I am fifty-two-years-old and have met someone.  We were both in previous long-term relationships.  We have been very good friends for about four years and started dating about four weeks ago.  Her relationship was for fifteen years in which she and he had lived together but never married.  She now has concerns about pre-marital sex in our relationship.  She feels strongly that it is immoral.  I believe in God but do not attend church.  I don’t understand why there seems to be a double standard.  Advice?

Sincerely,
A New Flame

Dear A New Flame,

Regardless of what this woman’s previous lifestyle was, sexual relations outside of marriage are wrong (1 Cor 7:2).  There is a double standard – her previous standard and her current standard… which is the right one.  We will give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she has repented for the previous fifteen years of sinful living and has faithfully decided to flee fornication (1 Cor 6:18).

You state that you “believe in God, but do not attend church”.  Do you believe in the Bible?  Do you believe the Bible is God’s Word?  If the Bible is God’s Word, then you need to be attending a faithful church (Heb 10:24-25).  These are questions that are very important to answer because they will affect your eternal existence.  We recommend you read through some of the posts in our EVIDENCES category in the archives.  There is immense evidence that God wrote the Bible, that we must obey the Bible in order to go to heaven, and that hell is a very real and terrifying place.  You have done well in believing in God, and we urge you to not stop there.

I have a question about Jesus and how I can be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  It says in the Bible that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and they talked in tongues, right?  So I’m wondering why I can’t speak in tongues; I’ve gone up to the front at church a long time ago when I was young and was prayed over, but no tongues ever came out of me.  Does this mean I’m not God’s child?  Am I doomed?  I know it sounds dumb, but I need help; I don’t know what to think.  I don’t want to go up there again ever; I’m scared now.

Sincerely,
Tongue-Tied

Dear Tongue-Tied,

You don’t need to speak in tongues to be saved… which is a good thing because nobody speaks in tongues anymore.  Holy Spirit baptism was a miraculous event that happened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).  The only other time that Holy Spirit baptism occurred was at the first Gentile conversion (it was given as a sign to Peter that it was okay for non-Jews to become christians – Acts 10:45-48).

Holy Spirit baptism is not what saves you; water baptism is what saves you (Acts 8:36, Mk 16:16, 1 Pet 3:21).  The Holy Spirit provided certain people with the ability to perform miracles.  Other than the apostles, christians received these miraculous abilities by the laying on of the apostles’ hands (Acts 8:16-19).  Doing the math, that means that the last person to have miraculous abilities (like speaking in tongues) had to have lived at the same time as the apostles.  The last apostle died over 1,900 years ago!  Any church that tells you that you have to speak in tongues, prophesy, perform miracles, etc. to be saved is lying to you and misapplying the Scriptures.  We recommend you read “What Must I Do To Be Saved?”, so you can see what the Bible really says about salvation.  If you would like help finding a faithful, Bible-following church in your area, feel free to e-mail us at askyourpreacher@mvchurchofchrist.org.

I am interested to know of any verse that states that I need to go to my pastor regarding starting a home Bible study.

Sincerely,
Homeschooled

Dear Homeschooled,

There are no verses on this subject… because you don’t need their authority.  The Scriptures are a free gift from God to all mankind.  The Bible is useful to all and useful at all times (2 Tim 3:16).  The Bereans were praised for their individual desire to study the Scriptures for themselves (Acts 17:11).  We are told to discuss the Scriptures (especially with our families) at every available opportunity (Deu 11:19).  If you start teaching false doctrine – the church will have a responsibility to correct it (Acts 20:28-29), but there is nothing wrong with home Bible studies.

In Exodus 20:8-11, the fourth commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  Six days you will labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord, your God.  For in six days, the Lord made all the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.  Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it.”

Why don't all Christians observe and worship Him on the Sabbath, which would be the seventh day, which is Saturday?  Also, when did this change to worshipping our Lord on Sunday happen, and who changed that?

Sincerely,
One Day At A Time

Dear One Day At A Time,

The Sabbath was a holy day for the Jews, not for Christians.  The Old Testament has a myriad of laws that are no longer binding in the New Testament: animal sacrifice, clean and unclean foods, and various festivals… just to name a few.  2 Cor 3 is an entire chapter devoted to explaining how the Old Law has been surpassed by the New Law.  2 Cor 3:3 especially clarifies the issue when it states that our law is “not in tables of stone”, a direct reference to the Ten Commandments that were written on stone tablets.

Gal 3:24-25 makes it clear that the Old Law was a tutor to bring mankind to Christ, but now that Christ has come, we are no longer under that tutor.  The Sabbath is a part of that Old Law.  In the New Testament, christians meet on the first day of the week to worship, take the Lord’s Supper (Acts 20:7), and take up a collection (1 Cor 16:1-2).  In short: different covenants, different days.

The Old Testament law given by Moses was a covenant with the Jews (Deu 5:1-5).  The New Testament law given in Christ is for all of mankind (Acts 2:38-39).

Who changed the law?  God did.

When did it change?  When the church began.

(This question is a follow-up to “Division Of Leaven”)

     How much of a pattern is one to follow?  You require one to follow the "order" Jesus used in taking the Lord’s Supper, but you don't require the distributor to break the bread prior to serving it?  Why do you pick and choose and say the latter requirement would be non-essential to the pattern?  Why not say the order is also arbitrary because essentially the juice will beat the bread in the digestive system anyway?

Sincerely,
Broken Up Over The Issue

Dear Broken Up Over The Issue,

Good brethren are divided over whether or not it is an important detail to physically break the unleavened loaf.  Unleavened bread is flat because it doesn’t have the yeast to make it rise – like a cracker.  Some brethren think it is required to break the bread; other folks point to Scriptures that use the term “break the bread” as a colloquialism to generically refer to any meal.  The argument isn’t over whether or not we should break the bread – the disagreement is over whether or not “break the bread” in this context means to share the bread (a common meaning of the phrase) or to physically crack the bread into pieces.  It is best not to be too dogmatic because there is no way to know definitively.