Sometimes Sola Scriptura is turned on its head to mean we are only required to do what can be explicitly proof-texted from the Bible. The argument seems to be: without a specific statement from Scripture, then we are free to do whatever we want.
Here’s a list of 10 (and it could have been longer) obviously inappropriate actions that aren’t directly forbidden in Scripture.
- Preaching in your underwear.
- Disciplining newborns.
- Calling the president by his first name in a face-to-face meeting.
- Arriving at church late.
- Talking about your intimate experiences publicly.
- Using crude words in conversation with your wife.
- Coming to a public gathering with body odor.
- Children calling their parents by their first name.
- Playing heavy metal at a funeral.
- A groom wearing shorts and a t-shirt to the altar.
Of course, admitting this list exists and seriously discussing why each item is on the list may force an unwitting post-modern to admit that culture is not neutral. Thus, standards of beauty must be carefully extrapolated from Scripture and life rather than the more common cavalier attitude, “I like it, and there’s no verse that says I can’t.”
Such people don’t hold to sola Scriptura, they hold to nuda Scriptura: Scripture stripped of reason and the light of nature with which we can lawfully and reasonably apply it to all of life. Good post.