You were working yesterday afternoon and got a this crazy craving for Chinese food. So you splurged a little and went to your favorite oriental restaurant for dinner. When you get there, the buffet is huge… 6 double-sided lines. What do you do? You go down all 12 lines and get something from every bin. Not exactly. That’s too much food! You cant handle it. By design, a buffet is so that you can go and choose bits and pieces of what you like best. If you want to fill your plate with only orange chicken.. by all means!
The Bible is not a buffet. We can not simply pick and choose what parts we like and don’t like. We cant simply follow this command and ignore that other one we don’t like. If we do that, we are not following God’s commands at all, we are simply, at every moment, doing exactly what we want and what we see fit.
Why is it that we do this so badly… we read a passage in scripture that doesn’t seem to line up with our theology and it just skim over it quickly. I know that its hard for me not to do that…
for example…. lets take just 1 chapter in scripture that I happened to read this morning…
1 Corinthians 7One of you is thinking…. ‘you didn’t read, it says its better to be married’. I say to you, read the whole chapter, Paul says that we are allowed to marry because of our weakness. Yes, it is ok to marry, but it’s BETTER not to marry. My point was not for Christians to remain single, but that we have skipped over the part that says it’s BETTER if we DON’T get married.
This is our buffet… we don’t like that part, we like marriage, lets not put that on our tray.
2) Fast from sex for prayer (3-7) – How many of us married folks have fasted from sex in order to focus on prayer. Let’s see…. I’ve been married 3 years, I think I’ve done that once or twice… Yes its hard, but God commands it of us (remember, Christ didn’t say ‘if you fast’ he said ‘when you fast’).
This is our buffet… I like sex. Sex is fun. I think I’ll pass on that right now…
3) Divorced people should stay that way (10-11) – God hates divorce, that’s clear. But there are times that divorce is acceptable (your mate cheats on you). However, if this is the case, you are not supposed to get remarried. However, our culture has just swept that under the rug. Even the church has let go of this… why? Yes, remaining unmarried is hard. Its not fun, but its what God calls us to.
This is our buffet… I really don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. Ohh.. that doesn’t look very appetizing, I’m not eating that tonight.
4) Be happy where you are (17-24) – We are supposed to be happy where God has put us. Oh man… we are TERRIBLE about this one. No one is ever happy where they are. When you are in grade school, you cant wait to be in college. Those in college cant wait to get into the real world. Those in the real world cant wait to get that promotion. Those who get that promotion wish they were back in college without so much responsibility… we are never happy! … the grass is always greener... God calls us to be content where we are. Serve him with everything you have exactly where he has put you and let him take care of your next move.
Ouch! This one is hard for me. I’m tired of school and have been for like 7 years… I want to shepherd a flock of my own. I want to be in
This is our buffet… If I could only get over there I’d be happy. This isn’t what I want tonight, I’ll get that later.
Again, if we are only obeying parts of scripture, we are not following God at all, but at every moment doing only what we see fit.
I’m bad at this guys… and this is just ONE CHAPTER of scripture… I wander what my life would look like if I really started to reflect scripture?
2 comments:
Dear brother, I agree with you about taking bits and pieces of scripture. This is one of the reasons that I feel so strongly about the Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate. Both of them take bits and pieces without looking at the whole scripture.
In particular, however, I have to disagree with your first two points whole-heartedly.
1) It is better to remain unmarried. While I won't differ with scripture, even when we were perfect, we weren't supposed to be unmarried. Yes, it may be easier for an unmarried man to focus on Christ, but that is an exception to the rule. God must deliberately, specifically, and genuinely call a person to remain unmarried. To remain unmarried is to defy the good, perfect, and right nature that God designed in us. The only acceptable way to do that is with His calling. God called Paul to remain unmarried, and God will call others to remain unmarried, but if anyone is wondering if they ought to be celibate, then they can be fairly certain that God has not called them to defy His default design.
2) We should fast from sex. You are misreading the scripture. It says "A husband MUST fulfill his duty to his wife" and even commands "stop depriving one another" but it allows for that to be used as a fast. "If you do" do it this way. God never requires a fast from sex in particular.
As for divorce and contentment, I think you're right on. In the "Me Generation" we are far too concerned with our own state of affairs. Secular belief has succeeded in making many of us realize that other people in desperate situations are important too, but we still place our own desires (even when that includes benevolence) ahead of doing what is right and good.
I do have to admit that I'm working with a guy who is married to his second wife (fully admits his sin and failure with his first wife) and there is no way that he and his current wife could hve gotten married without God ordaining it. God clearly, openly, and repeatedly affirmed their marriage.
got grace?
Hurley <><
Ya know, I was gonna comment with pretty much the same thing Matt said, only I wasn't going to say it nearly as well as he did. I firmly believe that the command to remain unmarried in 1 Corinthians 7 is a command for a specific group of people at a specific point in history. The Corinthians were being persecuted for their faith in a city known for its disgusting treatment of humans. Paul knew the young people there would not be able to fully experience marriage at the time he wrote them, so he told them to remain unmarried so they could focus on facing the hardships.
When you take the rest of Scripture in order to follow it the way you said you really want to, I do believe you'll find that the rest of Scripture wholly endorses marriage as the path most people should take in their lives.
Valerie
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