Just Thinking Out Loud

I was just mulling this over the other day. In Romans Paul writes, "As it is written, 'None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.'" (Rom 3:10-12). And no small number of Christians say, "Well, we know that isn't true." (I use the term "Christian" there even though some are simply self-professed Christians, but I know genuine Christians who balk at the claim as well.) "We know that's not true because lots of people seek for God. We know that's true because there are a lot of good people." So some embrace Scripture ... selectively. Some stuff they agree with and some they don't.

A lot of these people tend toward the "red letter" view. "Much of Scripture," in their view, "is up for debate, but we can trust the words of Jesus." So they classify themselves as "Jesus followers" because they believe they follow His words. Oddly enough, they do so while ignoring them. It wasn't Paul who said those things; he was quoting the Old Testament. And Paul wasn't the first New Testament speaker to voice it. That would be Jesus. Jesus, speaking in red letters, said, "No one is good except God alone" (Luke 18:19). Exactly the same thing Paul said. I haven't heard anyone say, "Well, we know that isn't true" regarding Jesus's words. Yet, if they discard Paul, they discard Jesus, too. Jesus said, "You do not believe because you are not among My sheep" (John 10:26), carefully and clearly placing "among My sheep" before "believe." Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless it is granted him by the Father" (John 6:65). You say people seek for God? Jesus says they can't -- "no one can." And those "red letter" types embrace Jesus's words ... selectively.

In taking the "high ground" ("We only accept the words of Jesus"), these people ignore the Word that was God (John 1:1), making themselves out to be the ultimate arbiter of truth when Jesus said, "I am ... the Truth" (John 14:6). They conflate their own perspectives and standards to be God's views and standards and reject out of hand the things God says if He disagrees with them. Not quite the "high ground" they were aiming for ... unless we're talking about the Old Testament "high places" (e.g., 1 Kings 3:2–3) where idols were worshiped.