R.C. Sproul

And a given culture at a particular time and place does not have the right before God to dispense with the sanctity of marriage and say, well, we're just going to live together and we're not going to have marriages anymore.

That's an old-fashioned Puritan or Christian concept that's not binding on us.

One of the reasons, for example, why the church recognizes civil

ceremonies of marriage and does not restrict marriage to the church and grants that the state has the right to regulate marriage is the conviction that marriage is not just given to human beings as Jews or human beings as Christians, but it is given to human beings.

that it is in the state that God blesses and sanctifies for the entire human race, and there is no requirement that one be a Jew or a Christian in order to participate in the sanctity of marriage.

It's built into creation.

That's why ethical issues that touch on the nature of the family, the nature of sexual relationships, as well as the nature of marriage, transcend

contemporary cultural considerations.

If indeed these things are rooted and grounded in creation, then they can never be treated as a matter of custom.

Now that gets me to another question that's related to this.

In my book, Knowing Scripture, I have a chapter on the difficult interpretive question of custom and principle.

We read certain admonitions and exhortations in the Bible that are set forth there, and we say, are these things binding on Christians of all ages and of all places and all times, or were these simply contemporary customs of the first century church that pass away when that particular culture changes?

Now we know that there are certain things that are given to cultural mutations.

For example, when we give our tithes, we don't try to pay God in shekels.

We give our tithes in dollars because the principle that remains intact is that we are to be stewards of our property and we are to support the work of the kingdom of God.

but the particular form of currency that we use changes from culture to culture, from generation to generation.

The Bible calls Christians in every place and in all generations to dress with modesty.

But what would be immodest in one culture, if we ran around like people in some of the primitive tribes in the world run around in our culture, it would be considered provocative and obscene, whereas in another culture, it's their standard garb.

And so you have differences in the way in which people dress from one generation and one culture to another.

That's something that changes.