As a new believer, my pastor asked me, “Where in the Bible is the majority right?” I thought about his question for a minute or two along with the thought, “Is this a trick question?” So, I answered, “Nowhere.”
I was right. Nowhere in the Scriptures is the crowd right.
“Do not follow the crowd into doing evil” (Exodus 23:2).
My mom asked a good question when she asked me, “If everyone jumps off a cliff to their death, will you follow?” Exodus says that following the crowd will most likely lead to evil.
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong” (1 Corinthians 16:13).
I had never really considered that ‘standing against the crowd’ was courageous, though it does take courage to say ‘no’ when everyone else is saying ‘yes’. It’s difficult to raise children with values and morals in a culture that has lost its moral compass. It’s difficult to home school when the rest of the world is educated in an institution. It’s difficult to be family-centered when everyone else is school-centered or even church-centered. It’s difficult to teach children the difference between being ‘in the world’ and focusing on ‘things above,’ and being ‘of the world’ and focusing on ‘things of their peers’. It’s not easy teaching your children that being a ‘friend of the world’ is being an ‘enemy of God.’ It’s not easy being a salmon that swims upstream!
“Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7).
I never thought of myself or our family as being courageous. Making a stand for a Biblical truth seems like a no-brainer. Even when we were ridiculed, attacked, challenged, judged, and cut-off from those we cared about, we continued to make and take our Biblical stands.
The crowd was never right in Scripture and it’s never right in schools, church or government. Peer pressure pulls those who do not have the courage to stand into a place where they should not go. Remember the statement: “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for everything.” This is the end result of peer pressure.
By definition, physical courage is the ability to endure physical pain, hardship, and death; moral courage is the ability to remain steadfast when faced with opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement. Moral courage is the ability to say ‘no’ to peer pressure.
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