Happy days are here again!
I finished my last exam this morning - New Testament - and it was great. What a way to go out - the questions were really nice, and this time they actually covered stuff I had studied.
And two of the questions - on the so-called Colossian heresy, and the portrayal of Jesus in the book of Hebrews - basically just involved talking about the supremacy of Christ. It's nice when you get edifying topics like that in an exam. According to Don Carson, the basic message of Hebrews is that "Jesus is better". He is better than prophets, angels, Moses, Joshua, and Aaron. He is a better mediator of a better covenant which has better promises. He serves at a better tabernacle having made a better sacrifice for sins.
Jesus is, like, so way totally better.
If you an American, and disagree with anything I say here, please feel free to respond with your criticisms...
Dory at the Wittenberg Gate has written an entertaining conversation concerning showing receipts to shop assistants. She says that the dialogue is an amalgam of conversations she has had "at several local stores at an alarmingly growing rate of frequency". Basically, her point is that, under the Fourth Amendment, the demand to see a receipt consititutes an illegal search.
Now, all this sounds very righteous, but is it Christian?
When writing to a group of people that included at least some who were teetering on the brink of apostasy, the writer to the Hebrews was able to commend them on the fact that they allowed - no, rejoiced in - the plundering of their goods (Hebrews 10:34). Ought not we to have the same attitude? Ought not we to be willing to give up our rights??
At the risk of gross over-simplification, I wonder if this attitude is indicative of much that is wrong with American Christianity. Too often American Christians seem enamoured with a rugged individualism that has no basis in Scripture. I fear that they worry too much about their constitutional rights. I'm even led to believe that there are some professing Christians in the US who refuse to pay income tax.
This is not the way of Christ. If anything, Matthew 5:41 suggests that we should pay twice as much tax as required. When illegally asked to see our receipts, we should show them our driver's licenses as well...
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