I read a teaching yesterday stating that the Word of God does not have to obey the rules of righteousness in a culture.  This teaching stated that God’s ways override culture.  The example they gave was Isaac taking Rebecca as his wife by ‘going into her tent’ suggesting that this is all that is required for marriage to be authentic and acknowledged by God.

I don’t think that this teaching is altogether right.  The way a culture has set up behaviors of propriety and rightness matters.  Some scripture that I thought of was Mark 1:44 where Jesus instructs the healed the man with leprosy to offer the sacrifices to the priest that Moses had commanded for a testimony to them.  In Acts chapter 18 the apostle Paul shaved his head when he made a vow.  This action was the custom of that day and place. When we follow the culture’s methods of showing righteousness we provide a testimony to them.

In this teaching that I read yesterday it was suggested that believers could co-habitate without a marriage ceremony or certificate and be married before God.    However, in the culture of the West cohabitation is worldly and is still somewhat inferior to being married.  To be a testimony to the culture here in the West would be to make a strong commitment to each other and get married.  The scriptures admonish believers to avoid even the appearance of ungodliness.

In other scripture God makes it clear that engaging in sexual activity outside of marriage is fornication.  This is an extremely serious teaching.  No fornicator will enter the kingdom of God scripture says.

There are other areas of teaching on this website that I feel are good and that my attitude has been given a bit of an adjustment that may have been needed.  What this shows us  as believers is that we must be discerning when we read something.  We have to read a teaching with scripture in the back of our minds to either confirm the teaching or cause us to pause and consider as we read.

I Thess. 5:21 “Test everything.  Hold on to the good.  Avoid every kind of evil.”