It’s been a while since i have written anything that I’ve not had to or that is not part of my university course. As i spend a few hours for prayer at church, I thought that it would be good to reflect on some issues that come up through the week and share those reflections.
During the past week lots has been happening, hearing a thought provoking sermon, celebrating the marriage of friends and in the news stories of Christian’s not behaving as they are expected to behave. All these things have made me think and reflect both on the positive aspects and also the negative. One thing that kept on creeping up were claims of how every Christian should act in various circumstances (especially marriage). To start reflecting on these events I think it is useful to start by sharing something that happened in my own life. After I had finished my A-levels i decided to take a gap year and ended up working at a Christian holiday centre. In the first few weeks there I started realising more fully the expectations of a Christian life and the different way that I was supposed to behave. This sounds like it could be the start of a great testimony of me realising the true nature of Christianity and the beginning of a life following God more closely, in some ways this did happen, but, it also started me trying to live up to expectations that I did not fully understand or think through. I started looking down more on people who did not act the way I though they should, leading me to say some things to people that I should not have said, hurting others in trying to be Christian showing them an unloving, legalistic image of Christianity. As well as this my beliefs became what people thought they should be and not what I thought they should be. At this point I think it is necessary for me to say that I wasn’t being told things that were wrong or that were damaging in themselves, simply that in my desire to conform and belong, impressing those around me and being seen as a good Christian, I misinterpreted what was being said and applied it incorrectly. Back to the events of this week now, the sermon and the wedding service were great times of worship and getting together with friends. At the same point, I was reminded of these expectations being shown to people that can be misunderstood and harm people. The main issue here was that of submission within marriage, here are the couple of verses used.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Ephesians 5
1 Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
1 Peter 3
I am not going to attempt to suggest my own interpretation or understanding of these verses here but I will share what I (helped by my wife) think the problem can be in sharing these expectations. When this expectation is shared it is not often given the full care and attention that it deserves and needs. I have heard women be told to submit to the authority of their husband with no extra guidance given as to how this practically works and if there is ever a time when submission is not necessary. You may immediately think that if the husband wants his wife to do something that is unchristian obviously she should not submit, but this is not told when sharing this message. Another thing that is not talked about is whether a wife should continue to submit to her husband in order to win them over if they are part of an abusive relationship after having been told that the only reason for divorce can be adultery. These things do happen and there are people who feel trapped in relationships because of the faith they have because of what they feel is expected of them from what they have heard. Expectations can be dangerous.
The last event that has happened recently that I will talk about are recent news stories. Being more specific it is recent survey taken by Richard Dawkins to see if those who claim to be Christians fit the categories on his questionnaire. Some of the questions I feel are about fundamental Christian beliefs such as Jesus being the Son of God, others however, such as being able to know the first book in the New Testament, I feel are irrelevant to Christian identity. The questionnaire shows something that is not solely the view of atheists in the country but also that of a number of Christians, that there are people who claim to be Christian but in fact aren’t. The question that came to me is what I have been talking about so far, what do people expect of Christians? And are these expectations realistic, helpful or correct in all situations?
The simple answer of what is expected of Christians is someone who goes to Church regularly, reads all of the Bible regularly, understands and can answer questions on the bible, prays, believes Jesus to be the son of God, and should be morally perfect. On this I agree fully that this is what should be expected of Christians. But the question remains if people do not fit all of these categories are they not Christians? By no means! (Cheesy I know) This is what God wants people to strive for, not what he wants people to have attained before becoming or identifying themselves as Christians. To be Christian it may not be such a surprise to hear that you don’t have to be perfect or agree fully with the teachings of your local church on certain issues. In fact you can go further and say that to be Christian you need to know that you are not perfect and in fact do not live up to the standards that you should and therefore want to change. How this should be done practically is hard to answer and is a question that deserves more thought, hopefully I will be able to come back to this with some more ideas. But for now it is important to realise some of the problems that expectations can have for people and think about this in your life.
So what about these expectations then, where do these come into Christian life? I’ll start this answer with the negatives, they do not fit in by pressuring people to adhere to your point of view or partially sharing them with potentially dangerous consequences (as in the submission above) and they are definitely not to be used as emotional blackmail or to destroy people’s self identity. The expectations on Christians come from God and not from humans, the role humans should play in enabling people to fulfil these expectations I feel should be through encouragement and giving information.
13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Hebrews 3
