I was trying to get across the biggie of ethics again to my youngest two this morning:
2. Do to others what you would have them to do you.
Then of course my daughter, who goes to Justice Middle School, brought up the person who takes advantage of your generosity to them. I shifted to a second rule.
3. Love must be tough.
We punish and bring justice first to try to reform and help others. Then at some point we sequester them to protect others from them. Then finally when there is no apparent hope we banish them from society all together.
Of course often more abstract but actually the first rule of living is:
1. Serve God.
Christians do this through the other two, but also through worship. However, the key effect serving God has on us is that it decentralizes ourselves from the throne of our lives as an idol. It says that we do not live simply for what is in our best interest but in service to God and others. It says that truth and the greater good are ultimately more important than us as individuals.
Showing posts with label loving enemies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loving enemies. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6.3 Transition from Collective Guilt in OT
Continued from yesterday
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... Many Christians want to trump Jesus with the Old Testament, but there are two reasons why this is inappropriate. First, the judgment of the Old Testament falls in the category of God's action, not our orchestration. Paul says as much in the New Testament: "leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay'" (Rom. 12:19). In other words, it is not normally our business as individuals to administer judgment. [1]
The second is because the Old Testament understanding of things is sometimes incomplete without the New Testament. Indeed, even within the space of the Old Testament itself we sometimes find a development of how God operates or how Israel understands things. For example, prior to Israel's captivity in Babylon, God is "punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me" (Deut. 5:9).
This pre-exile material has a sense of corporate guilt, such that the generation that the Babylonians destroy and take away is not actually the group of Israelites that did the sin. Thus Psalm 44:17 remarks that "All this came upon us, though we had not forgotten you; we had not been false to your covenant." Even though king Josiah is the most righteous king of Israel yet, his goodness does not counterbalance God's anger for the evil of his grandfather Manasseh (2 Kings 23:25-27).
If we find this sense of collective guilt difficult to fit with our Christian understanding of God, it is noteworthy that parts of the Old Testament itself had difficulty with it as well. Ezekiel 18 wrestles with Israel's destruction because of its parents' sins: "The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" (18:2). No longer, God says, will it work this way. Rather, from now on, "The one who sins is the one who will die" (18:4).
Christians who like the idea of God punishing all America because some group in America is doing wrong usually don't notice this passage or the similar passage in Jeremiah 31:29-30. Similarly, there is a real tension between the teaching of Jesus and anyone who would use parts of the Old Testament to support a lust for judgment on one's enemies.
What Jesus said was to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44). There's no wiggling out of it. If you don't like what Jesus says here, be honest about it. Don't pretend that Jesus said something different or try to use the Old Testament to trump Jesus. Any application of Scripture you use that tries to justify hatred of some person or group of people is simply not Christian. It's something else...
[1] That of course does not mean that there is not a place for governments to work for justice in the world, although such actions of governments are fraught with problems and prone to injustice themselves.
_______________
... Many Christians want to trump Jesus with the Old Testament, but there are two reasons why this is inappropriate. First, the judgment of the Old Testament falls in the category of God's action, not our orchestration. Paul says as much in the New Testament: "leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay'" (Rom. 12:19). In other words, it is not normally our business as individuals to administer judgment. [1]
The second is because the Old Testament understanding of things is sometimes incomplete without the New Testament. Indeed, even within the space of the Old Testament itself we sometimes find a development of how God operates or how Israel understands things. For example, prior to Israel's captivity in Babylon, God is "punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me" (Deut. 5:9).
This pre-exile material has a sense of corporate guilt, such that the generation that the Babylonians destroy and take away is not actually the group of Israelites that did the sin. Thus Psalm 44:17 remarks that "All this came upon us, though we had not forgotten you; we had not been false to your covenant." Even though king Josiah is the most righteous king of Israel yet, his goodness does not counterbalance God's anger for the evil of his grandfather Manasseh (2 Kings 23:25-27).
If we find this sense of collective guilt difficult to fit with our Christian understanding of God, it is noteworthy that parts of the Old Testament itself had difficulty with it as well. Ezekiel 18 wrestles with Israel's destruction because of its parents' sins: "The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge" (18:2). No longer, God says, will it work this way. Rather, from now on, "The one who sins is the one who will die" (18:4).
Christians who like the idea of God punishing all America because some group in America is doing wrong usually don't notice this passage or the similar passage in Jeremiah 31:29-30. Similarly, there is a real tension between the teaching of Jesus and anyone who would use parts of the Old Testament to support a lust for judgment on one's enemies.
What Jesus said was to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt. 5:44). There's no wiggling out of it. If you don't like what Jesus says here, be honest about it. Don't pretend that Jesus said something different or try to use the Old Testament to trump Jesus. Any application of Scripture you use that tries to justify hatred of some person or group of people is simply not Christian. It's something else...
[1] That of course does not mean that there is not a place for governments to work for justice in the world, although such actions of governments are fraught with problems and prone to injustice themselves.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
6.2 Loving Neighbor
What does it mean to love our neighbor? Jesus himself summed it up when he said, "do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matt. 7:12). This is of course the Golden Rule. To love your neighbor is to do things that benefit them and not to do things that harm or hurt them.
Love is a matter of intent even more than action. It means that you actually intend others well and act accordingly. It is a matter of the heart. Jesus says, "it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come" (Mark 7:21). And it is from the heart that truly good thoughts and actions come.
Jesus of course goes one step further. We are not only to love our friends, but our enemies as well (Matt. 5:44). No one is left. We are to love everyone, both our friends and our enemies. We will look at Matthew 5 a number of times in this chapter, but the overall point is summed up in its last paragraph (5:43-48).
You have heard to love your neighbor, but the general sense was also that we hate our enemies (Matt. 5:43). Indeed, if we are honest with ourselves, not a little of the Old Testament certainly feels hateful toward Israel's enemies. One psalmist says of the Babylonians, "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks" (Ps. 137:9). A whole collection of psalms, the "imprecatory psalms" call on God to destroy the enemies of Israel (e.g., Pss. 7, 58, 109). The prophets Nahum and Obadiah seem to rejoice in the impending doom of Assyria and Edom respectively.
Certainly these are not the only attitudes toward enemies in the Old Testament. The book of Jonah indicts the prophet Jonah for his unwillingness to abandon a prophecy like the book of Nahum. Jonah strikingly extends perhaps the core description of God in the Old Testament to the enemies of Israel: you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity" (Jonah 4:2). [1]
Jesus says that while they have heard it was okay to love their enemies, they must be complete as their Father in heaven is complete (Matt. 5:48). They must love not only their neighbors, but their enemies as well. Look at how God acts. He sends the precious rain that waters the earth not only to those who serve him but to the unrighteous as well (5:45). He gives the warmth and light of the sun not only on Israel, but on the Romans and other nations as well. So we are to love everyone, including our enemies.
When we are formulating a biblical theology on a topic, the New Testament provides a more complete understanding than the Old. And we don't have to decide between the message of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, for the New Testament is unanimous in its teaching on loving one's enemies (e.g., Rom. 12:17-21). God will take care of judgment...
[1] This description of God appears across the Old Testament. Cf. Exod. 34:6; 2 Chron. 30:9; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 86:15, 103:8, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2)
Love is a matter of intent even more than action. It means that you actually intend others well and act accordingly. It is a matter of the heart. Jesus says, "it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come" (Mark 7:21). And it is from the heart that truly good thoughts and actions come.
Jesus of course goes one step further. We are not only to love our friends, but our enemies as well (Matt. 5:44). No one is left. We are to love everyone, both our friends and our enemies. We will look at Matthew 5 a number of times in this chapter, but the overall point is summed up in its last paragraph (5:43-48).
You have heard to love your neighbor, but the general sense was also that we hate our enemies (Matt. 5:43). Indeed, if we are honest with ourselves, not a little of the Old Testament certainly feels hateful toward Israel's enemies. One psalmist says of the Babylonians, "Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks" (Ps. 137:9). A whole collection of psalms, the "imprecatory psalms" call on God to destroy the enemies of Israel (e.g., Pss. 7, 58, 109). The prophets Nahum and Obadiah seem to rejoice in the impending doom of Assyria and Edom respectively.
Certainly these are not the only attitudes toward enemies in the Old Testament. The book of Jonah indicts the prophet Jonah for his unwillingness to abandon a prophecy like the book of Nahum. Jonah strikingly extends perhaps the core description of God in the Old Testament to the enemies of Israel: you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity" (Jonah 4:2). [1]
Jesus says that while they have heard it was okay to love their enemies, they must be complete as their Father in heaven is complete (Matt. 5:48). They must love not only their neighbors, but their enemies as well. Look at how God acts. He sends the precious rain that waters the earth not only to those who serve him but to the unrighteous as well (5:45). He gives the warmth and light of the sun not only on Israel, but on the Romans and other nations as well. So we are to love everyone, including our enemies.
When we are formulating a biblical theology on a topic, the New Testament provides a more complete understanding than the Old. And we don't have to decide between the message of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament, for the New Testament is unanimous in its teaching on loving one's enemies (e.g., Rom. 12:17-21). God will take care of judgment...
[1] This description of God appears across the Old Testament. Cf. Exod. 34:6; 2 Chron. 30:9; Neh. 9:17; Ps. 86:15, 103:8, 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2)
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