Today is Wednesday – the sun is shining and the sky is blue…….it’s going to be a great day!

Our Bible reading is 1 Thessalonians Chapter 4 vs1-8, and I’m going to focus on verses 3 and 8 from the Message translation which say,

“You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus.  God wants you to live a pure life……If you disregard this advice, you’re not offending your neighbours; you’re rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.”

REFLECTION:

The sun may be shining in Sheffield, but in Westminster the clouds have gathered, and the intensity of anger felt across the nation towards Dominic Cummings and his failure to follow lockdown guidelines, would suggest that this is going to be a ferocious political storm that the government will find it very hard to weather.

There have always been cases where those in the public eye have appeared to act as if it was one rule for them, and another for us – whether it is tax fraud, sex scandals, or fat cat bonuses and pay rises.

However, the reason Dominic Cummings is facing such vitriolic attack is because he broke the rules at a time when all of us were following guidelines that restricted our personal freedoms more than at any other time in the history of our nation.

Let’s read verse 3 again:

“You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus.  God wants you to live a pure life.”

As followers of Jesus, God also sets us guidelines – but rather than restricting personal freedom; these guidelines are about growing or developing greater purity.

In this passage Paul refers specifically to sexual purity, but we know that there are other behaviours which could also lead us away from the blameless and holy life that God intends for us.

In Ephesians, Paul warns against obscene language and coarse joking; in Colossians it’s anger, rage, and lying.  In 1 Timothy, he cautions against the love of money, and in 2 Timothy 3 we read,

“People will be lovers of themselves……boastful, proud……ungrateful, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control…….lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

These are the types of behaviours that Jesus gave us guidelines about and, because of our lack of self-control, following them is hard and requires a great deal of self-sacrifice.  When it comes to the guidelines that Jesus has set us as Christians, we have all fallen short.

And I wonder, when we read these sections of Scripture outlining what it means to live a pure life, whether, because we would prefer an easier option, we sometimes take a similar attitude towards God’s guidelines for us, as Mr Cummings appears to have done to the Covid-19 guidance……..that the guidelines which Jesus laid out are flexible, can be interpreted to suit us, or maybe they just don’t apply in our context.

With regards to sexual purity, we know that this is the pervading narrative of our culture.

We hear arguments that say God’s plan for sex to be enjoyed within the context of marriage is simply outdated nowadays – there’s no mention of dating in the Bible, people got married much younger in those days (they didn’t have to wait), and how will we know if we are sexually compatible if we don’t sleep together before we get married, and surely it’s just repressive to deny our sexual desires?

And so rather than being infused by Christ’s ideals, we soak in the views of the world, and make God’s guidelines for purity flexible and not applicable in our 21st century context.

And then there is the issue of Jesus’ way of life being considered offensive – which Paul addresses in verse 3.

We live in a culture that says people are entitled do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they desire, so long as it doesn’t impact or effect anyone else (as referenced by the neighbours in verse 3).  Because of this we often hear that upholding Biblical guidelines for livin...