Tag: 1 Peter 2:12

Digging in Deeper: Proverbs 13:6

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“Righteousness guards people of integrity, but wickedness undermines the sinner.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Graduation season is always an interesting time. The primary reason for this is that it gives us the chance to reflect on the parting words given to graduates by a whole variety of speakers. Every one of these invited guests is there to tell his or her audience the things they presumably need to know in order to experience success in life as they move on to their next chapter. Sometimes the advice is good and wise; sometimes less so. Sometimes the advice is fairly generic and bland, while other times it can generate reactions in the broader culture that are a bit…livelier. The graduation speech given by Harrison Butker, the superstar kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs seems to have fallen into this latter category. Let’s explore what he actually had to say, some of the ways the culture has reacted to it, and see what we can do with it.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Peter 2:12

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“Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In the wake of 9/11 there arose a whole new generation of atheists. And while their arguments were not new at all, their boldness, their rhetorical cleverness, and their energetic hostility toward all religion and Christianity in particular put a pretty new dress and an attractive layer of makeup on an old model. And, thanks to the horrible actions taken by a handful of radical Muslim terrorists, they had plenty of ammunition for their argument that religion was the biggest problem facing the world. It is deeply ironic, of course, that most of them spent most of their time making their arguments from the comfort and relative safety of Western nations with a tradition of freedom of expression that that has only ever existed in cultures created and shaped by the very Christian worldview they loved to lampoon and not in places like, say, Iran where their comments could have easily gotten them arrested and killed, but we’ll leave that alone for now. Their hatred and ridicule has inspired a whole new generation of young atheists (who aren’t so young anymore…) who relish poking holes in the faith of their Christian friends and family members. The movement’s cultural power has largely faded in recent years, but every now and then one of the surviving original leaders of the movement will say something that makes a bit of a splash. Well, Richard Dawkins, the man who was always the leading highlight of the group recently said something in an interview that has gotten everyone talking again. But this time, instead of attacking Christianity, he was claiming it. Let’s talk some today about what he said and why it matters.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 Peter 2:12

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“Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There are some actions for which there is a broad moral consensus regarding their rightness or wrongness. Everyone knows these things are wrong. With but a few exceptions, they’ve always known it. The trouble is, we want what we want, and we don’t much like people getting in the way of what we want. The reason this idea is trouble (beyond all of the obvious ones) is that sometimes what we want and things everyone knows are wrong come into conflict with each other. We don’t mean for these conflicts to happen. But they do. When they happen, we have a choice to make. We can change what we want. But we want what we want, so that’s probably not the first choice we’re going to make. The other option is to redefine this thing we know is wrong in such a way that we somehow excuse our doing it in order to get what we want. This option is often preferable to us in the moment (because it lets us have what we want), but it makes a whole lot of other things a whole lot more complicated because living in a fantasy world requires constant effort to keep the walls up. Well, 49 years ago, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Roe v Wade that effectively forced our entire nation down this second path and made things a whole lot more complicated. Then, last week, with the Dobbs decision, the same institution set us back on the right path. What do we do now?

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