A Different Model

It appears to me that the Bible’s view of morality does not fit the “do’s and don’ts approach” of cultural traditions.  It is more complex than a set of clear restrictions, and yet it is very simple.  Parents and church leaders have often struggled with passages as “Everything is permissible!” or the fact that what is good behavior for the strong may be damning for the weak.  How can the prayer of Jabez be good in the time of Judah’s sons, while James would have condemned it as “seeking to serve one’s own pleasures”? 

In simple terms, the Bible calls us to put God in the centre of our lives.  We must love the Lord our God with everything we have; for one hundred percent!  Typically, we like to dilute this command to reserve a good place for ourselves, but Jesus will not let us get away with that!  A lawyer approached him, asking him for the key to Heaven.  Jesus made it clear that only when God is our only and true centre can we (theoretically) keep the Law.  This will make us look differently at Samaritans then or Muslems now.  As we have argued before, nobody can consistently live a perfect God-centered life.  Personal pride would be one way to let us quickly slip and fall.  Most people would not even try, for “nobody can be perfect” or “we are all sinners anyways”. 

If the cultural-traditional does not work, we must adopt and consistently apply a better model.  If the

circle represents our life, we must arrange (and keep arranging) it to bring and keep God (and God alone) in the centre of our lives.  Of course we can use the “do and don’t” approach for little children, but as they get older we may no longer entertain questions, like “Where in the Bible does it say that I am not allowed to do that?”, or “Prove to me from Scripture that this is what I must do (to be saved)!”  The core questions must be “Do we really know God- in his perfect holiness and his amazing love?” and then, “Do we really seek God, to love Him with everything we’ve got, and follow the teaching of Jesus and the apostles as fruit of thankfulness?”

It seems to me that questions regarding church attendance, living common law, and seeking or maintaining most intimate relations with people who reject God’s love would be answered differently than they often are.