Today’s Scripture Reading (November
27, 2019): 1 Kings 18
As
Christians living in an increasingly secular culture, it maybe shouldn’t be
surprising that we often focus on wrong things when it comes to matters of
faith. Sometimes it is hard to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of
the issue. And as Christians, we have way too much clutter. A recent opinion
piece argued about the dangers of Christianity and spent most of its ink on the
threat that Christianity poses to the role of women in our society. As a
Christian who has always assumed equality between the genders, the focus of the
opinion piece was confusing. Yes, the Bible does have some instruction which
differentiates between gender roles, but the teachings are easily read as
culturally biased. The authors of the biblical books did not live in a vacuum;
they lived a taught in a patriarchal society. If their teachings were going to
be respected in that culture, then they had to have a patriarchal focus. In the
same way, if Christianity is going to have any influence in our culture, then
it cannot have that same patriarchal cultural bias, because our society is
moving toward an egalitarian understanding of the genders. To boil Christianity
down to gender roles is to miss the point. By the way, to boil down
Christianity to a particular view on homosexuality, which is mentioned a total
of seven times in the Bible, is equally misguided. It is not that we cannot
have opinions on these and many other subjects, but our responses to these
issues do not define our Christianity or lack thereof. Our Christianity is defined
by our willingness to trust God wholeheartedly, our acceptance of Jesus as the
Son of God, and our determination to love across boundaries in our society.
The
result of our confusion is that we often seem to want to base our Christianity
on wrong things. Our assurance of faith is bound up with our beliefs about
peripheral issues. The same seems to have been true during the time of Elijah.
Worship of God was seen as a direct result of following certain rituals and
believing certain things. If you were pure in these areas, then there was no
problem in following other gods as well. Pastor David Guzik makes this
observation:
Spiritually speaking, Israel was like an unfaithful partner in a
marriage who doesn’t want to give up their marriage partner, but also does not
want to give up their illicit lover. The marriage partner has a legitimate
claim to the exclusive devotion of their spouse (Italics his).
In our culture, we don’t have a temptation to
follow after Baal. Jesus argued that we could not serve two masters. We cannot
serve both God and Money (Matthew 6:24). And this is our temptation. We somehow
believe that we can go through the motions, considering right things about God,
arguing that women are not equal with the appropriate biblical passages, or
protesting against same-sex marriage, and believing that it is these actions
that will save us. And yet we hesitate to put our full trust in God. Our money
is our backup plan. It becomes our lover. And we don’t want to give up either
our marriage partner or our lover.
Elijah’s words are essentially “how long will you
dance between two lovers?” Pick one and commit to the one you choose. If it is
money that is your salvation, fine. If it is God, then give yourself to him,
but don’t be confused that your devotion to peripheral issues will save you.
Love the Lord your God and serve him only. Live without a back-up plan.
Does that mean that we shouldn’t have
conversations around peripheral issues? Of course not. I love those
discussions. But I know that neither I nor the one to whom I am speaking is
either saved or condemned by our conversation. That is dependent on whom we are
willing to truly trust.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Kings 19
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