jesusac
•a•dem•ic (ak e-DEM ik) adj. 1. abstract, speculative, orconjectural with very little practical significance.
2. pertainingto scholars and institutions of higher learning rather
than to lay people or children.
3. of interest as an intellectualcuriosity, but not particularly useful in real-world applications.
4.
provoking curiosity and analysis rather thanpassion or devotion.
5. pedantic, casuistical; good for makinga display of erudition but otherwise trivial.
6. belongingto that realm of scholastic theory and intellectual inquiry
where certainty is always inappropriate.
7. not worth gettingagitated about.
Spiritual truth is not “academic” by any of the above definitions. What you believe about God is the most important feature of your whole worldview according to John Macarthur in his new book, "The Jesus You Can't Ignore."
Look at it this way: of all the things you might ever study or reflect on, nothing could possibly be greater than God. So your view of Him automatically has more far-reaching ramifications than anything else in your belief system. What you think of God will automatically color how you think about everything else—especially how you prioritize values; how you determine right and wrong; and what you think of your own place in the universe. That in turn will surely determine how you act.
The same principle is as true for the rank atheist as it is for the most faithful believer in Christ. The practical and ideological effects of skepticism are as potent as those of heartfelt devotion—only in the opposite direction. Someone who rejects God has repudiated the only reasonable foundation for morality, accountability, true spirituality, and the necessary distinction between good and evil. So the atheist’s private life will inevitably become a living demonstration of the evils of unbelief. To whatever degree some atheists seek to maintain a public veneer of virtue and respectability—as well as when they themselves make moral judgments about others—they are walking contradictions. What possible “virtue” could there be in an accidental universe
with no Lawgiver and no Judge?
People who profess faith in the Almighty but refuse to think seriously about Him are also living illustrations of this same principle. The hypocrisy of the superficially religious has a practical and ideological impact that is as profoundly consequential as the faith of the believer or the unbelief of the atheist. In fact, hypocrisy has potentially even more sinister implications than outright atheism because of its deceptiveness. It is the very height of irrationality and arrogance to call Christ Lord with the lips while utterly defying Him with one’s life. Yet that is precisely how multitudes live (Luke 6:46). Such people are even more preposterous examples of self-contradiction than the atheist who imagines he can deny the Source of all that’s good and yet somehow be “good” himself. But the hypocrite is not only more irrational; he is also more contemptible than the out-and-out atheist, because he is actually doing gross violence to the truth while pretending to believe it. Nothing is more completely diabolical.
Satan is a master at disguising himself so that he appears good rather than evil. He “transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:14–15).
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