ken wilson online

Thanks I needed that break.  Vacation did me a world of good as well as a mission trip to Costa Rica with our youth group.  Costa Rica, where the average income is $250 per month.  A week there convinced me of something: I’m greedy.

The greedy are nailed throughout the Bible as sinners of a serious variety.  The prophets denounce the greedy.   Paul has more than a warning or two.  The greedy are among those who shouldn’t presume on entrance to the kingdom. Jesus didn’t make it easy for the greedy to follow without leaving much of their stuff behind.
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We love these sticky phrases, don’t we?  Especially the ones that get us off the hook like this one does. The ones that swoop in and lift us right over the horns of the dilemma that another sticky phrase plunges us into:  “judge not, lest ye be judged.”  How do we do that, without all hell breaking loose?  Gosh, we have to judge don’t we?  He couldn’t have meant, literally, “judge not, lest ye be judged.”  No, he meant judge carefully, judge wisely, judge lovingly, judge well, judge insiders.  So why didn’t he just say that?  Because he didn’t have us around to write his speeches for him! So we come up with our own sticky phrase to “complement” his. “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”  Voila! we’re off the hook!  Or are we?
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Seems to be a preoccupation of religion these days.  Let me show you how wrong the world is about sin, righteousness, and judgment.  Let me show you how wrong the world is about abortion and gay marriage,  and evolution and climate change and on and on and on it goes…..    The three-fold preoccupation of much religious discourse it seems: what is the worst of sin, the pinnacle of righteousness, the certainty of judgment?  If we can only be clear on these, we will be right, orthodox, faithful.   When the Spirit comes, surely he will show the world how wrong it is.   How wrong they are.  But will it turn out as we expect?
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