Morality
Below is a letter I just finished reading to the Customer Service Representative at Chic fil-A after hearing that Chic fil-A will no longer support the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I was on hold for over thirty minutes. It seems the company is receiving a lot of feedback.
At the end of my call — which was recorded by the customer service representive — she asked if I had seen the company’s 2020 Foundation webpage which explains their current focus of charitable funding and suggested that I check it out. I did. I like the organizations they’re supporting. But I find their decision to no longer support the Salvation Army and FCA to be troubling.
I encourage everyone to call or write Chic fil-A to give feedback. Note: Their web form only allows up to 1500 characters, hence the reason for my call.
Mail:
Chick-fil-A CARES
P.O. Box 725489
Atlanta, GA 31139-9923
Phone:
1-866-232-2040
Monday – Saturday
8:00 AM – Midnight ET
Subject: Feedback on Your Recent Decision to Cease Funding Salvation Army and FCA
I’m very sad to hear that Chic fil-A has caved to the Politically-Correct LGBTQ+ thugs.
Since my first bite of a Chic fil-A chicken sandwich at a church youth event at Duke University in the late 1970s/early 1980s, I have enjoyed your food and culture. I have no idea how many (tens of?) thousands of dollars of hard-earned cash that I have spent at your restaurants across the South, traveling back and forth from Texas to North Carolina and around town in the DFW Metroplex.
I have enjoyed supporting an organization that proudly stands for pro-family values and organizations. It has been refreshing to see one company consistently stand for Christian values. I applauded Dan Cathy’s Christlike efforts of befriending LGBTQ activist Shane Windmeyer. It seemed to be a genuine gesture to prove that he and Chic fil-A are not homophobic, but just prefer to support traditional pro-family organizations.
Chic fil-A has never refused service to any LGBTQ+ individuals; if it had, the mainstream media would have had a field day. Through the years, Chic fil-A has remained true to Truett Cathy’s vision for so many years. And now, barely past five years after your founder’s death, you have caved. You have capitulated. You have betrayed his principles.
You have stopped donating to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It baffles my mind to try to figure out why you decided to cease donating to these organizations. The only reason I can find is that you no longer support Truett Cathy’s values. You care more about appeasing left-wing activists than remaining true to your base: traditional Americans with traditional values who have made you one of the most popular fast food restaurant on the planet. Your sales would far surpass everyone else if your stores were open seven days a week. Instead, your sales in six days are close to those of stores that are open seven days a week.
You may see it as a small change to appease the LGBTQ+ advocates, but I see it as spinelss behavior. Behavior which will not be honored by God, nor by the millions of traditional Americans who have made your restaurants so popular.
This is one American who will no longer consider Chic fil-A among my top choices for a quick bite of delicious food. I’m confident I am not alone. I am also confident that your franchisees feel betrayed. Your choice will result in lost income by every single franchisee.
RC Beaman
Fort Worth, TX
In today’s Bible reading, Paul describes the symptoms of leaving God’s objective revelation of Himself. He also prescribes the remedy.
The Description: “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power.” (2 Timothy 3:2-5 CSB)
It can’t get much worse than that, can it?
Paul describes the ultimate fallout of a life without God’s Truth. In a word, it’s “anarchy” a word which literally means “no ruler”. If you leave an objective standard of Truth, then you have no basis to discern the answers to questions about everything from the existence of God to defining right and wrong, and defining something as simple as “male” or “female”.
The Prescription: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:-14-17 CSB)
When you live by an objective standard of Truth, you have the tools to answer the big questions and the small questions. Paul says that the Bible can prepare us for everything.
God didn’t give us an objective standard and revelation of Himself so we could sit back and admire the beauty of the standard. No, the Standard of Truth has a purpose beyond itself: to make us more like Jesus, and equip us to live a God-directed life. As we let God’s Word live in us, it spills over into every area of our lives and in concert with the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our lives are changed from the inside, out. (Colossians 3:16ff, Ephesians 5:18ff)
Application
As you read the first part of 2 Timothy 3, did you feel like you were reading a description of our current culture? Only Jesus Christ can satisfy the longings of a restless heart. And every heart is restless!
Ask God to use His Word to teach you, to correct you, to rebuke you, and to set you on a straight path of living for His glory.
In today’s Bible reading, Paul tells Timothy to guard against people looking down on him because of his youth. We don’t know how old Timothy is. There may have been some concern that this young pastor may not have enough experience or maturity to fulfill his ministry.
There’s a lot to be said about someone with experience in ministry. Years ago as we began our family, we heard someone teach about raising godly children. He had drawn some practical applications from Scripture. But as we pondered what he said, it dawned on us that this man doesn’t have any children. This man isn’t married either. We decided to take what he said with a proverbial grain of salt. Yes, there are truths which any Believer can mine out of God’s Word. Yes, single men can teach a lot from the Bible about raising godly children. But given the choice of a single man with no children and a man with grown, godly children, I’d take the advice of the older man. Most of us probably would.
Obviously, Timothy wasn’t the most experienced pastor, so Paul told him to show himself to be an example of Christian maturity. “Set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12 CSB) Timothy can’t do anything about his age. But he can be an example of how a Believer talks, acts, loves, believes, and remains pure.
Application
There is an application for all of us here. Yes, Timothy was a church “elder”. But don’t think that there’s a different moral calling for the “ordained” than for the “ordinary”.
All of us are called to live a life of integrity and obedience to God through the power of the Holy Spirit. There will always be people younger in the faith than you. Ordained or not, you can show yourself as an example of how a believer talks, acts, loves, believes, and remains pure.
I’m not talking about putting on a “holier than thou” front. I’m talking about living a genuine life of growing obedience and dependence on the Holy Spirit. I’m talking about being a true disciple of Jesus Christ. And everyone is called to that.
In today’s Bible reading, Paul tells Timothy what to look for in church leaders. I don’t know that Paul’s checklist is so much a checklist as much as it is a reminder that character matters. And character matters … a lot.
I find it interesting how Bible teachers and commentators read their Bibles. Many modern Bible teachers look at Paul’s qualifications and immediately jump to the bit about elders and deacons not being divorced. (1 Timothy 3:2, 12) Or that’s what we think it says.
Paul’s actual wording is “a man of one woman” or “a husband of one wife”. Yes, Paul could mean that elders and a deacons cannot be divorced. But that isn’t what he said. Paul could have used the word “divorce” in his discription, but he didn’t. Instead he worded this qualification in a way that includes polygamy, divorce, and the general way the man looks at women. The way Paul worded it covers it all!
On a parenthetical note, let me say that whether or not Paul was talking about divorce, I don’t think he had our American “no-fault divorce” in mind. I don’t want to get into it here, but “divorce” in the Bible and “divorce” in late Twentieth/Early Twenty-First Century America are not the same. And we can easily run into problems when we impose a modern concept onto the Biblical context.
I also find it interesting how Bible translators do their jobs. Specifically, why do they translate some words one way at one time and translate those same words a different way at another time. My two somewhat-related interests intersect in Paul’s prescription to Timothy when it comes to the service of men and women in the church.
We get the word misogyny and gynochology from the Greek word for woman. This Greek word can be translated as woman or wife, depending on how the word is used. You can’t just say that a Greek word always means one English word in all circumstances. Context dictates how to properly bring the word from Greek into English. Sometimes, the word means woman. Other times, the word means wife. Similarly, the Greek word translated as man can also be translated as husband, depending on the context.
The reason you can’t force a one-to-one correspondence of Greek-to-English words is you run into interpretation issues when the author speaks generically and you translate it specifically or vice-versa. For example, look at Paul’s prohibition of women teaching men in church in yesterday’s reading (1 Timothy 2:12). Is Paul’s concern with women (in general) or wives (specifically) teaching men (in general) or husbands (specifically)? I think by translating the word contextually clears up most of the “problem” passages like the one I’m referring to.
Getting back to Paul’s requirement of male church leaders being a “man of one woman”… Paul was concerned that male leaders should have a single focus on one woman. Church leaders shouldn’t be distracted with multiple wives. And neither should they have “roaming eyes”. They shouldn’t be distracted by other women; they should have eyes for only their own woman.
Application
There’s an application for all of us when it comes to having a single-focus on God when it comes to a growing relationship with Him. This is reinforced with Jesus’ comments when He was questioned on the “Greatest Commandment”. (Matthew 22:36–40)
Paul speaks very strongly regarding sexual immorality in the Corinthian Church in today’s Bible reading. He says that a man is committing an act that even unbelievers in Corinth don’t condone: he is having sexual relations with his father’s wife.
Paul recommends that the church deal with this individual in a very strict way: remove him from the congregation (1 Corinthians 5:2, 13) and give him over to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:5). The goal of dealing with this individual is twofold:
- Deal with the individual, aiming to restore him to fellowship with the rest of the church body
- communicate with the church body that sin is serious and should be dealt with seriously. Jesus made a similar statement when he said that it would be better to enter heaven maimed or blind than to go to hell intact. (Matthew 5:29–30)
The terms “sexual immorality” and “sexually immoral” appear twice each in English in this chapter. It refers to the sin being committed and the one who is committing the sin. But both of these terms are based in the same Greek root and we derived our English words “porn” and “fornication” from this Greek root.
Normally when we talk of “porn” we mean pornographic literature and images. But the basis of the word is far broader than those two narrow classifications. Here are definitions from two Greek lexicons:
- to engage in sexual immorality of any kind, often with the implication of prostitution—‘to engage in illicit sex, to commit fornication, sexual immorality, fornication, prostitution.’ [1]
- fornication, sexual immorality, sexual sin of a general kind, that includes many different behaviors.[2]
In recent years we have seen reports of lawsuits by former church members against their former church for kicking them out of the church. At the core of these lawsuits are libel, slander, and defamation of character. The plaintiff claims that they should be able to live however they want and remain a member of the local church congregation. But based on Paul’s recommendations, the church has a responsibility to deal with sin in order to protect its purity. I believe Paul would say that this can, and must, be done without libel, slander, and defamation of character.
Now, as soon as I typed that next-to-last sentence, I could hear some readers point out (and rightfully so) that the local church, filled with fallen people is far from “pure” and filled with hypocrisy. And I can also hear readers calling out specific (“respectable”) sins that are often tolerated — and even promoted in much of (Western) church culture such as gluttony, lying, and slander to name a few. And I can hear some readers say that “Paul isn’t showing much grace.” Paul already responded to that criticism:
What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Romans 6:1 (CSB)
Should all sin be exposed in the church? Judging from Paul’s example, we would have to say no. Paul didn’t single out
Look, we all sin. I sin. And
Application
What sins do you deal with on a regular basis? Are you grieved by them? Do you feel a need to repent of them in order to walk in deeper intimacy with God? Or do you feel that God isn’t bothered with your sin?
Perhaps you need to follow James’ directive:
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. James 5:16 (CSB)
Paul is pretty clear in how we should deal with sin: kill it.
Puritan John Owen’s Mortification of Sin in Believers says that we should be killing sin or [sin] will be killing you. John Piper refers to this small book by Owen in two messages, “How to Kill Sin” and “Kill Sin with the Word of God“. I invite you to click those links and listen or read Piper’s messages.
[1] Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida. Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains
[2] Swanson, James. Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament)