Motives for Compromise

[NSMinistries]

Just posting these here for an article I might be writting. Let me know any ideas or comments you have.

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Genesis 16:1-2
Sarai and Hagar
16:1Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. 2 And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children [1] by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. (ESV)

Footnotes
[1] 16:2 Hebrew be built up, which sounds like the Hebrew for children


Sarai compromissed here and look at the problem we have with the two houses Ishmael and Isaac.

[NSMinistries]

Genesis 12:11-20
11 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, 12 and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” 14 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 15 And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels.

17 But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. 18 So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” 20 And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had.
(ESV)

Abram & Sarai compromised here and Pharaoh and his house were afflicted with great plagues.

[NSMinistries]

Genesis 20:11
11 Abraham said, “I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. (ESV)

Fear a motive for compromise?

[NSMinistries]

Joshua 7:18-26
18 And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken. 19 Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise [1] to him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.” 20 And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did: 21 when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, [2] then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

22 So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. 23 And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. 24 And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor. 25 And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. 26 And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor. [3] (ESV)

Footnotes
[1] 7:19 Or and make confession
[2] 7:21 A shekel was about 2/5 ounce or 11 grams
[3] 7:26 Achor means trouble


Achan compromised for wealth and look where it got him...

[NSMinistries]

Matthew 13:22
22 As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. (ESV)

Compromise with worldly things and you will lose.

[NSMinistries]

Mark 4:18-19
18 And others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, 19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. (ESV)

Let the world pressure you into compromise and it will choke the life out of you.

[NSMinistries]

Luke 8:14
14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.
(ESV)

Compromise because of good times or troubled decisions still leads to failing to do what is right.

[NSMinistries]

1 Corinthians 9:19-23
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (ESV)

Here we see even if you have to be creative in how you do things in life you never have to compromise what is right to change something.

[NSMinistries]

James 4:4
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (ESV)

Compromise with wordly things and find yourself out on your rear.

[NSMinistries]

Matthew 6:24
24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. [1] (ESV)

Footnotes
[1] 6:24 Greek mammon, a Semitic

Compromise with trying to split youre devotions and miss both sides of the coin. Either being God or money, God or laws, God or what you think the greater good is.

[NSMinistries]

2 Corinthians 6:14-16
The Temple of the Living God
14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? [1] Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. (ESV)

Footnotes
[1] 6:15 Greek Beliar

Compromise to a ungodly thing and taint what is good. Bend a little to get some of what you want and lose the battle to stay free of sin and death.

[NSMinistries]

Galatians 1:6-9
No Other Gospel
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
(ESV)

Distort the gospel by compromising it and fall from any blessing given to you.

[NSMinistries]

James 4:8
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
(ESV)

Walk away from compromising and clean the slate.

[Da Lone-Warrior]

NSM,

I admire the strength of your convictions.

However, I think your interpretation of the texts leaves much lacking...

The gospel is the saving sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus and how only this can reconcile one with God.

The stuff on which we disagree has to do with the specifics of how we let our light shine in this fallen world, particularly in how we use our limited political capital.

Compromising is part of all political activity, the question is what goals, what compromises should we seek.

These questions will not be settled indefinitely by the Bible.

Here is a letter I wrote to Evangelicals for Social Action, for their bi-weekly electronic newsletter, Prism.

I hope and pray that a miracle happens and that Christian and non-Christian leadership emerges so as to organize a detente in the cultural wars with the hope of reducing the level acrimony in our nat'l gov't the cultural wars has caused. If more Christians could conceptually separate their beliefs about right personal conduct and the political strategies pursued wrt establishing right laws for our gov'ts and try to love our political enemies in this regard then it will be possible for them to act with more political autonomy on a wider range of political issues. The autonomy of Church and State is important since how we collectively use our political capital is an important collective form of witness to the world. The perception/identification of much of the world of "evangelical" christianity with president George W. Bush and all the policies associated with his administration may have set up barriers to the spread of the Gospel. The task of trying to capture the gov't completely on any given issue requires far too much compromise and implicit support of several other issues.

We need to be more judicious in seeking moderate reforms on a wide range of issues, in the spirit of the former Christian/Social Gospelist, John R. Commons, who influenced legislation that included civil-service reform, factory legislation, workmen's compensation, unemployment insurance, interest-rate control, rural credit schemes, inheritance taxation, property-assessment laws, immigration policy and industrial relations and whose students influenced Rooselvelt's New Deal programme of economic measures to lift the US out of the Great Depression.

One issue that may be worthy of more attention would be to express political solidarity with US muslims in the upcoming election so as to ensure they will have a greater voice in the US middle-east operations. This will then signal to muslims world-wide the message that democracy can work for them and that the separation of mosque and state implies the need for their autonomy, not their segregation.

dlw

[Da Lone-Warrior]

What no response?

Merry Christmas NSM!

dlw

[NSMinistries]

dlw,

Sorry did not see this. I'll probally not get to it till after the new year.

Cheers and Merry Christmas,

Adam