Because We Are Called to Counter Culture by David Platt is a preview of his longer book Counter Culture which goes into more depth on each of the issues covered in this book. After reading this preview, I immediately ordered Counter Culture and can’t wait to get started on it right away. Now, more than ever, there is an urgency for Christians to know where they stand on topics that challenge the truth and authority of Scripture. Platt has taken 9 of these issues and covered them in this book. He would be quick to say that this book provides a simple overview along with key related Scriptures. My understanding is that the full volume of Counter Culture explores these issues on a much deeper level. I’m grateful for the way that God used this shorter preview work to cause me to really ask myself where I stand on certain points of these issues. A book like this should always lead to further exploration and deeper conversation.
I have pasted below several things that I highlighted while reading…
- On popular issues like poverty and slavery, where Christians are likely to be applauded for our social action, we are quick to stand up and speak out. Yet on controversial issues like homosexuality and abortion, where Christians are likely to be criticized for our involvement, we are content to sit down and stay quiet.
- But what if Christ commands us to make these issues our concern? And what if Christ’s call in our lives is not to comfort in our culture? What if Christ in us actually compels us to counter our culture?
- And to do all of this not with conceited minds or calloused hearts, but with the humble compassion of Christ on constant display in everything we say and do.
- “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23).
- In a world marked by sex slavery and sexual immorality, the abandonment of children and the murder of children, racism and persecution, the needs of the poor and the neglect of the widow, how would we act if we fixed our gaze on the holiness, love, goodness, truth, justice, authority, and mercy of God revealed in the gospel?
- God sovereignly puts us in unique positions and places with unique privileges and opportunities to influence the culture around us. But what is necessary for all of us is to view each of these cultural issues through the lens of biblical truth and to speak such truth with conviction whenever we have the chance to do so.
- Let’s not merely contemplate the Word of God in the world around us; let’s do what it says (see James 1:22-25).
- For our eyes will no longer be focused on what is most comfortable to us; instead, our lives will be fixed on what is most glorifying to God, and in him we will find far greater reward than anything our culture could ever offer us.
- We have insulated and isolated ourselves from the massive material poverty that surrounds us in the world. We have filled our lives and our churches with more comforts for us, all while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to abject poverty in others. We need our eyes opened to the implications of the gospel for how we live.
- Make a list of your talents and assets, and consider the global needs you are aware of. Is there any place where your resources and the world’s needs intersect?
- 1 John 3:17: “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”
- Proverbs 24:10-12: “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?”
- “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5).
- Christ compels us to counter culture by stepping in to care for orphans and widows when significant people have stepped out of their lives. Indeed, the Father to the fatherless and the Defender of the widow is calling his people to care for these children and women as our own families.
- Psalm 82:4: “Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
- The primary reason the gospel is not clear in marriage in our culture is that the gospel has not been clear in marriage in the church.
- Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
- Acts 17:26: “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”
- We who know the gospel have been given the greatest gift in all the world.
- Jesus has not given us a commission to consider; he has given us a command to obey.