Perspective is vital to Christians
Feb. 21, 2008
Young people discussed the tough issues of abortion, homosexuality and capital punishment in a wide-ranging discussion during the meeting of Montezuma’s ecumenical youth group on Thursday evening in the Presbyterian Family Center.
All of it was under the theme of “perspective – how an individual sees a situation,” according to Keaton Eilers, youth pastor at Community Hope Church, who led the discussion.
Students had pro and con views on all of those topics, but Eilers stopped them short of getting into arguments.
“Our job is not to convince people one way or another on these topics,” Eilers said. “Our job is to live out Christianity as we understand it and let them see us living it out.”
It was brought up that some of the laws in the Bible “aren’t relevant any more.”
“There were moral, civil and ceremonial laws in the Old Testament,” Eilers said. “We follow moral law in the New Testament,” Eilers said. “It’s the other laws that don’t apply now.”
Eilers said it’s incorrect to assume that Christians must be “soft.”
“Take the story of where Jesus said if someone slaps you on one cheek, you’re to offer the other cheek,” Eilers said.
“Under Roman law, a soldier could, for example, slap a Jewish citizen. But only one time. If that soldier then backhanded the citizen, hit him a second time, that was a violation of the law and he could go to jail for it.”
“So what Jesus was really saying, at that time, in that culture, was that it’s okay to build yourself up. Jesus Himself was the essence of confidence,” Eilers said.
“Jesus really understood the culture of His time,” Eilers said. “And we need to understand the culture of the times the Bible was written in.”
Eilers challenged the students to be “iron, sharpening iron.”
“If we don’t challenge our Christian friends when they do wrong, we have lost our perspective,” he said.
“I’m tired of seeing broken-down Christians,” Eilers said. “Read the book of John,” he said. “Ask God to make the words jump out at you.”
“If you go down the wrong path,” Eilers said, “He’ll help you get back. He’s that good.”
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