"From Scriptures to Society: Biblical Love Explored"

Music.

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel podcast. My name is Jason and I'm

the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In season two of this podcast, we are looking at why we should have the Bible

as an authority in our lives, and then we go into some of the issues in our

society today to see what the authority of Scripture says about those subjects.

In this episode, we will recap why the Bible is an authority in our lives,

and then focus on the issue of what society says about love and respond by looking

at what the Bible says about love.

Thanks for joining us today.

Okay, I wanted to recap where we have been and then move into the section where

we're talking about what the Bible says about the prevalent issues in our society today.

So hopefully over the last two times that we met, you were able to have more

clarity about why we should trust Scripture and why it can be,

and in my opinion should be, an authority in our lives.

So I'm going to really quickly recap these.

I heard it put in this way before. So we believe that the Bible is our authority

because first it claims to be.

So it claims to be the word of God.

2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 says, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful

to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

And so what Paul is writing here is that everything comes from the mouth of

God. It is God breathed. It is his breath.

And the same word in Hebrew for breath is spirit.

And so it's all directed from God. It is coming from him.

And this is attested to in some of the things that we studied where the prophets

are proclaiming these are God's words.

We hear God dictate and write down the 10 commandments to Moses and then dictate

the rest of the 603 laws that he wrote down.

And so these words are coming from God. So it claims to be the word of God.

The second stage is that it seems to be the word of God.

And I see this in three different ways.

The first way is through prophecy. Prophecy is a hugely important aspect in Scripture,

and we can test and see whether it seems to be the Word of God by the prophecies

and if they come true or not.

So Isaiah 53 is a very important topic.

Prophecy, in my opinion, because Isaiah is a book that we have a copy that predates Jesus.

So when the Dead Sea Scrolls were

found in the 1940s, they found an entire scroll of the book of Isaiah.

And when they dated that with their processes, they took it to be,

they found that it was copied down 100 years before Jesus's time.

So it is a document that is now 2,100 years old and change.

So it is a really old document. And in that document, Isaiah 53 is found just

as we have it in our scriptures.

So I'm just going to read one of those verses to you, Isaiah 53,

5. and this, just remember that these words were written 100 years before Jesus.

So it says, but he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so that we could be whole.

He was whipped so we could be healed.

So the word of God seems to be authoritative.

It seems to be from him because we have documented evidence of this predating

Jesus by at least a century.

And the copy that we have was probably copied from an earlier version,

dating all the way back to Isaiah's time in about 700 or 800 BC.

So it's very old, and it accurately predicts what happens to Jesus.

So he was crushed for our sins. He was pierced for our rebellion.

This is exactly what happens on the cross.

So it seems to be the word of God, because somehow, someway,

the author of it knew what was going to happen 130 years later. Very, very impressive.

We also, it seems to be the word of God, and we've talked about this one a little

bit, based upon the accuracy of the document itself.

So let's take, for instance, 2 Samuel 5, verse 8.

2 Samuel 5:8

So this is talking about when David is going to take Jerusalem from the Jebusites.

So in 2 Samuel 5 verse 8, we read, On the day of the attack,

2 Samuel 5:8

David said to his troops, I hate those lame and blind Jebusites.

Whoever attacks them should strike by going into the city through the water tunnel.

That is the origin of the saying, the blind and the lame may not enter the house.

All right, so this is a pretty random Bible verse, but it has an important archaeological fact in it.

That is that they were going through the water tunnel to enter into Jerusalem.

Now, up until the 1960s, they didn't think this was accurate.

As they were digging in the 60s, they found that this was an accurate statement

of how big Jerusalem was at that time.

And so I'm just going to read to you from the new evidence that demands a verdict from Josh McDowell.

It says, Problematic in the scripture account was what the Israelites entered

the city by way of a tunnel that led to the pool of Siloam.

However, that pool was thought to be outside the city walls at that time,

but excavations in the 1960s revealed that the wall did indeed extend well past the pool.

And so it is verified that this account was accurate.

So it was written probably during the time of David, and this was accurately

portrayed in Scripture. So it seems to be the Word of God because of its accuracy.

And that's what we would expect of the word of God.

Lastly, based upon the teachings of scripture, we would want the God to teach

us morally superior things than what we were able to do for ourselves.

And this is exactly what we see in scripture. So I have a quote here from a

non-Christian, Mahatma Gandhi, and what he says, particularly about the New Testament.

So he says, but the New Testament produced a different impression,

especially the Sermon on the Mount, which went straight into my heart.

He later writes, it delighted me beyond measure and gave me comfort and boundless joy.

So the teaching of scripture we see is moral.

It is good. And even non-Christians say, this is how we should live.

And if it was the word of God, if it does come from God, then we would expect to see that.

All right. So that's how it seems to be the word of God.

And lastly, it proves to be the word of God.

And this one is kind of subjective in the sense that there are people who look

at the evidence of Scripture and they don't believe in Jesus.

But what I mean by it proves to be the Word of God is that when we apply it to our lives.

We have positive things that happen to us.

Even though all around us, it can be chaos, we can have a sense of peace.

We can have a sense of joy in the hardest of times.

And so this is what I mean by it proves to be the word of God.

So for this, I'm going to use Acts chapter 16, verses 23 to 28.

Acts 16:23–28

This is when Paul and Silas were in prison in the city of Philippi.

They had, it tells you in the first sentence here.

So, Paul and Silas are going to be put in prison.

Acts 16, starting in verse 23.

They were severely beaten, Paul and Silas, and then they were thrown into prison.

The jailer was ordered to make sure they did not escape.

So, the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks.

Around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God,

and the other prisoners were listening.

Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations.

All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off.

The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open. He assumed the prisoners

had escaped, so he drew his sword to kill himself.

But Paul shouted to him, stop, don't kill yourself. We are all here.

And so this is an example of how that peace can come upon us and how this is,

it proves to be the word of God because what it gives to us.

While Paul and Silas were in a very uncomfortable situation,

they were in the stocks, which is probably around their feet.

So they were more than likely sitting on a hard surface.

They had been beaten, and so their bottom and their backs would have been bloodied

and bruised and open sores and that sort of thing.

And so it would have been exceedingly painful for them and very restricting,

but yet they were praying and singing hymns to God.

And this is something that we can apply to our lives. When we need to see the

light of Christ in our lives, we have the Word of God that reveals it to us.

And it can bring us peace. It can bring us joy in the most difficult and challenging times.

And so this is how some people describe it.

The Word of God is authoritative in our lives because it proves to be, it seems to be.

And it claims to be the word of God.

And because of those evidences that we have, we can put the authority of Scripture in our lives.

But this is not a definitive thing.

We do have evidence to trust why we trust in the Bible, but it is not totally conclusive.

It does take a step of faith. It's just not a leap of faith,

a leap of blind faith to continue to put Scripture as the authority in our lives.

So we are not required to submit to its authority blindly.

That's not what God wants. There is choice. The choice is ours to believe what

it says and give it the place of authority in our lives or not.

All human beings have that choice in front of them.

And so my hope is that this evidence that we've presented over the last two

and a half times will help us to continue to put it as an authority over our lives.

So with it being an authority over our lives, as we walk through the rest of this fall session,

we're going to be taking a look at some of the issues in our society that are

prevalent and that we will hopefully get a scriptural worldview on compared to a worldly worldview.

And as I was processing where to start in this, I don't think there's a better

place to start than love.

And that's because this is what Jesus tells us to do.

This is what he commands of us. So we're going to look at a few of those as we begin this topic.

So Matthew 22 verses 35 to 40 says, because one of them, an expert in religious

Matthew 22:35–40

law, tried to trap him being Jesus with this question.

Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?

Jesus replied, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart,

all your soul, and all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets

are based on these two commandments.

And so they were trying to test him. They were trying to really knock him down

a peg or two or to punch some holes in his popularity.

And they come and ask this question, what is the most important commandment in the law?

And Jesus says, love God with all of your heart, mind, strength,

and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus is drawing this from two different Old Testament passages.

The first is Deuteronomy 6, 5, which says, And you must love the Lord your God

with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.

And then also Leviticus 19, verse 18.

Leviticus 19:18

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite,

but love your neighbor as yourself.

I am the Lord.

And so he uses these two Old Testament passages to come up with what he says

is the most important commandment.

And he says, all of the law and the prophets hang on these commandments.

If you love your neighbor as yourself, if you love God with all of your heart,

mind, strength, and soul, you will obey the rest of the 10 commandments.

You will obey the rest of the teachings of what God has in store for us.

And so this is a very important concept for us, but we have to look at what love is.

So we're going to take a comparison between the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary

of Love and how the Bible describes love, and then we're going to take a look

at an example that happens in society today.

So Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines the noun of love as a quality or feeling

of strong or constant affection for and dedication to another,

an attraction based on desire, warm attachment,

enthusiasm, or devotion.

So to use love as a noun in English, it would be used to describe a feeling,

an attraction, an attachment that somebody has.

And so this is how it's most prevalently used in our society.

We have people who, with the same word, describe their feelings toward their

favorite food, pizza, mac and cheese, biscuits and gravy, whatever it may be.

I love this food. Their favorite restaurant.

They use this word to talk about the pets that they have in their home.

They use this to talk, same word to talk about their spouse and their children.

It's just a very complex word that we have in English.

But using love as a noun describes how we love the food, a family or a family

member, a sports team, a beverage, belongings, etc.

Our society uses the term to describe the attachment we have with items of this world.

And so I think of, especially with recent news stories, I think of the belongings

we would take out of our house if a hurricane was approaching.

What do we care about the most? What do we love?

And that's kind of the picture I get, the attachments that we have with these things.

But it's also obviously attachments we have with people and what it looks like

when we are mourning the loss of a loved one or when we are celebrating the

union of two people getting married.

It is this concept, this noun of attachments that we have with the things in this world.

But Merriam-Webster's also defines it as an action, as a verb.

And it says to in this way, as a verb, it defines it as to hold dear,

to like or desire actively, to take pleasure in.

And so here we have the idea of pursuing something, clinging, touching something.

It is, it's an action that we do. So using love as a noun, we are engaged in

an activity toward the object of our love. I'm sorry, that should say verb.

Using love as a verb is we are engaged in an activity toward the object of our love.

We are washing our vehicles to get the salt off of them because we want our

vehicles to last a long time. We have this attachment to them,

and so we go and wash them in the wintertime to get the salt off of them.

We give a great waitress or waiter a larger than normal tip.

It's an action that we're doing.

We hold hands with our spouse or our child.

This form of love is an action. It is something that we do.

And so this is how the world splits it up. Most of the time,

though, I think the world is using the noun form of it. It's desire that I have.

It's an attraction that I have to something or someone. It's the attachment

that I have to something of this world.

But the Bible, more than anything else, uses it as an action.

And so I have a couple of verses here that help to describe it a bit more.

So the first one is from 1 Corinthians 13. This is the love chapter.

And it says, starting in verse four of chapter 13, love is patient and kind.

Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way.

It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

My hope there is that you can see that it is something that is happening.

It is something that is active. It is something that we are doing.

How many times as we have children or grandchildren around us,

does love really need to be patient?

How many times can we kind of keep track of the things that we do for our spouses

and say, well, I've done these many things into a love bank and you haven't done anything.

So I'm depleted. I put everything in yours and you haven't given me anything.

And that is a consequence of actions.

But God says that love does not demand its own way.

It is not something that we are keeping score.

It is a giving of ourselves. It's a sacrifice that we have for other people.

It never gives up. It never loses faith. It is always hopeful and endures through every circumstance.

It is not ending.

This is what the Bible pictures when it talks and discusses love.

And then Jesus helps us to look at it in a different light in John 15, 12.

This is his last, in his last speech to his disciples, he says,

this is my commandment, love each other in the same way I have loved you.

And just think about what he did. Like he selected these 12 individuals.

He cared for them. He, when the 5,000 were fed, the disciples got fed. Jesus fed them.

He showed them his miraculous powers.

He was all about showing them actions.

Love each other, he says, in the same way, in the sacrificial way, I have loved you.

And then in his letter in 1 John, John takes it to the point of Jesus on the cross.

1 John 4, starting in verse 9, we read, God showed how much he loved us by sending

his one and only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

This is real love. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his

son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

No one has ever seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and his

love is brought to full expression in us.

And so the idea here is that it goes to the point of emptying ourselves.

It goes to the point of sacrificing ourselves for other people,

denying ourselves and letting other people's needs be met before our own are met.

It is really this idea of going all the way to the point that Jesus gave up his life.

This is what true and authentic love is.

This is how the Bible describes love. It is sacrificial. It is self-giving.

But going back up to the first Corinthians passage, it does not rejoice about

injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

And Jesus says in that last speech recorded in John, the last few chapters of

John, is that if you love me, you will obey my commands.

And again, it's this idea of actions.

Actions are so important when we have love in us.

And so I want to take a look at an example that I found online about what love

looks like in our society right now.

Because I think you're going to see see a disconnect between what the world

says and what scripture really says.

So I want you, so I'm going to share with you the transcript of a TikTok video

that was posted in June of this year on TikTok.

And this is from a YouTuber, a social media personality, a songwriter, and an educator.

So she says, happy pride to all of our family and friends. This month and every

month I celebrate you. I'm so glad you're here.

I'm so glad you're exactly who you are.

Those who are going to comment, they can't watch the show anymore because of this support.

No worries and much love your way. God bless.

I am not chasing fame or views. I am standing strong in love.

And so her idea of love here is to use her platform to celebrate, is the word she uses,

the pride, which is the LGBTQ month of the year.

And so she uses this to stand, which is an action.

She uses her platform. She sent this out, which is an action.

It is something that she is actively doing, and so it fits that criteria of love.

But when we, again, go back to 1 Corinthians 15.

Sorry, 1 Corinthians 13, it says, it does not rejoice about injustice,

but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

And it is our society and our world's way right now to celebrate this,

what scripture calls elsewhere,

sin and brokenness, rebellion against the order of God.

So celebrating something that is inherently, according to the authority of Scripture,

wrong is not really love because it does not rejoice in wrongdoing,

but rejoices when the truth wins out.

And when Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey what I tell you,

what I command you, then we have to, as the authority of Scripture is above

us, we have to surrender and submit to that.

There are things in Scripture that I wish weren't there.

There are commands to fast, which is not something that is enjoyable.

It's not something that I like to do.

But I come under the authority of Scripture, and that's what Scripture tells me to do.

And so I am going to be obedient to that.

So she apparently got some sort of feedback from that video.

And a little bit later, she released another video.

And while that first one was the entirety of her first post,

this one is only just a snippet of it.

She does quote, before we get into this, Matthew 22, which is,

love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, strength, and soul,

and love your neighbor as yourself, which we have already discussed.

And so at the end, she says this, Everybody belongs.

Everyone's welcome. Everyone is treated with empathy and respect.

It doesn't say love every neighbor except there are so many reasons I stand

strong in love. I stand with everyone.

That's who I am.

And so again, she says some things that are right here.

She says that it doesn't say love every neighbor except, but she is not standing

up for what is righteous.

She is letting what is unrighteous.

She is celebrating what is unrighteous in this. And that's the disconnect here.

This is something that is very, very prevalent in our society.

And so in both of these posts, she says.

In this way, love means I accept you for who you are and support you for your choices.

And I'm going to try to break this down to, because that statement can be used by Christ followers.

It can be used by Christ followers. And we're going to look at ways in which

we can say that and in which ways the Bible says we can't say that.

So there is an idiom in our culture today that says, you do you.

And this goes along with that I accept you and support you for your choices. You do you.

But this has a good connotation and a bad connotation.

So a good sense of this idiom is getting to pick what's for dinner on your birthday.

You may have some eclectic tastes and you may want to go get some calamari.

For your birthday, and no one else in your family wants calamari.

And so whoever is in your family and they're saying, it's your birthday,

let's celebrate you. You be you. What do you want to eat tonight?

And they say calamari, even though nobody else wants to eat calamari.

You go ahead and you indulge them. You are celebrating them for that moment,

for celebrating their birth. And in that way, it's perfectly fine to you be you.

That is, you deserve celebration. You are created in the image of God. It's who you are.

And so that's a good way that you do you is used.

Or if you are decorating a house, like you have tastes, other people have tastes.

They don't have to like what's inside your house. It's your house.

It is what you get to choose that's in there. And so you do you when you're decorating your house.

That is perfectly, perfectly good. And a good way of this.

And this is the idea of a subjective truth.

These things are, what's your favorite ice cream flavor? You don't have to agree upon that.

Like, it's not wrong to like chocolate chip cookie dough. It's not wrong to

like mint chocolate chip. There are so many flavors.

You do you, you pick the one you want to do.

But when we have objective truths, that's when it comes to a line where you do you does not matter.

So I came up with the illustration of you are in a store with your grandchildren

and your grandchildren, grandchild picks up a movie and says, hey, I want this.

You look and you see how much birthday

money they have and they don't have enough money to purchase that.

If you say you do you here, that kid might put that under his shirt and try

to walk out of the store with it. And that would not be a good sense because

objectively, it is wrong to steal.

So the child should not be allowed to do whatever the child wants to do in this

instant. It is an objective truth.

There is a right. There is a wrong to this.

And so it's our job to teach that child what is right and what is wrong.

So it is not loving to let the child do whatever he wants to do in that situation.

But if you're talking about what kind of cake the child wants for his birthday

celebration, yeah, you do you.

And so we have to be very, very careful here about what we say that to,

because in the objective reality,

in the objective truth reality, there are some situations where we should not say that.

Then there's a couple of others idioms in our culture.

One is you only live once. And the other one is the fear of missing out.

So just another quickly couple of examples here.

So a subjective truth to you only live once is your kid comes up to you and

says, hey, I wanna try out for the team.

And they've never played baseball, they've never done dance,

whatever it may be, they've never done anything like that.

And say, you can say you only live once. If you wanna go for it, go for it.

Because like, it's not right or wrong to join the dance team or the baseball

team, whatever it may be. you only live once, go and do it.

But if you are with a friend and that friend is like, hey, that car over there, that's my dream car.

That's the car I've wanted for a really long time.

If you tell that kid, hey, if you tell that friend of yours,

hey, don't fear, you have the fear of missing out here, that guy might go over

and try to steal that vehicle, which is again, wrong.

And so we have a subjective truth where you can be gracious,

where you can be loving, where you can be kind in affirming the choices that are being made.

And then there's a, that's the subjective, then there's the objective truth

where there is a right or wrong.

And we are not loving if we celebrate the wrong.

If we celebrate the wrong, we are not following after what God wants us to do.

So in these regards, our society is putting more and more items into the subjective

truth category instead of the

objective truth reality, which is leading to people closing more and more,

choosing more and more usually objective truths, like what their gender is.

And they are not being, they're being subjective in that. And it's not a black

and white answer. It's not male and female anymore.

And so our society is promoting this idea of moving more and more items to subjective

truths instead of objective truths.

And that's where love really comes in.

So the biblical response to that, as we close up, I got two more scripture verses to go over today.

The biblical response to that is to not back down from the objective truths.

So first one is where Jesus encounters the rich ruler.

The rich ruler comes up and asks Jesus, what must I do to be saved? A great question.

And Jesus says, you know, the commandments honor your father and mother on and on.

And the guy responds and says, all of those I have done since I was a child.

And so we're picking it up in Mark chapter 10, verse 21. Looking at the man,

Mark 10:21

Jesus felt genuine love for him.

There is still one thing you haven't done, Jesus told him.

Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor,

and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come follow me.

At this, the man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

So Jesus was giving him the objective truth here.

He was saying, all right, there

is one more thing. There's one idol that you still have in your life.

And that idol is your wealth and your possessions.

Go and sell it, get rid of that idol, and then come and follow me.

He didn't back down. He didn't say you do you or, hey, you only live once.

Go and do what you want to do. He said, this is what's best for you.

Sell your possessions, give the money to the poor, and come follow me.

This is what is generally considered hateful in our world today,

where you don't let people have their.

Where you take away what they think is a subjective truth when it is an objective truth.

But Jesus clearly shows that this is what we should do.

And the apostle Paul also shows us what we should do.

And it's to continually tell the objective truth, no matter what that means

or the consequences are.

So finishing up, we're going to read Galatians chapter 2, verses 11 to 16.

Galatians 2:11–16

And Paul writes, But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his

face, for he did what was very wrong.

When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers who were not circumcised.

But afterwards, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore.

He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision.

Circumcision. As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter's hypocrisy,

and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message,

I said to Peter in front of all the others,

since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like

a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?

You and I are Jews by birth, not sinners like the Gentiles.

Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.

And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be made right with God

because our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law.

For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

And so Peter came and he presented him. He saw the issue that Peter wanted to

save face with his Jewish brothers and sisters.

He wanted to not have them accuse him of walking away from the faith.

He wanted the fellowship. He wanted that connection.

And so he was bringing other people along. And Paul stood up to him and said,

this is not right. We are not saved by works of the law.

We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. So we don't have to obey the dietary

restrictions. We don't have to obey the purification rituals.

We don't have to obey these aspects of the law. And you are dragging people down because of it.

Can you imagine saying that to Peter?

Especially in the days where he cut off Malchus's ear in the garden.

Like that's an intense encounter. But Paul knew the objective truth, and he stood up for it.

And so in love, we don't celebrate wrong.

We rejoice when the truth wins out, and we stand up for the truth of Scripture.

This is our objectives.

And the world will see it.

As unloving, as bigoted, as even hateful.

But our authority is scripture. And so we surrender not to what the world says,

but to what God himself says.

At the end of this talk, we opened it up to questions and comments.

Unfortunately, the feedback from the audience has not been captured in a way we can use.

So these next few clips are my responses to the questions and comments of the

people in the audience at the time of this taping.

So the concept here is if there is someone who is violently opposing you to

the point of not relenting of your faith to the point where they are going to

kill you, do you have the right to defend yourself?

And I think my response would be that you do.

I would try every effort to disarm the person, non-life-threatening wounds inflict

on him, and then you take the care and the concern.

You don't leave him there. You would go and you would mend his wounds.

You would take him to the hospital if that's what he needs, that sort of thing,

and the Good Samaritan scenario would play out in that regard.

But for me, I do believe that you have the right to defend yourself.

Jesus obviously did not. He did not defend himself.

When he could have called down angels and they could have taken him from the

cross and he could have not received any of that.

And Stephen was obviously not fighting back when he was stoned.

So there may come a time where God does ask you, just lay down your life for me.

There are stories of Jim Elliott going to South America and trying to get in

contact with tribes down there, and they came and they killed him and his team.

That's what God asks them to do, lay down their lives for the cause of Christ.

If God asks us to do that, we should have the courage and the strength to do that.

But I believe that we have the right to defend ourselves.

How do you know? It's a very difficult subject, and the only thing that I would

suggest to try to figure out what God wants you to do in that scenario is to

consistently be in prayer.

I saw a YouTube video about how this person was in a debate,

and her opponent gave this really brilliant answer.

She was fretting, responding, and so she just said, Holy Spirit,

come upon me, and God spoke to her in that moment.

My hope is that that's what would be the cause, that that would be the case,

that God would speak to you and reveal to you what you're supposed to do in that moment.

And so maybe it's not draw your weapon, maybe it's go and tackle the guy.

But again, I'm not an expert, but that's a potential thing to do as well,

to protect yourself and also not cause detrimental harm to that individual.

So I already think and this is me talking this isn't scripture talking at all

but I already think we have gone so far in particular with gay marriage that

there is no coming back from that.

And in my view of,

Liberty, like, if I get benefits from the government for being in a committed

relationship and for having vows, like, I don't want to take that away from other people.

I think the issue happened when marriage became a legal institution,

when you had to get a marriage certificate and when you had those tax benefits

from being married. that's when the issue really started.

Because once we went down that road, the only way to get rid of it right now

would be to get rid of that, in my opinion.

And so there are some things that I don't even know how we would come back from.

And so one thing that I would really want to stress is that not everyone comes

under the authority of Scripture.

Not everyone has that as their northern light or their north star.

They don't have that to help them orient themselves with this world.

We should try to influence them. We should try to help them to see the validity

of putting scripture as our north star, but we can't make them do that.

So a book I got done reading, it's called The Deconstruction of Christianity.

I really enjoyed it, and it really was the emphasis for this series,

what we're doing on Wednesday nights now, talks about how when we are coming

at a situation where someone is living a lifestyle that scripture doesn't agree

with, therefore we don't agree with.

There comes a point in time where we're in triage mode, where we are just taking

care of the most important things.

And the most important things to be able to influence people down the road is

to stay in connection with them.

So I would not get into dialogue with people in that season where you feel like

a wrong word from you would cause so much division that there would be no coming back from it.

But there will come times with consistency of love from you,

like actionable love, and,

through prayer, that they will hopefully come to the point where you will have

earned the right to speak to them again on that topic and to influence them

toward putting the Bible as their North Star.

There comes a point in time where we will also, as close family relations,

not be the ones that reach them.

There are times where we are just to be there to be a little bit of light in

their lives, to share the peace and the joy in Christ that we have.

Not necessarily talking about Jesus, but just letting his presence live through

us and radiate towards them again in actionable love to that.

So yeah, it's prayer and it is discerning when the right time to speak is,

or maybe that's not going to come from you and you just pray that God will send

someone else to speak that truth to them.

There are lots of issues. I mentioned gender identity. There's even living together

before marriage issues.

There's lots and lots of them. Yeah, it's not just relegated to one.

Thank you again for joining us in our discussion of the reasons why we should

let the Bible have authority in our lives.

If you are interested in learning more about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit gofaithchapel.org.

In episode four, next week, we discuss what society says about life in terms

of the unborn and those who are struggling with chronic pain,

and compare that to what the Bible says about the topic of life. Have a great day.

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