As I was about to compose a comment on a student encouraging them to not only hold strong the conviction that all of our views of God need be derived from the Scripture but that they should not allow their unanswered questions in class to stay there and to pursue them beyond the walls of their academic institution, when all of a sudden I remembered a question that I've had buzzing around in my head for way too long.
"Where was it that God told us exactly what the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah really was?" I recall reading it once and remember that it wasn't necessarily homosexuality. A quick search brought up the following:
"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it." Ezekiel 16:49-50
How fascinating that while the "abomination" aspect is what we tend to focus on today, the list of sins Sodom endulged in sounds way too much like our contemporary Western culture:
PRIDE
EXCESS OF FOOD
PROSPEROUS EASE
NOT AIDING THE POOR AND NEEDY
Maybe economic turmoil can be used as a wake up call of conviction of some sorts.
Comments (3)
amen mr. nate.
Glad that you are pleased, Nate. Keep your updates coming for they are great reminders to keep you in our prayers in quite specific ways. Godspeed in you ministry below the border.
Nathan:
Don't know if you saw this or not, but I posted this quote on my blog few months ago:
What is called a high standard of living consists, in considerable measure, in arrangements for avoiding muscular energy, for increasing sensual pleasure and enhancing caloric intake above any conceivable nutritional requirement.”
( John Kenneth Galbraith in The Affluent Society)
I'm afraid it's horribly accurate, isn't it? How did we get here?