The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Drifting

Read this today
People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.
D A Carson

4 comments:

Paul Burgess said...

Superb quote. I have been increasingly aware of this over the last few years but especially the last couple of months. It's either a life committed totally to Christ or a life of habitual sin which is no freedom at all. Repent. Put off the old. Put on the new. As Dylan once said "there aint't no neutral ground".

Anonymous said...

Where from, Gary?

Gary Brady said...

It's from one of the For the love of God volumes for that day.

Anonymous said...

Thank you kindly. Using it for a sermon!