Atheists & other enemies of God ((“Enemies of God” is used in the genericized sense that everyone who is not with Christ is against Him; the phrase is wholly biblical — James 4:4.)) often make light of the hypocrisy of so many Christians — myself certainly included — for claiming that the Bible is “the Word of God” while ignoring so many of its commands. ((The Sermon on the Mount and the practical advice of the Book of James come to mind.))
Fair enough, but I wonder if those outside of Jesus’ camp realize just how much more they’d hear the message of Jesus preached if every one of His followers preached it as much as the Scriptures seem to call them. Paul, for example, faced intense persecution and was thrown out of cities after having been beaten for preaching, after which he picked himself back up and went back into the town to preach some more!
If you want all Christians to practice what they preach and to repent of their hypocrisy, then that is fantastic — every Christian should want that as well! But would the same unbelievers be happy with a world full of 1 billion or so Paul the Apostles?
Not being hypocritical and living and letting live are mutually exclusive goals.
This is the first entry in the new “Thoughts” category which will feature mostly short posts on various subjects that are more observational or rhetorical in nature.
The conundrum is more prominent I think (and hope) amongst merely religious Christians, by which I mean those who do not have spiritual evidence of new life in Christ.
In The Problem of Pain C.S. Lewis offered three basic elements of all good moral ‘religions’ properly called. The third was: “The moralities accepted among men may differ [according to their religious adherence]- though not, at bottom, so widely as is often claimed– but they all [said religions] agree in prescribing a behaviour which their adherents fail to practise. ”
To such agnostics it should be pointed out that sin is the corrupt nature of humanity. Repenting of sin is the first command of God for anyone today. It is also the hardest. The Christian in repenting before God has swallowed the camel, while the atheist doubt by reason of our inability to down the gnat.
The atheist exalts his own morality, by living as scripture prescribes Christians act and on this basis decries Christianity as vain. But let them repent before God. That is the first step of obedience towards God, and association through baptism is the second.
Latest from Brandon: Overcoming: The Craving
“It is also the hardest,” you say, and rightly so, for it is only through the “killing of self” that we are able to repent. Only when we see ourselves as empty, utterly lacking of any righteousness which God would accept. It is only the realization that it is not us but Christ which can save us that can drive us to repent, to cast off our former deeds — both our blatant sins and our filthy righteousnesses — in desperate dependence upon He who has died and risen again on our behalf.
Man is a proud creature, and it is that pride which keeps so many from repenting. After all, who needs Christ when one can be a “good person” and get to Heaven that way? Who needs a slain & resurrected Savior when one has a “good deed for the day”? It is such pride which must be destroyed for it is at enmity with the Creator.