By Lloyd Streeter, Dan Leeds, Brian Gottchall
The byword of our day in evangelical and fundamental circles is the word “balance.” It is a word used as a weapon by some people against anyone who disagrees with them. It is time for believers everywhere to question what is meant by this idyllic “balance.”
Is a man a separatist? Then he is said to lack “balance.” Does he believe in standards? Does he believe in Christian schools? Does he believe in a Christian lifestyle? Then there are plenty of people to call him “unbalanced.” And he IS unbalanced by the standard of human opinion.
What is the standard, or level, that Christians should use to determine balance? The Word of God, of course, is the correct standard. The Word of God works!
The standard used by most people (including all humanists) is the standard of human opinion. “What do most people do, or believe, about this?” Well then, those who do, or believe, otherwise are said to lack “balance.” Christians should desire to be scriptural, rather than “balanced.”
Oh yes, we have seen some who grew up in good Christian homes, were faithful in Sunday school, youth programs, preaching services, and attended a Christian School who turned out to be spiritual duds. BUT ONLY A FEW! The vast majority of such people have turned into fine Christian men and women who love the Lord, go to Christian colleges, and become strong workers in local churches. Many of the graduates of Christian schools attend Christian colleges. Some go to other colleges or trade schools. Many graduates are married, have Christian families, and are regular attendees and strong supporters of their local church.
We have also known of families that were, so-called, “balanced.” People who were afraid that they would get too much of the Word of God. People who were “balanced” between worldliness and godliness; between humanism and Christianity; and between the Word of God and their feelings. The outcome of the lives of these people is not as good as that of the dedicated people mentioned above.
The Word of God does not return unto Him void! The Bible says, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11).
Will the Bible backfire and produce the opposite reaction of what it has promised? Some have argued that “There could be a point of too much, where oversaturation produces the opposite of what is desired or planned.” But God says, “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee” (Psalm 84:4). “Blessed are they that keep his testimonies that seek him with the whole heart” (Psalm 119:2). “But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2).
Can we give children and young people too much Bible? It seems silly, in our sin-infested world (with its television, billboards, and selfish lifestyles screaming at us), for us to even suggest such a thing. The Bible says, “And thou shalt teach [the words of God] diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:7-9).
There are no commands or suggestions anywhere in the Bible that parents should try to strike some kind of “balance” between teaching God’s way and the way of the world. There can be no compromise with evolution, situation ethics, homosexuality, “new morality,” humanism, or secularism. Schools which ridicule and erode Bible standards are not fit places for Christian young people.
We look with suspicion on any teacher or writer who finds pure Bible teaching (without admixture of secularism) distasteful. We find dangerous any philosophy which worries that the Bible will get in the way of how kids “feel,” of their “freedom,” or of their “right to enjoy.”