Is new always bad; is old always good?
Question: I sometimes get the impression that people in church think that new is a bad thing, and that older ways of doing things is always better?
Answer: New is neither good nor bad, and old is neither good nor bad. What is bad is disobedience to God. Sometimes new things are put in place of what God has said He wants, what He has commanded. Then, new is sinful. In response to some traditions that the Pharisees were trying to impose on Jesus and His apostles, Jesus said,
-
"You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER’; and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER, IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that." Mark 7:9-13, NAS95.
Did you get the part where Jesus said, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition"? Setting aside God's commandment in order to keep any of our man-made plans — and yes, even new things can be considered "traditions" in this context, because they are man-made.
But sometimes new things replace traditions or man-made plans for doing things. At that point, new is neither sinful nor righteous. At that point, the leaders of your church need to carefully consider the wisdom of either adopting the new or clinging to the old. Sometimes the new is truly a better way of doing things; but sometimes the old is wiser.
The difficult thing for just about all of us — old or young — is having our personal "whiz-bang" idea rejected. And, by the way, sometimes the old way of doing things that we want to replace is the "whiz-bang" idea of some of the folks in leadership, and by asking to replace it with your idea, you're rejecting his. Change isn't comfortable on either end of the request.
The important thing is to love one another and not let the details of how we are going to do something sabotage our fellowship, friendships, and relationships — with men or with God. Both the old and the new must conform first to God's will and pattern; after that, the rest is just "wisdom", taste, and preference (see Romans 14 and 15).
Good Questions... Answered
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
