Matthew 7:6-12
“Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege.
“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?
“Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get.”
January 15th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
instant reactions
“Don’t be flip with the sacred” - guilty!
“Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege” - also guilty, but also pleased that I think in some ways this is someting we’re trying hard to move away from in dream.
“grab the initiative and do it for them” - I love this translation of the ‘golden rule’. Its so much more active than the usual way it’s expressed.
January 15th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Ouch, i also find the ‘trying to be relevant invites sacrilege’ comment painfully close to the truth! So then it must go that our challenge is to share the wonders of God without paraphrasing or diluting the Bible down too much to make it more what we think is user-friendly. i wonder if the need to be relevant is more of a problem in today’s multi-cultural/ethnic/faith/everything society?
January 15th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
It’s funny, the whole “do unto others” thing is such a well known and quoted christian principle. As Richard said it’s the “golden rule”. All the same I think I’d kinda fogotten it. Its good to be reminded that it sums up what it’s all about.