Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts

Monday, August 16, 2010

Social Justice? Social Envy:

Hand in hand with covetousness goes its close companion— invidia or envy—which hates to see other men happy. The names by which it offers itself to the world’s applause are right and justice, and it makes a great parade of these austere virtues. It begins by asking, plausibly, “Why should not I enjoy what others enjoy?” and it ends by demanding, “Why should others enjoy what I may not?” Envy is the great leveler. If it cannot level things up, it will level them down; and the words constantly in its mouth are “my rights” and “my wrongs.” 
--Dorothy Sayers, Letters to Diminished Church, Kindle location 1132.


Here is the truth by what usually names itself "social justice".

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Jesus, simply profound, profoundly simple

It strikes me as a preacher how simple Jesus' teaching is presented, and how profound it is at the same time. As a confessional Christian I am wary of many modern over simplifications, the tendency to reduce our faith and practice to bumper sticker catch phrases. The simplicity of Jesus is not that. In Matthew 15: 11, Jesus says, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." This was given to the crowds to counter the Pharisees' insistence on the washing of hands before one ate. The disciples balk at at this and ask him to explain, which is given by Matthew in verses 16-20.

Jesus' explanation boils down to this: Our sin is not due to the corruption of the world outside (food goes in the mouth and out into the pot, so to speak), but sin comes from our own corrupt heart. Sin originates from within. That's it, complete simplicity. But that simplicity has depth.

Let's look at our natural habits. We shift our sin onto the evil influences of the world: we blame TV, video games, the internet; we point our finger at schools and universities; we condemn upcoming generation's youth culture. But we don't sin because we are corrupted, we sin because we are corrupt. And, of course, that means when we want to assign guilt to the corruptions of our world we need to turn the finger to ourselves.

But this also has profound consequences for our salvation. If the heart is the source of corruption, then we cannot look there for our salvation. We cannot look there for righteousness. We cannot look to the heart of men for the reconciliation of the world. We must look outside ourselves. We must look unto Christ, the one given for the reconciliation of the world, the Holy One of Israel, the LORD our Righteousness. This is the good tidings of the gospel, that God has come to help those who cannot help themselves.