Chapter 15

“He answered and said to them, ‘And why do you violate and transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?’”

One evident quality of modern times is the radical nature of swaying morality.  A great example of this is the holocaust,  which was a collective effort by a region that believed totally in the righteousness of their cause.

Those who believed the contrary were looked upon as outcasts and betrayers of this "moral" cause. A forward jump in time to now will show you the very opposite. We now live in a world where, if you were to talk in support of the ideals of the holocaust, you would be looked upon as an outcast and betrayer of the current moral cause.

All this to say HUMAN MORALITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN SWAYING, it's always been on a pendulum, driven by popular opinion. This, if any, should be a great reason for people to use Biblical standards of morality, which do not sway.  They have stood the test of time and pressure within and without.

Mathew 15:3 Jesus answered the Pharisees after they ridiculed the disciple for not obeying the elderly tradition.  The Pharisees, however, were well known for breaking the rules whenever it suited them best. Some would all-out break the rules in secret, which is why in Matthew 15:7 Jesus calls them hypocrites.

It is very easy to cave in to the desires of the time, but in doing so,we would be joining in with the world in a lost forever forever-changing moral compass. Some might even call it "social correctness", "cancel culture," or "political correctness".

Point being, we cannot and must not get into this notion of "adaptation of the current values to make doctrine more palatable". Jesus is all sufficient and all knowing we have been given everything we need to be effective in this world. The best way to cripple ourselves is if we start diluting our tools and negotiating with the standards.

Remember what the serpent said to Eve? "Did God really say"? Let us not get caught in a losing battle of compromise. CHRIST ABOVE CULTURE, CHRIST DEFINES CULTURE, CHRIST IS OUR CULTURE.

Our prayer today is that God may help us to fight the good fight just as Paul says. We pray for strength and awareness of any place we have allowed our own personal values to outweigh the values of the kingdom. We pray that God, you may help us to put you above all in our lives, that you will be the definer of our values and culture, that you will be the one who ultimately defines us. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 

"Jesus help us not to be swayed by culture and tradition; swayed away from You"