Idolatry. Placing something or someone ahead of God and making them the leader in your life.
Over the last few years, I’ve been noticing a lot of people who claim to be followers of Christ who seem to be developing their own denomination that could be called Neversaidians. These are people who decide what parts of the world they want to support and then look for ways to justify their love for the world by denying parts of the Bible. They build an entire false gospel off these distortions.
How do they do it? They just say “well, Jesus never said” and follow it with the worldly, anti-Scripture position they want to support.
You’ve seen these kinds of juvenile arguments in many of the more heated worldly debates of the day such as gay marriage.
“Well, Jesus never said that gay marriage is a sin!” or “Jesus never said anything about homosexuality!”
Of course, these arguments on the surface are true. He never specifically said something about them.
However, in every single example of marriage that Jesus gave during his time on earth it was one man and one woman. That’s it. No other configuration. So to try and claim that Jesus somehow endorsed gay marriages because he never specifically spoke against it is simply absurd. It’s just an attempt by someone who doesn’t want to have worldly people look negatively at them to self-justify their choice to oppose Jesus’ teachings while still claiming to be followers of Christ.
Jesus said all sex outside of marriage…which he only defined as one man and one woman…was sin. Thus, homosexuality is a sin. While Jesus never actually said the words “homosexuality is a sin” He did clearly define it as sin if you look at the things that He taught to people. However, again, people who claim to be followers of Christ choose to ignore that truth because they don’t want to deal with not having the world praise them for their “open minded” positions.
And it’s not just gay marriage where these kind of issues arise…I just picked that one because it’s currently a social hot button. It doesn’t take long to find a myriad of positions where people on both “sides” of the socio-theological fence take positions that don’t line up with Scripture (caring for orphans and widows, anyone?) and find ways to justify their idolatry of worldly views with the “Jesus never said it” mentality.
Let’s be real. If you want to go down the “Jesus never said it” path…
Jesus never said you can’t take your 1967 Ford Fairlane and do donuts in your neighbor’s yard.
Jesus never said you can’t look at porn on the internet.
Jesus never said you can’t download a copy of The Avengers from the internet, burn it to a DVD and sell it to your neighbor Bob.
Jesus never said you can’t drink and drive.
Jesus never said oral sex wasn’t really sex.
Jesus never said clubbing baby seals with a Louisville Slugger was wrong.
However, if you really look at the Bible, all of those things are not actions that Jesus would be endorsing claiming it’s not a sin to do those things.
There’s no difference between those absurd examples and issues like gay marriage. Just because Jesus never explicitly used words to denounce every possible situation that may come up doesn’t mean those items were addressed in the Scriptures when you read them and take them as a whole.
It’s time we as Christians stop accepting (or “agreeing to disagree”) with those who are distorting Jesus’ teachings for their own idolatrous positions. It’s time to stop accepting their false premise that you can’t love someone without giving tacit approval to anything they may choose to say or do. It’s time to stand up and say “look, Jesus says this is wrong, but I don’t hate you because you chose to do it.”
You don’t have to be a jerk about it…and for goodness sake don’t run around telling people they’re wrong…but you can stand up when you’re in a place to stand for truth.
The world is rapidly going the direction that you’re going to have to choose Jesus or the world. Which one matters more to you?
