What does it involve to be a Christian? Is it possible to live right in a society that is largely wrong? By what standards are we to assess conditions?
Some years ago a well-noted Episcopal theologian, standing on the platform of a college in Pennsylvania, made this statement: “There is no rule book.” So he argued that we get our ethical principles from the people around us. He was a strong advocate of situation ethics. I heard him say this.
Then he went to Israel with the intention to rewrite the Gospels. However, he came to his end in the sands of a Judean desert. His death to the Israelis was a mystery. It still is. Some people argued that the Lord removed him before he could blaspheme Jesus.
I affirm the Bible is our guidebook. He thought we have no guidebook. I believe we have a Guide Book in the Bible and that Guide Book is for everybody. That is why it is so important for the Wycliffe and the New Tribes Mission translators, and all others, to be out there among the people who have no Bible and translate the Holy Scriptures into their languages.
I am so pleased to tell you we have now mailed over 140,000 free Bibles to people in more than 90 countries around the world. We believe the Word of God is universal and timeless.
Some argue that if Paul were living today, he would not write as he did in the first century. I don’t believe that. I believe the apostle Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he wrote what is applicable for us and all people for all times.
So I will answer the question I raised, “HOW THEN SHALL WE LIVE?” from Paul’s writings in I Corinthians 5:9-13:
9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
13 But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.
Living as he did in a pagan, sensual world, the apostle Paul gives us three WAYS to live now! They are just as applicable today as they were in his day.
The first way is:
BUT SEPARATED FROM THE WORLD
11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.
12 For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within?
Now the apostle Paul comes closer home. He addresses the brotherhood. If there is somebody in the
brotherhood who is a fornicator, who is covetous, who is an idolater or a railer or a drunkard or an extortioner, separate yourself from such a person. Rebuke the unregenerate, so-called brother, and have no fellowship with him. Is there any church that would admit such members knowingly?
I remember hearing an illustration, I am not sure it ever happened, but anyway it is something we can consider. This young man came to the pastor and wanted to become a member of the...
