Preface: This was written for my Christians and Culture class when I was a student of Bible & Ministry and submitted August 26, 2000.
Cultural Confusion
There are many things in the world that we think are the way we should live as Christians, where in fact they are merely a non-biblically based cultural Christianity. For example, tattoos, piercings, having you hair colored or styled in a unique way, dressing differently, even maybe the way you talk. How is one to know what is cultural and what is biblical when defining the way you live your life? Simple. Read your Bible. For some though, it may not be that easily answered as you might have grown up with a tradition that someone once showed you a verse to biblically support, but took the verse completely out of context. What to do next? Look to the Word for more direction and pray for the wisdom (Jam 1:5) to be able to discern the biblical from the cultural. Be like the Berean Christians in Acts 17:11, “ ...in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
A lot of things in church doctrine are traditionally and culturally biased. Many may draw confusion to a person’s mind because they may see what the Bible says and that the traditions are contradicting or very close to doing so. “If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet I will not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction.” (Job 10:15-16) Confusion is not a place to be in the Lord, for it will blurry out the true path and redirect your focus on those things that confuse you. “My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me.” (Psa 44:15) as “We lie down in our shame and our confusion covereth us” (Jer 3:25) So, we are not to live in confusion, but rather with the clear truth of God’s word to look through and lead us in our life. Even if one is led astray by traditions and cultural biases that are not biblically based, they will still be held accountable in ignorance. “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, ‘To The Unknown God.’ Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. .And the times of ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” (Acts 17:23, 30) There is still accountability on each individual person for the way you live your life, so make sure you’re living it on the straight path with God and not with the traditions your church may have imposed on you.
For the extreme example of what is out in the world; some people ask for a minimum of a $1,000 to show your true love for God. Others may have some rituals that are performed as a tradition, or worship more than just our Lord and Savior, but what does it say in the Bible about all these things? 1 Corinthians 8 deals with one example of this by saying, “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him...we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one.” (vs. 1-4) Most importantly, “..take heed lest by any means this liberty of your’s become a stumbling block to them that are weak. For if any man see thee which hast knowledge sit at meat in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to eat those things which are offered to idols; And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.” (1 Cor 8:9-12) These verses, with exception to the mention of idols, support how there is nothing wrong with having a ‘sub-structure’ of rules to help you live your life the right way in Christ, but the problem exists when your set of rules (as opposed to God’s set of rules) is set on other people and they are expected to live up to them, and even worse if the rules are such a set that they cause a peer to fall.
How do you filter out the biblical from the cultural and traditional rules? Many ways to start, the obvious is to study the word. Also, “now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the traditions which he received of us. For yourselves know of how ye not ought to follow us...” (2Thes 3:6-7) “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (Col 2:8) Romans chapters 14 and the
first half of 15, cover a great deal the ways to handle this form of confusion on doubtful things. “...Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”(Rom 14:5) “I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to
him it is unclean.” (Rom 14:14). Many times that is how tradition and cultural confusion is created; along with legalism, which makes the whole situation even worse. If it is not in the Bible as a suggestion or rule as to how to live then no one should impose it upon you nor hold you accountable to it ‘in the name of the Lord.’ “For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and the things wherewith one may edify another.” (Rom 14:18-19)
The world is riddled with ridiculous rules and expectations of ‘us’ as Christians. Certain music types, the way we dress, if we have tattoos, piercing, purple hair, if we are divorced, and many other things irrelevant to God and how we serve Him. “Every man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the heart.”(Prov 21:2) So keep you heart right with Him and the rest should fall into place, even clearing up that confusion of which things arose from tradition and which are biblical. “In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.” (Psa 71:1)
1 - All Bible verse references from: The Scofield® Study Bible Most current Copyright © 1945 by Oxford University Press, Inc., previously published as The Scofield Reference Bible.
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© 2000 Shannon Yáñez
