Old vs. New: How morality stays constant when freedom changes.

I read (read: saw and skimmed) an article on Facebook last week that made the basic argument "The old testament tells us it is wrong to eat cheeseburgers, pork, inhabit the same bed with our menstruating wives, and be homosexual. How can we now rightly pick and choose what is right and wrong from this list?" The question was posed in an article that was obviously arguing for the acceptance of homosexuality in Christian circles, but it raises a very valid question: How do we, new-testiment believers, know what new freedoms we have and what things, mentioned in the old testament, are still wrong? Is it still wrong to murder, cheat, and steal? If so, how do we know (other than "because Paul says so") that we are free to eat meat once sacrificed to idols, hug our uncomfortable sisters, and drive a car on Sunday?

The logical key to this question has to do with symbolism. We, as Christians, are free from the "oppression" of symbols. We no longer sacrifice lambs as a symbol of our need for blood-cleansing from our sin, so therefore we no longer avoid "unclean" things as a reminder of our uncleanliness in the eyes of God. We are free from constant reminders of our sin and are able to take advantage of the blessings that the cleansing blood of Christ has opened up for us.

Murder, theft, adultery, and homosexuality, however, are not within those new blessings. These list of sins, found in the old testament, are moral issues. This list represents things that are contrary to who God is and the order He established in creation. He created man, so therefore He is the one who decides if a man lives or dies. He created one man and one woman to be married, so He does not allow that union to be defiled by others. He gives physical blessings to His people, so he does not allow others to remove those blessings. He is the one who determined the specific gender He needed each of us to be and how reproduction works, so we disrespect that order when we undergo procedures to alter, or engage in relationships that are contrary to, that design.

I understand, however, that this logic still does not always leave us with a clear right/wrong scenario. This is why God, in His wisdom, repeated many of His moral commands in the new testament. Through Jesus' words in the Gospels, through the words of Paul in Romans and his letters, and throughout all books of the new testament, God shows us how to discern morality and exercise our newfound freedoms in God-honoring ways. He does not leave us alone to use our fallen minds to try to discern His logic, He repeats Himself loudly and clearly. He uses Paul to remind us that even though God's grace covers all of our sin, we are to avoid sin and not indulge in homosexuality or adultery. He also uses Paul to show us the freedoms we have to be "all things to all people." God uses the words of Jesus to remind us of the value of human life and being content with what we have. He also uses the words of Jesus to show us that we are free to eat with sinners and discuss intellectual subjects with non-believers.

And now we enter the spinoff zone...

I admire the person who wrote the aforementioned article for one reason--they were not afraid to ask critical questions. We need not be ashamed to ask critical questions about the bible, even if they are questions which we believe strongly have a clear answer, because the world sees the seemingly contradictory things written in the bible and asks critical questions. We need to be clear with the world-- the bible is a non-contradictory document but it is also complex and cannot be fully understood in parts. We must remind the world that the bible cannot be understood piece by piece but must be viewed as a cohesive whole, and we must do this reminding by practicing what we preach. We cannot ignore our call to love others when we seek to stomp out evils such as abortion, domestic violence, and homosexuality, or conveniently forget that we ourselves commit "respectable sins" every day while we stare accusingly at a single teen mom. We must be unashamed, willing to answer questions that are uncomfortable with bold truth, and we must coat that truth in love.

God has not chosen in a long time to use His children to wipe out entire sinful nations and I don't believe He will do anything like that until Jesus returns. What He does require us to do is engage the culture's need for a Savior at every possible opportunity. We must be careful not to shut down those opportunities before they even present themselves by being coarse, argumentative, and nit-picky. We must foster those opportunities by opening ourselves up to others, showing them that we do not understand it all either, and graciously leading them through the difficult truths the bible presents. Being slapped in the face with bible verses doesn't make anyone understand anything, but careful and gracious repetition of the truths of the bible does not return void.

Em