I’ve come to notice that, often times, a lot of christians “christianity” extends only to the furthest point of their own comfort zone, at which point things become “not christian” anymore, even if those things are biblically sound.
This seems to be much more prevalent in women than in men, but men are trained to use their wives/mothers discomfort as a guage as to whether or not something is “christian” or not. For example: Biblical headship. It’s in the bible, its scripturally sound and a quick reading of several verses prove that God intended man to have authority over his wife similar to the authority he has over his children. Unfortunately, however, this is an uncomfortable stance to take for both men, who are not comfortable wielding that much authority over their wives, and women, who are not comfortable having their husbands wield that kind of authority over them. Thus excuses are made and verses are intentionally twisted so that TRUE biblical authority from a husband comes from being under the authority of his wife, and he becomes her “servant leader”
We also see this when the subject of the apostle Paul’s assertion that women should be quiet when in church, and seek their husbands answer when they have questions about scripture:
1 Corinthians 14:
34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law.
35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.
Look at those verses! “For it is A SHAME for women to speak in the church”. A. SHAME! Yet nearly every church you go to will in no way attempt to enforce that the women within be silent, and those that do are called “backward” or “legalistic”. Women don’t do well at being silent, and asking them to do so will almost immediately illicit howls of oppression and abuse.
These are just a couple of examples, but plenty of others can be found, maybe more than I could possibly list in this post.
Rather than using the actual word of God as the foundation of the church it seems the church has decided to use feelings as its foundation and has taught both men and women to do the same with their own christian walks. As a result we end up with weak christians who’s understanding of the word is warped because their feelings change their understanding and obedience.
God doesn’t call us to “feel good” about His commandments or the bible in general, but rather he calls us to obedience! We may not always be comfortable with what the Lord tells us to do, but if we trust that He is a good and perfect God then we trust that His commandments are good and perfect and meant for our good!
Its not always easy to be a christian. The world hates us and satan would love nothing more than to throw a wrench into our walk and destroy our faith. Fortunately, however, God has given us His own words to give us direction! We need only do as commanded, not for our own salvation, because we don’t earn our salvation through actions, but because these commandments are good and for our benefit!
As always do not take anything I have said as gospel truth, pick up your bible and read it yourself. Compare what I have said to what it says. I merely write about what I have seen in the church, in fellow christians and even in myself, but I am always open to discussion and even changing my position on something if doing so will bring me in line with the bible.
What do you think? Have you seen this in action?
The problem is many hate what the Bible says but want the fire insurance so they go to church.
I think its more than that. I think it’s also people being told that God would never want them to suffer or be uncomfortable UNLESS of course it involves something that can be reaped for virtue points like going on a missions trip or doing something with the homeless. That may make people uncomfortable, but they can then turn around and easily let everyone know what they did and show pictures and talk about it later (“well when I was on my mission to Africa….”). Being obedient to ones husband or disciplining/teaching ones wife is not something one can easily convert into virtue points and, thus, once it becomes uncomfortable it becomes “ungodly”.
Church has been influenced by the world and no longer influences the world. the world has adopted feminism as its religion and christians have followed. Churches need to to stop teaching that men and women are equal and proclaim that the rules for men and women are different.
“Have you seen this in action?”
As a more or less uninvolved observer I did see similar things in action: Religious education in my school, I once wrote you about my female teacher claiming that God might as well be a goddess because equality etc, and we also discussed abortion with her. Even I had a feeling that this must be the wrong approach.
One year later we had a different (male) teacher in religious education, and the distinction between him and his predecessor could not have been bigger! He was of the old school, he told us about the body of Christ, and obedience, and about fasting etc. You could have heard a pin drop in the classroom, everybody was quiet because everybody was too weirded out. The year before two or three girls had plans to sign up for religious education as a major subject because they enjoyed it so much (the course never started though for irrelevant reasons); one year later with the other teacher most people wanted to drop out because he was so old-fashioned. I also sometimes scratched my head in astonishment during his lessons, and yet it sounded more right and authentic to me than what we had learned from the other teacher before.