Can you see it?

All those side-by-side pictures on social media. How fast can you find what's different? For us who are "in the world but not of it", difference-seeing is an important skill.

What's of God's kingdom? And what's of the world?

Jesus shows us what God's kingdom is like (Parables, the Sermon on the Mount, the Great Commandment, the Great Commission, his own life). The Apostle Paul does too (1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5, for example). They draw the contrast so we will do the same in our own time and place. Can you see it?

Cultural Literacy and Fluency

In our more interconnected world, cultural literacy is a valuable asset. Cultural literacy is an awareness of cultural differences—an awareness that hopefully leads to more understanding, better collaboration, and greater influence. Cultural literacy is essential in areas like healthcare, education, and business.

Since cultural literacy is knowing about other cultures, a person can grow in culturally literacy from outside a culture. But to be fluent in a culture, that person must move inside. Cultural fluency is about becoming part of a culture in such a way that the culture no longer seems foreign or strange. It’s assimilation; adaptation to the deepest levels.

““The measure of Christian discipleship is Kingdom cultural fluency.”

This is a good metaphor for Christian discipleship. When we commit to follow Jesus—to be governed by him—we are transferred from the world’s system into his kingdom. We are adopted into his family. We become participants in a new culture. The measure of Christian discipleship is Kingdom cultural fluency. What is God’s kingdom like? Who am I? How am I supposed to live? How successfully am I living this way? How normal are the ways of the Kingdom becoming to me?

But as Kingdom citizens, we’re also left in the world’s system to represent Kingdom culture here. We’re called ambassadors. And to do that well, we must maintain a cultural literacy of the world’s system. What is the world like? What drives people? What are their (and our) struggles, needs, and passions?

The essential thing for Christians is that we know the difference between literacy and fluency—and that we are firmly convinced of which culture we’re to become fluent and of which one we’re to remain literate.

Without Comment

Let Colossians 3 tell us who we are, what we have been given, and what God's Kingdom is like:

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Amen.