I was chatting with a middle-aged English student recently, and he talked about how he met his daughter’s boyfriend recently.
While they were chatting, the boyfriend mentioned that he and the daughter would be going off on an overseas trip together.
My student said, “I was surprised, but I said okay.”
I guess he thought he was being an understanding father by saying this.
I suppose that the couple might actually reserve separate rooms, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.
In our culture today, it just seems like a “normal” thing for couples to sleep together even though they’re not married.
Recently my sister mentioned overhearing a mother talking about her kid’s 16th birthday party at a hotel, saying, “Well, I took away the vodka from them, but I let them keep the rum.”
I suppose this mom thought it was just “normal” that teens drink at their parties.
A lot of things seem “normal” in our cultures, but the big question is not if it’s “normal,” but if it’s right.
Abram faced the same problem in his day.
God had promised him a son, but after 10, perhaps even 20 years of waiting, Abram still had no children. Sarah was getting up in age, she was already 65 by this point, and there seemed to be no way for her to have children.
Culturally, this was a terrible situation.
In those days, it was considered the worst thing in the world for a family name to die out.
But in their culture, it was perfectly natural for a wife with no children to offer her servant to the husband. The servant would sleep with the husband, have a baby, and that baby would become the heir.
So, going along with the culture, Sarai did just that. And it was considered perfectly normal in that day. But was it right?
No. God had promised to give Abram a child through Sarai, but instead of believing God’s promise and waiting for his timing, they got impatient and tried to force things to happen on their own.
They succeeded. Abram and Sarai got the child they wanted. But their choice also brought about problems they didn’t anticipate.
When Sarai’s servant Hagar got pregnant, she started mocking Sarai and despising her.
That led Sarai to get upset and caused marital strife with Abraham. “This is all YOUR fault!”—totally ignoring the fact that it was her own idea in the first place.
Their decision had long-term consequences as well, as the descendants of Hagar’s son Ishmael (the Muslims) have had a long-standing feud with the descendants of Sarai’s son Isaac (the Jews).
But that’s what happens when we stray from God’s way to follow the way of our culture.
Cultures change. What was normal in our culture 100 years ago is not normal now. And what is normal now will probably not be normal 100 years from now.
But God’s ways and his Word never change. And when we stray away from his ways and his Word, we do so at our own risk.
Unwanted pregnancies. Abortion. Teenage moms without husbands. Poverty. Alcoholism. Drunk driving accidents. Marital strife. Divorce. The list goes on and on.
So we have a choice. Are we going to follow culture? Or are we going to follow God?
Sometimes, there’s no difference between the two. But when the two come into conflict, which do we follow?
When Joshua led the people into the promised land, he said this:
Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.
But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:14–15)
The Israelites had to decide whether to leave behind the cultural practices that they and their ancestors had followed in Egypt, or to continue in them.
They had to choose whether to follow their culture or to follow God.
And we have the same choice today.
May we make the same choice Joshua did: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 