The preachers in Mexico teach several conviction-based commandments, including, “Thou shalt not drink wine,” and “Thou shalt not dance.” They do not have any clear scriptures to back up these teachings. Joshua and I joke (between ourselves), “You can find that passage in First Opinions Chapter 2.”
The commandments are not completely unbiblical. The roots lie in these verses:
- Ephesians 5:18a And do not be drunk with wine, wherein is excess…Based on this scripture, it is a good act of conscience to not drink wine or alcohol, as one rarely stops at one drink, and it is difficult to not drink in excess. However, there is not a command about not drinking at all.
- Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness...It is a good act of conscience to not dance with anyone else besides your own (future or present) spouse. This is not prohibited by scriptures, but can be dangerous. A good dance time rarely occurs without some of these works of the flesh manifesting themselves.
- 1 Peter 3:16 [Have] a good conscience; [so] that, when you are spoken against as evildoers, those who revile your good manner of life in Christ may be ashamed.The scriptures are our guidelines for living, and each man must be responsible to his own conscience and to the Holy Spirit. If he is offended by an action, then by his own conscience, he must not commit that action. Man is not responsible to man, but to God.
As stated above, these scriptures hold the roots of these conviction-based commands. But if a command as a loose-connection to the word of God, it does not mean it is the Word of God. The ability to study the Bible inductively is a great fault in the Mexico churches. Many pastors do not have sufficient education to learn a proper study method, and some really can’t even read very well. So they often teach from hearsay, gleaning from years of listening to other pastors.
The problem with this method is that, often, a preacher who is not using the text of the Bible will preach a personal conviction as a biblical commandment. This is often where commandments such as “Thou shalt not dance” derive from. The conviction-based commandments cannot be backed up by scripture, but for the pastor, it is a conviction to which he holds fast. And rightly so, for James 4:17 states, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good, and does it not, to him it is sin.” However, many a pastor goes a step further, making his congregation accountable to himself rather than to each man’s own conscience and to God alone.
We have been very careful in delicate situations when we are asked our opinions to not share any personal feelings or convictions. We have simply pointed out to all the Christians that there are no definite scriptures regarding the issues of dancing, drinking, playing cards without gambling, having parties in church meeting halls, going to musical functions, etc. The people get very frustrated with us, because they have been taught by word-of-mouth that something was biblical for years, by a sanctified pastor no less, and the realization that a pastor as a man can make a mistake can be devastating. I can have great empathy for them, for I also once did not know how to study the scriptures for myself.
As a young teen, I was prophesied over by a woman pastor that I would be a great preacher of God’s word. When I met my husband, I was a applying to a school of ministry where I would study to teach the word of God. I wanted to be a missionary and pastor a new church. I told my husband of my plans. He smiled, kissed me, and said, “Hon, I’ll go with you wherever you want to go, but we need to get one thing straight – the Bible says nothing about allowing women to pastor a church.”
I was so angry that I could have spit. He sat patiently for over an hour as I searched the scriptures, spouting out scriptures I had in my mind as memory, but when I found them, I found my own memory verses to be twisted from the true passage. Finally, I gave up that day, but later in my own quiet time, spent many hours searching through the scriptures. I cried as a realized what the Bible really DID say. Women were gifted to share in the church under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and were allowed to teach other women, but to pastor a church would be contradictory to the clear order for a woman not to teach a man. Furthermore, Paul’s qualifications to Timothy of a good pastor included, “A man who knows how to rule his own home,” and the scriptures clearly stated that the man was the ruler of the home and the head over his wife. Peter even encouraged a saved woman to show the same lordship-reverence to her unsaved husband, even when he wasn’t leading his home in Christ, and thereby leading him to Christ through her unspoken actions. How, I concluded, can a man be ruler over his home when his wife is usurping spiritual authority over him as his pastor-ette?
Learning the scriptures straight from the Word often brings great torment and many questions to a soul who has listened to the opinions of man for so long that they have become biblical truth. That is why teaching the scriptures is our number-one focus, and we encourage all our brothers and sisters to seek out the scriptures rather than asking for our opinions and personal convictions.
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