Biblically Speaking

	Sign In Sign-Up

Asceticism comes from the Greek word ascesis which means self discipline. The asceticism traditions were carried on by those who eventually became the monks and the nuns. They separated themselves from the world to an ever increasing degree in order to live a more pure and blameless life before the Lord.

One man in particular, St. Antony, lived a distinctly ascetic life. After his parent's death when he was about 20 years old, Antony, moved by scripture, placed his young sister in a society of virgins (before nunneries) and studied under a holy man who lived in the next village. Antony became more and more particular in his ascetic life, and eventually, he retreated to some tombs where he was locked in and remained inaccessible.

Antony and other ascetics try to retreat from the world in order to escape sin, but they fail to realize where sin comes from. James 1:14 tells us that sin comes from within. We sin when we are drawn away by our own lusts and enticed. No matter how hard we run we can't outrun ourselves.

The point today is that while Antony and other ascetics closed off the world to a smaller and smaller portion of their lives in order to purify themselves before God and put away sin, many in the church today close of their faith and their "Christianity" into smaller and smaller areas of their lives in order to live "righteously" before the world. We want to fit in. We don't want to be ridiculed. We don't want to be different.

Too often, we have given up a distinctly Christian education. The Puritans (and other Reformed groups) popularized universal education in order to read the scriptures, but it was distinctively Christian and distinctively family oriented. The parents didn't send the children off to a heathen school system to be indoctrinated. Christians started the whole concept of the university and all the great universities were begun as Christian institutions, but now we have relinquished this as well to the state. We started the hospitals and the welfare programs, but Christians keep corporately retreating so as not to offend.

Too often, we don't allow the scripture to guide our business dealings. We don't raise our families as the Bible says to (He that spareth the rod hateth his son... Prov. 13:24). Husbands don't truly love their wives, and wives don't submit to their husbands. We don't tithe, and we don't pray. More abortions are performed on "Christian" women than on heathen women in this country, and we have a higher divorce rate within the church than without.

In our individual lives, we live as though we are a law unto ourselves. We aren't a member of a body anymore. We aren't a family of believers who weep together, rejoice together and care for one another. Rather, we are a bunch of individualists who live exactly (and I mean exactly) like the heathen six days a week and then get together for a little clean, cheap entertainment on Sunday. We've pushed our Christianity further and further back so as to not offend the world.

Interestingly, when we don't live a life that is a distinct alternative to the heathen life we don't gain respect in their eyes as some might expect. I've seen even pastors try to fit in and be one of the "guys" in a group of out-and-out God haters. They don't respect us or accept us. Rather they despise us and scorn us (maybe just behind our backs). They think that we are just too weak or feeble minded to live in outright sin and depravity as them; so, we keep the religious crutch.

I learned long ago in politics that when there is a choice between a Democrat and a democrat...people always vote Democrat. A Democrat is (generally) always a sure win over a Republican who acts like a Democrat (hence the small "d" democrat). Why would a Democrat vote for a democrat when he can vote for a Democrat? Why would the world want to be "Christians" who act just like the heathen when they can just be heathen?