The Sunday Night fellowship group Joy and I have been a part of since mid-spring had a pot-luck dinner last night, marking possibly our last get-together for the year (we might do another session before the Christmas holidays). The norm for our group, pot-luck or no, is to get together in the living room, pray for one another and praise God for answered prayers, listen to a tune, and then break out the Bibles and thinking caps for the quiz - on material we haven’t heard before - presented via video lecture (the quizzes are not scored, but they serve the purpose of getting us to think about the issues).
Last night’s session seemed no different than others, until the quizzes were handed around. We’d been working through a Derek Prince teaching series on Romans, and had finished that two weeks before, so when I saw that we were going to be in Romans again I was thinking “OK, I’m pretty familiar with the book - Romans 7 and 8 were two of the chapters that broke my resistance to the Gospel years ago” - but sometimes something you’ve read before hits you in a totally different way. That’s what happened to me last night with these words:
Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
-Romans 1:28-32
Read that last sentence carefully - Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them - and then ask yourself if Paul could be talking to the church of today? I don’t want to be blogging on heavy topics anymore than I believe most people want to read about them, but I think that last sentence gets overlooked in all the flag-waving, finger-pointing, we’re holier than you junk that gets all of us hammering on people from the previous passages1.
For a few years now, there have been shows on TV that glorify some pretty sick behavior - and Christians are in the audience, rooting for their favorites and booing their despised (Survivor, anyone?)2. We’re there on the sidelines (or in our La-Z-Boys) as the athletes we love to love (and love to hate) talk trash about how good they are (or how bad someone else is) and how they’re going to do this or that - not seeing that we’re engaging in the same kinds of behavior whether while watching the game or in our workplaces. Folks, if we’re approving the things we know are evil, we’re evil as well. Simple as that - hard to swallow, maybe, but no more complex.
Here’s a thought - how about if we take our own inventories (self included), see where we are at fault, repent, ask God for forgiveness, and stop crawling off the altar to lob stones at others? I’m not saying we should all stand arm in arm and sing “Kumbayah,” but even that image is less offensive than some of those that play out every day around us (and sadly, within us).
Update: Just as I was ready to logoff for the night, I happened over to The Rogue Angel’s blog, and came across this link to another post, dealing with a lot of the same themes, but in a more pointed way.
- We are to hate the sin but love the sinner; where is there room in that for pride in self, or slurs? I don’t see any. ↩
- The fact is, there are a lot of TV shows that glorify sick behavior, and a lot of movies, and a lot of music, etc. - this is where you have to decide how you balance “in the world, not of it” against “come out from among them.” Not an easy balance to strike - but the effort must be made. ↩
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Tags: Bible, Christianity, God, Gospel, Religion and Spirituality
