Rights – The Nexus

We all love talking about our rights. We like having our rights honored and respected. When something should be ours, we want that thing, whatever it happens to be. Not getting our rights recognized can lead to conflict. Big conflict. This happens out in the world, but it also happens in our own families. In this second part of our teaching series, Stormy Waters, we are talking about the conflict that can arise in families when different members feel like they aren’t getting what is theirs by right. Let’s look at how we can navigate these stormy waters with a look at how Abraham had to navigate his own family drama. Read on for more.

What’s Mine Should Be Mine

We hear a lot of talk about rights these days. Political candidates of various stripes assure us that if elected they will be tireless in their fight for our rights. People claim to have rights to all sorts of things. Sometimes the government itself tells us certain things are within our rights as citizens. Our Constitution was only ratified when it got paired with a Bill of Rights, a set of things the Founders declared were inherent to citizenship in this nation and which cannot be taken from us by any state actor. In the opening lines of our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson declared life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to be among a set of unalienable rights from our Creator that are common to all people everywhere. These are things we can claim as our own simply by virtue of being human.

Read the rest…

“But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” (ESV – Read the chapter)

When it came to the issue of eating or not eating meat that had been offered as a sacrifice to an idol, Paul’s position was that because idols were nothing, eating the meat was not in any way morally problematic in and of itself. In other words, the act was not sinful.

But…for some folks in the church, the idea of eating such meat was really problematic for them and for their conscience. Some Gentile background folks who had grown up as pagans and who were really into idolatry before following Jesus could not eat the meat without being tempted back into their old life. Similarly, many of the Jewish background believers couldn’t eat it without feeling like they were sinning against God by participating even indirectly in an act of idolatry. Read the rest…

Tag: Rights

What’s Mine Should Be Mine

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 8:9