The Christian faith, the Bible and the modern world
This is week 2 of our BIG Questions series. Last week we asked about AI, technology and the future of humanity. Today’s question is just as important: The Christian faith, the Bible and the modern world.
And what a morning to do it, because after this sermon we’ll be celebrating the baptisms of three wonderful people — Sophia, Orlando and Abigail. What a joy to be part of.
But let me ask you something: what’s your relationship with the Bible? Do you have one? — Do you read it often? Maybe it’s gathering dust somewhere on a shelf. Or maybe you’ve never opened one at all. However you relate to the Bible, it often mirrors how you relate to the Christian faith.
Here’s the reality: Many people today — especially in a city like Brussels — believe the Bible is outdated. Just another ancient religious text, with little to say to modern life. And so, they assume, the Christian faith must also be outdated.
After all, why would we listen to a book that talks about a man and a woman running around naked in a garden thousands of years ago, or about a Jewish carpenter claiming to be God 2,000 years ago — when we live in a world of rockets, vaccines, and AI that seems almost godlike? Haven’t we outgrown all that?
As we consider the reality of the God of the Bible, I can’t help but think about one of my most moving experiences. I was about 24 years old and had been a Christian for about 2 years. I was in the airforce and flying on deployment to a different base for a few weeks. The plan was to refuel at an airbase in a place called Bloemfontein, but as I was approaching the base low-level, maybe 5 minutes flying, the weather turned very bad. My technical ground crew, a man called Godfrey, and I got caught in the worst thunderstorm and microburst I’ve ever experienced. We almost crashed a few times over those 5 minutes as I had to fight to keep the aircraft in the air, but eventually we landed shaken and stirred, but safely.
The Air traffic controller said, he thought he’d lost us when the weather radar had gone black over the top of us, and I played it cool, but inside I was freaking out. I stopped the aircraft and before we even got out, Godfrey’s phone rang. It was his grandmother who was asking if he was ok? She had suddenly gotten a desperate urge from God to pray for him. He put the phone down, and my phone rang. My mother was on the phone and she was asking if I was ok, because she had just gotten a huge urge to pray for my safety.
Godfrey and I just looked at each other, and knew, that a very real God had reached in and kept the two of us alive that day.
That’s one story from my life about the reality and relevance of God in the real world. BUT if God is real, His word must be truthful as well, and we should see his fingerprints all over a west culture that has been shaped by Christianity for 2000 years.
Which brings us to our Big Question:
Is the Christian faith and the Bible still relevant in the modern world? Or have we moved past it?
C.S. Lewis, the author of the Narnia books, said this about Jesus: “You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse… But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
In other words: Christianity is either utterly insane, or utterly true. What it cannot be is something in the middle.
And this morning I want to make the case that Christianity is not only true but essential…and is the very foundation of the world we live in today.
The Nature and Trustworthiness of Scripture
The Apostle Paul who wrote half the New Testament says (2 Tim 3:16-17):
"All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
Notice three things:
God-breathed. The Bible is not man’s invention but God’s revelation.
Profitable. It is useful for every generation, including ours.
Equipping. It prepares us to live wisely and faithfully in every age.
But isn’t the Bible just an ancient text? Can we actually trust what we read?
Yes. In fact, the Bible is the most historically reliable ancient document in existence (how close is the oldest version from the original):
The New Testament: over 5,800 manuscripts in Greek, plus 10,000 in Latin, and 9,000 in other languages. Some date to within decades of the original.
Compare: Homer’s Iliad — 643 manuscripts, earliest 500 years after.
Old Testament: When the Dead Sea Scrolls from between 200-100BC, were found in 1947, scholars compared them with the later manuscripts from the 900’s that had been our older existing manuscripts.
Result: astonishing accuracy.
And archaeology backs it up: the description of the destruction of Jericho, inscriptions of ancient kings, even Pontius Pilate’s name carved in stone.
Friends, the evidence of the truthfulness and authenticity of the Bible is overwhelming!
So here’s the punchline: if you doubt what the Bible says and the words written in it, you would have to doubt nearly everything we know about the ancient world.
And yet, Islam — which arose 650 years after Jesus — denies His death on the cross and dismisses the New Testament, not on historical or scientific grounds, but purely declares that it never happened. In other words, the best documented event in ancient history — the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ — Islam declares a lie.”
Partly, today can help us decide which of these 2 and the other cultural views, are true.
So when Paul says Scripture is “God-breathed,” he’s not talking about a myth like the Greek gods. He’s talking about a living word, reliable and trustworthy, still relevant in our modern age. Let’s see if that’s true?
AND, if it is true, we should see the fingerprints of Christianity everywhere?
The question is: if the Bible is God-breathed and Jesus is true, has that truth actually shape life in a way that is good and healthy for people to flourish in? Let’s see how the Bible has built the foundations of the modern world and help people to thrive.
The Bible as the Foundation of Modern Values
Think about the values we hold dearest today in the West:
Human dignity
Equality
Compassion for the weak
Justice and freedom
We take these for granted. In the West we are born assuming these to be right, good and true, and how life should be. But these are not universal. In the Roman Empire of the time of Jesus, human life was cheap. Unwanted babies were left to die on rubbish heaps. Slavery was normal. The weak were ignored and deliberately dominated by the powerful because the Romans and the Greeks before them believed that it was the place of the powerful to rule over the weak. Women were second class citizens. In parts of the Islamic world, much of these things are still true today.
And yet Christianity changed everything. Why? Because the Bible teaches:
Human dignity - Genesis 1:27 — every person is made in the image of God.
Equality - Galatians 3:28 — in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Radical equality.
Compassion for the weak - Micah 6:8 — do justice, love kindness, walk humbly.
Justice and freedom - John 13:34 — love one another as I have loved you.
Secular Historian Tom Holland says: the values we cherish most — equality, dignity, compassion — are not Roman or Greek ideas. They are Christian.
Even many secular philosophers admit this. Jürgen Habermas, a secular philosopher, writes: “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy.”
Contrast with other worldviews:
Atheism: If there is no God, then human dignity is just a social construct. You’re just an animal. Morality becomes “survival of the fittest. The powerful dominating the weak.”
Islam: Dignity is tied to ‘submission’ to Allah. Equality is not universal; full rights belong only to Muslims.
Christianity: Every human life has unconditional worth because every person is made in God’s image.
Friends, the reality is that if you believe in human dignity, equality, compassion, justice — you already believe in uniquely Christian values, whether you realise it or not.
The Bible isn’t just relevant. It is the foundation of modern Western values.
What Happens When We Sever the Roots?
People may be thinking, “Ok, but that’s the past — why does it matter now?”
Because the West is trying to keep the fruit of Christian values without the roots of Christian faith.
Picture an apple tree with fruit on. And when you cut a tree from its roots it might look alive for a while, but it is dying. That’s the West today. Trying to get ‘Christian fruit’ without the ‘Christian root and faith.’
Evidence for this is everywhere:
Morality has fractured into “my truth” vs “your truth.
Cancel culture silences debate instead of encouraging freedom. I’m hearing from many people these days how they feel like they have to unfriend and block people because of the type of harsh accusing language being used, even by ‘friends’.
Tribalism and identity politics divide society.
Human dignity is being eroded on every front: the abortion and assisted dying discussions are some of the symptoms of this erosion.
As we discovered last week, there is emerging mental health crises, especially among the young, even in a time of wealth and technology.
Friends don’t we all want a world of dignity, equality, compassion, justice? They are at the centre of the Christian world, but cut off from Christ, these values wither.
Friedrich Nietzsche, an atheist philosopher warned: if God is dead, morality collapses. “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet.”
Contrast:
Atheism: no ultimate truth, only confusion or despair.
Islam: truth imposed by law and fear, not freely embraced.
Christianity: truth that transforms, renewing hearts and minds (Rom 12:2).
So dear friends, if cutting off the roots leads to cultural chaos and a death of the Biblical values that we enjoy so much, what is the answer?
Going back to the root, seems the right solution does it not? But the roots aren’t a philosophy, they’re a person.
Christ: The Word Made Flesh
At the centre of Christianity is not simply a set of values but a Person.
Dear friends. We don’t just need a set of ideas to save us from cultural collapse — we need someone strong enough, loving enough, and true enough to hold the weight of all our longings for justice, equality, dignity, and compassion. Someone who can truly and eternally be a foundation to build our lives and a culture on. And that’s exactly who we meet in Jesus Christ.
John 1 says: “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Jesus is the foundation of Christianity. He is the Word made flesh, the light in the darkness, the source of life, and peace and joy.
In the the famous verse John 3:16, we read:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
At the cross, God demonstrates His self-giving love towards all people, towards all of us who are not holy and righteous in God’s sight. He dies for all people who aren’t worthy by worldly standards. By grace he offered forgiveness and value and identity and family. By grace he demonstrated human dignity, equality, and compassion for the weak and perfect justice and freedom for all who would receive it.
The impact of the love of God through the person of Jesus Christ has over the past 2000 years shaped the west into a place where we have seen the flourishing and the growth of humanity.
Contrast:
Atheism: Love reduced to chemicals.
Islam: Allah is merciful but not loving and relational in this way.
Christianity: God IS love (1 John 4:8). He enters history as one of us but unlike us never sins. He suffers and dies on a Roman cross for us, and through his death and resurrection offers salvation for those who would receive it by faith.
God does this because He IS love and wants people to experience His love.
Every value the modern world prizes — dignity, equality, compassion, justice — finds its full expression in Jesus Christ.
And friends, if this is who Jesus really is — the Word made flesh, God’s love poured out for us and on us — then Christianity is not just one option among many. It is essential. Because only in Him do we find the resources to truly live, the truth to stand on, and the hope to die with.
Why the Christian Faith is Essential
So why is Christianity essential, not just relevant?
The Bible equips us (2 Tim 3) - gives us the values and empowers us to live them out in community and culture
The Bible transforms us (Rom 12) - where the world says “change your body to fit your mind, reinvent yourself to find truth”, the Bible tells us that our problem is our mind that needs to come in line with Jesus’ mind. We don’t need a ‘makeover’ we need a transformation from Jesus by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible points us to Jesus (John 1) - Equipping and transforming becomes a to-do list, another attempt to impress God. But the Bible doesn’t point us to ourselves, it points us to Jesus. Grace, not works. Faith, not striving. Resting in what He has done, not in what we can do for Him.
And only Christianity offers salvation that is secure:
Atheism: no salvation, only darkness and despair.
Islam: salvation by works, never certain.
Only Christianity: salvation by grace, through faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross.
Baptism: A Living Picture of the Gospel’s Power
And the good news is — this isn’t just a set of truths on a page or theories for philosophers. The Christian faith is alive. It still changes lives today. And baptism is the living picture of that.
Paul writes in Romans 6:4: “We were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too might walk in newness of life.”
In baptism we see the visible picture of a spiritual reality:
Death to the old life - Through faith in Jesus and his death in place for all people, your past identity with it’s shame and rebellion against God, has died with Jesus, It is gone. Removed. Going down under the water is a picture of death and burial to that old life with Jesus.
New life in Christ - As we are united to Christ through faith, the image of coming out of the water is a picture of the resurrection life and hope that we now have in Jesus. His resurrection will be our resurrection. His eternal life will be our eternal life.
Public witness — “I am not ashamed of the gospel” (Rom 1:16).
Atheism says you’re an accident. Islam says you must strive and hope it’s enough. Baptism declares: “By grace I am saved and have eternal life and hope. I belong to Christ.”
And today, as Sophia, Orlando, and Abigail are baptised, we witness that Christianity is not just relevant, but real, present, and powerful.
Believers: Be confident. Your faith is not a relic. It is the foundation of the world’s deepest values. Live it boldly.
Seekers: Recognise that the values you cherish are borrowed from Christianity. Without Christ, can they stand? Is this a moment to consider Jesus for yourself?
Everyone: You must choose. As Lewis said, Jesus is either lunatic & liar, or Lord. You cannot remain neutral.
Conclusion
Christianity is not outdated. It is indispensable. It is the root of dignity, freedom, and hope. Without Christ, the world loses its compass. With Him, we gain new life.
So dear friends, the question this morning isn’t just “Is Christianity relevant?” The REAL question is “Will you receive the love of Christ who died for you, and experience true life now and forever?”
C.S. Lewis wrote: “I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
And as we celebrate baptism today, we see living proof that the Christian faith and the Bible are not just relevant — they are essential.
MOSAIC CHURCH