Living in Vain 2-22-09
There was a commercial that was banned from the Super Bowl broadcast. The commercial did not contain any politically charged messages, nor did it contain obscene imagery such as nudity or graphic violence. There was no foul language, and the content did not attack anybody on the basis of race, creed, religion, etc.; it was banned (quite properly in my opinion) because it advertized a website dedicated to helping married people commit adultery.
The website “AshleyMadison.com” promotes itself as “The World’s Premier Discreet Dating Service” and uses the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair.” The add featured a couple kissing and frolicking while text appeared proclaiming “This couple is married”, followed by the text “but not to each other”. The point of this seems to be that you shouldn’t have to be constrained by a marriage to the “wrong partner” so go find happiness elsewhere.
The entire notion of this website “dating service” is anathema to Godliness, and should be appalling to all of us. If you are married and you decide to cheat on your spouse, your entire marriage is in vain and you are an adulterer. In this same way, we need to ask ourselves if we are becoming spiritual adulterers.
One of the things that Jesus held against the Jews (namely the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law) was that they seemed to be constantly making up new and stricter laws for the people to be required to follow. An excellent example is when the Pharisees confronted Jesus because his disciples were not following their rules on the ceremonial washing of their hands:
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with ‘unclean’ hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ” ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.” And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:5-13 NIV)
Throughout their history (from Moses to the time of Jesus), the Jews were married to the law. But they proved unwilling and unable to remain faithful – they were always committing adultery with everything from idols and false gods to self-made rules and imported philosophy. In Romans, Paul says: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15 NIV). This is not saying that we will just sin, sin, and sin again for the rest of our lives. What this says is that we were unable to remain faithful to the Law, so we lived in vain. Christ, however, put to death the Law and freed us from our useless life and broken marriage; he then established a new marriage with him – one based not on observance of the law but based on the same faith that Abraham had.
Today there are many Christians who seem to think that it is their calling from the Lord to police the rest of us. They do this not by a careful examination of the scriptures but by finding passages that can be used to make a wise-sounding argument. Paul wrote in Colossians: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ,” (Colossians 2:8 NIV). They often mislead younger Christians into following their misguided ways, so that whole generations are corrupted. The really sad part of this is that these Christians may never discover that the life free from the bondage to sin is not found through the making of new rules but through seeking a Godly mind. A life spent focused on earthly things is a life spent in vain; a life spent focused on Godly things is a life that is renewed and made perfect.
-Charles Peterson