Proverbs 15:3:
A while back I posted about how God is all seeing, similar to Santa, but yet not all judging. God makes an important distinction between measuring and condemning. He does see everything we do. He does measure whether it is good or evil. But he does not constantly dish out his favor accordingly. He he is righteous and merciful. Something Santa only dreams of being.
3 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.
A while back I posted about how God is all seeing, similar to Santa, but yet not all judging. God makes an important distinction between measuring and condemning. He does see everything we do. He does measure whether it is good or evil. But he does not constantly dish out his favor accordingly. He he is righteous and merciful. Something Santa only dreams of being.
5 comments:
Don't you find this a little elementary of a breakdown? Well, perhaps the text itself is a little elementary. I hate the idea that God is watching everything - total fear factor for believers.
My biggest issue is how you can so confidently claim in the same breath that he does not dish out his favor accordingly, but he is righteous and merciful. Um, you'll need more explanation.
How can someone who sees what is good and evil but chooses not to dish out accordingly be righteous? Where's the mercy for the good people doing good when evil happens upon them? Where's the righteousness when an evil person commits evil to a good person?
This is the issue, and you didn't address it.
I agree this explanation is simple. That is my purpose for this blog. Take small pieces of scripture and think through them. I certainly don't think the test itself is elementary. If there is a failure it is my own.
I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. It's not about fear. It's about freedom from fear.
He sees all good and evil and he does not dish out accordingly AND that is good. Very good. Because we aren't the good people doing good. We are the evil people doing evil. We don't want God handing out proper judgement. He want him pardoning us.
It sounds like from your blog you recently went through a pretty threatening experience. I'm sorry to hear that. I certainly don't want to be trite with scripture or with others' experiences.
I am not sure how you can call someone good or evil without judgment on your part (which I'm sure you try to refrain from doing). I will assume you are calling yourself evil.
I do not consider myself to be evil. I consider myself to be a good person who does good. Sure, there may be opportunities to be better, but I believe in justice and I think if I were to believe in a God, I'd want a god who handed out blessings to the good and curses to the evil. My mother in law is not evil, and she is battling cancer after living a life full of good and a complete lack of evil. The god I'd believe in would have more sound decisions.
The thought of a god is what I believe to be a comforting thought, oh he's looking out for me, when in reality, it's you and only you. If your god can't protect you, why even believe? Nice thoughts only go so far in a world where reality exists.
Sorry, I am not meaning this to be a personal attack. I'm just not believing the way you're describing and defending the text. It is entirely possible that my problem is with the text itself as I certainly do not believe that the Christian god is consistent in his words, actions or demands of his followers.
It sounds like we aren't disagreeing on the text, but the idea of god in general. And it's not surprising that the god we believe about ourselves impacts what we believe about the idea of god.
Yes, I believe I am evil (meaning I am selfish, inconsistent, and not who I want to be). That is consistent with what I understand the Bible to generally say about humans.
I don't really feel like convincing you your evil in a blog comments section. I guess I would just ask yourself if you ever hurt people (intentionally or unintentionally). I know my answer is yes.
You're right, you won't be able to convince me in a comments section of anything life-altering be it religion, god or good v. evil.
I'm not sure that I agree that one or two opportunities missed for being good constitute someone as evil. I don't think I'd even say you were evil, but if you want to believe it, I won't stop you.
Sometimes selfishness can be a good thing. But that's probably a conversation best led by Bryan. Shockingly, good and evil and all that jazz depends on what you believe. Thankfully, neither of us is murdering or abusing anyone, so I can safely say that neither you nor I is evil, from my perspective.
Post a Comment