Social Issues

Teaching Points

1. Jesus was/is not about condemning people. Jesus sets people free.
   (John 8 - misnamed story - “The woman caught in adultery”)

2. Jesus is not a means to an end. It is not Jesus “so that …”
   He is the beginning and the end (Revelation)
   He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.

3. “Stand Firm” in the New Testament refers most often to standing against those who would add rule or ritual as a means or contribution to acceptability.
   Romans 14 and 15; those who are weak are the ones who seem to need the strictures of rules.

4. Jesus broke multiple social conventions of acceptability in his ministry (Sabbath, touching lepers and the “unclean”, speaking with women (as equal), welcoming outsiders).

5. Christian faith is not about protecting power and the status quo.

6. We have virtually no record of Jesus taking a stance on a moral issue of his day (no, this is not happening in the conversation with the woman at the well). If Jesus takes stances they are consistently on behalf of the ones deemed unacceptable, the marginalized (Samaritan, Tax collectors, prostitutes, etc. etc.).

7. For Christians our attempts to “make sense” of someone other than us should be guided by the love of God for the person, not by our reaction to whatever they are projecting.
   (What you know about the other is not first right/wrong, but rather that they are loved by God)