our bills live better than kings have in ages past. That wealth has dulled our senses to the needs outside ourselves and particularly to the needs of our brothers and sisters who live in true poverty in the 2^nd and 3^rd world.

I share these thoughts and observations not to lay a guilt trip, but to call upon us to do a reality check. If the church of Laodicea was called upon to repent of its complacency, is it not appropriate for us as those who are called the children/sons of God to evaluate if indeed we have “let the world squeeze” us “into its mold” (Rom. 12:2 –J.B. Philips paraphrase), and if we have to repent—change our thinking/minds and live in a way that is consistent with our identity as God’s children?