The slides for part 1 of this series on authority are linked below:

authority-and-responsiblity

The slides for part 2 on responsibility and control over others are linked below:

authority-and-responsibility-part-2

The slides for part 3 on self control are linked below:

authority-and-responsibility-part-3

Isaiah 55:8

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

In the United States, every state prohibits you from marrying any of your ancestors or descendants including your brother, your sister, your half-brother, your half-sister, your aunt, your uncle, your niece, your nephew, your mother, your father, your grandmother, your grandfather, your great-grandmother, your great-grandfather, your child, your grandchild, or your great-grandchild.

Twenty-five states prohibit marriages between first cousins. Six states allow first cousin marriage under certain circumstances, and North Carolina allows first cousin marriage but prohibits double-cousin marriage. States generally recognize marriages of first cousins married in a state where such marriages are legal. States where it depends usually allow it if the couple are too old or otherwise unable to reproduce.

Eight states recognize continued cohabitation as a form of “common law marriage” without the couple ever obtaining a license or undergoing any ceremony.

Nearly every state permits both girls and boys to marry without parental consent at the age of 18.  When the parents consent, they may allow their 16 year old son or daughter to be married.  However, in a few states, even younger girls can marry without parental consent, and one state allows marriage without parental consent if the girl is pregnant (seems backward to me).

In many states the age of consent to engage in sex is lower than the age that is required to marry. I guess a joint checking account requires more maturity than sexual relations.  Or so it would seem.

What does all this mean?

This hodgepodge of differing state laws relating to not just same sex marriage but even with respect to who is eligible to be married and even what a marriage is, shows that there is no legal universals in this area. And when the laws change, what happens with those who met the statutory definitions before, but no longer do? Or those who failed to be eligible for marriage before suddenly are eligible.   That means there must ethically be some higher principle than what these state legislatures decide.  The fact that the same rules don’t even apply across state boundaries in this “one nation under God” means that these states really cannot define marriage. Nor can the Supreme Court. Some thing may be legal in one state and not in another, but one thing can’t be ethical and moral in one jurisdiction and not in another.

So, fine, same sex couples now have a Supreme Court right to obtain a marriage license from a state government where they live (as long as they are not close relatives, under 18 and in some states not cousins), but that doesn’t make it ethical, doesn’t make it godly and doesn’t make it acceptable. God’s laws are not man’s laws and man’s laws are not God’s laws.

Ezekiel 18:25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way

not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

Here are the slides from class 4.

AUTHORITY class 4

https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=54818