Crucified Hearts

Whatever are the issues, abortion, other bioethical dilemmas, conflicts over gender, race, religion, or politics, the Christian thinker will formulate their beliefs and practices based upon the Word of God.

While we interact with the laws of the land and obey them if they do not direct us to disobey the law of God, the foundation of our morality is not the secular legal system itself, but the morality of God’s Kingdom as laid down in his Word.

“It is written” is our mandate, our manifesto of Kingdom culture.

Taking the word of God as our guide and authority, we are not merely looking at a set of rules, but also the spirit of the Word that informs the letter of the laws, the principles of our Creator and our Redeemer, laws born of the character of Him who is not an arbitrary dictator, but the God of order and rationality.

Psalm 1 presents the foundation of Christian Ethics as the Law of the Lord, making a distinct contrast between those who ground their lives in the Lord’s statutes and those who do not.

“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,
But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.”
— Psalm 1:1-6 NASB

Jesus affirmed this in his Sermon on the Mount when he said:

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
— Matthew 5:17-20

My advice, for what advice is worth, would be to favor silence and the attitude of a learner if we cannot give a sound reason for our faith and practice based on scripture. And even with the strongest assurances in our heart that we have the word of God in our understanding, we should only make such assertions with the greatest humility, knowing from experience how easily we can be self-deceived.