The Message of the Church

A few years back I bought the six volumes of God, Revelation, and Authority by Carl F.H. Henry written in the mid to late 1970's. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through each of the six volumes. I recently came across a very succinct statement by Henry regarding the church's responsibility of proclaiming the Word of God. Although one or two of the culture references in the statement may be dated, I believe it still carries a strong admonition to the faithfulness of proclaiming God's Word. In Volume II under the chapter "The Awesome Disclosure of God" Carl Henry states, "The Content of the church proclamation is therefore not just anything and everything. The church's message to the world is not about the energy crisis, pollution, white or black power, detente, the Israeli-Arab conflict, ad infinitum. It is the very specific Word of God. The church is called to proclaim what God says and does. Unless it verbally articulates and communicates the revelation of God, the church has no distinctive right to be heard, to survive, or even to exist." I believe it is very easy to take a cultural issue and make it the center of our message because people may enjoy it more or people may get all worked up into a frenzy. However, I think the central thought here is that it is our responsibility to "proclaim what God says and does." May this be our message from the rooftops and the street corners that the God of heaven has spoken and acted within history as a point of bringing glory to his name for the work of redemption to people in desperate need of his intervention.