Buying Used Cars
is moral living relative? or is there a book, an enormous red book with gold letters stamped on the cover, that lines out every scenario one might amble up against? i am finding my life is becoming more unmoral by my childhood standards. as i grow i am becoming more a relativist, basing my actions on scripture, feelings, and the past.
there is a passage in 1 peter 2 which speaks of being careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. i am becoming more and more convinced when we are called to live carefully we can’t just live as moral examples. a postmodern mind will consider your lifestyle a wash since morals have become dismissible. if we aspire to reach our world we must live as socially minded people. so when our neighbors accuse us of wrong due to a slip up of one of our straight laced morals; they will see us in prisons, soup kitchens, setting up schools, adopting, empowering, crossing racial barriers, buying used cars, etc. and recognize we are trying to live as foreigners and give honor to God.
posted by jay baehr @ 9/21/2005
5 thoughts
5 Comments:
I think you're on to something there: I think avoiding trouble is not totally the right idea when we speak of living clean lives in front of our neighbor. I think we need to move to action and get our hands dirty in serving others. To be an example is to do the work of Jesus; the work of Jesus was being out in the community, loving those the impure that everyone else ignored, and taking chances by who he associated with. Simply avoiding the "wrong crowd" misses the point.
Good blog...
Sorry, my grammar is awful there.
I don't have any kids, but I was listening to a Focus on the Family program. And I was struck by how often they encourages kids to have 'good' (morally speaking) friends. And I know kids are impressionable but it must have some influence on how walled to others one might become. Again I don't have kids so I might be way off.
Jay - more good thots. I have often said it is not enough for my neighbors to see what I do NOT do. I may blow chances to share Christ by "bad behavior" but just abstaining is not enough. I call it proactive, positive holiness.
It is not just what we do NOT do. Let your light shine seems to speak of being out in a dark world & ... well, shining.
And concerning kids & their friends - tough balance! We can over-shleter them , for sure. It is about knowing your kid...
the biggest issue with the Kingdom that i see is when people who claim to be following Jesus have dreams for their lives that are no different than the dreams of people who are not following Jesus.
too many American Christians have sold out to the American Dream and, therefore, are living lives that do not reflect the servant heart of Jesus.
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