Six: justice, kindness, humility – part one.
Jon Arnold | March 4, 2009
I think we have a problem with obsession. As a culture in America, we have the time and discretionary money to obsess about whatever interests us. That’s why we have a thriving entertainment gossip industry (think TMZ), why the word “fansite” exists, why there are little tiny stores in the strip mall that sell random specialty things that don’t go out of business, and why there is an entire translation of the Bible in LOLcat (this is an obsession with LOLcat, not the Bible, I think). We can collect, study, and dissect the minutia of whatever we like – we’ve got that kind of time on our hands.
In the Church world, we obsess about sin. Sin is the subject of our programs, policies, and procedures. Identifying and confronting the sin in ourselves and others is our chief industry and most common consideration. We spend a lot of time talking about who is wrong in their beliefs and practices and making sure ours are not also wrong or sinful. We can study, dissect, and disseminate the minutia of sin. We’ve got that kind of time on our hands.
It’s almost like we think Jesus died to keep us in the sin business.
I don’t mean “the business of sinning.” I mean the study of sin. How to avoid all sin. How to show others they are sinful. I think I take issue with that obsession. If I understand what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, I think it was primarily His job to convict the world of sin and righteousness. I am not saying we should never say “that is wrong.” For sure Jesus teaches us to correct one another (provided we have first removed the plank in our own eye) But if that is all we spend our time on, we may just have missed the point of the cross.
There’s no good acronym for “justice, mercy, humility.” JKH wouldn’t look good on a t-shirt. But it’s what God wants. He lays it out in Micah 6:
What God Requires of Man
6With what shall I come to the LORD
And bow myself before the God on high?
Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,
With yearling calves?
7Does the LORD take delight in thousands of rams,
In ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8He has told you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God?
Put it this way – Jesus died for our sins so we could get back to the real reason we were created.
Do justice, love kindness,
And walk humbly with your God
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Oo me! I’ll be the reader! (“me” being April… the weird girl who haunted your house for a while. Hi! )
But dude… seriously? Jabberwocky doesn’t even phase that weird cat thing. I think you have a special gift for finding random things. And you use it well
I was so excited when I found this site a couple days ago! I saw the link on your Facebook page and now I can’t stop reading. I feel it’s a “productive” form of procrastination 
And I can’t believe you guys just had another baby girl! Congratulations!! Four girls… you’re totally in trouble, Jon! I hope all is going well and you guys aren’t too exhausted!
It’s so weird, I was just ranting about this yesterday (and I don’t really rant about this stuff anymore, so the timing is notable to me). This idea of “obsessing” is SO relevant. At least it is to me. I always just thought I went completely overboard with this stuff because I’m neurotic… I didn’t realize it applied to other people lol. Don’t you find that you obsess over both sides though? If, “It’s all about balance,” is the justification for some of the crazy extremes there are in the Bible, then there’s got to be a balance between the legalistic side and the all grace all the time side. And finding that balance was what I always ended up stuck in. It confuses me. Which admittedly isn’t hard to do!
Well hello there!
Yes, balance is the key – the more I learn, the more I find that the Bible is very balanced – it’s us who get obsessive, fixating on what we want to see or hear. If you take it as a whole, you can find helpful, applicable truths. But if you fixate on one detail, you get out of whack. Reminds me of a time I was trying to explain a doctrinal conept to someone and they kept wanting to only talka about what the exact words found in one single verse meant. I insisted that you have to consider context, history, original laguage, target audience, and the rest of the Bible to understand what is being said in that one verse. He said I was just bluffing because I didn’t really know what it meant. Maybe I was
. But you have to look at the whole mosaic to understand where the pieces fit.
Very good to hear from you – let me know if you’re ever around this way…