I once told one of my bosses at ChristCenteredGamer I have a somewhat liberal take on the Bible, and since that is a bit vague, I believe I need to explain that further.
First off, in general, I consider the Bible, while a record compiled by Man and thus flawed and imperfect, it's still an authoritative compendium of all the basics any self-respecting Christian should adhere to, that is NOT up for debate as far as I'm concerned.
However, I do have the following caveats, based on the same ones Christ Himself and His Father made clear concerning God's law:
1. As for the things not up for debate, like "do not steal", that's a pretty clear and straightforward command, you'd be hard-pressed to argue against that or saying it has some wiggle room.
2. As for the laws with extenuating circumstances, I take the more liberal view. For instance: "do not kill".
First off, it would be more properly rendered "do not murder", as there are several times God declared inflicting death permissible.
1. First, if he told you to end a life, then you had His approval.
2. Self-defense or defending another in such a manner lethal force is required.
3. Killing in a war as a uniformed combatant.
4. Killing for food (hunting animals or slaughtering animals for food preparation). If you want to be really comprehensive since plants can feel pain and are alive, harvesting them for the same reasons.
5. Putting to death someone after a trial of their peers judged them worthy of such punishment for an applicable crime.
In this case, you have to have a looser take on the no-killing rule because of all the caveats when it's okay as mentioned above. Trying to obey that one without doing so is not only being dense, it's literally impossible, because you literally can't kill ANYTHING, you'd starve to death pretty fast because you cannot eat any form of food, and given all the microbal beings that exist in water, drinking anything would be a death-dealing act too.
However, it's otherwise a rule you should take very seriously as far as not committing an act of killing in cold blood. That's explicitly condemned and there is no room for debate on that one.
3. Jesus was super fed up with the Pharisees taking a hyper autistic approach to this because their version of strict constructional adherence to the Law missed the whole moral and legal backing the Law was meant to enforce.
For example, when he healed people on the Sabbath, they called him out on doing work on the Sabbath, saying it was wrong.
Jesus considered this nonsense, and if you apply logic, you can see his point.
1. God's Sabbath day command was "do no regular work". Curing people of blindness and reviving the dead is hardly "regular work".
2. Jesus was doing those acts of healing on behalf of God, and if the Pharisees bothered to remember their own history, previous prophets had performed miracles for the glory of the Lord every day of the week and God never saw a problem with it.
3. He found it really galling they were more obsessed with following the LETTER of the law as opposed to its spirit. God commanded people to not work on the Sabbath because he wanted people to focus on HIM, not because he was pushy bureaucrat whose nose got out of joint if things weren't done in a certain way.
Jesus, whenever he healed people, he gave God the credit, and thus fulfilled how God wanted the day set aside for him to be one where you remembered what God wanted you to do, so Jesus never broke the command's spirit, and he'd really only be guilty of breaking the letter of the law if you hyper-autistically divorce it from it's legal and especially moral intent.
Another area I personally consider a loose constructionist point is the topic of swearing and "curse words".
I, of course, condemn stirring people to wrath, nor should one speak rashly or foolishly, since God does admonish that, but the Bible does not have a list of specific words that are condemned by the mere act of their utterance.
For the purposes of this discussion, let's take the mild expression "crap". By some standards, it's considered a word you should not say.
It would stir others to anger and thus tempt them to sin if you called them "a piece of crap", so yes, you should not utter it in that instance. Conversely, there is no moral prohibition on saying you need to clean up some dog crap off the floor because in that case you are simply stating something not calculated to stir someone to sin by your words and there is no rashness nor foolishness in stating a fact. You could use the words "turds" or "poop" if you find crap offensive or others find it offensive, but in that case, it would be personally offensive, not anything based on Biblical precepts. Thus, while I discourage and do not condone anyone being a potty mouth, no specific words are condemned by the Bible, but I do acknowledge some have no other purpose than to induce others to wrath and thus to sin and should be avoided on those grounds alone.
My conclusion is a simple and logical one: If God explicitly commands something is not to be done or his command covers an act condemned in a reasonably broad sense that your specific action would fall under in His moral and legal context, then don't do it. Otherwise, I would do as Jesus pointed out we should do and follow the Spirit the Law is meant to enforce if not the exact Letter because to do the latter without keeping the former in mind is missing the point.
No comments:
Post a Comment