Relearning to Follow
Have you noticed how someone will binge watch the entire box set of The Last Of Us, but when you quote more than 2 verses of scripture they don’t have the attention span for it? It seems that we make room for whatever we already like – caught in the web of our own life-choice algorithm. And that is the quiet shape of culture – not just what we watch or wear, but what we trust, imitate and what we allow form us without even realising. In response to the faintest hint of that JB Phillips almost trips over himself to implore us, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould” (Romans 12:1-2)
You and I live in a world where our phone lights up before the sun does. Those mischievous algorithms know what you want before you do. 7.00am? Here’s what Starbucks are doing today! What about Gregg’s breakfast special? You scroll past heartbreak, war, cats in sunglasses, parrots running across the floor and a sermon clip from some tanned guy with suspiciously white teeth – all in teh same minute. Right in the middle of it comes the challenge: you’re supposed to be a disciple, and not just someone who believes in Jesus but someone who follows him – really follows him. That’s different. That means you can’t just react like everybody else. You’re called to engage, but not to absorb.
This morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the former Secretary of State Michael Gove made a comment about how culture is “changing too quickly”. Gove’s right – the pace of change is so fast, hardly anyone stops to ask what they believe, why they believe it, or where that belief comes from. The ground is moving and many of us are still digging our weapons out of last week’s fight.
Here we are, with eyes blinking because the screen is so bright on tired pupils, when you open your Bible app for the verse of the day, then go straight to Instagram to see who liked last night’s picture of your desert, you’ve got a conundrum: is the Word of God going to shape how you see the world, or, is the world going to shape how you see the Word? It’s a challenge. It’s about integrity not guilt. The world as you perceive it, morphs at light‑speed, but the gospel is steady, constant, unchanging. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” it says in Romans 12. Not, “run away from the world”. Not, “be louder than it”. But different. That kind of different that makes people uncomfortable, but in a good way, the kind that smells like freedom.
Christians haven’t always been good at this. Some just copy the culture and sprinkle a little Jesus on top – like pouring holy maple syrup on a mouldy pancake. Others swing the other way, building bunkers stocked with Christian radio, decaf coffee, and a thousand copies of The Shack. But Scripture shows another way. You’re not called to escape the world. You’re sent into it. Not to blend in, not to shout it down, but to bear witness—like Daniel in Babylon, Joseph in Egypt, and Jesus at the table, wherever He sat.
To honour Scripture in how you engage culture is to remember this: God never outsourced truth. All truth is His. You cannot slap a Bible verse on a political opinion and baptise it into Calvin’s institutes. Nor can you pretend that Jesus has no opinion on injustice, sex, money or power just because culture’s got loud (and intolerant in an age of tolerance) opinions on those things too. His Word cuts cleaner than your social media feed ever will. It’s not out‑of‑date; it’s simply out‑of‑reach for anything that wants to reduce it to a vibe.
Let’s get specific. You open your Bible app, you read, you nod, you screenshot. Then you post a quote. Then you like a meme. Then you scroll. And then you wonder why nothing’s changing. What if what you read in Scripture actually started to challenge what you watch on Netflix, what you type on Facebook or ‘X,Y and Z’, what you retweet? Guess what – it’s meant to. The pace of change might feel frantic making you could feel like you’re always playing catch-up, but you weren’t called to keep up. You were called to keep faith.
Faithfulness doesn’t mean you avoid the world. It means you engage it with grounded roots and grace… grace in your speech, patience in your dealings with people and courage in your conviction. Accompany that with an imagination formed not by Netflix, but by resurrection and you’ll be doing well, having worldview so shaped by the Gospel that it colours and compels how you see everything else.
Don’t just react to culture. Don’t echo it, and don’t collapse under it. Scripture doesn’t call you to hide or to blend in. It calls you to stand – not self-righteous, not brittle, but grounded. You don’t need to raise your voice, just let your life speak as clearly as you can. You already are the light of the world – revealing what’s good and true by how you live, showing mercy, living with integrity, so that others might catch a glimpse of God and find reason to praise Him.