The Social and Moral Issues Facing the Church Today – Gary Massey
Teachers
Lesson Summary
Gary Massey began the class by sharing his gratitude for the hospitality at Linder Road and by highlighting a recent news story about protests at Clemson University concerning feminine hygiene products. He used the incident to illustrate how contemporary cultural disputes often mask deeper spiritual battles. Massey then listed a broad array of social issues—such as inflation, health‑care costs, illegal immigration, political division, war, and tech monopolies—showing that each inevitably touches the life of the local church. Transitioning to moral concerns, he identified marriage, sexuality, divorce, family degradation, abortion, violence, substance abuse, and racism as core topics that demand biblical discernment. Emphasizing that the church’s responsibility is to proclaim truth, he referenced 1 Timothy 3:15, Ephesians 3:10, and Ephesians 6:12, arguing that the church must be a pillar holding up God’s wisdom before both worldly and heavenly authorities. Massey asserted that the foundational question underlying all issues is the existence of God; without a Creator, objective morality cannot stand. He supported this claim with Romans 1:25, 28, 31 and John 8:37, urging believers to speak truth in a culture that often embraces relativism. The session concluded with an invitation for the congregation to engage courageously in these conversations as part of their Christian witness.
Key Scriptures
I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth
that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church to the authorities, to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places
Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms