How Is Christianity Relevant for Today's Culture?

　　(Transcript of the video above)

　　The Bible says that Christians are supposed to be salt and light in the world. Most commentators think salt means that just by living their lives with integrity and godliness in the world, it keeps society from going bad. Salt was a preservative. Light has more to do with our good deeds. If we are kind to our neighbor and we are living lives of integrity and we love the people around us, sacrificially like Christ loved us, including not over repaying evil for evil, but overcoming evil with good. Both Jesus in Matthew 5 and Peter in 1 Peter 2 say that the Gentiles and the pagans, as it were, will see our good deeds and be attracted to God. We'll glorify God because of us. So if we just simply live godly lives in the world, it has an impact on culture.

　　But also we are discipling people. We are supposed to tell bankers and artists and lawyers and people in business that they have to bring their Christian gospel-shaped understanding of things to bear on, not just their private life, but their public life. When you bring the gospel to bear on your public life and then you are out there being an artist and being a banker and doing business with the gospel worldview, it's going to impact culture as well. So most of the ways in which the church is relevant to culture are significant and powerful, but in many ways through the individual members of the body of Christ, not so much the church, qua Church, coming in and saying, "Here's how the culture needs to go."