2010 ~ Do God's Morals Still Apply?

2010. Can you believe it? Wow...I remember thinking 1990 was exciting!!

As we begin yet another new year, I thought an appropriate apologetic topic might be the relevance of the Bible as a guide for living almost two thousand years after its last author wrote his last words.

Let's first take a look at what God considers immoral. In Mark, Jesus says this, "For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from withing and defile a person." (Mark 7:21-23) Paul gives a similar list in Galatians. "Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar..." (Gal. 5:19-21a)

This is a good guide if we want to know how to live holy lives as God's image bearers and as His temples. This guide is said by some, however, to be outdated.


When skeptics throw the "the Bible is outdated" argument into the ring, they most typically have an agenda: They don't want someone else telling them how they should live. One blogger disgusted with the "outdated" laws of the Bible (and the uneducated people who still follow its teachings) writes that it should have "no more right to govern one's life than a copy of Cosmopolitan." Is that true? Are we culturally so far removed from the Bible that its laws and commands no longer have any relevance to us?

This is a very common claim.

So how do you respond to someone who says biblical commands are outdated and don't apply to our culture? You have to realize that most are not primarily concerned with living right according to God's Word. They aren't trying to figure out how to get it right given the cultural differences. They are interested in living according to their own pleasures and they don't want to be told that what they are doing is wrong. Ask them this: What basis do you have for your claim that some of God's laws no longer apply to us because they were only cultural? Most will never have given this any thought.

The one answer I have been given (over and over again)-in regards to claiming that sex before marriage is no longer wrong in our day-is that people in the OT days married much younger and God never expected people to abstain from sex into their late teens and beyond if they weren't married. So lets look at this answer. Problem #1: There is no basis whatsoever for this assumption about what God expected. Problem #2: Even if God never intended for people to wait so long before marriage, it doesn't follow that his law is thus invalid for people who do. (Pre-marital sex & homosexuality seem to be the biggest concerns when one is trying to get out from underneath God's laws by claiming they are no longer relavant today.)

Another question you might want to ask is this: Where do we draw the line when deciding biblical commands no longer apply to us? If some commands can go, why not all? Shall we throw out theft and murder as well?

Some will say that laws against murder, theft, and the like do still apply to our culture. But why? What is the difference that makes some laws still applicable & others outdated? Without a grounding in the Supreme Law Giver - the perfectly moral God - why should I submit myself to any laws? What makes "culture" able to tell me what is right and wrong. It's all just being made up as we go along. What do I care if it's good for the masses - why shouldn't I do what's good for me? Why should I choose to live by the laws of our culture any more than I choose to live by the Bible or the latest Cosmopolitan?

Others will say that things like murder and theft are crimes against other people. That's what makes them wrong. They'll argue that if the act isn't hurting anyone, on the other hand, it shouldn't be prohibited, and where the Bible does so, it is outdated. But is that the criteria for what makes something wrong or right - whether or not it can be percieved as hurting someone? Problem #1: Even if it was, we do not have omniscients view points. We cannot see how these things will affect anyone else in the future and so cannot guarantee that someone won't be hurt. Problem #2: If the criteria is whether or not it hurts someone else, can you tell me how these things were hurting people in ancient times that made God feel the need to prohibit these acts for just that time period? How were people being hurt then and why aren't they being hurt in the same way now? Problem #3: I don't think a case can be made that these things don't hurt people today. Just take a look around - STD's, unwanted pregnancies, tragic deaths at the hands of drunk drivers, betrayed spouses and children, sexually abused children, crippling financial debt, addiction,...the list goes on.

Frankly, there is no basis for claiming that any of God's commands are outdated. What was immoral, unholy, and unrighteous in biblical times is still immoral, unholy, and unrighteous today. The only thing that has changed is, well...nothing.