As Christian believers we share together the one Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit’s ministry in bringing Jesus into our lives today—but where each one of us is in life very different. We have differing challenges, many so deep that we have to rethink and re-evaluate just what our faith means to us now. Unity with diversity, that’s more than a philosophical or social concern, that’s where we are in our Christian faith.

I’ve been reading Mark Gornik’s remarkable Word Made Global, about “African faith in New York City.” That’s a very competitive and expensive place to live, and immigrant believers from Africa band together in their churches to find direction and strength from Jesus Christ, not just to survive but to journey on in joyful faith. For them the gospel includes helping each other live for Jesus with all the city’s challenges. It’s a fascinating story, and it shows how comprehensive Christian faith can be as we live it together.

Is that unique? When I think about Iowa history in the 19th century it’s those pockets of Norwegians, Swedes and Welsh who deliberately chose to have their farms in the same neighborhoods along with those who shared the same background and language—and faith. Those little country churches were places to worship, but also places to catch up with each other afterwards, and schedule putting the harvest crew together. To me that resembles my frosh year in college, as all of us ignorant immigrants to college life prayed together about the courses we were taking that just made no sense at all.

That way of growing together resembles also our Puritan and Pietist heritage. When we work with the Bible together we think about our common problems and help each other out with the biblical answers. As the problems change so do the answers, and that’s the way it is in the Bible too. It’s one thing to be in the Promised Land and another to be in exile, again. As our Western culture turned from Rationalism to Romanticism, we learned to take a harder look at what our history meant. The new and different changes were all in God's plan and made good sense because of his sovereignty. The Lord, he is God indeed, and he knows what to do for and with us in all those new and different places in our lives. The changes in the Bible go together with our new challenges.

Understanding that makes for sermons worth thinking about all week. When the preacher says, I know from talking with you how you’re struggling, so now we need to think about how this piece of God’s Word shows us the way to deal with that. We’re putting together a group to have Sunday lunch together and help each other with this, in word and deed. All of us will help each other out in remembering and applying God’s Word. That kind of application is what makes e sermon overflow with meaning, so when this thing troubles me again, then I’ll pray over what that sermon was all about.

That’s happening right now in Mark Gornik’s New York City. Those believers are showing us all the ways to a gospel faith that makes a difference in our hard lives.

Harvie Conn’s cross-cultural studies has helped us so much. He got us thinking of new possibilities for “the role of women.” As women routinely become professors and senators and business executives, in new and exciting ways that we never thought possible before—what could that mean for their roles in leadership in Christ’s church? Maybe more than casseroles and child care? Harvie didn’t have all the answers, but he had enough hard questions for him to get into trouble with those who didn’t see the point of asking them!

Biblical counseling with Jay Adams and CCEF opened new doors that never should have been shut. It’s just not enough to know What the Lord calls upon you to do, you need also to know How to do it. That takes a lot closer look at God’s Word and at where you are in your life. There’s more to gospel living than just the long-term goal, what’s crucial is knowing what is your next step today.

Learning how to study the Bible is what we all need to get better at, for all of the above and more to come. For our leaders it’s how they learn it in seminary. Begin by looking up that strange Hebrew word in your pricey lexicon, and see how it’s not just about what it meant in ancient Jewish culture, but how words like it in the other Semitic cultures helped those people think about similar things. The Jews and the followers of other gods thought about life in similar ways! That can be a stretch to think through. We know there’s a Christian world-view and it’s not the same as the other world-views—but we also know those ancient folks could talk to each other! That’s where we are today, surrounded by unbelievers with no clue at all about reality or truth or what’s right and good—but we are called to talk to them and by the Lord’s grace we can, even hearing what they say. Today we can praise the Lord with language that other people share. That’s the way it was back then too. Learning some ANE, Ancient Near-Eastern culture, helps you understand the Bible, that’s the amazing reality students learn in seminary.

That’s eye-opening but many cans of worms come with it. The biggest worm is the danger of relativism, that nothing in the Bible is really true but only illustrative for some people, as when those theologians on the far left tell us that the virgin birth or Hell are just figures of speech. That can make us nervous about any cultural understanding of the Bible, so we want to settle for what the NT says the OT means, and that’s all. But when you go that way, then everything Jesus ever said or did turns out to be totally predictable, without any surprise at all, and that can’t be right. Ihe Lord does open up his plan for us bit by bit, with both continuity and definitely surprises.

All evangelical seminaries have their strengths and weaknesses, but to do better than some, encourage your future leaders to look for a school with solid counseling and cross-cultural evangelism programs and Bible courses that open up its cultural and life relevance. That may not be a priority for Mark Gornik’s leaders—but for us Westerners, cultural understanding is so ingrained in the way we think that we need to reflect seriously on how that works in the Bible.

I’ve been thinking a lot about revival. How can it happen, that the big gospel of Jesus can become boring and trivial, so that God's people need to be shown how they can wake up again? Why should we work for Awakening when the real issue is, how can we keep from nodding off? Isn’t what we really need, deeply and daily, is to grasp the height and depth and length of All that we have been given in Jesus? How the riches of the Word of the gospel care for the poverty of our hearts?

If we have been dozing away, what should we do? Pray against our hard hearts, for hearts that deeply desire to know why Jesus gave his life for us. Read the Word, daily and deeply, not content until you know what difference it makes right now. Open your hearts and your mouths to your friends, ask them to pray and grasp the gospel with you. Yes, your leaders and their training can help us so much so make sure that they know in their minds and hearts what relevance and meaning God’s Word has today, for them personally and for us. Pray that our seminaries would push them and encourage them in their passion for a gospel that makes a difference for us all.

I began this with Mark Gornik, maybe you should too? See how reading Word Made Global stretches your heart for the Lord and pushes you to work for churches like those.