“Man has a tendency to forget that God’s instructions are right.   He doubts whether God’s precepts are really good for him.  He convinces himself that God’s commandments are too restrictive.  He assumes that he knows what is best.”

 

And what would Jesus say to this, Lucy?   Well, I can tell you what he did say, which was that it is far more often the case that most of God’s instructions in the Bible have become warped by men; … that what is truly Good for humankind – LOVE – has far too often been replaced by judgment; … that God is now worshiped & indeed feared as a petty & morally unstable tyrant instead of revered as the Loving Father He truly is; … that we humans have convinced ourselves that our God has to become like us – that His LOVE, like ours, suddenly needs conditions & limitations & boundaries & restrictions.   Indeed, my dear Friend, that is why Jesus came to amend & alter the law – to augment &/or replace &/or dismiss almost every one of the 613 Old Testament regulations (a few of which you yourself are still using to justify a personal condemnation of homosexuals) with two over-arching Commandments – two Commandments that are more important than all the others combined …

 

Amen – Let it one day (soon) be so!

 

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is just like it: You shall love your neighbor* as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” ~ Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:37-40)

*NOTE:  Please remember that Jesus defines “neighbor” only once in the entire Bible – in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-36); a tale where the hero of the story – the “neighbor” like whom we are to Love – was one of the Samaritans; at the time a people who were stark cultural enemies of all Jews … Think about it.

Filed under: Burnishing Bigotry by Scaughdt