Friday 28 August 2009
- Bible Book:
- 1 Thessalonians
"For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you." (v.7-8)
Background
Today's reading is usually one of those sections of Scripturethat gets some within the Church 'hot and bothered', as it appearsto highlight certain illicit sexual behaviours, and calls for achaste response from Christians.
All sexual behaviour revolves around human relationships and theway people relate to one another on a number of levels. Certaintheologians choose to move beyond the theme of 'sex' when lookingat these passages and argue that verses describing 'holy living'are a call for relationships which are based on love, honesty,trust and sincerity. There is little doubt that the opposite ofloving, trustful relationships are those characterised by cynicism,distrust and exploitation. In such relationships there is also aclear lack of respect which is manifested through a personconcentrating solely on satisfying their needs, rather than thoseof others.
Christians are called to be holy, because God is holy.Unfortunately today, holiness has a bad name or reputation and isusually associated with self-righteousness, false piety andzealotry. However, holiness that is informed by the Holy Spirit isevidenced in the way believers are focused on pleasing God andliving lives that bring honour to God, rather than any spiritualone-upmanship.
It is interesting that according to today's passage, those who donot live holy lives are said to be 'rejecting God rather than man,'which means that holiness is not to be the preserve of a few 'HolyJoes' or 'Joannas', but all who call themselves Christians.
To Ponder
How can we avoid being too judgemental on issuesof morality?
Are Christians too fixated with issues involvingsex?