Dr. Brown, in August of this year you did a marvelous piece that went out to hundeds of people on our page and was very well-received.   It was called “Christians HAVE been Hypocrites, Now What?”   Connecting the dots, it stands to reason that each retained act or position of hypocrisy pushes more sheep over the cliff (or keeps them hiding in the bramble bushes!).

In it, you quite accurately stated,

“That’s why I’ve said for years now that no-fault heterosexual divorce has done more in the church to undermine marriage than all gay activists combined, and that’s why I’m all for any spiritual movement that calls us to recognize, confess and forsake our sins by the grace of God and the power of Jesus’ blood. Repentance blames no one else and makes no excuses. Instead it takes full responsibility and makes an about-face, receiving mercy and restoration from the Father.”

The community of covenant marriage standers would like to ask a few questions about how this is playing out in your church and circle of influence, therefore, in the months since you wrote this piece:

(1) Are you expecting most of the repentance to come from the flock?   If so, is there any particular sin cordoned off as not requiring cessation and renouncement as part of repentance?

(2) Are you teaching people the full truth about how Jesus defined adultery? Do you teach Matt. 5:32b as well as Matt. 5:28?   Do you teach Matt. 19:9b (or only the NIV version)?   When was the last time you preached on Luke 16:18?

(3) Are you teaching people that the “b” portion of these scriptures, relating to the otherwise-innocent person who marries somebody else’s spouse, carries NO “exception clause”?

(4) Speaking of question (2), are you teaching your flock the things that are necessary since the start of the 20th century (post-Westcott & Hort) to be true “Bereans”?   Are you teaching them the basic principles of hermeneutics, what an interlinear text tool is online, the character and history of the men who shaped their NIV, and the critical information about the manuscripts their bible is based on?   Do they know that 47 verses have likely been eliminated from their bible version due to the prejudiced choice of manuscripts?   Do you teach them to compare modern lexicons, commentaries and bible dictionaries with those written prior to the 19th century and encourage them to research the discrepancies when it’s a verse dealing with marriage and sexual ethics?

(5) Do your people know who the church fathers were for the first 4 centuries of the church, and whether any of them taught a “Matthean exception” or a “Pauline privilege”?   Do they know the true history of and when and why these things actually began to be taught in the church?

(6) Do you have people in leadership or on staff who are the husband of more than one wife, the wife of more than one husband, or do you give them a pass if it’s 1-at-a-time?   Have you considered the example that this sets,  in light of Paul’s well known instructions to Timothy and Titus?

(7) Are you rewarding and incentivizing no-fault divorce by performing weddings that you’d be deeply ashamed to invite Jesus to, after the way HE defined adultery?   Are you pronouncing some people “man and wife” instead of pronouncing them serial polygamists?

(8) Do they see you and your team walking before them in the uncompromised fear of God above all fear of men?

(9) What are you doing politically to repeal or reform unilateral divorce?   Your congregation no doubt knows which constitutional protections are violated by sodomous/polygamous/incestuous marriage — but do they know that unilateral (no-fault) divorce laws violate the exact same fundamental rights, including religious freedom and right-of-conscience?   Do they know how much these violations have cost taxpayers every year in transferred social costs?

(10)   Do you preach “once saved, always saved”,  or do you realize that  our  human marriages  are  an  analogy  of the  Messianic Covenant all the way from Genesis to Revelation?    Surely with your background  you’re aware that  Jesus’  “script”  for the Last Supper  was  verbatim the Hebrew betrothal  ceremony,  and that an unfaithful bride  who  turned away and didn’t show up for the marriage supper, no oil in her lamp,  no wedding garments,  without  confessing and repenting, broke her ketubah  and would be divorced by the Bridegroom instead of becoming the bride as intended.    Is it then so inconsistent for Paul to apply 1 Cor. 6:9-10 , Galatians 5:19-21 and Hebrews 13:4 to those Jesus actively and repeatedly called adulterers?

#1M1W4L   #LukeSixteenEighteen