Cultural Mandate
July 12th, 2009Neil Holm
I found the following blog thoughts helpful:
Common Grace and the “Cultural Mandate”
As modern day evangelicals, we are most familiar with God’s saving grace—the means by which God’s saving power, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, can redeem people from their sin and give them new life in Christ and throughout eternity. What we hear less about today is another theological concept called “common grace.”
In his book, How Now Shall We Live?, Chuck Colson describes the cultural mandate in the following terms: “God cares not only about redeeming souls but also about restoring his creation. He calls us to be agents not only of his saving grace but also of his common grace. Our job is not only to build up the church but also to build a society to the glory of God. As agents of God’s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty, and to heal and help those suffering from the results of the Fall.”
