The author begins his piece by observing, that "Jesus dined with prostitutes and far, far, far worse sinners." An interesting place to begin for a political commentary. Further in the article, the author asserts, "most denominations of Christianity teach that same-sex sexual activity is sinful." The article continues to get interesting when the author wraps up by concluding:
"Christian ministers are supposed to worship and emulate Jesus. Can anyone imagine Jesus telling taxpayers and prostitutes, let alone a gay soldier serving his or her country, to shut up and pretend?"
There was much more in this article referring to behavior of chaplains and Christian denominations, but like I said, I'd really like to examine the authors understanding of who Jesus was, and why He behaved the way He did.
The author is right in saying Jesus dined with sinners. He did do that multiple times. But, what the author fails to remember about those instances is that, though Jesus showed His love and forgiveness to the sinners he was with, He also requested they change their lives, stop sinning, and follow Him. When he defended the adulteress from stoning He told her "neither do I condemn you... Go now and leave your life of sin."(John 8) Furthermore, Jesus Himself declared, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."(Luke 5) Jesus also proclaimed Zacchaeus' salvation after he has given everything to the poor and paid back 4x as much of which he had defrauded people.(Luke 19)
Jesus doesn't hang out with sinners because He doesn't mind tolerating their sin, He does it because He loves them and wishes them to receive His gift of salvation. In Act 16 the prison guard asks Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved. Paul tells him to believe in Christ... but that believe isn't a passive thing. Belief in Jesus requires action, it requires repentance, it requires love, it requires humility. We all know the John 3:16 verse, That God loved man so much He died for him. That's fantastic. But, if we don't read further, we miss half the point.
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (John 3)The author of the article I read had the idea of Christ's love and grace down really well. But, please, please, please don't forget about the Truth: we stand to be punished for our sin if we don't accept Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Sinners loved being around Jesus because they felt loved. But, Jesus did not make sinners comfortable by never talking about sin. Yes, JESUS DIED TO BRING GRACE... but He had to because of our sin. It's like a paradox. A Grace and Truth Paradox. To wrap up, I'd like to recommend a book by Randy Alcorn by the title of "The Grace and Truth Paradox." It talks about this very thing. If you're a non-christian, 1. I'm glad you made it this far through my post, 2. If you'd like to know more about grace and truth, or would like to read Mr. Alcorn's book, contact me, I'll send you my own copy.
Blessings
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