Why is the doctrine of creation foundational to multicultural ministry? Because multicultural ministry is ministry to people and all people, whatever their ethnic background, are creatures.
Romans 1:19-20 stresses that there is not a person on the face of the earth who has any excuse for failing to perceive the eternal power and divine nature of God as Creator; for failing to glorify God as God, the Creator, and give thanks to him.
However, all human creatures are at loggerheads with their Creator, under his condemnation, because, perversely, they suppress this truth. As Paul puts it:
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen (Romans 1:25).
The Creator-creature relationship is such that humans have an obligation to glorify God as God and give him thanks (Romans 1:21), to acknowledge him as Creator and live their lives accordingly. Clearly, Paul does not have in mind a mere token verbal acknowledgement of God as Creator. This is not a matter of lip-service but of living a life that glorifies and honours God and expresses our undying gratitude. This, of course, presupposes that the truth about God is that he is a good Creator. It is reprehensible to treat God as though he was other than perfectly good. So while suffering and evil in the universe might pose difficult philosophical questions it is only the perversity of the human heart that casts aspersions on the character of God and fails to see that the root causes of such phenomena are to be sought elsewhere.
It is not merely a nice thing for creatures to glorify God as God and give thanks to him. This is a necessary obligation. Not only does God, as Creator, assert his right to demand such a response, though, amazingly, without despotic compulsion, but this is the only way in which we can live lives that are not a lie.
All people who do not have a personal relationship with the Creator, as revealed in Jesus Christ, are not living in harmony with real reality. Multicultural ministry is a must because no one can live according to the truth simply by adhering to traditional or culturally transmitted beliefs, values and practices. All people need to be confronted with God’s self-revelation. Yet all people suppress the truth about God that has been revealed ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made (Romans 1:18) . This underscores the necessity for all people to hear the gospel in which God reveals his righteousness since it is this self-revelation (”the gospel of God”, Romans 1:1) which alone is the power God uses to effect the salvation of all who believe, whether Jew or Gentile (Romans 1:16-17).
Posted August 13, 2008
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