📖 We don't pick and choose

I. There is no such thing as a small sin. We often think that because there are worse things we could do, this small thing does not really matter.

God is righteous and holy. Because he is loving, he is therefore opposed to all evil and wickedness, no matter how “small” we may justify it in our minds.

And we would not want God any other way.

He is a God of justice, which means everything we do matters. Every person we come across matters. Every action matters.

In the words of John Wesley,

“There is no little sin, because there is no little God to sin against.”

What a gift that a righteous God who takes sin so seriously offers us all the grace and forgiveness we need in Messiah Jesus.

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II. Some people argue that Christians simply pick and choose which Old Testament laws to obey. But this misunderstands how the Law is supposed to function today.

Some laws governed Israel’s sacrifices and purity system. Others governed Israel as a nation-state. With the coming of Christ and the expansion of God’s people beyond one nation, those covenant structures have been fulfilled.

Let me give you one specific example.

Leviticus 18:20 - (Moral command reflecting God’s unchanging design)
“You are not to have sexual intercourse with your neighbor’s wife, defiling yourself with her.”

Leviticus 20:10 - (Civil penalty given to Israel as a theocratic nation)
“If a man commits adultery with a married woman … both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.”

The moral command remains because God’s character does not change. But the civil penalty belonged to Israel’s covenant life as a nation-state and is not carried out by the church today, because the church is not a geopolitical nation with civil authority.

Christians are not dismissing parts of Scripture. Some laws were covenantal and civil, while the moral commands still endure.

Christ is not Jesus’ last name.

“Christ” means “Anointed One.” It is the Greek word for Messiah.

So when we say “Jesus Christ,” we are not giving his first and last name. We are saying Jesus is the Messiah, the promised and anointed one the Scriptures said would come.

Throughout the Old Testament, God promised a coming king from David’s line who would rule with justice, rescue his people, and establish an everlasting kingdom. The New Testament declares that Jesus is that promised Messiah.

Jesus is the Christ.

The Bible was written in three different languages.

Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. However, portions of Ezra 4:8 to 6:18 and 7:12 to 26, along with Daniel 2:4 to 7:28, were written in Aramaic, the common international language of the Near East during the exile.

The New Testament was written in Greek, specifically Koine Greek, the everyday language of the Roman world at the time.

So the Scriptures were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek over centuries, across cultures and continents, yet they tell one unified story leading to Jesus.

The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener

A book about how Christianity has so influenced our way of thinking that we don't even realize it. This book was engaging, readable, and easy to follow. The author lays out a number of ways how the world we live in is entirely shaped by Christian thought and the ethic of Jesus.

We all hold to a number of truths, whether we are Christian or not, that simply are not true if God does not exist (for example, human rights), and even though many may deny Jesus and Christianity, they are literally cutting off the limbs of the trees they are sitting on.

This book walks through how our views of compassion, justice, human rights, forgiveness, etc., are all shaped by Jesus, and how much of what we believe today is actually not self-evident and has not been believed by many cultures throughout human history.

At the same time, the book doesn't get bogged down in the weeds of many of these topics, but instead provides a nice overview of how things like progress, equality, and similar ideas are logically inconsistent apart from the Christian worldview.

Oh, and the "Dark Ages" were actually a time of great advancement in human history. Thanks to, you know, Christians. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.

8/10

P.S. I had a very productive day today…