Psalm 36
I feel like this Psalm is a microcosm for one of the great ailments of our current society. David feels the need to first talk about what he is against [human wickedness] before he can talk about what he is for [divine goodness]. I see the same thing happening in my cultural context over and over again, it seems like we can't talk about what we are for without shouting down what we are against. This is true about my wider culture, but it is also true about the church culture as well. I'd like to blame our current political landscape for infecting our discourse, but I'm not sure its their fault. The problem with laying the blame at their feet is that they have been acting this way for a long time and it seems that only recently have we jumped into the deep end and drank the koolaid of division.
Maybe its our own fault then, maybe we have decided that the best way to get our point across is to shout out those things that we are against. But I think we fail to see the logical conclusion of this abrasive way of communicating, which is that we will begin to be known by those things that we are against so much more than those things that we are for. You see this at work in poll after poll of how people view the church. Jesus tells his disciples that the world will know that they are his disciples because of their love, and yet 2000 odd years later love is not in the top ten of what people think of when they think of the church.
Paul shares the fruit of the spirit in Galatians: love, joy, peace, generosity, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and those fruit are very much not on display in the thoughts of those who think about the church. How have we come so far away from being for those good and right things? We need to refocus on what we are to be about as opposed to what we are against because we need to be having a better impact in our world then we currently have.
How have you seen the church be known for what it is against instead of what it is for?
How can we change the narrative back to how Jesus envisioned it?
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