Sunspots 531

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

 
Christianity: Relevant warns us against claiming God's favor. Among other things, the article points out that some football kickers point to the sky when they hit a field goal, but not when they miss . . .


Relevant also gives us some warning signs that we might be legalistic.
 

A meditation on how we should love others, as God loved us.

Computing: Christianity Today (surprise!) has an article on ways to spot fake "news." There's so much of it out there, I'm sorry to say.


A robot visited the White House, and the President. Really.

Health: (or something) clothing that makes it easier for autistic children, or demented adults, to dress themselves.
  Science: (and Food) Wired reports on the microbiology of cheesemaking.

 
National Public Radio reports, here, here and here, on the importance of yogurt, and the history of yogurt use.


Image source (public domain)

How much does the Bible say we should spend on sunglasses?

There seem to be some things that the Bible makes clear -- we should do them, or we shouldn't. Examples: love your enemies; don't commit adultery. But there are all sorts of areas where we have to make decisions on our own. There's no scriptural guidance.

One example: how should we dress? I happen to belong to a denomination (it's not the only one like this) that has a history with some legalism in it. People believed that they should wear certain types of clothing, usually no jewelry, and their hair should be prepared in a certain way, especially when they came to church. We're pretty much over that now, thank God. But why was it so appealing to some, in the past?

I don't know all the answers. One possible answer is that the Bible does say that we should dress modestly. But modesty is mostly a state of mind. It's possible to appear in public without being mostly covered, but with a modest attitude -- that is, without wanting to draw attention to yourself, or how you are dressed, made up, hair fixed, and otherwise ornamented. It's possible to cover yourself up rather thoroughly, but have a desire to show off your body, or your clothes, or your new watch, in a proud manner.

Another reason is that we like to conform. Even people who call themselves nonconformists like to conform.

But there's a third reason. Having a set of standards that can be followed, by anyone, regardless of the state of their relationship to Christ, is tempting. It tempts people to follow those standards, and not engage in the deeper walk that comes to us as the Holy Spirit draws us deeper and deeper into the attitude of conformity to Christ. And it tempts people to even think that there is no such conformity with Christ's attitude, but just a set of external standards. I'm not saying that those who did, or do, dress a certain way, and leave off some ornamentation, as part of their religious culture, cannot be also conformed to the mind of Christ. Some of them were, and some of them are. But it's too easy to think that conformity to a human standard is all that is expected of us, when it isn't.

What does all this have to do with the title of this post? Good question. Here's my answer. God leaves us to make decisions on all sorts of things, without explicit scriptural guidance? Why is that? Well, one reason has to do with the culture of Bible times. If Paul had spelled out what kind of sunglasses to wear, if any, and how much to pay for them, his contemporaries would probably have thought him crazy, and he wouldn't have understood what he was writing about, himself. But there's another, more important reason, spelled out above. If there was a 21st Century rule book on dress, and spending money, and how we can and can't entertain ourselves and eat, and it was comprehensive, we would think that we could redeem ourselves by our adherence to that rule book. But we couldn't. We can only redeem ourselves by accepting Christ's sacrifice for sin, and following Him as our Lord. Uncertainty on what to do in these matters should drive me to keeping a warm and living relationship with God, who can help me make such decisions.

Deciding how to spend money, what to wear, what to eat, and the like, should be informed by our relationship with Christ. We should pray, and try to think what He would do. And we should realize that we may get such matters wrong, or disagree with fellow believers about these things. (And we need to be tolerant of the behavior of other Christians.) Being wrong, or being different, should remind us that we aren't redeemed by following rules. We are redeemed by Christ's sacrifice!

Although I have spoken only of individual decisions on behavior, group decisions also should be made in this way. We should pray, and seek the mind of Christ, and Biblical guidance, if there is any, on important issues as groups of believers. And, when we do, we should recognize that different groups may come to different conclusions about ritual, doctrine, how a church building looks, church government, and many other things, without either one being sinful in their belief and practice.

Thanks for reading!