All Posts Tagged With: "judging"

[Editor's note: I'm introducing a new feature on this blog. Each Saturday, I'll re-publish the blog post that I deem the "highlight of the week" — whether because it received the most hits, generated the most discussion or had the most impact on readers and/or on my personally. This week's "highlight" was a post written by Brian, one of my regular readers, that generated some interesting discussion and received quite a few hits. Brian had a lot to say about some recent posts between various blogs discussing Christians and hate. I invited him to share his thoughts on this matter here on this blog as a guest contributor. Here is his post again, originally published on Wednesday, December 10th. You can read the comments that original post generated here.]

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I was intrigued today by a rather verbose post regarding Christianity and hate. Rather than addressing the challenger’s post line by line, it seemed a good opportunity to address the concepts of Christianity and hate more generally. Something the poster seemingly wanted to do but didn’t seem to accomplish very effectively.

This is one of those topics that I think would apply to the idea that many Christians are not really ready for the “solid food” — milk is still much more palatable (1 Cor 3:2, Hebrews 5).

Is hate a part of Christianity or more pointedly, does God hate?  The old adage that most try to prove theologically is God hates the sin while he loves the sinner.  The question at hand is, is that entirely true?  While I am not sure I can agree with much of the challenger’s post, he seems to be trying to challenge the idea that hate is antagonistic to Christianity or God.

If one wants to be a mature, truth-seeking follower of God, one must be willing to open themselves up to uncomfortable subjects and be willing to consider them through the filter of God’s Word.  What often keeps Christians from maturing in their faith is that they know something to be theologically true whether they have invested the time to truly study the issue. This leads inevitably to prooftexting scriptures to find support for their already understood position.

So, at risk of alienating those who will not continue reading after stating this uncomfortable fact, I will state that God not only hates the sin, but there is scriptural evidence that he does indeed hate sinners as well.  I will offer my support for this in a moment but let me first state that only God is God and just because there is evidence that God’s divinity creates a strong enough disdain for conscious disobedience does not provide license to his followers to apply any form of judgment over His creation.

Let us start with the scripture that can be uncomfortable to many since it does demonstrate that God himself not only hates the sin itself but also the individual associated with the sin Continued

[Editor's note: Brian, one of my regular readers, had a lot to say about some recent posts between various blogs discussing Christians and hate. I invited him to share his thoughts on this matter here on this blog as a guest contributor.]

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I was intrigued today by a rather verbose post regarding Christianity and hate. Rather than addressing the challenger’s post line by line, it seemed a good opportunity to address the concepts of Christianity and hate more generally. Something the poster seemingly wanted to do but didn’t seem to accomplish very effectively.

This is one of those topics that I think would apply to the idea that many Christians are not really ready for the “solid food” — milk is still much more palatable (1 Cor 3:2, Hebrews 5).

Is hate a part of Christianity or more pointedly, does God hate?  The old adage that most try to prove theologically is God hates the sin while he loves the sinner.  The question at hand is, is that entirely true?  While I am not sure I can agree with much of the challenger’s post, he seems to be trying to challenge the idea that hate is antagonistic to Christianity or God.

If one wants to be a mature, truth-seeking follower of God, one must be willing to open themselves up to uncomfortable subjects and be willing to consider them through the filter of God’s Word.  What often keeps Christians from maturing in their faith is that they know something to be theologically true whether they have invested the time to truly study the issue. This leads inevitably to prooftexting scriptures to find support for their already understood position.

So, at risk of alienating those who will not continue reading after stating this uncomfortable fact, I will state that God not only hates the sin, but there is scriptural evidence that he does indeed hate sinners as well.  I will offer my support for this in a moment but let me first state that only God is God and just because there is evidence that God’s divinity creates a strong enough disdain for conscious disobedience does not provide license to his followers to apply any form of judgment over His creation.

Let us start with the scripture that can be uncomfortable to many since it does demonstrate that God himself not only hates the sin itself but also the individual associated with the sin Continued

Okie blogger Dr. Bruce Prescott takes issue with an essay by Cal Thomas posted by Baptist Press, in which Thomas writes:

Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and Man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called “false prophets.”

Dr. Prescott counters:

Somebody needs to tell Cal Thomas and Baptist Press that Barak Obama is running for President, not prophet. … Someone also needs to remind Cal Thomas and the editors at Baptist Press to reread Matthew 7:1-5 and Matthew 7:15-27.

… Constitutionally, there’s no religious test for holding public office in this country. Obama’s running for President, not pastor or prophet.

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It would seem to me that Cal Thomas and like-minded others are usurping the role of the ultimate Judge. I wouldn’t think that is the wisest position to be put oneself in. Fortunately for me and for Barack Obama, there is only One opinion that really matters.

P.S. Talking about “false prophets,” wouldn’t usurping the role of the ultimate Judge make that person a “false judge”?