Two of Us

[God] is not proud…He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him.

–C.S. Lewis

This makes me feel yucky. So often we choose everything else over God. And yet, that is the thing that makes His grace so beautiful. He takes us back no matter what. I can’t wait to hang out with Him for real. Christianity, indeed, has so many paradoxes.

The Saints

The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins.  All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing;… the pleasures of power, of hatred.  For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become.  They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self.  The Diabolical self is the worse of the two.  That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.

-C.S. Lewis

Savoy Truffle

This is a journal I just wrote for my Biblical Ethics class. I wanted to share it.

In chapter two of Biblical Ethics, Maston discusses the prophets of the Old Testament and their role.  He does an excellent job of explaining the purpose of the prophets to be the messengers of God.  Part two of the introduction was an enlightening section for me.  Maston explains that the prophets’ “real source of their social passion and effectiveness was their concern for the will of God rather than for the welfare of men or the preservation of the nation” (37).  He painted their role as people who were deeply involved with God and who cared about others because God does.  Being in a deep relationship with God helped them to look through the surface and more clearly see the moral conditions of their world.  Maston also states that the prophets believed that if they were in a right relationship with God, then all of their other relationships would fall into place.  “If man understood the nature of God and were right in their relationship to Him, they would be right in their relations with one another” (38).

I see both of these ideals as being very applicable today.  It seems that if we were in a deep, rich relationship with Christ, we would be opened to new things and new ways of looking at our world; we would see things through Christ’s eyes.  We would be more concerned with pleasing Him than pleasing others around us.  The more we know God and his character, the more we know his will and desires for his children.  If we do not know him, we will only be working for the benefit of others and not out of love and obedience to God.  In addition, if Christ is the center of our lives, everything else should align.  If he is the center, then we view situations, issues, and people the way Christ views them: out of love.  As humans, it is not natural for us to unconditionally love.  If Christ is central, it makes the unconditional love more accessible and plausible.  And so, the Old Testament writings are still very applicable to our present time and culture.