One might be surprised to find out how many moral issues are not actually addressed directly or even indirectly in the Bible, given how it is touted as such a moral standard that individuals should live by. Many hot top issues today are not even mentioned, or passages are misused / taken out of context in an attempt to control peoples' behavior when Christians don't approve of what they are doing, or the references used to show something is a sin are vague and not nearly as clear as one would expect given how fervent Christians are on certain moral issues. Or an issue is prevalent throughout the Bible but it is never condemned as evil as Christians say it is.
Sex before marriage. I found this out personally as a believer when I questioned where in the Bible it actually the issue of having sex before marriage. It was such a given in our culture and was so heavily taught to be a sin to have sex before one is officially "married" to another that it seemed like a given that it would be very clearly wrong in the Bible. I was surprised to find that there was no specific proscription given regarding this issue for Christians in the New Testament, with the only references I could find upon an internet search being whenever the New Testament epistles condemn "sexual immorality". While this certainly could possibly include sex before marriage, it seems odd the issue is never directly addressed at all and it has to be inferred from a word that it may or may not apply to. One single sentence making it clear that having sex before a man and woman are joined together as one would have sufficed. The only time the issue of having sex before marriage is directly addressed is in the Old Testament Law, one law being that a woman that is betrothed is to be stoned to death if she has sex with another man, and another being that if a virgin (that is a woman that has not been promised to another man) has sex the man who has sex with her must marry her and cannot divorce her. It's also implied this man has raped the virgin as well. One is referring to a woman that is already promised to another man, and the other forces the man and woman who have sex to stay married the rest of their lives. Regardless, these rules were rules for Israel in the Old Testament and do not apply to Christians in any case. Lastly, it was also interesting when I found out there were people that didn't even believe in the sin of having sex before marriage; rather, there are Christians that believe sex is what actually marries two people by making them one flesh and if two people have sex and stay together and committed to one another they are not sinning because they are faithfully married to one another. At the end of the day the Bible seems much more concerned about people who are already married having sex outside of marriage rather than people who are not married having sex with other unmarried people, and the Bible does not give any specific directions for what even makes two people married, let alone if two people who are committed to one another are sinning by having sex, or if they are technically married by the act of having sex with one another.
Pedophalia. The Bible does not mention sexual molestation of children. Not even one time, not even in the the laws of the Old Testament. I can't even cite any verse that are misused or taken out of context because there aren't any. This seems like a very important moral law to forget, especially in the Old Testament when God is giving His people Israel His rules for holy living and for how the Israelites are to treat one another. Gathering sticks on the Sabbath can get you stoned to death in a hot minute, committing adultery can get you stoned to death in a hot minute, but there is absolutely no punishment for raping or molesting a child. A child however can be stoned to death for being unruly toward his parents. Personally it seems like the God of the Old Testament's moral priorities are a bit skewed. There isn't much else to say because the Bible, well, doesn't say anything.
Living together before marriage. A certain hot topic of the day that Christians love to try and apply to the Bible even though the Bible never addresses the issue, likely because the issue wasn't an issue during the time the Bible was written. It's not addressed, not hinted at, and is never treated as an issue in any way shape or form. Only one verse is typically taken out of context and misused to try and apply to this issue (1 Thessalonians 5:22), and the idea of the interpretation, "Avoid all appearance of evil" is so vague and impractical one couldn't even live by it because just about anything could appear evil to anyone. "Avoid every form of evil" is a much more likely correct interpretation. Again, there isn't much else to say on this issue because, well, the Bible doesn't say anything.
Abortion. Another hot topic of the day that is not mentioned in the Bible, and for how big of an issue this is among the Christian community one would have thought there would have been enough foresight to specifically address it for Christians in the Bible. Oddly enough, throughout the Old Testament God Himself does not seem to particularly care about the life that is developing in the womb. He blesses a man for running a spear through a woman who just had sex and could very well have conceived, and He does not even give any laws in the Old Testament for Israel that condemns abortion. The closest thing to abortion is a law where if two men are fighting and one man strikes a pregnant woman in the stomach and she gives birth prematurely and injury occurs (either to the woman only or either her or the child depending on the interpretation) the man must pay according to the seriousness of the injury (Exodus 21:22-25). Even if this is referring to the idea of the man paying for causing a fatal premature birth, it may simply be because the man caused it to happen which was a violation of the husband's property (hence he could be fined the amount the husband determines). If God was actually concerned with fetal life He would have created a specific law for Israel banning abortions under any circumstance, not just one law covering one specific situation that wasn't even likely to happen. There's not much else to say on this topic because the Bible doesn't say anything else.
Slavery. Although slavery is of course mentioned repeatedly throughout the Bible, even with rules governing how it is to work in the Old Testament, slavery as an institution is never condemned in the entire Bible. In fact, not only is it not condemned in the New Testament but slaves are told how to act toward their masters. Perhaps that was because slaves couldn't change their status so they were told how to act under a situation they couldn't change? That would actually be a very plausible and sensible explanation, however Christian "Masters" are also taught how to treat their slaves (Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 4:1)! In the book of Philemon the Apostle Paul is sending back a runaway slave that has converted to Christianity, and when he writes to the slave's Christian master he does not write to educate the master that owning slaves is an immoral things for a Christian to do. Don't let Christians fool you, the Bible does not condemn slavery; Christians that fought to end slavery did so in spite of what their book actually teaches not because of what it teaches, whether they realized that or not. If they had been consistent with their holy book they could not have justified fighting to end slavery.
Although I'm sure there are many more, these were just a few of the issues that are either not mentioned in the Bible or are not condemned in the Bible explicitly. The next time a Christian attempts to correct your morality in any of these issues simply ask them where in the Bible it actually says that behavior is wrong. The answer may be interesting...
No comments:
Post a Comment