Over at WesleyBlog, commenters are smacking one another over the weighty issues of sin and personal/corporate holiness.
Your assignment: go read this comment. And the one immediately following it.
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
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14 comments:
That comment by itself deserves a 'best of the Methodist bolgshhere'.
Well, further down he says he meant the comment to be humorous. I guess although I missed it.
That discussion is a great example of why blogs need threaded comments to prevent comment hijacking.
Sorry John Wilks, but the apostle Paul clearly says:
"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."
Sounds like exhortation to physical fitness to me. ;)
Once again, Shane Raynor is king of the comments. Dude must have about a million regular readers, or at least the regular readers he has really like to ... articulate their opnions.
To understand the full context of that comment, you need to scroll up to the earlier comment by Joel Thomas, referring to an "anonymous" Methodist blogger who is "so overweight as to be Biblically gluttonous." Classy move by Joel.
I missed the fat comment from Joel. That makes Darel's comment even funnier.
Joel really crossed a line there.
Joel frequently uses glottony as his go-to sin in these debates.
And in a sense he has a point. Both gluttony and sloth are sinful.
More than that, they bear a great deal of commonality with homosexuality. Gluttony and sloth develop in a person's life for a number of reasons and for many folks, it is genetic or environmental or due to how we were raised. In other words, it isn't something most folks choose.
But as my little attempt at satire shows, it is rediculous to deny the sinfulness of gluttony and sloth just because an orientation towards either or both might have been unavoidable.
I'm fat.
And I got this way for many reasons- some medical, some genetic, some by choice.
I have an inner drive which I cannot explain and cam't seem to silence which makes me crave too much food. Even when I'm full, something inside drives me to eat more.
That drive is not in my control, but my reaction to it is. If I cave into that drive, I am sinning. Pure and simple.
As a Christian, I frequently have to stop and confess the sin of gluttony. I ask people to pray for me. My wife helps hold me accountable. I might not be able to end my orientation toward gluttony. I may well struggle with it my whole life. In fact, since my obesety has caused me to develop type 2 diabetes, odds are that gluttony will cause or at least play a role in my death- even if I manage to stay "on the wagon" for the rest of my life.
Even so, God is faithful. When I confess my sins, and I am forgiven. When I ask God for stength in the face of temptation, He is there.
That is how we struggle with sin. In faith and trust that God is there to help us get it right and even to lift us up when we get it wrong.
That is true for my sins and it is true for yours.
And this is no less true for people who struggle with sexual sins.
We Evangelicals are not asking homosexuals to change overnight. We aren't asking them to lie about or hide their inner feelings and desires.
All we are asking is that they confess sin as sin just like the rest of the Church should.
Yes, they will struggle and yes they will have set-backs and yes it is a messy process.
But the road of repentance is a muddy track. It doesn't matter if the sin is homosexuality, gluttony, dishonesty, substance abuse, racisim, what ever. That is the nature of the Christian walk.
If anyone actually told me that gluttony isn't a sin and that God doesn't care if I overeat, they might make me feel better about myself and they might make going to church easier for me.
But they wouldn't be helping my walk with God because God sees the abuse of my body as harmful and wrong. I was not created to cave to gluttony and sloth. Jesus did not die so I would continue over-eating and sitting on my large duff. God wants me to be free from sin. And unless I'm willing to own up to those sins and seek His help and the help of the Church, my ability to really understand and live in God's grace will be crippled.
A lie, no matter how badly everyone wishes to believe it and how strongly everyone embraces it, is still a lie. And where lies abound, the Lord of Truth will not abide.
We simply must not ignore the reality of sin in the name of love- for true love is honest and faithful and does not take the easy way out.
Amen, brother John. You helped me with your comment more than you may know.
You know what, I'm with Shane. I'm taking myself out of this little debate for the time being. This just isn't productive.
With one exception, I'm deleting all my comments on this subject. I've said my peace.
Is anybody else having trouble loading Shane's website? All I can get to is the post about Narnia and the UMW.
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