God doesn't save us to perpetuate a particular Christian sub-culture. He saves us to advance a supernatural kingdom that is not of this world.

We like to pretend the core ideas of the faith are more palatable or workable within our modern rationalistic approach to Scripture than the stuff we want to call "too weird" because of our own intellectual sensibilities. The truth is they are not. So we come up with interpretations to eliminate the weirdness of the biblical worldview that makes us uncomfortable. Problem solved!

Our contexts are foreign. They derive from church tradition that is thousands of years removed from the people who wrote Scripture and the audience to whom those people wrote.

It's important for people in the Church to realize that the way they talk and think about the Bible isn't the way Bible scholars talk and think about it - and I'm including "Bible-believing" scholars there. There is a wide gap between the work of biblical scholars, whose business it is to read the text of the Bible in its own worldview context, and what you hear in church.

Ruling the way God wants you to rule means fostering the ordered relationships he desires, not because he is a killjoy, but because that order maximizes human happiness and love for God. Part of that is worshipping only the true God and no other.

God doesn't save us to perpetuate a particular Christian sub-culture. He saves us to advance a supernatural kingdom that is not of this world.

God wants the world to function in an orderly way, not a chaotic way, so teaching humans to do what's right and what will make for the happiest life isn't going to be off limits.