Misused Bible Verses–Matthew 26:11
Whenever I hear some one quote Matthew 26:11–”You will always have the poor among you . . . “–it’s usually when some one doesn’t want to talk about fighting poverty. If Jesus said we would always have poor people among us, then why try to fight poverty? Why not just write a check to a charity? Is this what Jesus really meant? Let’s look at the text in context: “Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had leprosy. During supper, a woman came in with a beautiful jar of expensive perfume and poured it over his head. The disciples were indignant when they saw this. ‘What a waste of money,’ they said. ‘She could have sold it for a fortune and given the money to the...
What You Want
I know I talk about food a lot, but I find it to be a great way to talk about things that are needed in life that we misuse. I could talk about sex, work, or money but those are much more touchy and private subjects in some Christian circles. So, I talk about food. Even when I’m not talking about food, I usually talk about food. So I wanted to talk about getting what you want even when it isn’t what you need. Indulging in things that are unhealthy and/or hurt us. For this food example we will use Fast Food. If you want to apply it to sex you can pull from porn (or lusting after anything else you shouldn’t be). For work and money, you can pull from finding your status in how well your doing or what you own. I love fast food. The low cost, the...
Lukewarm
For father’s day, my wife bought me the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I am not though with it yet, but wow is it a convicting book. He is in essence critiquing the American church and our “American” approach to Christianity. I just got through reading the chapter entitled “Profile of the Lukewarm.” He begins the chapter by retelling the parable of the sower (in which the seed lands on path, the rocks, the thorns or the good soil.) When I hear that passage, I of course know that I am the good soil. Don’t we all? Chan points out that we shouldn’t assume that we are the good soil. He writes: “I think that most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns. Thorns are anything that distracts us...
A mish-mash, a hodge-podge
So here goes a random assortment of thoughts from the last couple days that I thought that I would share. 1. I have been reading through Leviticus the last couple days, and I am amazed at how hard it would have been to live with any sort of faithfulness in Old Testament Israel. On top of that, one person’s blase attitude about their need to properly deal with sin could cause the entire nation to pay. All of the sudden, I am far more appreciative of what Christ did for us and yet I wonder if I am way to careless with how I act. 2. My wife is having our 3rd child tomorrow morning (praise God for His blessings large and small). My son helped me wonder again at God’s creation as I told him that his little sister has been eating mommy’s food...
No Place for Accountability in Religion
As I have grown up in the church, I have noticed that one of the main undertones in the religious circles was to only commit sins you could hide. To be a good Christian by religious standards you have to get rid of all the public sins such as drinking, smoking, hanging out at “bad” places (of course later you can use these things to measure how much better you are then the people who still do them). You replace the “bad” sins with ones you can hide and you bury them deep and never speak of them. You can keep over eating, gossiping, being greedy, overworking, being prideful, not loving others, and lusting after everything you can find but you just don’t mention it to ANYONE. I think that’s the biggest fault of religion. Its...