Our culture today likes to think that they're breaking barriers. Don't limit people to heterosexual; let (one of the stupidest phrases I can imagine) "love be love." (Stupid because without a clear definition of "love" -- like we have today -- you're enabling all sorts of evil, like pedophilia, bestiality, marrying your pillow ... on and on.) Or, how about how we're throwing off the old (rational, scientific, as-old-as-human-existence) "boys are boys and girls are girls" and substituting ... everything and nothing at all? Or those racial barriers, which we're tearing down by erecting new ones where the white people (all of them without exception) are the bad guys -- just another barrier. Now, if you pay attention, you might begin to see that Jesus was all about breaking barriers, too.
Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matt 5:43-44). Now, that is a barrier broken. Jesus said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave" (Matt 20:25-27). Wow! Talk about tearing down a barrier! Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 18:3). Bang! Another barrier falls! In fact, Jesus said He came to "give His life as a ransom for many" (Matt 20:28). Jesus came to bring down the barriers between a holy God and sinful Man. Seriously, He took down lots of barriers ... more than we realized He could.
So, Jesus was about tearing down barriers, right? Well, sort of. He was also in favor of erecting them. He said, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). That's a significant barrier. He told Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). Cannot see it? Huge barrier. Jesus ripped down the false judgment of the Pharisees when He said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone" followed immediately by erecting a new barrier by telling her, "Go and sin no more." (John 8:7, 11). So, in fact, Jesus was in the practice of knocking down barriers, but not for the sake of barriers. He was busy redirecting false thinking to true thinking, of removing lies and substituting truth. He tore down walls keeping people from what was actually true and erected walls to block people from the lies they embraced. Unlike our culture, which is busily tearing down walls that were intended to keep us safe and erecting walls to keep us from the truth. So ... not the same thing.
1 comment:
I've heard of an old analogy from a theologian, if you come to the remnants of a fence, you should first ask yourself what was the purpose of that fence before you go completely ripping it out. Jesus is a prime example of breaking man-made barriers, but keeping the God imposed ones in place. My question for the progressives, when do we arrive? They're pushing down barriers without regard for why those barriers are there. Some barriers are bad for us, like the ones the Pharisees put up, but others are good for us, like the 10 Commandments.
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