Building on the Foundation

  David and Jonathan We have a little problem with the Bible.   How do we decide when a command that is given is based on culture and when it is a command we still have to follow? That question in itself supposes that if a command is based on the culture in which it was given, then it no longer applies to us at all. Cultural context is by far the most common reason that people think certain things no longer apply or were never meant for us.  All of the New Testament commands for women, for example, were conveniently given based on their culture alone and therefore were not meant for anyone but those people.  Women today are therefore under no restraints at all and are free to be as rebellious as they desire to be, simply because that culture was one in which Paul needed to give those instructions, but ours is not.   I jest, of course, but it does put the question I asked in a different light, and perhaps reveals the true question at the heart of the issue ...

Maturity, biblical maturity, and what it means for a man to take full responsibility for his doctrine, his household, his conduct, his thoughts, and his emotional life before God is a serious topic. Scripture does not define maturity by age, sincerity, or intentions, but by obedience and self-rule. There’s a time to be a child in our lives, and that’s the place we all begin. We start as mewling pukers in our mother’s arms, unable to even wipe our own butts, and then we gradually become more and more self-sufficient until we reach the age of 13, whereupon we are granted all knowledge and wisdom.  However, we are not yet men, and our knowledge and wisdom are like a shallow pond, nice to look at, but kind of smelly, and it will injure you if you try to dive in. This stage is not entirely useless because it shows a longing and an innate urge to grow up and become something other than a child. We reach for this fruit too soon, and we fall out of the tree a few times, but we are growing....