Hebrews says, "Marriage is honorable among all, and the
bed undefiled..." In the United States, our legal system calls things
"marriage" that the Bible most certainly would not. But if we only
looked at that one verse from Hebrews, we could believe that the thing called
marriage that isn't, is "honorable". We could pull in other teachings
about marriage and how great it is and what it means spiritually, and encourage
people to accomplish those great things and represent those great truths by
practicing the thing falsely called marriage. If this stood for a few
generations, most people would forget that it is a perversion of what the Bible
calls marriage.
What if there are other Christian practices that this has
happened to, in the forgotten past? How do we trust that what we understand to
be the biblical and Christian practices of Church gatherings, pastoring, church leadership
and decision-making, the Lord's Supper, baptism, speaking in tongues, laying on
of hands, ordination, etc. are the things the Bible is discussing?
Like we can with marriage, we can compare other Scriptures
to our practices, right? We can ask, "Did God say anything else about
these practices? Did God address what we are doing, regardless of what it is
called, in positive or negative ways?"
I believe it is possible for God to reveal corrections to
us* if we are humbly seeking Him, and if He wants to at the moment. It seems
like sometimes He doesn't want to, and I'm not quite clear why.
I want to have respect for generations of believers who have
been inviting God's discernment, and to value their conclusions. I don't see
any honest way to do this without acknowledging that there have been stretches
of time where Christianity (the public institution, anyway) has promoted false
understandings of things, and it has taken a long time to straighten some of
them out. I have to acknowledge that different parts of the Church, distanced
by geography (at least) have for long periods of time held different beliefs
from one another.
How much weight should we put on our own experiences? If our
experiences seem to line up with a teaching, and be fruitful for the Kingdom of God
*Who ought "us" to be, though? Is it my job,
without holding a position of authority in the Church, to discern these things?
For myself? For the Church? For society? Is it my job to say anything to others
if I believe I have discerned that our conventional practice is wrong?
To God be all glory.
