Do We Need a Biblical Explanation for Every Moral Question?

But then it does kind of help explain why they get so frustrated with these. With these kinds of topics because the minute that you ask them. Well, hey, what is the biblical X? You know, okay. All right.

It's a it's a dumb question to ask. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Someone's asking it. So it's at least that relevant. You've commented on it. You've decided to be here. We didn't force you to come you you came on your own.

What's the answer. Since it's so simple and. And they're just there's there's not one morning.

The following message may be offensive to some audiences. These audiences may include but are not limited to professing Christians who never read their Bible. Sissies sodomites men with man buns those who approve of men with man buns man bun enablers white nights for men with man buns.

Homemakers who have finished Netflix, but don't know how to meal plan and people who refer to their pets as fur babies. Your discretion is advised. People are tired of hearing nothing.

Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of Salvation any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin and the wrath of Almighty God is Hanging over our head. They will hear his words.

They will not act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment when the fires of wrath come They will be consumed and they will perish. God wrapped himself in flesh Condescended and became a man died on the cross for sin was resurrected on the third day Has ascended to the right hand of the father where he sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear his words They will act upon them and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day their house will stand.

The Sufficiency of Scripture for Life and Godliness

Welcome to Bible bash where we aim to equip the Saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions. You're not allowed to ask where your host Harrison Kerrigan pastor Tim Mullett. And today we'll answer the age-old question.

Do we need a biblical explanation for every moral question now Tim as we kick this episode off? What Bible verse do you have to read for us?

Second Peter 1 3 through 5 says his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness Through the knowledge of him who has called us to his own glory and excellence by which he's granted to us precious and very Great promises so that through them you may become particulars of the divine nature Having escaped the corruption that's in the world from sinful desire.

For this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith of virtue and virtue with knowledge and knowledge and self-control and all that. So but yeah, that's part of it.

Okay, so so help us understand, you know, how exactly does that Bible verse? Relate to the the episodes title question. Do we need a biblical explanation for every moral question?

Yes, sure. So this is one of those passages which It's like a classic passage on the topic of the sufficiency of scripture and what you see in there is that God? You know through his divine power His divine power is granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

Through the knowledge of him who's called us to his own glory and excellence. So like in this passage What you see is God's given us in his word like where the knowledge of him has found it. So later on as you read through 2nd Peter, you're gonna realize that they're talking about no prophecy of scripture.

It comes from the will of man, right? It comes from divine origin, but in God in his word has given us everything that we need for life and godliness. So, you know God God's given us in the scriptures everything we need in order to understand life like the world that we live in.

And then to understand this category of godliness. And so when you're talking about this topic of like morality. Do you need a biblical explanation for morality? Well, that's what special revelation is.

It's a sufficient guide to tell you how to be pleasing to God, right? So it's a guide that's designed to tell you what are God's expectations for you so when you're answering a moral question. Everyone has to ask like what is the standard that they're judging this morality by and the issue is I mean you just look around the world and you see that our morality is rapidly changing and.

If.

You just need some sort of objective standard for morality and that's what the Bible is intending to do. Like the God's Word hasn't changed. It's the same, you know yesterday forever, you know. Today you're right.

So you look at God's Word that God's work like the grass withers the flower flower Fades, but the Lord of God remains that God's Word is gives you this standard of morality. And you can go to the scriptures to find out what's pleasing to God and like the issue is.

Yeah, I mean our society we're jumping off a cliff the things that seem normal to us now haven't been normal in the past. You know, there's different societies that are alive today that all have different innate understandings of what's like right and wrong.

If you grow up in a cannibalistic society, you may think it's right to you know, just kill someone that need them. I mean there's societies that exist today where they think that it's perfectly reasonable just to rape people.

That they can't even understand why that would be wrong. So like those like those kinds of cultures exist those kinds of societies exist. Our natural moral intuition isn't wonderful and our natural moral Intuition at this point, you know tells a lot of people in our country that it's okay to kill babies and That a man can be a woman and like it's the worst sin to like deadname someone and it is to actually engage in sodomy.

So like the issue is that you need some kind of objective standard and this is what the Bible was designed to do.

Biblical Principles Versus Demands for Exact Modern Wording

Right, so in other words, you know, even though there's not a specific Bible verse for every situation you might find yourself in life the Bible gives us answers to be able to You know apply to every situation that we might run across in our life, right?

So so there's no verse about like hey, you know Are you are we allowed to use Facebook as Christians? There's no Bible verse that says, you know Val shall not use Facebook or anything like that or thou shalt use Facebook.

There's nothing like that. But then there's plenty of commands in the Bible that Would apply to using social media in general, right?

Right, so you have a lot of people who basically They approach the Bible in a very simplistic way and what they do is I mean they demand that the Bible use very specific modern phraseology. They I mean it can get really I mean like sometimes it's like comically long that kind of phraseology.

That a person will demand that you used right? So I mean you can you can imagine I mean, I wish I were joking. Yeah, I mean this is a slight hyperbole. But I mean it really is the kind of thing where you have people on the internet who think that they're having a gotcha Moment, you know are people in life your life.

They think that they're you're having some kind of gotcha moment with you where they look at you and say hey. Yeah, well show me in the Bible where it says that I cannot, you know dress up as a pink furry monkey, you know.

It's like I want to hear those exact words, you know pink, you know furry monkey. Yeah, and everything else and so like it's just a kid just gets absurd, you know at that point. But like the issue is that yeah the Bible obviously has Commands in it that tell you what God's will for you is in the Bible also has principles in there that you could use to you know.

Build a case and so a lot of a lot of the questions that we ask what people will look though people will look at these kind of questions. Like in vitro fertilization. I mean that would be a good example.

We did a couple podcasts on a beat in vitro fertilization. So we did we did something along those lines. Surrogacy, right we did, you know, and I think in the same kind of discussion. We talked about surrogacy and what people are demanding is that you you know, essentially come up with some very specific Wording that fits like modern technology in order for the Bible to speak to the issue.

But I mean the Bible does have commands and principles. Bible may not use the word abortion. But obviously like there is a concept within the Bible of murder. Shout not murder there are principles in the law that are related to this like meaning if two men are striving and they hit a pregnant woman and.

Like the child dies then that child will be avenged life for life, right? So, I mean you have principles like that that may not talk about abortion using that word. But they're directly relevant to the topic in general.

So, I mean you have passages I mean you have the Bible is meant to give you a worldview a way of thinking this that from which you reason from and so there's all sorts of ways that you could argue from the scripture and from principles that you've established in the scripture and make a biblical case and I think a lot of people they just.

They don't realize that that's like the Bible is meant to provide them. Like a cup like a sufficient guide for you know, right and wrong and our moral intuitions aren't to be trusted in that way.

The Homosexuality Debate and Selective Appeals to Translation

Well, and and what's really interesting? I was just thinking about this is as you're giving your response but what's really interesting is They look for that certain modernized Kind of wording right right and and if they can't find that then they then a lot of people like to assume Well, I can just do whatever I want then right?

I'm free to do whatever I want because it doesn't you know, the Bible doesn't say I can't you know. Look at porn online.

Right on my smart phone. There's no Bible verse. Smartphone.

23, you know, yeah, there's no there's no Bible verse about that, right? But then at the same time, you know the Bible there are examples where the Bible does use a relatively modern term and Everyone absolutely rejects it.

So the Bible uses the the term Homosexuality right a modern term. That's not that's not a an Ancient word that people would have understood that's a that's a modern word that we made up to communicate.

An idea that has been around for a long time. But so we use this modern this modern word and newer translations and then the response is just well. That word was inserted into the scriptures. They didn't use that word before, you know 1954 or 1956 whatever whatever year it was.

And and so therefore those Bible verses don't count anymore because they they mean something else. They don't actually mean, you know, they don't actually mean same-sex relationships of any kind. They mean this and so it's like it's really just a game of how can I get away with as much sin as possible?

Both ways there. There is no like hey if you if you just do it this way, then I would get it. It's always a game about how much sin can I get away with?

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good example of just some of the moves are being made as it relates to the subject of sodomy in general and Meaning like, you know, you have individuals who are going to Basically try to avoid what the Bible says by appeal to like some sort of demand for very specific Vocabulary so that happens in the in the you know Discussion where they will demand that you show them somewhere in the Bible where it describes like a loving committed consensual same-sex Relationship or whatever else and so they'll they'll read it, but you know read it along those lines but then you know in the opposite way as you're saying like there are times when Like you can't have some like terms that are very clearly Speaking to certain dynamics and that they're wanting to suppress in that way.

And then they'll just basically pretend like those terms don't exist in that way, but yeah, I mean I I think the homosexuality discussion is a little bit complicated in the sense of just What is the nature of that word that's being used there?

And like is it is it meaning to? Discuss an orientation or an action in that way and so but then they use that to basically just like say hey yeah, like The orientation itself is neutral and the orientation is a modern concept and because the orientation is a modern concept and the Bible has Nothing to say about it, but it's like yeah The Bible talks about like it's out of me over and over and over again.

So, you know, I don't think that that's entirely relevant. But yeah, hey we didn't we didn't discover a new sin. It's been around. I mean what's funny about that is like the Bible will like though, you know, you can argue over the Appropriate translation of that term in that way like our arsenal quartet and all that if you can argue for that but I mean like the issue is you go back to the law and this is if a man lies with another man like It was like with a woman then you know like that this is depravity and death penalty and all that so I mean that's like a Man lies with another man like a woman, right?

Like that's about as specific as you can get to describe that this isn't talking about rape or something like that. This is this is talking about, you know, anal intercourse there. So I'm sorry, but like yeah I when you the issue is you have a lot of people who They don't want to look at the Bible as if it's a comprehensive Guide, you know, and this will show up in a wide variety of ways in our interactions with people I mean like they just They resist the idea that the Bible should be treated as if it's a book.

That is.

Meant to give you a you know a sufficient picture of God like the morality that God expects from you. They're looking to other sources for this and so, you know, you could ask any number of moral questions I mean it on a regular basis we ask like questions related to the morality of specific issues and you know.

It's it's very routine that people just say haven't thought about what the Bible says and they haven't thought about it like that as if They even have some kind of obligation to see what the Bible says about that in order to develop a moral opinion, right?

So they don't even believe that like that's some sort of responsibility they have and They're basically just answering the question on the basis of their own innate sense of right wrong. But then yeah, I mean, I I don't even understand.

I don't understand that kind of person in general I mean because it's been so long since I've thought that way. Yeah, it's been so long since I've even remotely thought that way. I mean I've for the past, you know, 20 years of my life I've been absolutely persuaded that in order to define morality.

I need to appeal to Something in the Bible I need to make a moral case that you'd be making a biblical case or else I'm just basically Inventing things out of my own mind. You know, there's no king in Israel.

Everyone does what's right in their own eyes I don't want to be guilty of that. So let's go to the scripture and see what it says about it and you know get our moral intuition from there. But I mean there are people they're so hostile to that kind of project a lot of them.

They just they haven't read the Bible very much a lot of them are charismatic. You know, they care like, you know charismatic isn't gonna Have any kind of impulse really the most part to Go to the scripture like that and answer questions that way.

They're just gonna listen to the still small voice the mysticism in their own heart to try to answer that question. But then a lot of like you're you know nominal Christians like they're the worst man.

They basically just blindly following the spirit of the age and outraged at exactly the same point that the society is outraged at with no kind of moral and to get With no kind of moral awareness that like basically they are of the world.

They speak us of the world and the world listens to them. So, I mean it's funny like I'm one of the polls we did and I can't remember which one it was right now. No, no, it wasn't a poll. I made a I was making a statement about Like this is a good example, so I was making a statement about Emotional abuse and I basically said that emotional abuse doesn't exist.

Okay, and Yeah Twitter blew up for three days and everyone was Fussing at me and everything else for saying that we did an episode on that but there was a guy there was a guy who was arguing with me at first that one and really push him back really hard about that and and then as.

The like the issue is like all the female pastors got in on that and started dogpiling on us. All the egalitarian started dogpiling on us on that one. All the abuse people Came out the woodworks the you know, the sob sisters the abuse sisters, you know survivors and all that they started piling on us too and but then.

And like all the atheists started piling in on it too at that point, right? And all like the usual substance the suspects, you know, like the you know that though. What's that guy's name a social conservative who tweets for the devil?

Yeah, Kevin him young, you know all the all the the normal villains in the story were piling in on that. But then the issue is they all started liking this guy who was interacting me. They started liking his post and so he got like hundreds and hundreds of likes on his post because all these people were hating.

Hating on it or whatever. He's like, all right. I got to change my mind here, man. If all the villains in the story I must be wrong.

If all the if all the atheists and the heretics and the false teachers are liking what I said. Maybe I need. But you know what. But you know what. Like praise the Lord that he was that there was enough humility there To even be aware of that, right?

There are a lot of people who who do the same exact thing and they just totally. They totally ignore the fact about who is liking what they're saying. Well in those moments.

I often will point out the people who are more biblically oriented. I'll just point out to him I'll say hey, like look who's liking all your stuff, you know, I Mean it should concern you shouldn't it that all the female pastors the egalitarians and the heretics like they all agree with you.

Doesn't that concern you a little bit that maybe that like that they think you're on their team, you know. And so but in this case, so I mean I bring it up just to say that in this case the guy, you know.

He changed his mind on it. But that's just because you have you have an individual who doesn't necessarily entrust his or doesn't necessarily trust his innate moral intuition right that way and so then like.

What you have is like you have a lot of nominal Christians who are absolutely persuaded that their innate moral intuition. It's just absolutely right and it I mean conveniently it always lines up with what the world is.

You know screaming about and hollering out about the most like right now. Um, and but then they they trust it and they trust it. They don't feel like they have any responsibility to justify it from scripture.

But I mean my goodness like just look at the world you live in today. I mean what morality. Should we govern ourself by if not the bible? Like if you're not finding it from the bible. Because it's you know by what standard like it's not whether you're going to have a standard.

What is your standard going to be? So what is your standard going to be? Is your standard going to be popular consensus? Well, if that's the case then when right and where? So popular consensus at what point in history?

What particular place? Right, and then you realize it all just reduces to subjectivity. I mean, we've gone we've undergone some just massive societal cultural changes. Um, you know even like in our country, I mean, especially since a burger fell and everything else.

But I mean even more like in the past 50 60 years we've undergone some massive transitions if you trust your moral intuition. Without going to scripture. I really don't even know what to say at this point.

Because it's going to change tomorrow, you know, not always going to change tomorrow. But like, you know tomorrow you're going to be the kind of person Who throws yourself yesterday in jail? You know, you have to think about that like that's like.

You're like you're signing up for a rapidly changing morality to where? There is absolutely no tolerance for dissent and. You know, you're really basically at this point in history. I mean, you're you're basically saying that like things that you believed a year ago.

Were.

So morally heinous to the point where you deserve to lose your livelihood. Be thrown in jail, you know even um probably killed, you know, because you dared to even think some of these thoughts, you know.

So we're just you have to go somewhere to find Something objective for sure.

Questions, Motives, and the Overton Window

Yeah, and and you know part of the part of the motivation for doing this episode for asking this question is because yeah, oftentimes we do run some kind of Poll or we post something or we do an episode on some topic you know that a lot of people they come in and they just.

They really just start making a lot of unfair assumptions. I think. About your motivations for simply asking a asking a question and wanting to hear people's responses and wanting to see and sometimes, you know, sometimes those polls are some they're like a test right just to see.

Um.

If people will be consistent in their beliefs or if they're just you know they're wishy-washy and they're they're really kind of hypocritical in what they believe and. And so the poll the questions that we ask all that to say the questions that we ask a lot of times.

Are they're meant there's a purpose behind them. They're not just you know, I think a lot of people think that we're trying to rage bait people or we're we're trying to just be controversial for the sake of being controversial and we are certainly controversial, but it's not necessarily because we just have this innate desire to be controversial it's because.

Ultimately we want to ask all these questions that it seems like you're just really not allowed to ask and you know, I think you and I have both we've both been in a place where it's like Hey, normally normally the things that you're not allowed to ask.

That's where you probably want to go. Because there's a reason that you're not allowed to ask those questions in our current society, right? With with you know, probably with some limitations to that but I mean questions that like would have been normal 20 years ago 30 years ago 40 years ago to ask Are now not normal anymore.

And so we want to ask those questions. And so all so many times we'll get people Who respond to a genuine question from us with some sort of like why are you even asking this question? You know who's even asking this question nobody's talking about this talk about the real stuff that's going on right now, you know or they'll just they'll just totally emote and or you know accuse you of whatever the.

Whatever the question we're actually asking is right. So the latest example would be we ran the we ran that poll on. Does a husband have the authority to spank his wife as a form of discipline, right?

And you had and we've already done that episode we won't hash out the topic itself, but You had all these people who were basically just outright accusing us of being wife beaters. For just asking the question even after you even after you explicitly said Someone else asked me this question because they keep getting people coming to them asking them.

It's funny because I put it on the poll. I put it on the poll itself. It's like note, you know. Note. Someone asked me to ask this.

Right and and other you know, other people would come along and and they would repeat that they would say hey. They are asking this question because someone else asked them. To run a poll on it because they keep getting people coming to them asking them.

Am I allowed to do this as a husband? Am I or you know is my husband allowed to do this or you know when I become a husband? Am I allowed to do there's there's people asking them and so they come to us and they say hey.

What do you think about this. And you decide to run a poll on it to see what people's responses are and they're just like and then once they see that once they're confronted with that then the response just becomes.

Well, you shouldn't have asked it anyway, you know, and so so it's like you have this you just have people that are just so diametrically opposed to even asking these questions and it kind of leads you to a point where you're like.

Do you even know like okay. All right fair, you know fair enough in your mind. This is this is a question that Shouldn't even have to be asked. Okay fine but. Can you actually explain you're here now?

You it was important enough that you needed to comment on it and make and make that statement. The grandstanding emotional statement you're here now. Can you explain it and they can't biblically?

Yeah, they can't yeah, I mean it's just virtue signaling I mean and so a lot of what's happening is that. You know when you think about this top when these when you think about these kind of questions.

You do have a lot of people and and i'm not going to say hey. They left the church because the church mishandled them or whatever else. I mean, I think I was I i've experienced this growing up where I had a lot of unpopular questions and I wanted to.

I had questions that I mean, I I I saw the woke stuff way before I saw it as a kid, you know I grew up with a firm with all the quotas the affirmative action all that kind of stuff and I mean there's questions that you have from that.

And so like the issue is like I grew up with those kind of questions related to that kind of topic. And every topic that you see right now that's coming to its head. I had all those kind of questions running around in my mind as a seven-year-old, you know.

As an eight-year-old as a five-year-old, you know thinking about these kind of things like to where I would ask adults these questions and they would just get mad. That'd be the way it worked like the response is oh you shouldn't ask that, you know.

You're a troublemaker or whatever else. It's like well. No, i'm just trying to understand. Like, um I'm trying to understand the logic of affirmative action here. Can you explain it to me in a way that it makes sense like i'm five I know i'm five go ahead and explain it.

To me like.

You know, but like uh, but then you ask those questions. They just they don't have answer the issue is they don't have answers and I saw that very early on as a kid that I would ask these questions and people they just didn't have answers to them.

They didn't know how to answer the question. And I was looking at them thinking You're an adult. You should be able to answer these questions, right? Because you're I mean you obviously think that there's a right and a wrong answer here.

And it's so right and so wrong that it should be obvious to me. It's not obvious to me and i'm asking you to explain it and you can't even explain it to like a little kid, you know so come on like like.

But then like the issue is okay, so growing up you can't really ask questions related to race. From your pastors, you can't ask any of those. They're not going to give you any answers but what's happened is like the overton window has shifted and now you have like what what's what what has happened is.

Like there's a lot of people like me. Who got frustrated with the whole scenario and just started asking the question and demanding answers, right? So you start demanding answers you start saying the obvious and then all of a sudden it gives people around you courage.

Who are asking the same sorts of questions? And then what happens is the overton window shifts mean that like the um, Overton window is just a term for you know, the uh area of acceptable discourse, right?

So like now you could ask those questions a lot more than what you could in the past. Uh, I mean you could still get canceled for asking some of those questions, too. But I mean like you there's a lot more freedom to ask some things along those lines.

But a lot of these topics that we address they're topics that You yeah, we're trying to ask questions that you're not allowed to ask in our society. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong biblically, right?

So like it didn't like just because now it's become more acceptable to ask, you know questions related to affirmative action. Doesn't mean it was wrong for me to ask those when I was seven or five or whatever else, right?

Like that was it God's perspective on it didn't shift it. I think the bible doesn't say you're not allowed to ask that question. Just our society is rigorously policing these because they have a vested interest in silencing all dissent, you know.

So you and you live in that kind of society like there are topics that are off limits. You're not allowed to ask anything related to men and women. You're not allowed to ask anything related to male and female roles.

You're not allowed to ask anything related to race. You're not allowed to ask anything related to like any of the crt categories of intersectionality. You're not allowed to ask anything along those lines, but that doesn't mean they're wrong to ask.

You're just not allowed to I mean, it doesn't mean it's wrong to god. You're not allowed to in our society, right? If you're in the spc you're not allowed to ask any questions about anything that anyone does above you, right?

That doesn't mean it's wrong to god. It just is wrong in the spc so like the issue is a lot of the questions that we're trying to bring up they're questions that Need answers and that a lot of people Are asking and I mean most of the questions that we ask are things that people have sent us multiple times in multiple ways.

Uh at this point, you know, we started out asking certain series of questions to get the ball rolling. But at this point, I mean I get people sending me questions every single day I have a list of questions of people, you know, I just get Question after question after question and I try to ask them and then you know.

The funny thing is yeah, I mean people get so mad about the fact that you're asking them. But it's like hey, do you understand that? This is like a person's question? Like this is someone has asked me this and they want a good answer to this because they're trying to be faithful in the world that we live in and You know if you could all calm down a little bit and try to go to the bible and provide it.

Maybe you could help them. But then what ends up happening a lot of times is people just kind of lose their mind and refuse to even play ball. And you know, and they basically just accuse you of being the worst person imaginable for even being willing to do it.

But I mean a lot of that just reduces to yeah, I I want to help people. So I don't care. You can you can yell at me. I have thick skin. I don't care, you know, but well, um, I know that a lot of people are asking these kind of questions and You know our podcast is done as well as it has.

Because there there's a market for it for sure.

Knowing the Bible Better Than We Think We Do

Right. Yeah, and and I think something that this kind of stuff has really taught me. Um, Is I. I think I and and maybe i've said this before I can't really remember but I think I gave a lot of people a lot more credit for understand knowing and understanding the majority of the bible Than they actually do when it comes right down to it.

Uh, I mean, obviously there's people that know it. Obviously, there's people that understand it. Obviously, there's people that commit themselves to Trying to understand it more. Right, but then for the average person that claims to be a christian I think I just fool kind of foolishly assumed that they knew a lot more of their bible than they actually did.

Uh, you know, for example I had someone I had someone, um you know meet me in real life and.

They. They.

I they were. I was introducing my children to them right and and we named our oldest daughter priscilla. Based off of priscilla in the bible. And we explained that to this person who's claimed to be a christian claimed to be a christian for a very long time and their response was to say Oh, where is that?

I've never i've never heard of her in the bible before. Right and I was and I was just like I that really struck me because I was like well, hang on. You've claimed to be a christian for I mean at least a decade.

Probably much longer than that. And you you've never even heard the name priscilla ever mentioned in the bible. And I mean, I I understand, you know, priscilla's not mentioned the same way jesus or paul or peter or someone like that is mentioned, but then.

You know to be a christian for that long to claim to be a christian for that long. And even and you're not even from you're not even like hello. Oh, yeah. I've heard of that I don't know where it is, but i've heard i've heard that name that that's embarrassing that's embarrassing and that's kind of been the universal experience that i've had with people who have interacted with the things that we put out whether it be the polls or you know, whatever it is is.

Oftentimes they just don't know the bible at all.

Um and.

And so it it makes things make a lot more sense.