July 5 – Marriage Honored – Part 2

      1 Corinthians 5:15f – "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside [the church]?"

        It is a fantastic event when two people get married. A wedding is always a joyous occasion, with solemn vows exchanged, and feasting and dancing enjoyed by family and friends. We honor God, when we recognize his first institution, and follow its model, with its holy promise, love – and boundaries.

        When I see a so-called believer, whom I knew somewhat in years past, shack up with his/her soulmate, it pains my heart, knowing that God's commands toward fornication are not respected. The living together is sometimes a matter of convenience, while most of the time it is clearly a matter of selfishness. The question one should ask is: "Whom do I want to please today, and always, with my life and its actions – me or God?" Even if there is not sex involved in the living arrangements, the very appearance of evil negates that fact in the eyes of everyone (1 Thess. 5:22; 2 Corinthians 8:19-21). So, when I get a wedding invitation from someone who has been shacking up, I experience two emotions. The first emotion is gladness, for the fact that the persons are correcting the external appearance – the outward arrangement of marriage. The second emotion is stunted joy. You are asking me to help celebrate your sacred union on your wedding day, even though you have already disrespected the sacredness of that union. If you couldn't wait to consummate your relationship, then why should I celebrate months later, after the fact? To me, it takes the "punch" right out of the party!

        Well, you might say, "Wait a minute! Are you not acting like the brother of the prodigal son?" Perhaps, but, I have been to a few weddings of people who had shacked up previously. None of them contained confessions of repentance for actual or possible sinfulness. The story of the prodigal son contained real and voiced repentance.

        The verse above comes at the end of a fairly short argument by the Apostle Paul regarding a self-called believer in the Corinthian body of Christ, who was knowingly having an affair with his father's 2^nd wife (not the man's mother). It was public knowledge, and deemed to be okay, probably due to the tacit response of the church's leadership. To Paul, this seems to be an obvious case of blatant sin, being allowed to continue with nothing said, and thus being the leaven that works itself through the rest of the dough, in which it comes into contact. In other words, its tacit allowance causes the spiritual culture around it to be influenced – in a negative way.

        Today, in 2018 in the western world, it is quite common for couples to live together before they get married, if they ever do get married. In the eyes of the world, marriage is growing ever un-sacred. Bad turns to worse progressively – which is not a surprise. It should not be so for the body of Christ. We are the light of the world, and should act accordingly to help a dying world see that it is living in the dark. God calls us out of the world's system to be different, to be set apart from cultural norms when they go against God's commands, ways, and model of living. We must be different on purpose in order to not let the evil leaven to work its subconcious ways in our lives.

March 22 – Depth of Understanding

        Mark 4:11, 12, 33 – "Jesus told [the Twelve], 'The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to those on the outside, everything is said in parables, so that "they may be always seeing, but never perceiving; always hearing, but never understanding; otherwise they might repent and be forgiven....with many similar parables, Jesus spoke the word to [the crowds], as much as they could understand."

         Verses 12 and 33 almost seem to contradict each other. Does Jesus want me to understand God's truth, or does he not? Does he want me to follow God's ways, or does he care that I persist in my folly? Please make up your mind, Jesus. The crux of the matter, however, goes deeper than surface appearances. Let's start with God's heart.

        The Scripture is plain in 2 Peter 3:9 – "....Yahweh is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish [spiritually], but wanting everyone to arrive at a place of repentance." Therefore, God does not take pleasure in us humans persisting in our sinful lifestyles. Then, why do verses 11 and 12 in the opening scripture, seem so mean-spirited on the surface?

        One must go back to the Old Testament scripture to which these verses point. Isaiah 6:9-13 is the reference point. Isaiah prophesied during the point in time, in which the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had mostly lost their way in being obedient in serving God. How did this happen? Psalm 80:11, 12 gives us the answer: "But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own devices." That sounds exactly like what happened to Pharoah when he would not allow the Israelites and Moses to leave Egypt. It is exactly what happens to sinners, who are described in Romans 1:18-32. When we allow our stubborn hearts to become calloused, it takes much more work to get us to repent. That is why Jesus had to speak in parables as "much as they could understand". It takes persistent chipping away of hard callousness to get to the soft flesh. It takes the blasting of time to sand down the hard grittiness.

        So, Isaiah 6:11, 12 asks the question, " 'For how long, O Adonai?' And he answered "Until the cities lie ruined, and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted, and fields ruined and ravaged, until Yahweh has sent everyone far away, and the land is utterly forsaken." We get the picture that one might have to hit rock bottom before the eyes are opened to see the need to repent of our sinful ways. Obversly, verse 13 in Isaiah 6 gives us hope for those who have hit rock bottom. "As the terebinth and oaks leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land." How often do we see new shoots of growth spring from a stump that is left just above the ground level? Sometimes we do see them, depending on the hardiness of the tree that was cut. The word of God is telling us that there is hope for the worst of us – that new life can spring from what appears to be ruins.

        Let us allow ourselves a greater depth of understanding of what Jesus is trying to teach us, by not letting our hearts become hardened. Let us turn again to him, and to following God's ways with our entire hearts. We should desire to say to God, "Thy will be done." Let us not get to the point where God says to us "Alright, your will be done." Our depth of understanding, at that point, will have become very shallow.