Christianity Brought Meritocracy to the West
Meritocracy Breeds Excellence
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[Exodus 23:19 NIV] 19 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God.”
[2 Timothy 2:15 NIV] 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
I believe the Judeo-Christian ethic turned Western democracy into a meritocracy that promoted competition in excellence, because righteousness implies placing competence above connections. Think about this: many of Jesus Christ’s parables are about being able managers of the resources of the Owner (Christ).
The Ten Virgins, Matthew 25; the Talents, Matthew 24; the Minas, Luke 19; the Two Sons, Matthew 21; the Shrewd Manager, Luke 16; or the Tenants, Mark 12.
Overall, Christ taught His hearers to be responsible: John 15, bearing fruit; the Rich Ruler, Luke 18; the Greatest Commandment, Mark 12; or Paying Taxes to Caesar, Mark 12.
Righteousness
[Proverbs 14:34 LSB] 34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.
Righteousness is moral integrity, but it also includes other traits like a strong work ethic (1 Timothy 5:8), turning from false doctrines (1 Timothy 6:20), speaking God’s words boldly (Ezekiel 3:4–9), fearing God and attempting to persuade people (2 Corinthians 5:11), or service to God (Romans 15:17).
Forced Compliance
In many ways, our culture uses shame to coerce its members to fall in line, to conform to its code. COVID was a clear example by mandating the closure of churches, wearing masks, and demanding vaccination to protect others. However, the Renewed Covenant (NT) says that by enduring the cross, Jesus Christ turned its cultural weapons of shame against His culture. Notice He “scorned” or “despised its shame,” Hebrews 12:2.
[Hebrews 12:2 KJV] 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising (disdain, or thinking nothing of) the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Christ refused to be ashamed of what they wanted Him to be ashamed of. Instead, He made them ashamed of what they ought to have been ashamed of.
We are to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through His own blood.
[Hebrews 13:12-13 AMP] 12 Therefore Jesus also suffered and died outside the city gate so that He might sanctify and set apart for God as holy the people who believe through the shedding of His own blood. 13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His contempt, the disgrace and shame that He had to suffer.
Friends, are you as awe-struck as I am at God’s inspired Word? Oh my! Selah! Stop and ponder!
Followers of Christ Who Moved the West Toward Righteousness
William Wilberforce, a devout Christ-follower, relentlessly spearheaded the abolition of the slave trade in England that eventually stemmed the tide of American slavery, which is kidnapping (Exodus 21:16).
John Wesley’s open-air preaching: He traveled 250,000 miles on horseback and gave 40,000+ sermons. He was instrumental in helping to transform a predominately deviant England and France into a much more righteous and civilized society during the First Great Awakening. (Look to The Incredible Journey by Gary Kent, John Wesley: The Man Who Saved England.)
Martin Luther understood the meaning of a little phrase in the Bible: “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17). Those words transformed Luther, enabling him to reject the religious culture that promoted corruption (e.g., the selling of indulgences) as a way of salvation. Luther’s intellectual transformation began a social revolution that created the modern world. It snatched cultural power from the custodians of the older view (Catholicism) and transferred it to a people who sought and obeyed Truth.
A few comments about “words,” as I referenced above.
Postmodernism has lost confidence in words because the West has rejected its logo-centric worldview. Yet the fact is that human beings create culture and history because we speak. Words are creative because they presuppose imagination and freedom. Freedom means that our words can be true or false, liberating or deceiving, constructive or destructive. Our words can capture the invisible laws that regulate the cosmos because behind the cosmos are words—the Creator’s words. Genesis 1:3: “Elohim God said, ‘Let there be light.’” I believe that the triunity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—were each instrumental in creation.
[Genesis 1:1-3 KJV] 1 In the beginning God (the Father) created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit) moved (created waves of light energy) upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said (the first recorded words of Christ), Let there be light: and there was light. Christ is also called the Logos (Word) of God in John 1:1-3.
As long as the marketplace of ideas is still accessible to us, we must use and define our words and God’s Words, because words create and transform! (Look to the Henry Morris Study Bible, Genesis 1–3, pages 6–8, for the best Bible study notes on creation in all of Christendom!)
The Pursuit of Knowledge — A Divine Calling
This particular idea—that the pursuit of knowledge is a divine calling—came into Europe from the Bible via Saint Augustine (AD 354–430). Augustine taught that God was a rational Being and the human mind (not just the human soul, our emotion) was made in God’s image. Therefore, our rationality was qualitatively different from the brain in animals. God gave us a mind like His own so that we might know Him and understand and govern His creation as His children. For Augustine, this meant that according to the Bible, to be godly required us to cultivate our minds, the instrument of knowing God and His creation. If people worship creation, like Romans 1:25 teaches, man is incapable of stewarding the earth.
This Augustinian theological assumption enabled the West to put confidence in human logic, language, and rational knowledge all the way from intuition and empirical observation to biblical doctrines.
Much before the birth of the modern age, the medieval Augustinian monasteries began doing something that became unique to Christianity. When a young man devoted his life to seek and to serve God, the monastery required him to spend years reading the Bible, languages, literature, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, music, theology, philosophy, and practical arts such as agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine, metallurgy, and technology.
A most profound book I am presently reading is Truth and Transformation by Vishal Mangalwadi. Please consider reading this author.
“The monastery—which was an institution for cultivating ‘religious’ life—began producing a particular rational person, capable of researching, writing books, developing technology and science, developing capitalism, and developing complex, rational legal and political systems. The Bible became the ladder on which the West climbed the heights of its educational, technological, economic, political, and scientific excellence.” (Look to Truth and Transformation by Vishal Mangalwadi, page 119.)
As an aside, much of the First and Second Great Awakenings were a reaction to the power structure of legalistic institutionalization of Christianity. As a result, many of the evangelists of the Great Awakenings were filled with fervor, often soliciting an emotional response and a personal faith. However, John Wesley’s holistic worldview was a logical and well-thought-out rational presentation of the Good News of the Kingdom of God through the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Nancy Pearcey, in her book Total Truth, Chapter Twelve, How Women Started the Culture War, provides an excellent treatment of some of the aspects of the First and Second Great Awakenings.
Wesley’s vision of “practical divinity”—what we might call “applied theology”—was far more expansive than many realize. It encompassed not just theological treatises, but also language studies, natural sciences, medicine, and literary classics. For Wesley, all of these were part of a holistic approach to education that was deeply rooted in biblical Faith. Before the popular use of the word “worldview” being used today, Wesley had a Biblical Total Truth Worldview (BTTW), because he viewed all of life through the lens of Scripture. He did not compartmentalize the Faith.
The Importance of Knowledge
[Hosea 4:6 AMP] 6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge of My law, where I reveal My will. Because you, the priestly nation, have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
The Reformation transformed the West because it made Europeans learners, the Bible their textbook, and Christ their supreme Teacher. We are living in an evangelical age in which intellectual flabbiness and an anti-intellectual approach to the message of the Bible have become the prominent DNA in the evangelical church. Our present drift is not so much post-Christian as the emergence of paganism. The choice before our generation is either to seek the knowledge of God once again or to slide into the abyss of paganism in ignorance, corruption, and slavery. The Word of God commands us in Proverbs 4:5-8:
Get wisdom (continually making righteous decisions), get understanding (discernment)… Wisdom is supreme; therefore, get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Esteem her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you.
Applications:
Measure your personal level of godly, inspiring excellence (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).
Using the same scale, assess the level of biblical excellence of your church regarding:
- The holistic approach to explain all Scripture
- The defining and explaining of biblical words
- The application of the Bible regarding cultural issues
- The integration of Truth accompanied with love
- The boldness to face the paganism in the broader culture
Comment on one of the passages of Scripture in this teaching that you will rigorously attempt to obey.
[Psalm 8:9 KJV] 9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Aspiring to Be Excellent for the Lord Jesus Christ with you.
Dale