SINGAPORE HAS about ten resident crocodiles in the north-west, according to recent media reports. There are more in a crocodile farm and the zoo.
Crocodiles are cold-blooded reptiles; having a very low metabolism rate, they do not need to maintain a body temperature within a narrow range to survive. They have a small brain â again freeing them from having to sustain a steady inner temperature.
NOT OF THE WORLD
With considerable cost God takes His children out from the world, and with considerable power, He takes the world out from them.
Crocodiles can go without food for a whole year; they are smart survival experts. Their body temperature is similar to the surrounding environment.
Sheep, however, are warm-blooded mammals, and need to maintain an optimum body temperature to survive. For protection, they have wool for the cold and elaborate physiological processes for excessive heat. (Like sheep, humans too have to protect themselves from hypothermia and heat strokes.)
We can learn a lesson or two from the crocodile and the sheep when relating to the world.
We learn from Godâs Word that God chose us âout of the worldâ to make
us His children (John 15:19). With considerable cost (the blood of Jesus) He takes His children out from the world, and with considerable power, He takes We are reminded that though we are sent to the world, we are not of the world (John 17:14). We are not to âconform to the pattern of this worldâ but to be transformed by adopting the perspectives of Godâs kingdom (Romans 12:2).
Jesus prayed for His disciples (John 17) â for their protection from the evil and dangerous world. He also prayed for their unity and witness so that the world might believe in Him. The Lord depicts the world as both a jungle and a mission field. We are to be separated from the world and its ungodliness even as we are sent into it as His faithful witnesses.
But this is not easily done. In avoiding the world as godless jungle, we may huddle together and forget that the world is also a mission field. Or we can happily and naively venture into it with missionary adventurism and end up as a colony of the world. The 18th Century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard pointed out this real danger: âImagine a fortress, absolutely impregnable, supplied with provisions for an eternity. A new commandant comes. He gets the idea that the right thing to do is to build bridges over the ditches â in order to be able to attack the besiegers. Charming! He transformed the fortress into a village, and the enemy captured it, naturally. So it is with Christianity. We changed the method and the world conquered, naturally.â
Deep faithfulness to God is needed when we reach out to the lost world â otherwise our efforts and methods will become Trojan horses by which the world enters the church.
The record is not very encouraging. Alan Wolfe, in The Transformation of American Religion, observes that all forms of the American church have compromised with culture and lost the battle. Wolfe argues that âin every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture â and American culture has triumphed.â
American Christianity and its many imitators may be confused about the world, having forgotten what the Bible says about the world.
Has the church become filled with worshippers who, like the crocodile, have expertly merged with the sinful world and lost their identity and witness? They have no steady life-giving inner temperature but, with reptilian instinct, reflect the moods and values of the world.
How then can a preacher feed such worldly consumerists when his task is to feed Godâs sheep? Has the church itself become cold-blooded as it adopts the moral colours and lifestyles of a rapidly changing world?
JUNGLE AND FIELD
In avoiding the world as godless jungle, we may huddle
together and forget that the world is also a mission field. Or
we can happily and naively venture into it with missionary
adventurism and end up as a colony of the world.
By Robert Solomon