Thursday, July 9, 2015

Picking and Choosing

It's tempting to pick and choose parts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For example, many people pick out those few passages that vilify homosexuality and ignore other parts that would temper it.  But it's just as easy to pick out only the temperate parts and ignore the rest.  I hear the word "love" tossed around as if it was the new catchword like "synergy" was to motivational salespeople.  The word eventually becomes meaningless.  People on both sides of the debate seem to ignore the whole gospel, preferring to pick and choose the parts that support their philosophy.

To the woman taken in adultery, it's true that Christ told the people that one without sin should cast the first stone, but He also told the woman to go her way and sin no more.  He recognized the purpose of mortality to be a probationary time where we make mistakes, choose poorly sometimes, and get hurt, but that we can improve, develop, grow, and progress.  The accusers somehow thought that our mortal condition was for them to pass judgement.  Sorry, guys, but judgment comes after the resurrection.

Speaking of judgment, the passage "judge not that ye be not judged" is also taken out of the context of the whole gospel.  We definitely have to make judgments.  Pastors (bishops) are even called to do so to protect their flocks.  But it's easy to pick only the part of the gospel that we want.  "Don't judge me if you're a Christian" is just as bad as "Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve" when taken out of the context of the entirety of the gospel.

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