| Or, well, not so rough.A few ramblings I thought you guys might find interesting.Read & discuss.Matt.1:23?Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ye ought to have done, and not to leave the others undone.Notice Christ said these were the WEIGHTIER matters of the law.Also, notice the order of the words: judgment, mercy, faith.This is important.In studying the words of Christ, you find a precision and perfection, a pattern that is unmatched in anything man has ever seen.If you want something that will blow your mind, just go through the stuff in red with a Strong's concordance in hand.Our versionswhichever they may besimply do not do the original text ANY kind of justice...getting back to which:Many of us assume that mercy just leaps over justice and forgives IN SPITE of justice's demands.Uh, no.This is why the order of these words is important.Justice looks at a situation and says, "Yes, this was wrong.But, in order to be just, I must look at extenuating circumstances and take these into account."Hey, if this were not so, God could not have JUSTLY set up any kind of a plan for us once our species screwed up.Scripture clearly teachesunlike man's lawthat ignorance IS an excuse, if it IS TRUE ignorance, and not just someone PRETENDING ignorance. |
| Scripture clearly teachesunlike man's lawthat ignorance IS an excuse, if it IS TRUE ignorance, and not just someone PRETENDING ignorance.And hey, God will know.(So will YOU, usually.)So justice looks and it sees that there were extenuating circumstances, and it decides to show mercy, as that is what is truly 'just' in this case.So mercy actually PROCEEDS FROM justice, it doesn't BYPASS it, the way most of us thinkand hey, let's face it, the way mocktrine (NOW WITH 25% MORE TRUTH!)teaches us to think.So then, we've decided to show mercy...in order to do THAT, we must have faith that mercy can do some good.It does no good to show mercy to the incorrigible (and it does no good to pretend there aren't some people like that.If your heart bleeds for them, it may be because they just got through stabbing you in it).So, to show mercy, you must have faith it can do some good.ANDyou must have faith in the person.What?Even when they're WRONG, and have just clearly SHOWN that?Uh, let's just let someone else say it:Rom 5:6?For while we were yet weak, at the right time Messiah died for the ungodly.Rom 5:7?For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die.Rom 5:8?But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Messiah died for us.God has a tremendous amount of faith in us.Cool, huh?So justice is actually a PREREQUISITE for us to be able to practice mercywhich is faith in others.I can get into that! |
|
Webhosting