Explanations

I have made my decision, I have staked my claim.
I have drawn the line in the sand, and I'll not be ashamed
With the world behind me, and the cross before
By the grace of God, I will serve the Lord. - Carman

Here comes another one.

I felt like last week I didn't explain myself very well when I spoke about some things I learned as a child that I had to unlearn as an adult. I sort of spoke to those who already agreed with me rather than explain myself to those who would disagree. Honestly, I really didn't think anyone would disagree. So I'm here this week to more softly explain why I came to the conclusions I have on those topics, as well as talk about something else: Things that are undeniably biblical that we do not take seriously as Christians and that weaken our credibility and therefore our testimony.

1. In the matter of dancing and lively music. I grew up in a very conservative Pastor's family and church. And an even more conservative Christian school. My parents preferred their church music to sound different than their secular music. My school basically said that anything with a beat was offensive to God.

So at first I felt guilty for not only appreciating the sounds of orchestral music and choir singing, but also the "Christian contemporary" music of the time. In fact, there was very little music I didn't respond to. I loved the variation and the different "personalities" of musical styles.

So I examined my guilt and determined to get to the bottom of it. Was there a biblical mandate to point to that would give me some direction? I realized that no matter what it was, if there was something in my life that was offensive to God, I didn't want to hold on to it.

Around this time, a new singer came onto the stage. His name was Carman, and his style was... different. In fact, he had many styles. He did ballads, he did story songs, he did hymns, he did rap, he did other things that were unique to him alone. He had fun with music. But it wasn't just his musical creativity that drew me to his ministry. It was his passion. It was his unfailing, unreserved, limitless passion for Christ, and for seeing young people come to know the Lord. I can say without any reservation within that his love and tenacious commitment to Jesus Christ set fire to my own relationship with my Savior. He taught me that it was okay to love Jesus with abandon, to be devoted to the Word and to express it in whatever way he had put in my spirit to do so.

To their credit, though my parents didn't understand our connection to his music, they supported it. Probably because they could see it was building us up, nurturing our faith that was just starting to set off on its own. There were those at my school that disagreed strongly with my choices. But through it all, they could offer me nothing biblical to stand on. The only thing God kept leading me to was the verse that says quite clearly "Do not let your good be evil spoken of."

So I didn't. And I still won't. I'm here to say with all the conviction I can muster that God never intended for his people to be separated because of different musical preferences. Over and over God says for his people to be united. To be one. To get past the petty arguments and traditions we get stuck in our heads and learn to love one another even though we're different.

I remember hearing more than once in my childhood that denominations were good. That we shouldn't worship with people who have different interpretations of Scripture. That we shouldn't have to be exposed to other people who believe different things than we do, because all we would do is fight. I just can't find any biblical evidence for that. In fact, 1 Corinthians 1 refutes that quite clearly:

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas[a]"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.)For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

So I don't buy the "if we can't get along we aren't responsible to be unified" argument. God wants us to figure out how to get along. ALL his children, not just the ones that agree with each other.

Wow. I did not mean to be so long winded. You long winded posters are rubbing off on me!

2. Alcohol from a biblical perspective. I didn't even give this a second thought until I was an adult. I went to my fiance's family's home for the first time at Christmas. At dinner I was offered a glass of champagne. Righteous indignation rose up within me and I wanted to shout "absolutely not!" and run out of the room. But then I wondered if anyone would ask me why. Actually, the first time I refused, I think some of them did ask me why. And I had no reasonable answer. If I had already come to the prayerful conclusion that I wanted to refrain from alcohol use because I was fearful of the pull it might have on me, I could have honestly said that and everyone would have accepted it. But the only answer I had was "Because it's wrong!" and I had no proof of that whatsoever. The Bible says several times that drunkenness is wrong. Not alcohol.

So I accepted a glass of champagne. And I drank it, waiting for it to take over my mind and make me lose all reason and become a heathen. It didn't do one single thing to me. And from that moment on I decided if I couldn't come up with a reason to condemn it, I wasn't going to make it an issue between me and people in my life that would be confused by my condemnation without clear, simple, biblical truth to back it up.

(This being said, I really and truly do not mind that some Christians abstain. I think that's a responsible thing to do if you have a reason to. Even if you don't have a reason, no where in the Bible does God say drinking something that has alcohol in it is mandatory. What I cannot do is judge another person based on choices they have made that are between their conscience and God's Word. What I cannot do is lead a younger and more naive Christian to believe that abstaining from alcohol makes them more righteous in God's eyes. Because I have no Scriptural proof.)

And I have to address this idea that floats around in conservative circles that biblical wine was not alcoholic. I have researched biblical times quite thoroughly for books I have written, and not once did I find any evidence for this theory. I did find that "cheap" wine was watered down, and poor people usually drank cheap wine. But they tended to drink wine as a replacement for water, because the alcohol kept them from getting sick with tainted water. The wine that proceeded Jesus' wine in his first miracle would have been the cheap watered down sort that a wedding ended on because no one noticed at that point. His apparently had some kick to it.

If anyone can offer any proof to the contrary, I am open to adjusting my views with some good solid evidence.

3. The Puritan thing. I am NOT saying that there weren't Puritans who loved the Lord and lived for him to the best of their ability. There are some beautiful writings that have been preserved for us from the time. And I do admire their tenacity to cross an ocean, face disease and all manner of hardship to set up a new country. But I must speak about the first time I doubted the sugar-coated version of the historical record I learned.

It was one of those documentaries where people are chosen to live for a period of time exactly as some group in history lived. A pastor's family was chosen to live the Puritan life. I will never forget that Pastor looking through the documents and records, seeing the undeniable legalism and intolerance and being in tears because he had been taught so differently. These were people that outlawed Christmas. These were people who burned innocent people at the stake because someone called them a witch. These were people who humiliated one another and antagonized anyone who dared to question the powers that be. A good deal of them were Pharisees, pure and simple.

We can't look at history the way we want it to be. We can't just pick out the parts we like and reject the rest. There is real danger in doing so, because if we can't look honestly at what's happened in the past we will most certainly repeat it.

So I don't ask you to agree with me, and I doubt anyone has even made it to the end of this post. But if you're still here, you are welcome to refute and argue any point I've made with Scripture. I am glad to have those of you who disagree here, because I think it's important to talk these things through. We've been avoiding issues for too long. Let's think these things through together. I am not perfect, I can be just as wrong as anyone else, and I will not hold on to anything that God would have me let go.

I guess my next topic will have to wait for next time. I want to discuss the things that Christians do that are most certainly not okay according to the Bible. You probably can already guess what they are. And it's not as easy to write, because it's going to convict me as much as anyone else. Time for more changes!

Go ahead. Comment away. My fingers are tired.