Suppose you were involved in a church whose stated mission was to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to as many souls as possible.
Furthermore, suppose you were stupendously successful on the wrong-side-of-the-tracks while most of your funding came from legacy members who were quickly dying off. Those affluent members lived in the mansions on the hill on the affluent-side-of-the-tracks.
Now suppose that the legacy members, the money-bags, had one set of priorities and those priorities were repulsive to the new members you were winning over in droves.
Which piper do you dance to?
That is the situation that most Christian denominations, including Catholics, find themselves in.
The growth is in Africa and Latin America. They don't have much tolerance for the LGBT crowd because they have lived through real privation and threat of death.
The money-bags are in North America and they are trying to buy their salvation by "enlightening" the benighted pagans of Africa and Latin America.
The rumbling among the back-pews of Catholic churches is that there is a large commission being formed to outline a long-term campaign with regard to Church priorities. The rumbling suggests that the committees are being salted with progressives who are close to the heart of mammon and not-so-many iron-spined champions of the Good Book.
Luke 16 tells a story of the shrewd steward who was caught cheating. In the story, the steward re-writes the contracts of the tenants who owed the landlord money in which he re-wrote them but removed the "management fees" or commission that the (new) steward would collect.
The parable is unique for the amount of post-story editorializing. The narrator says that the sons-of-light should learn from the more worldly. That is an unusual position.
My take-away is that many "worldy" organizations "went WOKE" and ceased to be relevant. That lesson is in bright, flashing lights. God gave us brains, even to the clergy. He expects us to use them. Even the clergy. Going WOKE is not the path to success. Not in business. Not in salvation.
The final line of the chapter is
“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
Why is this even an issue?
The general Christian position is "Who you are attracted to is not a sin. How you act on it is." You can be married hetero and see a real hottie making eyes at you. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. If you pursue the hottie then you are a sinner just like a pervert raw-dogging a dude in a bath-house. One either seeks and submits to God's will or one doesn't.
We are all sinners. We all need a path to redemption. BUT THAT DOES NOT CHANGE THE DIVIDE BETWEEN WHAT IS RIGHTEOUS AND WHAT IS SINFUL.
We are all sinners and all sinners are welcome. Unfortunately many denominations cross the line and celebrate the sin as they attempt to attract membership. Roger
ReplyDeleteWe are not all sinners , after the real baptism of the Holy Spirit. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/warriors4christ/episodes/2021-09-28T05_46_00-07_00
ReplyDeleteCan you offer some clarification?
DeleteIs your belief that PAST sin is nullified or "erased" after the real baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Or are you saying that after the real baptism of the Holy Spirit the person is incapable of sinning? That is, the person can act in any way they please but it is not a sin because they are "saved"?
I agree with regard to the first alternative. I think much of the pain and evil in this world is because people are scarred by past sin and are too proud to recognize there is a path to redemption.
I find the second alternative difficult to accept because in Matt 5 Jesus says (paraphrasing) I did not come to abolish the (Old) Testament but to fulfill it. That sounds like Jesus is telling us that the Ten Commandments are still rules.
Not trying to start a fight. I am just trying to ascertain where you are coming from and I am "owning" my own beliefs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFshGln9oDo
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2WxZCn1ukr0
ReplyDeleteActions over words
ReplyDeleteIn some denominations, the American/ European liberals are claiming control due to their money and those elsewhere are saying their values are more important than Western money. It will be interesting to see how things settle out... The denominations in the US that are forcing their positions on their members are hemorrhaging members and money.
ReplyDeleteWinner winner chicken dinner!!!!
DeleteYou see it at all the rainbow flag churches here. Big buildings, empty parkinglots.
A favorite tactic of leftists is to redefine something to suit their current situation. I've even seen them do it within a single paragraph.
I believe that's called "moral relativism".... Justifies a 'wrong' as 'right' to make one 'feel' better. History is full of examples, as our daily lives. Check that through the lens of the 10 commandments in one's daily life.
DeleteWe all sin, always and forever. The free gift (grace) of our Lord's sacrifice pays the price for our sin, according to the bible that I read.
Matthew 5:27 - 28
ReplyDelete27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of
old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh
on a woman to lust after her hath committed
adultery with her already in his heart.
"...lust after her..." implies pursuit. If the translator believed the original text meant "lust" in the sense of being desirable, they he probably would have translated the phrase "...looketh on a woman and feel lust..." or something similar.
DeleteFrom a boots-on-the-ground standpoint, recognition that a woman is beautiful and sexually desirable is to some degree involuntary. It is how we are wired and we were wired that way by God.
Ironically, the entire sequence of six (?) vignettes in that short section of the New Testament have the same theme. They all demonstrate sin is a slippery-slope rather than the super-crisp black/white in Old Testament law. And we still get sucked into trying to very precisely define when an action or thought becomes a sin. More proof that humans have not changed much in the last 4000 years.
Each person must read the text and make their own judgements, after all, it is our immortal souls hanging the balance.
I often wonder about that interpretation issue. I assume the King James version is the defacto standard, but you watch the news and see different interpretations of the same events... How much of our knowledge of the bible is interpretation and how much is literal translation?
DeleteExodus 20:17
ReplyDeleteThou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.
1 John 1:10
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
I had a preacher describe the sin of sexual lust this way. As you drive by an attractive woman your admiration of her form isn't sinful. If you drive around the block for a second look, you have crossed the line. Pursuit, as you say.
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If you're really doing God's work, God will provide. Tell the sodomites to sod off, and watch the money roll in.
ReplyDelete