Change in morality?

[timf]

If we are to accept a God of the absolutes, then we are to uphold His decrees. Women don’t get to teach, period. Cause it’s what God says so it must be true and good, no questions asked

To address the subject of women, consider this;

The "upholding of decrees" are for those who are under the law. Christians are to apply principles. The admonition for women not to teach was cited by Paul with the reason that women are more susceptible to deception.

Your use of the phrase "no questions asked" seems to reflect a poor experience with someone who attempted to bully you spiritually.

God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. However, he deals with different people differently. For example those that present themselves as teachers will be judged more harshly than others;

Jas 3:1 Be not many teachers, my brethren, knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.

Those that harm the vulnerable also receive greater condemnation;

Luk 20:47 which devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive greater condemnation.

There is also a difference between those of Israel that were to obey the law and those to whom grace was offered.

Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.

In a similar way a parent may treat his 16 year old differently than his 6 year old.

 

[Soyeong]

This not only concerns Christianity. I observe that Christian morals change over time. What was bad before, at some point becomes okay. What was okay before, becomes bad. It seems religious morality evolves with progress of secular morality. Many things like divorce, promiscuity, slavery, women preachers, homosexuality, punishment of children etc.

If God and His word are unchanging, why there is seeming fluidity in His morality?

Morality is based on God's nature and God's nature is eternal, so morality will never changed. When God as revealed an action to be moral in a particular situation, then that will always be moral, and if people commonly believe the opposite at a later period of time, them that simply means that those people are wrong, not that morality had changed.

 

[Andrewn]

It’s unclear and pretty much one big mess and confusion today. We have destroyed pretty good the thought of our predecessors during millennia, but have not created our own thought. So it’s a huge ideological crisis. The void is going to be filled with something eventually. I don’t know if we’ll live to see it or of humanity will even survive until then. I just hope it won’t be something sinister

This is too pessimistic. The point in Christianity is to follow God's teachings rather than try to impose them on others. It's not a political system. Some religions may be rather political systems: Islam? Shenism?

 

[James_Lai]

This is too pessimistic. The point in Christianity is to follow God's teachings rather than try to impose them on others. It's not a political system. Some religions may be rather political systems: Islam? Shenism?

No, realistic. Religion is not an ideal that exists somewhere out there. Let’s talk what actually happens here, in the church around the corner, on TV, online, in the hearts and minds of people who walk and breathe today.

 

[James_Lai]

Morality is based on God's nature and God's nature is eternal, so morality will never changed. When God as revealed an action to be moral in a particular situation, then that will always be moral, and if people commonly believe the opposite at a later period of time, them that simply means that those people are wrong, not that morality had changed.

I understand that. But then there’s the issue of interpretation and application. I’m not talking about theory, but practice. I’m talking about application. In North Korean constitution, all citizens have enormous rights and freedoms, but unfortunately, that does not transpire into the experiences of the common North Koreans

 

[Andrewn]

Religion is not an ideal that exists somewhere out there. Let’s talk what actually happens here, in the church around the corner, on TV, online, in the hearts and minds of people who walk and breathe today.

How do we know what's in people's hearts and minds? Every person is responsible for their hearts and minds. The law that was for the OT nation of Israel ended. Sure there are moral laws in the NT for Christians to follow. But this is between them and God.

You've specifically mentions the example of women teachers. There is ample evidence of women serving and teaching in the NT. But the Apostles adhered to the prevalent culture and we cannot deny that women today are better educated. I don't see how women teachers destroy Christian principles.

 

[aiki]

This not only concerns Christianity. I observe that Christian morals change over time.

The morals of Christians may shift and change, influenced by secular culture, but the morality of Christianity, the religion, is as fixed and unaltering as the word of God, the Bible, through which that morality is described and established.

If God and His word are unchanging, why there is seeming fluidity in His morality?

Because the Christian community is not immune to trends of culture. Again and again, God must put His children in the crucible of suffering to reveal the corruption in them, their drift from His will and way, and prompt them to forsake the foolishness and sin of godless belief and "morality" and return to Him and life lived in accord with His word.

 

[hedrick]

Jesus didn't come to give an ethical code, but a way of life. He certainly dealt with some specifics, but he dealt more with general principles, and didn't attempt to give comprehensive ethical rules, as e.g. in the OT.

If you assume that God knew Christianity was going to last thousands of years through many different cultures I think that's appropriate. We have new questions today, e.g. about online privacy or artificial insemination, that wouldn't have made sense in the 1st Cent.

In the OT interest on loans was understood to be taking advantage of the poor. This continued among Christians through the medieval period. Today, if used wisely, it can allow people of modest means to do things they couldn't otherwise do, e.g. buy homes.

Even in sexual ethics, the current understanding of the importance of consent is sort of new. Obviously rape was always prohibited, but understanding the problems of relationships with power imbalance, e.g. teacher and student or adult and child, is at least a new approach even though some examples previously been prohibited.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this. There's this idea among some Christians that the Bible is an instruction manual for life, and that we have complete and unchanging instructions. The problem is that outside Leviticus it doesn't read that way. It's more like examples and stories designed to help us think about things and develop good decision-making.