Americans are faced with questions and issues that never existed before. Stresses are building to levels which are destroying relationships, impacting communities and causing significant emotional reactions. How are Christians to deal with these questions and issues?
The Built on Truth Series offers powerful suggestions to Christians about how to deal with difficult questions and issues in a transparent and consistent way. Others may not like or agree with the outcomes, but they should be able to understand how they were attained.
Some foundational assumptions of Christianity are God exists and is active in the world, God created everything, and the Bible was provided by God so people can know what to believe, how to make choices and how to live according to God’s standards.
A good next step is to find direct and indirect Scriptures pertaining to the subject at hand.
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Americans are both blessed and cursed by their individualism and curious definition of freedom. On the whole, Americans don’t want to be told what to do. They think they want to do anything they want as long as it doesn’t directly hurt others. Americans see commandments as a burden, something to be obeyed to the minimum, if obeyed at all. (Think of speed limits!)
Jesus and the Jews of his time had a different approach. They understood the commands of God to be good things. They were both opportunities to be taken advantage of, as well as fences to protect people and keep them on the right path.
One of the characteristics of many of the ancient Jewish people, especially the Pharisees, was their desire to understand the commands of God and follow them precisely. This desire led them to have detailed instruction and traditions about how to follow the commands of God. They became experts in using primary scriptures, secondary scriptures and allegories in order to exactly define what the commands of God are and how to follow them. Unfortunately, these practices often became unnecessarily burdensome and caused many to follow the traditions precisely without having the right attitude and love for God.
