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Positively, being pragmatic means useful, worthwhile, instructive, workable, or successful in its pursuit. In the negative sense, as I’m using it here, pragmatism defines truth and morality strictly by their immediate practical outcomes or utility, which often leads to dismissal of absolute, objective truths and foundational ethical principles. Understood this way, pragmatism makes the audience become the judge, which connects directly to the audience of music in a church. If an idea is considered true simply because it “works” or benefits an individual, objective reality and universal moral standards lose their meaning.
If success means that people respond positively, then people inevitably become the effective audience. The church begins asking: Do people like the music? Do people feel something? Do visitors respond? Does this create enthusiasm? Does this generate excitement? Does this produce numerical growth? But if God is actually the audience of worship, then the governing question is: Does God receive this? And that question cannot be answered by measuring human response. The potential reaction of people cannot become the ultimate criterion for whether God has been worshiped acceptably.
The Proper Alternative to Pragmatism
2 Peter 2:1-3 says:
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
This portrays the opposite of experiential pragmatism. Notice the sequence. First: “laying aside” — there must be moral purification. Next: “desire the sincere milk of the word” — the believer’s appetite is directed toward the Word. Then: “that ye may grow thereby” — growth comes through the Word. And finally: “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious” — the experience comes after and through the revealed reality. Peter doesn’t say: “Seek an experience of God’s presence and then interpret it as evidence.” He says, essentially:
Come to God’s Word, receive it, grow through it, and experience the graciousness of the Lord through what He has revealed.
The word “sincere” is particularly significant. The underlying Greek word carries the idea of something unmixed, unadulterated, without deceit or guile. Peter is picturing something pure rather than something contaminated.
The Word Is the Pure Evidence
Think about a newborn receiving its mother’s milk. The infant does not need the milk to be made exciting. It does not need it flavored, intensified, dramatized, or manipulated to make it desirable. It needs pure nourishment. Peter says that Christians are to have this kind of appetite for “the sincere milk of the word.” The Word doesn’t need supplementation with an experience to become real. It doesn’t need emotional stimulation, ecstasy, spectacle, worldly excitement, psychological manipulation, or pragmatic confirmation.
Pure mother’s milk explains, as a metaphor, special revelation from God. When a baby gets his milk directly from his mother, this bypasses whatever contamination could enter. This is like inculcating truth by faith. Faith is the evidence. God said it.
The Word itself is sincere. It is not lying, not deceiving, not adulterated, and not contaminated by human desire. That becomes particularly important because our experience can be contaminated. Our “eyes” are very often not trustworthy interpreters. There is a difference between seeing something and correctly interpreting what we see. The Fall demonstrates this. Genesis 3:6 says:
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes.
She saw the tree, saw its fruit, and perceived its attractiveness, but her perception of its goodness had become contrary to God’s revelation. God had already said what the tree was and what would happen if she ate of it. Her eyes did not become physically blind. Rather, her desires and interpretation of what she saw came into conflict with God’s Word. That is exactly why experience cannot be allowed to become the final judge of reality.
Two Useful Analogies
Crime Scene Analogy
Imagine investigators arrive at a crime scene. The physical evidence is there. But then somebody begins moving things: fingerprints are wiped away, objects are moved, blood evidence is contaminated, witnesses are coached, photographs are altered, and things are added and removed. Eventually the investigators may still have evidence, but the evidence has been spoiled. The problem isn’t that evidence ceased to exist, but that the evidence has been corrupted. That provides a useful analogy for the fallen human situation.
God has created a real world. Human beings really see it, really hear it, and really experience things. But sin has corrupted the interpreter. And the world system continually adds more contamination. So experience cannot be treated as a pristine, untouched crime scene from which a person can autonomously reconstruct spiritual truth.
The Distorted Mirror
Think of one of those distorted mirrors like those in funhouses. The problem isn’t that reality has been removed, but that the observer is given a distorted representation of reality and can begin to trust the distortion. Imagine that a man stands before a mirror. The mirror is supposed to give him a faithful representation of what is actually there. But someone has subtly altered the mirror. His body is really the same. The room is really the same. The light is really the same. But the mirror bends the image.
The mirror makes a person appear taller, thinner, more attractive, or stronger than he really is. If he looks at the mirror long enough, he can begin to forget that the image is not the reality. Now suppose someone tells him: “That’s not how you really look.” He answers: “But I can see myself!” And that is the problem. Seeing something does not guarantee that the interpretation of what you see is true.
Human experience is like looking at reality through a fallen interpretive instrument. We really experience things, feel, see, and hear them. Many different factors, however, distort the interpretation of those experiences: the flesh, lust, the world, culture, prior conditioning, false teaching, Satan’s deception, and our own sinful desires. Scripture, however, gives us an external and authoritative standard for recognizing the distortion. Believers don’t correct the mirror by studying the distorted image more intensely. He needs something outside the distorted image by which to judge it.
How the Problem Operates
Eve looked at the tree and “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6). But God had already said, “thou shalt not eat of it.” The tree hadn’t changed. What had changed was how Eve was now interpreting it. Satan had supplied a false interpretation of God’s command and God’s character. The forbidden became desirable, the dangerous attractive, and the lie plausible. Her perception was no longer functioning under the governing authority of God’s Word.
The world repeatedly presents the same distorted interpretation of reality until the distortion becomes familiar. A person repeatedly sees sensuality portrayed as beautiful, immodesty portrayed as freedom, rebellion portrayed as courage, confusion portrayed as sophistication, self-expression portrayed as authenticity, emotional intensity portrayed as spirituality, and entertainment portrayed as worship. Eventually, someone doesn’t merely tolerate these things. He begins to see them as beautiful. The mirror has become so familiar that he forgets to question it.
Then lust reinforces the distortion. James 1:14 says,
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
The distorted image is particularly persuasive when we want it to be true. Lust doesn’t merely say: “This is good.” It says: “I want this to be good.” And once desire gets involved, the person has a vested interest in believing the interpretation. Again, in Romans 1:25, the Apostle Paul writes:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator.
The truth is still there, but man has changed the truth into a lie in his understanding of it. Using the former analogy, the distorted mirror produces the perception, and the perception is then used to prove the mirror is accurate.
Scripture Breaks the Circle
Peter says, “desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” The Word is sincere — pure, unadulterated. James himself uses the mirror as a metaphor for the Word of God, but an undistorted one. James 1:23-25 says:
23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: 24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. 25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
It reflects flawless truth without bias. Unlike human judgment, which is often warped by self-deception, pride, or comparisons to others, the Word of God reflects reality exactly as it is. So rather than asking “what does my experience tell me God is like?” the Christian asks “what has God revealed Himself to be?” Then he judges his experience accordingly. If his experience agrees with scripture, he can receive it thankfully. When his experience contradicts scripture, his experience must be corrected — not scripture.
What was once recognized as sensual becomes normal, immodest becomes fashionable, provocative becomes artistic, entertainment becomes worship, emotional stimulation becomes spirituality, irreverence becomes informality, confusion becomes sophistication, and worldliness becomes relevance. The person who grows up inside his own hall of mirrors can honestly say: “I don’t see the problem.” He’s telling the truth about his experience. But his experience has been formed inside the distorted experience he is living.
Why “Everybody Knows” Isn’t Sufficient
Modern culture often establishes aesthetic norms by repetition. A person sees something thousands of times. Eventually it doesn’t shock him. Then he says: “There’s nothing wrong with it.” But what has happened? Familiarity has changed his response. The object didn’t change. His response has. This is something Romans 12:2 expresses.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Paul assumes that the world presses itself upon the mind. The world conforms people to it, while God transforms them by renewing the mind. The world does more than tell people what to believe. It teaches them what to enjoy. Culture teaches people through repeated exposure: “This is exciting,” “this is beautiful,” “this is sophisticated,” “this is authentic,” “this is passionate,” or “this is spiritual.” Eventually, the person doesn’t merely believe these propositions. He feels them.
Once someone feels that which the world or culture regularly exposes him to, his experience becomes evidence to him. He says: “I know this is beautiful because I love it.” But the fact or reality that he loves it is what needs examination. To refer again to the analogy, lust makes the rearranged room attractive. This is where the flesh joins the world and Satan.
James 1:14 says, “every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” Lust doesn’t merely distort the intellect. It pulls the affections. Someone receives through his senses, like seeing, hearing, or feeling, something contrary to God’s order, but his sinful desires make that thing attractive. Then he experiences pleasure, so that he reasons: “If this produces such pleasure, how could it really be wrong?” That is the trap. Pleasure becomes the interpreter of goodness. Instead of: God says it is good; therefore, I should love it, the order becomes: I love it; therefore, it must be good. That is the reversal.
As Applied to Religious Experience
Suppose a church introduces a particular musical and artistic environment. People experience excitement, emotional release, physical stimulation, anticipation, collective enthusiasm, or euphoria. Someone might ask: “Was God pleased?” Instead of going to scripture, the answer becomes: “Look at what happened! People were moved!” The experience becomes the evidence. The people are experiencing something real, but their experience is occurring within a system whose assumptions have already been shaped by the world.
Scripture never gives fallen human experience authority. The disciples had an extraordinary experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter was an eyewitness. Yet Peter subsequently says (2 Peter 1:19): “We have also a more sure word of prophecy.” That means that even genuine supernatural experience doesn’t displace God’s revealed Word as the final standard. How much more should ordinary emotional experience be subordinate to Scripture?
Again using the same analogy, imagine the same room with different lighting. Under one kind of lighting, a particular object looks beautiful. Under another, its defects become obvious. The object itself has not changed. The conditions have changed under which you perceived it. The world doesn’t necessarily say: “Stop believing God.” It can instead illuminate reality in a way that makes God’s order appear unattractive. Holiness now looks boring. Modesty appears repressive. Purity seems prudish. Order feels lifeless. Reverence seems artificial. Self-control looks weak. Sensuality now appears exciting, authentic, and beautiful. The lighting has changed.
The Word Turns the Lights Back On
Psalms repeatedly describe God’s Word as illuminating, such as 119:105: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The Word does not create reality. It illuminates reality rightly. It enables the believer to see what is actually there. So when the world says: “This is beautiful.” The true believer asks: “According to what standard?” When the world says: “This is authentic.” He asks: “Is it true?” When the world says: “This makes me feel alive.” He asks: “Is it good?” When religious people say: “God was really here.” He asks: “What has God said?”
According to 1 Peter 2:2, the milk is sincere — unmixed, unadulterated. On the other hand, the world, experience, culture, or even people’s own hearts give them a mixture. God’s Word isn’t mixed. It is the pure standard. So Peter is saying, “Develop an appetite for the unadulterated.” That is precisely what someone needs when the world continually rearranges the furniture. In 2:1, Peter uses the sequence: put away deceit → desire pure revelation → grow. A true believer will not mature by feeding upon a contaminated interpretation of reality. He needs the sincere Word.
A true believer in Jesus Christ doesn’t automatically become immune to deception simply because of his conversion. He needs continual formation by Scripture. Peter says: “that ye may grow thereby.” Growth involves learning to recognize reality more accurately. And that goes back to Hebrews 5:14: “even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.” Christian maturity is, in part, trained perception. This doesn’t discard the senses, but educates them.
Experience Warding Away Discernment
A generation grows up with a certain musical vocabulary, believing “this music is just what worship is.” It doesn’t experience the change as a change, but as normal reality. And this is where the biblical command, “prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), becomes important. God commands His children to examine rather than simply absorb. This is biblical discernment, what the Book of Proverbs calls “understanding.” Proverbs 4:7 says:
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Karl Marx apparently called religion an opiate of the people. Numerical success, in fact, acts as an opiate. John Madden called winning the great deodorant, using the metaphor to describe how a team’s success can completely cover up underlying problems, dysfunction, and tension in a locker room. More people come. People respond emotionally. Offerings increase. People report powerful experiences. The institution therefore concludes: “God must be blessing this.”
The hidden premise is that whatever produces desirable results must be good. That’s pragmatism. It makes the results of the experience the judge of the method. Scripture repeatedly teaches that something can be popular, powerful, persuasive, and successful while still being false. 2 Peter 2:2 warns against pragmatism, saying that “many shall follow their pernicious ways.” The operative words here are “many shall follow.” Popularity doesn’t vindicate the teachers or their followers. Many following pernicious ways doesn’t authenticate the ways they follow.
More to Come