Cultural Values are challenging Christian Values

Church Language is difficult to understand in a culture that prides itself on progressive social values. Patriarchal language and culture that is expressed with Paul’s letters are falling on deaf ears and “houses [of worship] are left unoccupied and the land is desolate and ravaged” (Isaiah 6:11).

For example Paul says. “…a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

Cultural Christians are rejecting this mystery as an “old fashioned” value that has “dragged” people out of their homes and imprisoned them in marriages where the Husband ruled over his wife–instead of uniting them in marriages where Husband and Wife served each other in love. 

The LGBTQ+ demographic is progressive and is challenging Paul’s teaching and that of the Forerunner’s Testimony in John 3:28-29. Many in this LGBTQ+ demographic claim Christ the Bride who belongs with the Bridegroom is no longer relevant today because it excludes them as beloved children of God. In churches wanting to include the LGBTQ+ demographic and those exploring their gender identity, worship leaders quote Galatians 3:28 believing Christ came to proclaim and reveal God the Father to worshippers as the Genderless Spirit of Truth and Love (John 4:23-24).

Paul does say “now there is no longer male, nor female, nor Jew, nor Gentile, nor Slave or Free, for we are all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28). Yet Paul says this there is also a profound mystery about Christ and the church…likening this mystery to “the same way that a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife (Ephesians 5:32).

So did this Teaching make a Father out of Paul the Mother of Christianity( 1 Corinthians 4:14-15) Or was it Patriarchal culture and or misogyny that blinded worshippers and Biblical editors to the Truth and to the Gender of the Holy Spirit? If so, is this misogyny and the inequity it brought still working today even in our “progressive” culture. For in 1 Corinthians 4: 14-15) Paul warns readers as one who has begotten them as beloved children. Yet editors have “assumed” Paul is male and a father. More over, Patriarchal grammar uses the pronoun “he” whenever Paul is spoken of.

Yet here is the text in 1 Corinthians to which I refer. [I emphasize the female nature of Paul as the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the Gospel in the brackets].

“For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.” [as your mother the Bride belonging to the Bridegroom, your one and only Holy Father] (1 Corinthians 4:15)

Yet in a preceding verse Paul claims those beloved children who work for Christ are treated like garbage by the culture in which they have been born (1 Corinthians 4:13). And Paul later admits in 1 Corinthians 15:9 to being the worst sinner of all, claiming to be the one who has persecuted the Church, causing the children of Christ to be martyred… “dragged” from their homes, and thrown into prison!

Think about that! Why would Paul claim to be the worst sinner? Was not Judas the worst sinner? After all Judas betrayed Jesus with a Kiss, and Salome’s dancing got the imprisoned “forerunner’s” head on a platter and entombed (Mark 6:27-29).

So as Ken Weliever and his ThePreachersWord reblogged below asks: Are You a Christian? Or Just a “Cultural Christian?” I encourage you to read his blog and then ask yourself. Are Cultural Values keeping you from embracing the Cross and seeing the Magdalene as the Apostle with an inordinate Love for Jesus the Teacher and his Father, her Bridegroom?

Are You a Christian? Or Just a “Cultural Christian?”