Same-Sex Marriage Legalization

Earlier this week, the United States supreme court ordered that all states within the union now legalize same-sex marriages.  This week, I want to address this issue.

I’ll talk about how the Bible is explicitly against same-sex marriages later, but for now I want to spend some time talking about why I think this shouldn’t be a big deal for the contemporary Christian.

First, we have to realize that there is a difference between legal and ethical laws.  There is a commonwealth in the United States that makes it illegal to buy a bicycle on Sundays, but tricycles are fine.  In certain countries, non-consensual sex between married persons isn’t rape.  In the first case, buying a bicycle or tricycle on a Sunday is not really an ethical question (but obeying a law of government is), and in the latter, I’d (hopefully) think that you’d consider rape in any circumstance as wrong.

So legal and ethical laws don’t always align, but in an American’s pleasantly homogenous and relatively safe experience, we often assume that laws made and enforced by a governing authority are the same.  And that’s not entirely incorrect.

In America, we believe that murder is an objectionable offense; same as theft, rape, sexual assault, and child molestation.  We also believe that people should have the right to speak their mind, to participate in the country’s political arena, and to make a decent living.  How we go about enforcing and monitoring these processes I’ll leave to more informed minds than mine, but the point is that the majority of the laws (I feel) pretty much align with the rights that should be recognized and protected in every individual.  So what about same-sex marriage?

Well, the Bible doesn’t 1) Outline the conduct and behavior of people in a same-sex union, and 2) is directly opposed to same-sex romantic relationships.  So if anyone uses the Bible as their standard of morality, then they can safely assume that same-sex marriages are ethically wrong.  But that doesn’t mean they are legally wrong.

Christians live in a dual existence—we live in the world but we are not of the world.  While the laws in America may have changed to accommodate those who do not wish to follow the Bible, the laws of the Bible itself has not changed.  Same-sex unions are legally permissible but morally illegal.

This brings me to the next point: just because people call themselves Christians doesn’t mean that someone IS a Christian.  I can buy a gun and a set of handcuffs, and then run around telling everyone that I’m a cop, but that doesn’t make me a police officer.  Same thing with being a Christian, and I feel that we can all agree on this: just because you own a Bible, go to church on Sunday, and call yourself a Christian, doesn’t mean that you are a Christian.  Sorry ‘bout that. 

Despite personal statements to one’s religious affiliation, saying that you are a Christian doesn’t make you one, and I think willfully going against what the Bible directly says would certainly be a blatant black mark against any statement you could make to the contrary.  But this doesn’t help the majority of the Christian population: What can the contemporary Christian do with people who have a union recognized by the state as a marriage?  1 Corinthians 5:12 says:

“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?  Are you not to judge those inside?”

If you’re not a Christian, then I can’t hold you to the same standards as one.  That’s like trying to give a red card from soccer to someone who’s playing golf: those rules just don’t apply.

What’s more is that the verse after 1 Corinthians 5:13 gives us detail on how to react to people doing things contrary to God’s laws, and who is responsible for enforcing them.

“God will judge those outside.  Expel the wicked person from among you.”

Someone’s doing something contrary to God’s directives?  Let God handle it.  Someone calling themselves a Christian but doing decidedly un-Christ-like things? Expel them.  Of course, there is a difference between a wicked person and someone deeply mistaken, and there is a method and a process that needs to be done before disfellowshipping someone, but my main point remains true: people who don’t belong to Christ can’t be held accountable to God’s laws, and people making direct efforts to go against God’s laws shouldn’t continue communing with God’s Church.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to talking about how awesome Ruth is, but in an effort to stay relevant I had to address this issue.

See you tomorrow.

The Loyalty of Ruth

In last week’s post I described how Ruth trumped Esther in pretty much every category that mattered when it came to who was a better role model.  This week I want to explain why I admire her so much.

To set the scene:

Naomi was married to a dude named Elimelek.  They had two sons (Mahlon and Kilion), who married the Moabite women, Ruth and Orpah.  Through circumstances that aren’t described in the book, all the husbands die, and Ruth and Orpah (not Oprah, though that would’ve been awesome) accompany Naomi to the border of the Moabite lands.

Ruth and Orpah are Naomi’s daughters-in-law, but not even that because they aren’t married to anyone who is related to Naomi.  Despite this, when Naomi encourages her ex-daughters-in-law to leave her, everyone bursts into tears (Ruth 1:9-10, 14).  We don’t know how much time they spent together before their respective husbands died, but we do know that they had a deep relationship and were deeply grieved to be separated.

Orpah leaves Naomi, and returns to her people and gods.  Ruth wants to stay.  Naomi pleads with Ruth, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods.  Go back with her.”  Then we hear Ruth’s response, and one of the most beautiful declarations of loyalty in the scriptures:

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.  Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.  Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.  May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Wow.  Just, wow.

Ruth is willing to leave behind everything she knows, either because she is convinced that Naomi’s god is the true God, or that by Naomi’s example she’s become convinced that she must help this wonderful woman.  Both Ruth and Naomi are widows now, and they both know that their lives will be very hard from here on out, yet Ruth’s response isn’t a “let’s pool our resources”, it’s a “I’m sticking with you, whatever the cost, life or death, I’m with you.” 

I think that having someone to constantly back you up isn’t a necessity of life, but it sure helps to know you’ve got someone in your corner, not because they need to be there, but because they want to be.  That’s awesome.

Do you have someone in your life like that?  Someone who says “life or death, I’m with you”?

Are you that type of person to someone else?

We’ll continue talking about Ruth next week.  See you there.

How Far Will You Walk?

If you have ever read Matthew 15:21-29, or Mark 7:24-31, you'll find a curious story.  Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon, after leaving Gennesaret (Matthew 14:34 & Mark 6:53), where he meets a Canaanite woman.  She comes up to Jesus and their interaction goes something like this:

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

She says again, but Jesus ignores her.

"Jesus, Son of David, heal my daughter!"

Jesus still ignores her, and by this time the disciples must be a little annoyed by her, so they come up to Jesus like, "Hey, uhhh, Jesus, can you send her away or something?  She's like bothering you and everyone else."

"It is not fit to take the children's food and feed it to their dogs."  Replies Jesus.

"That's true, but even their dogs eat the crumbs that fall off the table."  Says the woman.

"I like your answer," Jesus says, "Go.  Your daughter is healed."

She goes home to find her daughter healed, and Jesus and his disciples leave the region of Tyre and Sidon to go to the Sea of Galilee.

This story is so odd: Jesus seems to be calling this woman a dog, and her reply doesn't seem sufficient enough to warrant her daughter's healing, yet Jesus approves of how she responded to him, and Jesus is always wanting to heal and teach, but this time he seems to purposefully withhold his healing.  There are three points I want to make about this story.

The first point I want to address is the fact that Jesus called her a "dog".  The greek word he uses here is "κυναρίοις", or "kynariois", which means "little dog". So Jesus wasn't calling her a "dog", as much as he was calling her "precious, little puppy".  At the time, the Jews called Canaanites "dogs", and Jesus's decision to call her "little puppy" was more a play on the words and references between their two cultures than an insult.

When Jesus said he was there for the "children of Israel", not for their "dogs", her response was that she knew she wasn't a child of Israel, that she was a dog and had no right to the blessings God would give them, but all she wanted was a breadcrumb.  Her sense of humility and gratitude was what moved Jesus to heal her daughter; she knew she didn't deserve what he could give, but she was grateful for what little God would bless her with.  We too, do not deserve the blessings God has given us, and yet how often do we take what God gives us for granted?

The second point is the distance Jesus and his disciples traveled, going from Gennesaret to Tyre and Sidon.  Some people estimate that the distance Jesus traveled on this leg of his journey was around 50 miles.  It is reasonably assumed that Jesus didn't travel via donkey or camel, much less a car, so that means Jesus and his disicples probably hoofed it via foot during the entire journey.  Assuming a natural pace of 5/mph, Jesus spent about ten hours to travel that distance, not including stops for resting and eating a snack before moving on.  This means that Jesus traveled an entire day to get there, and when he arrived, he did no teaching or miracles, aside from meeting this woman, testing her faith, and healing her daughter, before he left that area.  Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.

Think about that for a second: Jesus walked 50 miles for one person.  Just one person.  How far will you walk for one person?

I want to encourage us all to follow Jesus's example: how far will you walk?  Will you walk 50 miles for a friend, much less a stranger?  In America (and especially Orange County, where I live), we are so busy trying to pay our bills and living our lifestyle that I think we forget to commit to people more.  Sitting down to eat or walking around a mall and shopping with a friend doesn't quite fill the needs we have as social creatures. 

When was the last time you stayed up all night with a friend because they were in grief?  When was the last time someone did that for you?  When have you given someone $100 because they were in need, and you told them to not bother paying you back?  When was the last time you had a fight with a friend, and you stuck with them, despite your differences?

We are social creatures, and we need our relationships to help us function and live our daily lives.  I think Americans pride themselves on their independence, resilience, and self-sufficiency, so we are not ready to admit our weaknesses or our need to have help from time to time.  Perhaps if we are better friends with the people already in our lives, maybe, just maybe, we'll have people who are better friends to us.

My final point is that there are many facets and lessons we can learn from this one account.  How often do we read our Bibles (if some of us read it at all), find a curious passage like this, and just keep skimming through it?  In one short account, we find the heart we need to please God, Jesus's cleverness and sense of humor (and his humanity), and the depth of level of commitment Jesus had for one person to measure against our own sense of commitment to other people.

The Bible is an ancient document that records a culture's relationship between God and man.  The purpose I want to establish about this blog is not only the literary and historical context of the Bible, but keeping God's heart and desire to have a relationship with us, while writing in a style that's more accessible to everyone, because I think that most people feel a little intimidated about the countless dry, academic papers that examines God's word.

I'll be tackling many topics, and I'm open to discuss pretty much anything; so don't feel shy about asking me a question.  Hopefully, I'll be making a new post every Tuesday, and I'll try to preface my posts with remarks on what I believe are doctrinal (like issues on what makes us saved, what is and isn't a sin), and things that I believe are my opinion (should Christians be in the military? Run for political office?  Vote?). 

Next week I'll be talking about the Daniel prophecy of Jesus. 

Let's get started.