For those trying to follow Christ: Let’s resist the temptation for everything to necessarily always make sense to our culturally-conditioned human finite mind. I know it’s hard because it defies human nature, but God in His omniscience is infinitely wiser than we are. God didn’t intend for His Word to be a riddle that we must struggle to try to figure out. The basic precepts of right and wrong are clearly and plainly laid out literally as spoken Word (the red letters) by our Lord in both the gospel accounts (several of them that all agree) in the scriptures and in nature (His creation which we are to be good stewards of). This is the rule we are to use to check our interpretation of other things in scripture, right (such as in a specific letter written in a specific time to a specific church by the Apostle Paul, for example)? The natural human (i.e., old sin nature) need we tend to feel for things to make relevant sense to us right now leads inevitably to pastors, etc. twisting God’s Word to fit a certain culture or ideology….since the beginning of time (“nothing is new under the sun”).
I took this photo here of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in downtown Pensacola, FL USA (my hometown) a few months ago. The words of this great Christian leader and great American always remind me of a pastor that was truly courageous and had such a tremendous faith in God and a tremendous influence in so many lives (including mine)! None of our faith is complete and I do understand the intense fear and pressure that pastors, etc–especially in certain areas–must feel to just stick to the traditional script in their given culture and the natural human instinct to protect their job (and provide for their family) so they can’t bring themselves to say it like it is and rock the boat (for some). They feel comfortable in lazily just basically telling their congregation what they want to hear. Let’s be very clear: This is not faithful and not what God calls them to do! If they would completely trust God and do what’s right, He will honor His Word and take care of them and their families regardless!! Faith (in this case, Christian faith or faith in God) is the exact opposite of fear so how important is it not to conflate the two? I don’t necessarily give a damn about one’s human cultural and/or ideological heritage! In the grand scheme of things, it’s not important! Hate is not true Christian heritage! God is love (the exact opposite of hate or evil)! Evil is evil. (Period) Good is good. (Period). I only care to follow the teachings of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (God) who as incarnate on this earth was an immigrant refugee middle eastern (brown-skinned, not white) carpenter who drank wine, hung out with sinners and courageously stood up to the establishment (Pharisees and Romans alike)! Choose faith not fear! You can rest assured that God absolutely calls each of us to be courageous, not cowardly….brave, liberally loving, giving, unselfish and trusting him completely…indeed, most definitely not conservative!
When we are reading, say, The Sermon on the Mount (the beatitudes) in the gospel of Matthew Ch. 5-6, does our Lord God almighty offer any caveats after each of His instructions? After things like “give to the poor”, “take care of each other (widows, orphans, or anyone in need)”, “welcome foreigners for even strangers have unwittingly entertained angels”, etc, does He add any “But”? No, there are no “buts”!! His instructions are clear and absolutely irrefutable…and they are absolutely not to be conflated with nor confused with human culture or “religion”. The drawing of Folks to salvation and addition to the Kingdom is a heart thing. Each individual must choose who he/she will serve and put their faith in Jesus to have eternal life! The very last thing we would do is want to make laws that impose our beliefs on others in order to essentially try to force them into accepting Christ. This doesn’t work and actually has the opposite effect as it repels folks from Christ! Just look at the dwindling number of folks in church these days!
So many folks need to wake up and dig deeper…getting out of their echo chamber culturally-conditioned ideological bubble and experience other cultures and other views! Otherwise how can one spiritually grow if just stuck in the rut with blinders on. Isn’t it amazing that it doesn’t occur to so many folks that it’s foolish to just take for gospel the teachings of a few men in a certain narrow culturally-conditioned subculture who arrogantly think they know everything about certain subjects and everybody else is wrong? They don’t realize how foolish it is to just repeat day after day or week after week basically the exact same thing they read and heard their whole lives? The more we seek knowledge from other perspectives, the more God’s Word will make sense enabling spiritual growth and wisdom! Shouldn’t we always at least try to draw folks to Christ and at least try not to be as much a hypocrite jerk (modern day greedy power-hungry idolatrous Pharisee) repelling folks from Christ? Let’s try harder not to add “buts” to God’s Word to make it fit our stubbornly prideful cultural ideology and not “show our butts”! Follow Christ! It’s hard! I know, I’m terrible at it…and show my butt way too much!
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