There is a great deal of cultural pressure for people to step out of their comfort zones. When I first started hearing it, I tried to apply the recommendation, because I did not want to be accused if living in the past and clinging to outmoded habits.
It turns out, however, that this pressure to embrace discomfiting experiences is not about using a smartphone rather than a flip phone. The culture wants me to abandon moral and biblical teachings that I was taught in the past. I am being asked to step out of the comfort of knowing that when I need to know what is right, I can go to the Bible.
The culture, including many Christians in the culture, is convinced that
1) The Bible is not the only place to find moral truth,
2) The truth in the Bible is only clear to people who have knowledge of ancient cultures, and
3) No truth in the Bible or elsewhere is absolute, anyway.
I have long understood the Bible as the Word of God. Taking my cue from Jesus himself when he rejected Satan’s attempts to divert him from saving the world I consider the Bible to be my Bread, my sustenance, the only way to live and therefore, it is my comfort zone, my safe place when moral ambiguity threatens my peace. Therefore, I am very richly comforted to know that the Bible is the right place to go for moral truth.
Further, years of experience reading and studying the Bible have made it clear to me that the moral truths of the Bible are expressed in language that is clear and simple. Scholars can certainly find plenty of material for deep study in the Bible, but the fundamental truths about life are not expressed in some intellectual code. They are simple, clear and uncompromising.
Probably the real reason the culture wants to prod me out of my moral comfort zone is that the culture rejects the whole idea of absolute truth, while the Bible teaches that absolute truth exists, and the Bible speaks unaltered, eternal, absolute truth at all times. The biblical truth for Abraham is the same as the biblical truth for me. My generation has not outgrown the Bible. We have not learned that homosexuality actually is not a sin. We have not learned that God actually wants a union of two men to be considered a marriage. The culture says we are evolving, but the Bible says we are exactly like our sinful ancestors. Just like them, we need to repent of sin, ask forgiveness, and be cleansed by the blood of Christ.
I am happy in my comfort zone, where the Bible is truth for all people at all times. I pray never to step out of it.