When you get down to it, is not the popular idea of Christianity simply this: that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher and that if only we took His advice we might be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war?  Now, mind you, that is quite true.  But it tells you much less than the whole truth about Christianity and it has no practical importance at all.

It is quite true that if we took Christ's advice we should soon be living in a happier world.  You need not even go as far as Christ.  If we did all that Plato or Aristotle or Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do.  And so what?  We never have followed the advice of great teachers.  Why are we likely to begin now?  Why are we more likely to follow Christ than any of the others?  Because He is the best moral teacher?  But that makes it even less likely that we shall follow Him.  If we cannot take the elementary lessons, is it likely that we are going to take the more advanced one?  If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance.  There has been lack of good advice for the last four thousand years.  A bit more makes no difference.  (from C.S.Lewis:  Mere Christianity)

Good advice rarely changes an individual; I would have to think that it never changes a culture. Teens are known to laugh at "good advice" -- their frontal lobes have not yet fully developed, and they learn more by personal experience than by the words of their elders.  In fact, even in adults whose frontal lobes are fully developed, it is probably true that they are more "taught" by personal experience than by good advice. 

In the raising of children and going to work on a daily basis, there is almost no time for reading.  Television provides our daily relaxation and "down time."  There may be even less time for discussion with elders, who have gained wisdom by experience.  The Chinese culture up to now has respected the elderly and sought their advice, but now even that is changing, with the world of technology. 

Young people rarely attend church anymore, so whatever good advice might be available through that venue has also been lost to this generation. 

If we look at the early Christian church, we find that it began with 3000 men, women, and children who happened to be in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.  They heard and saw something that drew them together in one place---they had a common experience that drew them together, much as the Israelites had a dramatic common experience at Mt. Horeb and then in the desert before entering the Promised Land.  Then, they heard the thunder and saw the fire on the mountain, and Moses explained to them what was happening.  Their experience knit them together into a "new nation" on earth, one that had received the laws of God---their constitution.

The experience of Pentecost birthed also a new people.  They all heard the sound of rushing wind and saw tongues of fire and wanted to know the meaning of what they witnessed.  Peter stood and explained to them what was happening --- and they were all baptized in the name of Jesus.  Then they went back to their homelands and met together to explore further the meaning of what they had experienced --- searching the Scriptures and seeking teaching.  That is why Paul had to visit all the early home churches, to draw out the meaning of this new "constitution" that was creating a "new nation" on the face of the earth.  Peter and the other Apostles, too, after establishing the church at Jerusalem, went out to the "ends of the earth," answering the call of people who begged them to come help them further understand this "new thing" that they had witnessed at Pentecost. 

We tend to think that when people hear good advice, they will listen.  I think that they will listen only after they have experienced power from on high.  Then they want to understand their experience, and so they begin to hear the words of those who have gone before them.  Even the good advice of Jesus did not seem to make a difference to those who had no experience of healing, acceptance, or conversion from Him.

I think it is safe to say that "good advice" is generally ignored until something happens in our lives that opens our ears and understanding.  As Jesus said, Let those who have ears to hear, hear my words.