SAN ANTONIO—America’s culture needs dramatic change, but it won’t come about through any program, said Jim Denison, theologian-in-residence for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Rather, change results from the lives of Christians sold out for Christ, he insisted.
Denison reminded participants at a San Antonio apologetics conference Jesus called them salt and light. The comparison to salt constituted a great compliment, he noted.
“Salt was worth more than gold was in Jesus’ day. Salt preserved, it purified, it cleansed, it seasoned,” he said. “You are the salt—definite article. You are the only; you, all of you—if you were there, he’d be pointing at you—you are the salt of the earth. The only purifying, cleansing, preserving, seasoning influence in this fallen world.”
As light, Christians are called to be conspicuous, he added.
“You can’t hide who you are. You can’t hide what you are. People are watching every moment of every day to see who you are and what you are. You don’t have to put a fish sticker on the back your car for people to know you are a Christian,” Denison said.
Throughout history, the church has reacted differently to culture, sometimes separating itself completely and sometimes taking so much of culture on that the church, not the world, experienced change. Biblically, the church should transform culture, he insisted.
“I’m here to argue that the best biblical model is to see us as salt and light transforming the culture we have been assigned to influence with the good news of God’s love,” he said. “I believe with all my heart that the great need of the day is for Christians to be change agents—culture-changing believers, salt and light where they are.”
Culture resists frontal attacks, Denison noted.
“But the culture is enormously susceptible to salt and light. … Christians who are simply loving people and living for Jesus at the highest level of influence they can achieve,” he said.
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“God cares more about the lost world even than you do. He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all may have eternal life. He wants all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. He has a plan—a plan to prosper you and not to harm you, a plan to give you a hope and a future. He has a good, perfect and pleasing will for your life.
“So, put it in his hands. Ask him how you can be salt and light at your maximum place of influence. And leave the results with him. And you will be faithful; and therefore, you will be successful.”
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