Funny how this stuff works.
I am in a continuing dialogue about how we as Christ Followers are supposed to treat ’sinners’ (unbelievers), specifically homosexuals. I ran across this article this morning from martyduren’s blog. (thanks, marty!)
http://www.bpnews.net/bpfeature.asp?ID=1890
Good thoughts.
There once was a very old tale, written long ago. It can be traced back to ancient Sanskrit, written by a royal scholar named Bidpai. Remember?
A scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked a turtle to carry him on his back across a river.
“Are you mad?” asked the turtle, “you’ll sting me and I’ll drown.”
My dear turtle,” laughed the scorpion, “if I were to sting you, you would drown and I would go down with you. Why would I do that?”
“You’re right!” cried the turtle. “Hop on!” The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river he gave the turtle a mighty sting. As they both sank to the bottom, the turtle desperately said:
“You promised you wouldn’t sting me. Why did you do it?”
“It is my nature to sting,” the drowning scorpion sadly replied. “After all, you knew I was a scorpion when you let me climb onto your back.”
After his recent conversion, Dave Mustaine (yes, this Dave Mustaine) released a new album earlier this year entitled ‘The System Has Failed’. In ‘The Scorpion’, he states:
As I climb upon your back,
I will promise not to sting.
I will tell you things you want to hear
and not mean anything.
I will treat you like a dog
as I shoot my venom in.
You knew all along
that I am a scorpion.
Reality check:
I thought I could make it across without getting stung by sin. But now that the poison is in my blood, my fear is that I’ll drown out here. It is as if my own sin is telling me “As you go down, remember one thing: you knew what I was when you invited me onto your back.” I don’t want to go down like this.
Yes, Christ forgives me.
Yes, as his adopted son, I’ll never be sent away.
Nevertheless, the stench of my sin must make God’s stomach churn. My nature [probably yours, too] is to return to our sin again and again, like a dog to his vomit.
We are called to die to sin. But sometimes I just can’t die dead enough.
I’ve begun another chapter in the never-ending discussion of Christ and culture over in the Emerging Leaders Forum and thought I’d post some comments here as well. We are reading Newbigin’s ‘Foolishness to the Greeks’, which begins propositionally with the question “What would be involved in a missionary encounter between the gospel and Western culture?”
As conservative Evangelicals, we are often unaware of the cultural conditioning of our ‘religion’ and, therefore guilty of confusing the Gospel with the ‘American Way’. Most of the time it slips under our radar and, I think, is done subconsciously. (e.g. God always favors the white collar, Left Behind-reading, bumpersticker-touting, WWJD bracelet-wearing Americans who vote Republican….right?)
{quickly moving on before the rants begin…}
First, we have to define culture. Newbigin defines it as the sum total of ways of living developed by a group of human beings and handed on from generation to generation. This includes language (because it is the vehicle for expression and perception), visual and musical arts, tehcnologies, law, social and political organization, and religion.
Of course, given this definition, the Gospel is always contextualized…either consciously or subconsciously. He states that there can never be a time when the Gospel is not embodied in a culturally conditioned form of words. The idea that the ‘pure gospel’ could be presented as unadulterated by culture is absurd. Bottom line: the gospel is the Word made flesh. Thus, there cannot be a culture-free gospel.
Interesting point from Chapter 1: In Acts 26, Paul recounts to his Greek-speaking critics that God spoke to him….not in Greek, but in Hebrew, the language of his home and heart, his mother tongue. And it is his native language that God uses to convict Paul that his life must turn around, a radical metanoia. What Paul thought of service to God was actually fighting against God.
His native language is used by God to convict him.
I only have one question: Has God ever used Pearl Jam or Metallica or Dave Matthews to convict you?
Any thoughts?
[i.e. 'The Crazy Days of Summer' para sus gringos!]
Just a friendly note to those of you who keep an eye here from time to time. This month (July) will be insanely crazy: middle school camp, mexico mission trip, church activities, and getting back on the horse of my nutrition/exercise regime.
I will try to post a couple of times each week, but that may be about it…thanks for your patience.
