MortiBlog

We are stubborn people, aren’t we? It’s okay to admit it, most of us are. We are all brought up in a society that has a certain set of moral values and, for no particular reason other than “it feels right” we are likely to hold to those our whole lives. This has led to a disturbing trend among new Christians where they try to marry the word of God with the world. The most obvious example is where the Bible says “no sex before marriage and you only ever have one marriage”, the world says “it is right and normal to have multiple sexual partners”, the compromise is “no sex outside of a committed relationship”. Some would go so far as to belittle the nature of God Himself where the Bible says that the God of the Bible is the one true God, society has many different contradictory religions and all are equally valid (though we daren’t talk about which is true) so the new Christian would try to marry those into this idea that the God of the Bible is one route to salvation and other religions provide other ones.

As you may be able to tell from this point, I’m writing something potentially quite challenging. Stick with me though, if we don’t allow ourselves to be challenged I think we naturally fall into a position of arrogance and self-righteousness whereas accepting the odd challenge encourages our humility.

I feel that anyone who tries to find these compromises is really missing the point. Society and the teachings of the Bible (which, if you are a Christian, you believe to be the absolute word of God, by the way) cannot be taken together when they contradict one another. The choice there is to follow God or not, it’s all very binary. In the examples above where people try to find middle ground they have chosen away from God without realising it.

Let’s look back a bit at one example where the Bible unashamedly challenges society. This is an easy one and hopefully nobody reading this would have a problem with this verse:

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

All fine and good, right? But in the ancient Roman society that would have been hugely challenging as it still is in some parts of the world today. The very idea that a man should lay his life down for a woman is ridiculous. People then would have taken the “wives submit to your husbands” part and stop reading whereas here it says men are to love their wives as Christ loves the church. I cannot begin to explain what kind of love this entails. Ephesians 25 promotes different roles for men and women but equal importance with each partner prioritising the other over the self. Madness, at the time.

So let’s look at one we’re having trouble with today, a very famous verse at the moment:

Leviticus 20:13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Put aside all arguments about shrimp and validity of the Old Testament and answer this simple question. Is God saying here that homosexual sex is right and good? I’m not going to get into further argument about this issue and anyone who takes up an argument with me on this verse or this issue is entirely missing the point. All I’m saying by bringing up this verse is that the Bible often contains things that are incompatible with what our society tells us.

Here’s the bottom line:

Luke 9:57-62 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Jesus calls us to lay down everything to put Him at the centre and follow Him. As we are creatures of society and habit our temptation is always going to be to sway towards the morality of society. Everyone is committed to something whether it’s a job, a family, friends or perhaps an ideal. Some give their lives to the support and promotion of various causes such as the aforementioned homosexuality or vegetarianism or various political ideals or whatever. We all have them.

Think about your lifestle and what you do and what you believe about it to be good and right, premarital sex is an easy place to start if you’re not sure. The question you have to consider (before figuring out what the Bible says about that issue specifically) is “if God wanted me to give up this thing that’s so important to me, would I?”. When I first became a Christian my answer, when really thinking about it, was “no”. I tried to reconcile my thinkings that had come from my society, from my peer group, with what the Bible says. Eventually the inescapable conclusion was that God breathed the words of the Bible to be the absolute truth for all eternity, therefore what the Bible says must take priority over what I said at the time and what the people around me say. This is the challenge of the modern Christian and it doesn’t start with arguing about whether homosexuality is right or wrong, it starts with figuring out whether you are open to being challenged and changed by the word of God.

I cannot instruct your mind to think a certain way or believe certain things. All I can do is attempt to challenge your thinking such that you read further into the things mentioned and discover for yourself what God wants for your life. And take it from me, once you get there life gets so much better and makes so much more sense, God really does know what He’s doing and really does want the best for you so, please, think about the controversial issues and, while doing so, read your Bible as it was meant to be read: as the living word of God.