Intuitively we are thinking things. Not only are we thinking things, we are right beings. What I mean is we want to be right, to live right. Right or wrong, we all have our definitions of right and wrong.
Of course we all want to live in the right, even if we have to justify our version of right, even if our version of right is simply a lighter shade of a dark wrong.
We know right and wrong quite naturally. It’s innate. Didn’t Eve and then Adam eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Something deep within our fallen nature now knows right and wrong.
I was at a men’s fellowship and the leader was going on about normal men’s sins, or at least sins that we think only men do. He kept railing about the sin, of course making every man feel terribly shamed for ever doing it, ever. Finally some man questioned the leader about his own personal sins. He said proudly, “Oh I sin, just not that sin!”
We even develop ideas about what wrongs are more right to commit than other wrongs.
Unfortunately, the New Testament doesn’t play by those rules.
The real question in the New Testament centers around the flesh and the Spirit. One of the best Passages for this is Paul’s teachings in Romans 7-8. Don’t read chapter 7 without chapter 8.
I know it sounds elementary, but over the years I’ve been shocked by the amount of “mature” Christians who don’t play by the NT rules.
They are modern day Pharisees, living by endless lists of right or wrong.
Chris August
Truth is Still True
To listen on YouTube CLICK
Needless to say, the men’s leader mentioned above was like a Pharisee. With a highly developed sense of right, and a grading system for wrong, he fell prey to pride. Paul would say the men’s leader was operating in the flesh rather than walking in the Spirit.
According to the NT the question about whether it’s right or wrong is generally the wrong question.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In