Inconsistency: The Currency of the Realm

From the very outset of life as a follower of Christ, one is taught to see that there are numerous threads of substantial reason you must hold on to when circumnavigating the endless cycle of questions concerning the boundaries in Christian morality.

The questions themselves, or the roundabout way they are structured, are so common that you could be forgiven for forgetting the reason behind the motive; the question behind the question, and thus, unduly lose sight of the real search . . . the one for truth.

The particular question in question goes a little something like this:

Where do we, as Christians, draw the lines between innocent indulgence for pleasure’s sake and stepping into sin . . .

Examples
[. . . when watching secular movies?]
[. . . when talking about physical intimacy in dating?]
[. . . when talking using coarse language?]
[. . . when listening to secular music?]
[. . . when piercing, tattooing, drinking, smoking . . . ]

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

If you search any one of those examples (or slight variations thereof) in forums with Christian viewpoints you will find thousands of replies, the majority of which are stating, where they believe the magical line lies. In your search for answers on this line you will no doubt run into more questions and find that nothing is clear cut; it’s simply a never-ending surge of human perceptivity on where you must take your marker and draw a line and set up your home-base right beside it. This is where everything becomes a haphazard array of inconsistency. One person does it this way, then tells someone else who then stumbles because it puts his way into question.

It seems as if the motive behind these inquisitions is how far we can tread before right-with-God becomes not-so-right-with-God, doesn’t it? It’s like we want the sin without the sin. We’re sitting on the edge of a boat, far out in the ocean, trying to get our feet as close to the water’s edge as possible without touching it, when the real danger is hardly in getting wet; the real danger lies in falling in and getting torn apart in shark-infested waters.

As John Thomas of Boundless so masterly puts it:

Lines are important and we need them while we grow into maturity. I draw boundary lines for my preschool children because they’re immature, they lack knowledge. I have to tell them not to play beyond our driveway because the street can be dangerous, even deadly. My four-year-old son is obsessed with how close he can get his toes to the street when he’s standing at the end of our driveway. “So where exactly does the street begin, Daddy?”

I’m trying to teach him about the danger of getting hit by a car and all he wants to talk about is where the driveway ends and the street begins. He’s missing all the fun he could have on the driveway by obsessing over the line.

So then, our questioning should not be “how far is too far” or “where do we draw the line” but “what builds myself and others around me up in the things of God and brings glory to His name.” Otherwise you’ll be so focussed on your own fleeting lines in the sand–lines that will change with every whim and want–that you’ll sprawl headlong into shark infested waters.

No matter where you draw the line, someone will want to put their feet on the other side. Sin is, after all, the master of concealment. It’s the baited hook, the masquerading angel-of-light, the inviting ocean concealing hungry sharks.

Don’t snag the hook while obsessing over the line.

Related Articles

• Joy Comes in the Mourning January 21, 2010
• Incubus Attack, Natural Sleeping Disorder? November 21, 2009
• Of the essence July 6, 2008
• Stop-motion Isn’t As Bad As You Think January 13, 2012
• Abortion: It’s Killing Us January 28, 2010
• Clamped in Logic November 18, 2009