4 Myths in the Christian Sphere About God and His Morality

***CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS WARNING***

The topics discussed below are delicate and sensitive issues. My discussion of these topics does not mean I necessarily adhere to said topic (i.e. plural marriage). My intention is also not to come off as degenerate in any way. In my studies of Scripture, I've found many truths that don't align with modern beliefs about Christianity. No hate to traditional Christians, but since the Bible wasn't written with Western values in mind, we must understand the Near Eastern context of the culture who penned it.

With that being said, here goes….

There are many myths and traditions found in the Christian faith that don’t align with the biblical truth.

I am not saying all traditions are negative, as, on the contrary, traditions are a beautiful thing when done with the correct heart.

But….

There is a gnostic phenomenon infiltrating the Body of Christ in our world today. To be frank, it infiltrated the Church thousands of years ago with people such as St. Augustine (some good theology, some bad).

God is not a killjoy, He is not a tyrant, and He doesn’t answer to your beliefs of what is moral and good.

God’s standards are His standards, not the standards of any man or woman.

Let me be blunt.

To refuse honest assessment of the biblical text means you’re not being an honest man or woman of God.

What God says is a sin is always a sin.

What God says is allowed, is always allowed.

Malachi 3:6 “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” Yahweh does not change. Being God, He can’t change—otherwise, He would cease to be God.

Myth #1. God Changed His Mind About the Roles of Men and Women

Egalitarianism is not biblical. Men and women are not and will never be the same. Your modern sensibilities just went off-kilter.

It’s all right.

I used to be under the spell of the enemy myself.

But it’s true.

Men are men, and women are women.

Shocker.

In Christ, men should act like men and be strong, and women should be feminine and desire to be tender.

Men and women are different, not in value, but in their very makeup.

I respect women a great deal, but part of that respect means understanding they are the delicate sex.

Women should be protected, supported, and loved and in a perfect world that would happen all the time.

But feminist ideologies have done as much harm as they have done good for the world.

Though I see nothing in the Bible that says a woman can’t seek a career, much to the detriment of the manosphere’s zeitgeist.

If she’s independently stable, why should that bother a man?

It’s ridiculous.

Men have bigger issues to worry about than Proverbs 31 women who are making it on their own.

The sexes must support each other, not tear each other down.

Myth #2. God Is Sexist

To truly dig into this one, let’s use an example from the Scriptures that makes many believers uncomfortable.

Abraham, Jacob, David, and even Solomon were men who were … let’s just say, indulgent in their love lives.

They were married to multiple women at a time and even had harems of women. But we must remember the Bible is a Middle Eastern book, not a Western, Greco-Roman book.

God didn’t call them out at all for their actions.

Ever.

You won’t find it.

Anywhere.

Does this make me uncomfortable?

Nope.

God’s morality is perfect, and we cannot ascribe sin to God.

In biblical times, patriarchal power, survival, and tribal enlargement were of the utmost importance. Children were especially valuable as both legacy inheritors and as economic incentives.

Life was hard back then.

Us men and women in the modern era have it easy. I’m typing this up on my laptop with the ability to edit the document. In their time, they’d have to trash the scroll and start over from scratch, by hand at that.

This patriarchal power meant men were in charge. Yahweh designed them to lead families and society at large. There were queens and female judges, too, but the overarching narrative of the Bible is one of male responsibility for those under their care.

This does not mean a woman cannot be independent or successful on their own. I’m talking about historical contexts and the mindset of biblical writers in the Ancient Near East.

Women have an exalted status in the Scriptures if we don’t drown in the propaganda. God is not a sexist.

Yahweh allowed men in Scripture to have multiple women.

We can’t call it sin because He never does. Not even once.

You can try to dance around it, but it will be to no avail.

The prominent men of our faith practiced polygyny, and Jesus Himself said they will be in the Kingdom of God.

But Jesus also said (in Paul’s letters through the Holy Spirit) no adulterers and sexually immoral will be allowed in His kingdom.

There’re two options here.

Either Jesus is lying (you can’t spin Scripture enough to make that true) or we are in error today.

Which one seems the most likely?

I want to clarify this by saying that I’m not advocating that people start giant families with multiple women in the home. It’s a different world now.

Ask God for your soulmate and intended match and see how that fulfills your life. God’s standard in the Garden was one man and one woman for life. After the Fall of Man, we see a secondary form of marriage God allowed.

But God doesn’t regulate or allow sin. So we can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend it’s sinful.

We often relegate polygyny to old-school Mormons (Latter-Day Saints) and Muslims, but the inescapable fact is the great, righteous men of the Bible practiced it.

And God said they will be in the kingdom. Meaning they aren’t sinners.

David committed adultery with Bathsheba, but that involved a married woman. Adultery’s modern definition differs from the biblical definition of adultery, which must have a married woman involved. Modern dictionaries and Hebrew aren’t the same.

This seeming double standard is a picture of Christ and the church. We are to be faithful to the one God we serve, and have no other gods, and He is faithful to more than one believer at once and has many covenants.

A woman has one husband, otherwise, it’s adultery. A believer has one God, otherwise, it’s adultery.

God has multiple covenants with billions of people. A biblical patriarch might have had seven covenants with multiple women.

But again, the ideal is one man and woman together, and God created a soulmate (Hebrew/Yiddish: bashert) for you. Ask Him to reveal that to you and for that to happen to you at the proper time.

As someone who looks at the Bible with an honest lens, I can’t pretend God simply looked the other way. That’s not what a holy God does.

I’m not advocating for, or against, polygyny. I’m advocating for believers to treat those who have chosen that path with love and not disdain.

God allowing something doesn’t mean you must do it. But you can’t condemn it either.

In any case, God is not sexist because there is a double standard here. It’s about a picture of the relationship between God and His people.

Myth #3. Jesus Forbids Sexual Expression and Desire

Matthew 5:28 is the most misquoted Bible verse I have ever seen, besides “the love of money” or “do not judge.” Hearkening back to earlier, a man and a married woman are the only ones capable of committing adultery. His marital status is irrelevant.

If Jesus is saying what most Christians think He is saying, how did your parents get together?

Were they lusting?

Was it adultery for Grandpa to ask Grandma on a date?

Do you see how silly that sounds? The Greek word for lust here is a general desire, with no sexual connotation. Paul uses the same word in his letters about desiring to be a bishop. Jesus “lusted” to eat the Passover before His crucifixion.

It’s English connotations that make this word more than what it is.

But back to the point, He’s saying: “Do not desire your neighbor’s wife in your heart.” Why would a righteous man do such a thing? She belongs to another man, in a covenant relationship which is sacred to God. That’s a big no-no.

But He can’t mean all women. Because that would make no sense. You are here because your parents wanted each other. Simple as that.

God is not a prudish being who hates sexuality.

It’s just He wants us to do things His way.

If you’re not already upset by this, here comes the doozy. I want to make it clear I’m a conservative-leaning man, with centrist viewpoints on a few issues. But I must follow the truth, whatever it may be. Here goes. And no, I’m not a gay man defending gays. I’m as straight as they come.

Myth #4. Homosexuality Is Always a Sin

God defines sin as breaking the commandments found in the Torah. Nothing more, nothing less. And yes, the Torah says that a man should not lie with a man.

Fair point. But that’s called sodomy, and it isn’t a man not being interested in women.

Jesus called men who were not interested in women “eunuchs from birth.” There were physical eunuchs, too, but in the ancient world, there were men who weren’t interested in women.

Many debates sprang forth on these men, even in the Talmud of Hebrew thought. Even they called these men eunuchs by nature. Jesus mentions there were eunuchs from the womb, while God says in Jeremiah that He forms people as He wishes in that context (the womb).

If a eunuch is a eunuch from the womb, that would mean he isn’t interested in women because it is his nature. “Eunouchoi” is the Greek term for this type of eunuch, as well as regular ones. And Jesus encourages us to accept this saying. Whosoever receives a eunuch is doing a good thing.

Eunuchs weren’t only castrated men or men born with defects.

They could be celibate eunuchs who didn’t commit the act described in Leviticus.

I have no problem with homosexual men and women. Because unless the prohibited act is taking place, they aren’t sinning.

I apologize for being graphic, but sodomy is prohibited, not being unattracted to women.

And speaking of women, with female same-sex attraction, the Bible is silent.

Romans 1:26 seems about heterosexuals doing the forbidden act from Leviticus.

Again, I apologize for being graphic, but I’m tired of Christians parading around nonsense.

To believe Romans 1:26 is saying female-female relations are sinful is to add to the Torah, where God is silent.

Leviticus 18 says nothing about women with women. It says a woman should not come near an animal but says nothing about a woman and a woman.

I’d think it’d be a perfect place to put such a prohibition, especially with the prohibition that follows specifically describing women.

Why exclude it? And if it isn’t written, it can’t be a sin.

Where there is no law, there is no sin. Romans 4:15 “Because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law, there is no transgression.

You’re free to hold on to your traditions, but those traditions aren’t found in my Bible.

We should support men and women who aren’t in the norm and love them as Christ loved them.

If they’re upstanding Christians apart from that one thing, we can’t call them sinners. It’s the act of sodomy that God forbids, not celibate men who don’t desire women or women who like women.

But do you know what is a sin?

Adding to the Torah.

Deuteronomy 4:2 states clearly, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

Notice that? We are never to add to God’s Torah (instructions).

Ever.

Let’s humble ourselves and realize we aren’t just (as in justice) lawgivers. If our sensibilities go against Scripture as it is written, then our flesh is warring with our spirit.

The reason I drafted this post is to solidify my convictions about what the Bible says about these topics.

I’m a conservative in work ethic, biblical truth, and gun ownership.

But I will not marry such things to my faith and let it impede biblical truth, even if it makes me uncomfortable.

Stop bashing people who differ from you. You don’t truly know if they even act on the desires they have in a non-biblical manner. Let the text itself convey its truth to you.

Not the opinions of men, not modern culture, but Yahweh’s truth.

Remember. God will not answer to you.

You’re going to answer to Him.

Please prayerfully consider that traditional beliefs don’t always line up with Scripture and trust that God is good and holy in all He does.