Monday, January 28, 2019

God's Eternally Unchanging Word

Monday, January 28, 2019

Your eternal word, O Lord, stands firm in heaven.  Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created.  Your regulations remain true to this day, for everything serves your plans. Psalm 119:89-91(NLT)

One of the things pastors do is attend meetings.  Truth be told, I could do without most of them.  The meeting I attended last week reminded me why I go to meetings; sometimes I get to hear something that helps recharge my batteries.  This meeting, as others I’ve endured in the past few years, intended to keep discussion going, information flowing, and tempers cooler, did not keep my stomach from churning…but it did get me thinking.
The author, an historian, focusing on cultural mores, presented a paper on human sexuality, and how the new morality brought to the spotlight in the 1960’s is a springboard for something of a new Great Awakening[2] that allows us to grapple with our current culture’s context.  In short, this professional historian/religious seminary professor, was attempting to convince a room full of United Methodist pastors that contextual interpretation of Scripture requires, as a normal derivative of Wesleyan tradition, that we speak-up for the marginalized and oppressed; that being the whole point:  we should accept, and even normalize homosexuality and abortion.  Pardon me; did I miss something here?
It is a long (and closely held) hermeneutic that the church proclaims the Gospel and interprets Scripture TO the culture; it does not react to the culture’s desires by baptizing sin and calling it a sanctified alternative lifestyle.  The Apostle Paul warned us to run from that kind of thinking:

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.  Romans 12:2a(NLT)

Let’s look at it from a simplified perspective, without the buzz-language or big words.  Suppose tomorrow the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 7-2 that murder, stealing, cruelty to animals, and beating your spouse are simply normal expressions of human behavior, brought on by stress.  It’s now legal to do whatever you want to do.  Should the church go back and erase commandments #6-8 and just call it a good day’s contextualization of the Scripture? 
One thing I agree with this author about, is that genuine Wesleyan people speak up for the oppressed, and against injustice.  But to label those who wish to distort God’s eternal and unchanging Word as oppressed in the name of academic redefining what God has said plainly about human sexuality is more than a stretch; it is sin.
Just to be clear, I did not say we ought to be haters, ready to stone the sinners.  If that were the case, I’d have to stone me too.  All persons are the object of God’s love, and that makes everyone someone of intrinsic value, never to be judged by me, or disparaged.  But the Word of God is our charge, our marching orders.  It would be sin to not proclaim its’ truth.
Methodology approaches to proclaiming Gospel truth may change with the shifting landscape of human cultural norms and mores, and I could be taken to task for being a cultural heretic, a dinosaur of a Bible-thumping old man, out of touch with the way people think today, but cheapening the Gospel by attempting to knock the sharp points off the Sword of the Spirit is one pill I’m not willing to swallow.
For You Today
I trust you’ll join me in praying for our world and it’s darkness.  Pray that the Morning Star will dawn on the landscape; humanity needs to see our way.
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

Go to VIDEO


[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com
[2] My phrase, not the author’s

No comments:

Post a Comment