How to Silence Kim Davis Supporters

So, this video  has been going around for about a week now. I'm not ready to address the Kim Davis issue yet. I'm not sure I will, so the rest of this post won't be about that.

Many Christians are challenged the way the woman in this video was. Sadly, most Christians would be silenced just as easily as this woman probably was. Either that or they will fall back on something like, "Well, I just take it on faith," or "My pastor explains it better than I do."

I would encourage Christians to learn about the Old Testament, what has been fulfilled, what hasn't been fulfilled, what laws in the Old Testament we are still required to obey and why. I would encourage pastors to teach their congregations the very same thing.

Jesus said He came to fulfill The Law, not destroy it. It is true that Christians are no longer under The Law, but under grace. I hear Christians say, "We aren't under The Law anymore so I can eat pork and shave my beard," but then they say that it is wrong to have tattoos which is addressed in the verse just before the prohibition of trimming beards. Why is it okay to shave my beard, but not have a tattoo?

The problem is that most people don't understand that there are three kinds of law - Moral, Ceremonial, and Civil. The Moral Law is summarized in the Ten Commandments. The Moral Law has not been fulfilled. That's why it's still not okay for Christians to lie, steal, kill, or commit adultery. That's not to say we earn salvation by keeping The Law, The New Testament is very clear that Salvation is a free gift received by faith.

The only part of The Ten Commandments that has been fulfilled is the keeping of The Sabbath. Jesus is our Sabbath. He is our rest (Hebrews 4:9-10). Many first century Christians began celebrating The Sabbath on Sunday to celebrate Christ's resurrection. Essentially, every Sunday was Easter. Christ's fulfillment of the Sabbath also means that punitive responses (all of which fall under Civil Law anyway) to not keeping the Sabbath have also been done away with.

Whenever the Bible refers to something the Ten Commandments addresses, it falls under the Moral Law. For instance, when the Bible prohibits adultery (Exodus 20:14), it is commanding that no sexual conduct is to take place outside of the marriage relationship. While the Bible describes many kinds of marriages, the only marriage ordained by God is between one man and one woman.

Since Christ has not fulfilled the rest of the Moral Law, we are still obliged, as Christians to keep it.

As to the rest of The Law...

The Ceremonial Law was a system of symbols and symbolic ceremonies that pointed to a future savior. All of that was fulfilled in Jesus' birth, life, death, burial, and resurrection. The Ceremonial Law also deals with dietary restrictions and the holiness code which prevents the wearing of certain types of garments, eating pork, shaving your beard, or getting tattoos, and so forth.

The Civil Law, as given to Moses, has to be understood in the context of the time. It wasn't meant to be obeyed for all time by all people. The Civil Law was directed to a 2nd Millennium BC Jewish audience. Even punitive actions for violating any part of The Law falls under the Civil Code. This can easily be seen in later parts of the Old Testament where the Jewish people were allowed to violate the Civil Law because times had changed.

At the Council of Jerusalem in about 50AD (Acts 15), even the early Jewish believers said that Gentile converts were not obligated to abide by the Civil Law. They only asked that Gentiles abide by certain dietary restrictions (no eating blood or strangled things) out of respect for Jewish sensibilities.

Every single, supposedly, biblical thing that Martin Sheen brought up in that scene was from the Civil Law and so, his argument is invalid... well... except the part where he berated the woman for not standing in his presence. If you're going to play politics, you better know how the game is played, but that wasn't a biblical issue.

It is true that many Christians do express hatred and fear toward homosexuals and feel they are justified in doing so based on the biblical verses prohibiting homosexual conduct. However, the message of the Bible is that Christians should love ALL people - straight, gay, transsexual, and whatever other letter a person may fall under in the PC alphabet soup.

In John 4, Jesus met a woman who had been married and divorced five times and was living with a man she was not married to. He had every right to condemn her in light of The Law. Instead, he treated her with nothing but respect. He even used terms of respect when addressing her. She was so touched, she brought her whole village to meet Jesus.

In John 8, a woman who was caught in the act of adultery was brought to Jesus. Instead of condemning her, he said, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more." Notice, he still addressed adultery for what it was - sin, but he didn't beat her over the head with it. He was gentle, kind, and even forgiving.

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39). When a Lawyer asked, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29). Jesus responded by telling him a story about a Jewish man who was robbed and beaten nearly to death. A Jewish Priest came by and crossed to the other side of the road. Another Jewish man came by and stopped to look at him (probably rubbernecking), but also did nothing to help him. Finally, a man did help him, a Samaritan. The Jews and the Samaritans HATED each other. They were DOGS to each other... they were lower than dogs. It would be like a Communist, Atheist, Homosexual, Bernie Sanders supporter helping out a Capitalist, Westboro Baptist, Heterosexual, Donald Trump supporter. I was trying to think of extreme ends of the spectrum here.

I hope you get the point which is that if you are a Christian, you don't have to support homosexual conduct, but the vitriol and the hate towards homosexuals has got to stop. Remember, God doesn't ask us to change in order to get saved. He says, accept my salvation and I will change what needs changing.

To quote mom, "You'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar."

The purpose of the post, though, is to encourage Christians, not only to treat people with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15), but also to encourage Christians to learn how to properly handle and interpret scripture (2 Timothy 2:15)