At one meeting, a lady responded in a rather irate tone to what I had said about the roles of men and women. She said that she should not be submissive to her husband until he was as perfect as Christ. I then asked her where this was stated in the Bible. She said it was obvious that the Bible taught this. Therefore, she did not have to be in submission to her husband. I repeated my question to her, insisting she show me where in the Bible it made such a statement or gave a principle whereby one could come to that conclusion logically. She could not show me, but still insisted that if her husband could not be as perfect as Christ she didnt have to be submissive to him. It was obvious to everyone present that she wanted her own opinion regardless of what the Scripture stated. She did not want to be submissive to her husband, and she did not want to obey the Scriptures.

Another place where we often hear peoples opinions expressed in all sorts of ways is at members meetings in churches. I have been at meetings where they were electing deacons. Someone would suggest a certain person to be a deacon because he was such a good man. When somebody else suggested that the qualifications for a deacon as given in the Scriptures should be applied, some objected, saying that you could not rule out a person from being a deacon just because he did not measure up to the qualifications given in Scripture. In other words, peoples opinions, according to some, were above Scripture.

There are many ways in which we see this whole philosophy permeating our Christian society. The principal of a Christian school was telling me that he has a number of parents objecting to his strict discipline, which is based upon biblical principles. Their objections usually took the form of comparison with other schools, or saying that their children were not as bad as other children around the neighborhood. Instead of comparing the standards with Gods Word, they compared them with other people. For instance, some parents insisted that because there were other students in the school who had not been caught doing wrong things, their children should not be punished. The principal pointed out that if this was applied in society there would be enormous problems. For example, does this mean that police should not prosecute a driver they happen to catch with a high alcohol content in his blood just because many other drivers who also have a high alcohol content were not caught? These parents were upset because of the standard the principal applied a standard based upon the authority of Gods Word.