Edify or Entertain?

From the outset let me say a positive word about entertaining.

That which entertains can genuinely be a source of pleasure to the soul.  Someone who sings well, someone who has an ability to keep people glued to their seats by their oratory, someone of that sort, can be a medicine and a needed tonic to lift the spirits.

I’m not sure, however, if sometimes we prefer someone to entertain us, rather than the essential task of edifying us.  Not just give me a momentary lift, but build me up in my faith in Jesus.

Recently I was listening to a preacher, and the words he spoke directly challenged me to reappraise my relationship with God.  It challenged me to look again at who God declares Himself to be in scripture and who He reveals Himself to be in Jesus and who He transforms me to be by His Holy Spirit.  With these words I was a different person after the experience in substantial ways, than I was before the experience.

I do believe a song can do the same things, by the lyrical content and the passionate, harmonious and melodic way with which it is delivered.  I believe a testimony likewise can have a similar effect.  Indeed anyway in which members of the Body of Christ have been gifted have a capacity to input in my life through that gift that leaves me a more developed believer than I was previously.

Often however, I get the impression that the desire is to be entertained rather than edified.  The desire is to get a cheap thrill and a token God-shot to tick the criteria of being a moral person.

It reminds me of Paul’s warning to Timothy,

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. (2 Timothy 4:3)

Reading those words is sobering.  It suggests there has to be a desire towards seeking to hear and be built by what stands for sound doctrine.  It makes my life following Christ not like the consumer-culture at all.  I cannot afford to just digest the stuff that pleases me.  I cannot just pick and choose what I want to take on, because it is pleasing to me.  That also implies my desire of encounters with God, His Word and His People, is not primarily for the purpose of being entertained.

How would our gathering experience differ if we took seriously the priority of edifying – particularly mutual edification?  How would our approach to gathering differ?

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden