Jesus and Temptation
I've recently finished Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. It is a very good read.
The theme of the transformation journal this week is Jesus and Temptation. Here are a couple of quotes from Blue Like Jazz on how we get tempted to turn our back on God.
"If you believe something, passionately, people will follow you. People hardly care what you believe, as long as you believe something. If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don't, some clue to the meaning of the universe. Passion is tricky, though, because it can point to nothing as easily as it points to something."
"Here is the trick... Satan, who I believe exists as much as I believe Jesus exists, wants us to believe meaningless things for meaningless reasons. Can you imagine if Christians actually believed that God was trying to rescue us from the pit of our own self-addition? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood over half the world was living in poverty? Do you think they would change the way they live, the products they purchase, and the politicians they elect? If we believed the right things, the true things, there wouldn't be very many problems on earth."
posted by SonHarvest Kids @ 6:21 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I once delivered a chapel talk entitled "In praise of apathy." It explored, initially, the good things that can result from the dispassionate use of reason. But apathy falters when it becomes the fundamental axiom of life, as it was for the ancient Stoics. St. Paul saw this and, while he borrowed a great deal from the Stoics, he clearly was a man of passionate faith.
Yet he was also, clearly, a man of giant intellect, committed to the use of his reason in the service of his faith. The temptation of many, if not most, Christians today is to live as though faith and reason are divorced. If this is true, then American Christians might not do very much if they understood -- rationally -- that over half the world lives in poverty. Their thoughts and passions, the latter the chief motivators to actions, are out of touch with one another.
My own temptation, over the years, has been to reduce faith to its rational articulation. This is as inhibiting to the actions of love as the divorce of reason and faith. I have been challenged to change, especially by developing world Christians. I'm a slow learner but a much more willing one in my latter years. TGW
"Can you imagine what Americans would do if they understood over half the world was living in poverty?"
I guess the key word in this question is "understand"? I find it pretty hard to imagine that Americans, with real time access to gobs of data, have no clue.
Now I do imagine that many Americans think that they have less than what they need. A short walk in someone else's shoes (say in Honduras?) might cure that notion.
I also imagine that many Americans imagine themselves, individually and collectively, to be more generous than they really are.
I wonder if American Christians especially struggle with these two disconnects?
If so, is it rationalization, apathy? If so, whose?
I have seen a lot of interest and enthusiasm brewing lately for mission at PLC. Is that the result of renewed emphasis within on transformation, renewal, relationship-building, bible study, prayer, discipleship? I think so.
Without leadership, would we have been stuck where we were, rather than changing as I write this?
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