Posted by leftovers from the recent posts…
To define sin according to my own likes/dislikes or sense of “what’s wise” or preferences or how I was raised — this is a recipe for disaster!
To mislead young ones earns you a quick trip to the bottom of the sea with a millstone for a scarf, says Jesus. He clearly wasn’t kidding around.
God Himself defines sin and righteousness just fine, thank you. “Love your neighbor” is a heavy enough command to keep you working your entire life before you figure it all out. “Don’t steal” resonates with implications that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of driving home as they’re needed.
Allowing people to flesh out the Bible’s clear commands with fences that give the illusion of command-keeping robs the command itself of any power
I have seen adolescents love their broken, damaged friends with abandon and Grace — real Grace. Imperfect, yes. Immature, yes. Sometimes only temporarily, yes. But usually they put the adults around me to shame. They are doing good … not passively avoiding trouble.
Adults, for all their griping about teens falling prey to peer pressure, are even bigger cowards sometimes, IMHO. They really can’t bear to think that people will criticize because their kid wants a nose ring or a mohawk or a pack of cigarettes.
So they build walls to separate their kids from “the sinners.”
They drink a beer while telling their kids, “Do what I say, not what I do — you won’t drink till you’re 21!”
They try to sort everyone into categories of “good people” and “bad people,” forgetting that we are all sinners rescued solely by Grace. The antithesis runs through, not around, every human being and every human institution.
Or worse – such parents inculcate a sense of fear, provoking their kids to have such a tight conscience that the kids can’t handle even hearing someone say fuck; they can’t watch a movie with violence lest the images replay for days in their heads; they blaze with white-hot indignance at the smallest moral infraction.
Just:Words 