Popular, not proper!

Now Korah, and Dotham and Abiram and On, the son of Eliab…...took men. And they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly famous in the congregation, men of renown. And they gathered themselves together against Moses…..And it came to pass as he had made an end of speaking all these words and the ground opened swallowed them up …..(Numbers 16:1-34 KJV)

The church in the wilderness experienced a rebellion against the leadership of Moses staged by four ring leaders and supported by 250 princes from the congregation. These men caused many of the ordinary people to sway and as a result, several were killed following an earth split. These   princes who were royals were the celebrities of their day. God was not swayed by celebrity or popular opinion then and neither is he now. As his children, we should imitate him (Ephesians 5:1).

It is human to want to fit into the crowd as there is an uneasiness that comes with being different. This conformity sometimes poses problems especially as not all that is popular is right. The perspectives of our society changes continually with increasing blurriness between right and wrong. Rather than a clear black or white, there are several shades of grey now. But if we are to make a difference and imprint our mark in this world, there are several occasions where it would be necessary to deviate from popular (Romans 12:2 MSG). The media is an effective tool for portraying society’s “popular” as acceptable. Some of the things that were a shock some decades ago have now become so common that the average person reckons them as proper or right.

But being popular does not necessarily translate to being wrong. Recently as a resulting of growing popularity via social network, the world was made aware of the plight of over 250 Nigerian girls abducted via the #bringbackourgirls campaign.

Neither should we also accept everything that is popular in the church or Christian circle as right. There is a growing Biblical illiteracy amongst Christians that makes falling into error inevitable. (2 Timothy 2:15, 4:1; Timothy 4:1-2, Colossians 3:16). Before we join the next big thing ,we should check the word of God as the  noble Berean Christians did, even after Paul taught them (Acts 17:10-11).

God is not calling us to be weirdoes, rather he is asking that we do not follow the crowd to do evil (Exodus 23:2) which may sometimes mean not being “politically correct”. This may sometimes lead to persecution but the persecution should not be because we have an attitude. We have been called to be salt and light (Matthew 5:3-16). As Christians, our lives should not be based on what is popular rather it should be based on the unchanging word of God (2 Timothy 2:19; 3:10, 16). This should be our code for moral conduct and our final word on what is proper.

Yours in His Service,

Grace Tom-Lawyer