NOOMA Bullhorn | 009
Today is Matt and Heather's wedding.
Jesus never went up to a "sinner" and said woe to you! To the sinners You said come follow me I will give you rest. My yoke is easy my burden is light. You came to save the world not condemn it.
But to those who think they are righteous. Those people who think they are invaluable to You the religious ones who think they have something that no one else can have.
Woe to You who:
They taught about God but did not love God — they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.
They preached God but converted people to dead religion, thus making those converts twice as much sons of hell as they themselves were.
They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness?
They taught the law but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law — justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices but not the real meat of the law.
They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.
They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones.
They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old, and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.
-Matthew 23
Woe to you bullhorn guy.
It isn't the people who admit and acknowledge their sin that Jesus warns about Hell. It's the people who refuse to acknowledge and would rather appear in front of humans as righteous.
I think we are called to preach to the person, preach to the culture. In Jesus' time the self proclaimed righteous thought they were completely safe because they were descendants of Abraham. So Jesus preached a wake up call to them.
Then when he came upon a broken sinner with no hope he preached to them the free gift of a place in the Kingdom of God.
My culture today gags at the word Christian. They cringe at the sound of "religion" despite whether Hell exists or not I doubt Jesus would hammer Hell to this culture in America. Rather I think he would love us as we are but love us too much to let us stay that way. He would accept the sinners, the gays, the atheists so warmly that it would bring anger and rage from the American churches. I think if Jesus came now it would look EXACTLY like it did 2000 years ago.
Love Wins.
Today is Matt and Heather's wedding.
Jesus never went up to a "sinner" and said woe to you! To the sinners You said come follow me I will give you rest. My yoke is easy my burden is light. You came to save the world not condemn it.
But to those who think they are righteous. Those people who think they are invaluable to You the religious ones who think they have something that no one else can have.
Woe to You who:
They taught about God but did not love God — they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.
They preached God but converted people to dead religion, thus making those converts twice as much sons of hell as they themselves were.
They taught that an oath sworn by the temple or altar was not binding, but that if sworn by the gold ornamentation of the temple, or by a sacrificial gift on the altar, it was binding. The gold and gifts, however, were not sacred in themselves as the temple and altar were, but derived a measure of lesser sacredness by being connected to the temple or altar. The teachers and Pharisees worshiped at the temple and offered sacrifices at the altar because they knew that the temple and altar were sacred. How then could they deny oath-binding value to what was truly sacred and accord it to objects of trivial and derived sacredness?
They taught the law but did not practice some of the most important parts of the law — justice, mercy, faithfulness to God. They obeyed the minutiae of the law such as tithing spices but not the real meat of the law.
They presented an appearance of being 'clean' (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.
They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. They were like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside, but full of dead men's bones.
They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old, and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.
-Matthew 23
Woe to you bullhorn guy.
It isn't the people who admit and acknowledge their sin that Jesus warns about Hell. It's the people who refuse to acknowledge and would rather appear in front of humans as righteous.
I think we are called to preach to the person, preach to the culture. In Jesus' time the self proclaimed righteous thought they were completely safe because they were descendants of Abraham. So Jesus preached a wake up call to them.
Then when he came upon a broken sinner with no hope he preached to them the free gift of a place in the Kingdom of God.
My culture today gags at the word Christian. They cringe at the sound of "religion" despite whether Hell exists or not I doubt Jesus would hammer Hell to this culture in America. Rather I think he would love us as we are but love us too much to let us stay that way. He would accept the sinners, the gays, the atheists so warmly that it would bring anger and rage from the American churches. I think if Jesus came now it would look EXACTLY like it did 2000 years ago.
Love Wins.