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Apologetics

Acceptance, Repentance: subject/object relationships

If you put
love-before-worth jmm
into Google you’ll read three of my most controversial sermons!

 

Excerpts:

~~
From a wedding homily at
http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/33687.htm  :

    2. ACCEPTANCE.

This is the basic idea in the Christian concept of ‘grace’. I am loved by God before I change, before I ‘deserve’ to be loved. This love-before-worth is to characterize our relationships as well. Indeed, people grow and change more profoundly once they are accepted as they are.

So in marriage, don’t impose a program of change on the other: accept him or her as they are, and they’ll be more likely to change anyway. Every culture has a proverb which says something to the effect that ‘the sun does not command the bud to become a flower, but simply provides a climate of warmth so that the flower can become the beautiful creature it was meant to be.’

The Bible text for us here is Romans 15:7: ‘Accept one another for the glory of God, as Christ has accepted you.’

~~

Interviewer: That word ‘love’…

Jesus:  Oh yes, your English language is impoverished isn’t it? I mean ‘love-before-worth’ not ‘love-responding-to-worth’ or ‘love-me-to-meet-my-needs.’ The most tragic thing in life is not to know you’re unconditionally loved.

(I) Your Bible condemns homosexuality doesn’t it?

# No.

(I) No?

Excerpt from Homosexuality: An Interview with Jesus

More here…  http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/12135.htm

~~

Love-before-worth

The Pharisees and other religious leaders in Jesus’ day didn’t understand that. (They still don’t). Some of them taught, for example, that Gentiles were created to be fuel for the fires of hell. They defined people in terms of their sinfulness or their otherness. To the woman caught in the act of adultery Jesus first said ‘I do not condemn you’ before ‘Go and sin no more’. Even the early church fathers couldn’t understand that, which is why the story went missing from many manuscripts between 140 and 400 AD!

At a prayer breakfast in Melbourne a year or two ago I offered a little prayer which included the line: ‘Lord, thank you for loving us before we change, as we change, after we change, and whether we change or not.’ The emails I received were astonishing. Many experienced Christians had never thought of God like that!

http://www.jmm.org.au/articles/1298.htm
Rowland Croucher

28 September 2014

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