{"id":29555,"date":"2021-01-05T18:41:15","date_gmt":"2021-01-06T00:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=29555"},"modified":"2021-01-05T18:41:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-06T00:41:15","slug":"negotiable-morals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/negotiable-morals\/","title":{"rendered":"Negotiable Morals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n

Do we, mere humans, get to negotiate with each other what morals, standards of right and wrong, should be? Can we negotiate changes over time? If so, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were treated wrong. They negotiated their standard and their negotiations brought them to the conclusion that their sexual preferences were their agreed standard. Read Genesis19. Should all the people of all the ages since that time apologize to them? We once abhorred such evil, and now we cheer such moral choices in our own time. If morals are negotiable, God was wrong. But God is pure and holy! He is never sinful and wrong! Therefore, God was right and Sodomites were wrong then and now. Morals are not negotiable. God calls all men to repentance! (Acts 17:30-31).<\/p>\n

The man at Corinth who had his father’s wife (I Corinthians 5:1ff) was wrong then, and all fornication is wrong now (I Corinthians 7:1-3; 6:8-10). Morals are not negotiable! Sex before and without marriage is still immoral. That is not negotiable! (Hebrews 13:4). Living together without marriage is setting up for fornication. Morals are not negotiable!<\/p>\n

Drinking alcohol for the pleasure of calming the nerves also compromises sobriety in moral judgment. Sobriety is not negotiable. You don’t see how close to the line you can play. That is not sober thinking. Sober thinking is to see danger zones and avoid them. Why? Because morals are not negotiable!<\/p>\n

\"\"Morals are like guardrails, put up to avoid getting too close to danger and death, and that includes the dangers of spiritual death that sin can cause. Morals are like guardrails. They protect us. Defy them and ignore them and you pay a price. Morals are like railing around a high deck. They protect people from falling to their death. Discard them and you will certainly venture into places you did not anticipate. The rails are in place for your protection. They are good and right. They are not mere suggestions!<\/p>\n

God gave us good laws. If our moral standards are not God’s standards, then like the Sodomites, we make them up to our own destruction. God’s standards are not negotiable! If standards are negotiable, then there are no real standards at all. No one should be held accountable for anything. If anyone is held accountable for anything, then the standard must be a non-negotiable standard from a higher authority than ourselves. That truth is not negotiable!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Terry Wane Benton Do we, mere humans, get to negotiate with each other what morals, standards of right and wrong, should be? Can we negotiate changes over time? If so, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were treated wrong. They negotiated their standard and their negotiations brought them to the conclusion that their sexual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[38,220],"class_list":["post-29555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-morality","tag-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":94431,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/starting-point-of-reference\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":0},"title":"Starting Point of Reference","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 9, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton If I start with the premise or foundational belief that there is no Creator and Judge, then my outlook would lead me to believe that we got here by accident and that morals are just what we want them to be. Nothing absolute, and no accountability\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":87804,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/where-do-your-morals-come-from\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":1},"title":"Where Do Your Morals Come From?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton What is wrong all over the news in our country is that we shoved even mentioning God out of public life, and that leads to a decline in governing yourself with moral accountability. Take accountability to God out of your picture, and nobody has the right\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23030,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-failure-of-moral-relativism\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":2},"title":"The Failure of Moral Relativism","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer (By \u201cmoral relativism,\u201d I mean in this context the idea that morals are merely human conventions and are relative, non-absolute, and changing according to our own personal or societal situation and desires. Morals are subjective, with no ultimate line or standard by which moral behavior is to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65405,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/two-views\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":3},"title":"Two Views","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton The Biblical View God created us and gets to make the rules. He made two genders: male and female and expects us to act like men if we are men and women if we are women. God does not approve of us changing the natural genders\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90495,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/be-careful-who-you-allow-to-influence-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":4},"title":"Be Careful Who You Allow to Influence You","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong When Paul wrote to the brethren in Corinth about the resurrection, he told them it was a matter \"of first importance\" (I Corinthians 15:3). Without the resurrection, their faith was \"worthless\" (I Corinthians 15:17) and they were \"most to be pitied\" (I Corinthians 15:19). However, some were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58148,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/morals-in-the-pulpit-and-in-the-pew\/","url_meta":{"origin":29555,"position":5},"title":"Morals in the Pulpit and in the Pew","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 20, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"by Leslie Diestelkamp via\u00a0Think, Vol. 2, No. 5, July 1971 Once, when I preached a sermon on morals, a mature man in the congregation asked to speak. For perhaps two or three minutes he exhorted the people, giving complete endorsement to what I had preached. I believe his endorsement may\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}