This Far, No Further

What planet is this? Not that long ago, Christian morals were seen as good and enshrined in law. Today we are increasingly being told that our morals are the problem, that what we believe is not just misguided but backward and harmful. We’re beginning to find ourselves pressed to behave in ways that we see as not only wrong but bizarre and illogical. As Stephen McAlpine put it in Being the Bad Guys, “The cultural, political and legal guns that Christianity once held are now trained on us—and it’s happened quickly.”

We woke up one day and found ourselves in a foreign culture that was pressing us to conform, so it’s worth looking at Biblical characters who experienced a similar problem. For our next Lesson from Babylon, let’s look at when and how our heroes said “no.”

The usual Sunday school lesson is in Daniel 1: Their refusal to eat the king's food. Before we can look at their “no”, we have to acknowledge that they said “yes” to a lot. Some things they didn’t have a lot of control over. They were deported from Judah by force. The text doesn’t say it, but history suggests they were probably made eunuchs. They were given new names. This doesn’t seem like a lot to us, but names were much more significant to them. For example, Azariah (YHWH is a helper) was changed to Abednego (servant of Nebo), so these names were part of the cultural and religious propaganda. They had to roll with a lot of punches.

They did have control over how they responded to their new careers. They were told to study Babylonian religious documents, spells, dream manuals, and more. The study of these things would have been offensive to these faithful Hebrews. And these young men excelled in it.

But they said “no” to eating the king’s meat and drinking his wine. Why? The flannel board answer that the meat was unclean or had been offered to idols doesn’t work for a variety of reasons we won’t go into. Commentators struggle with this, but the best guess seems to be Alistair Begg’s (Brave by Faith): Diet was such an important part of their Jewish identity that it was vital to them to maintain control over it.

Compared to this, the problems in chapters 3 and 6 are simple: They were being ordered to break the first commandment. In that case it’s clear: We must obey God rather than men (Acts 4:19). But the situation in Daniel 1 is harder for us to apply to our world. As Begg puts it, we need to draw a line “where we are asked to compromise on a matter that our conscience tells us will undermine our identity as a Christian.”

That’s our lesson: Know where you’re going to draw a line. And then draw it.

The resolution to draw these lines, to refuse to disobey God, does not appear overnight. They did not decide how they were going to respond after being surprised by the latest edict. Daniel and company went into Babylon educated in the Law and committed to being faithful to their Lord. Likewise, we need to decide now that we’re going to remain faithful during the next challenge and the one after that.

Our heroes’ willingness to say “yes” to so much, and their grace in handling the initial rejection of their “no” (1:9-14) reminds me of Paul’s use of his citizenship in Acts. In Philippi, he was willing to take a beating (Acts 16), even though he was a citizen — the resulting embarrassment to the city officials was apparently worth it to him. When he saw no advantage, though, he used his rights to avoid another beating (Acts 22). He seemed to use his rights tactically, leveraging them for the greatest benefit of the community. We too may find at times it is better to roll with the punches and later invoke our rights.

So where should we draw our lines? Obviously we must obey God rather than men, but those grayer areas are hard. Everyone will not draw their lines in the same place, but we all need to give it some thought. For examle, in the current climate, some will draw a line over pronouns; some won’t but will still refuse to accept that pronouns override biology. Perhaps it will depend on other factors, like Paul’s use of his rights. There are no easy answers here. We need to wrestle with the scriptures, in prayer, in community, and try to discern the best places to draw them, what our limits ought to be in each situation.

And we have to go into this knowing that it’s not always going to be received well. We have to be willing to swim against the flow. We have to be willing to be the bad guy. Let’s just make sure we’re the best bad guys we can be. Because there’s another line we need to keep in mind. One day we’re going to cross the finish line. When we do, we want to hear the Master say, “Well done!”


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