It’s reported that a Priest in northern England during his Sunday sermon condoned shoplifting for people who are desperate…as long as they steal from a national chain, rather than a family owned business. The Rev Tim Jones says he doesn’t regret what he said from the pulpit, he just regrets that the media is focusing on the shoplifting and not on the underlying problem, i.e. homelessness and unemployment. This guy obviously needs to go back to the basics, like Ten Commandments 101…‘thou shalt not steal’. As a spiritual leader this Priest is held to a higher standard than others, but the truth is many of us are just as guilty of worming our way around Scripture. In attempting to justify our actions we deceive ourselves by creating loopholes in the Word.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Jesus invoked those who have ears to hear with them. Ezekiel 12:2 indicates that everyone has eyes to see and ears to hear. Most people simply abuse them. We’ve all heard about the sixth sense. The term is commonly used to mean some intuitive process, or even a portal of contact with the spiritual realm. In as much as Gabriel spoke to Daniel and Mary, Moses spoke with God, Ezekiel and John saw aspects of God upon His throne, Paul was swept into the third heaven, all God’s prophets received insight, and His Spirit mingles with ours, the sixth sense does include contact with the spiritual realm, sometimes consciously. But it is not entirely that, and not even greatly that. It more commonly extends from the intuitive processes to the mundane ponderings upon life‘s experienced facts. Everyone having thought and feeling has it, regardless of how deep into the spiritual realm it may or may not extend. And it is simply eyes and ears available for seeing and hearing.
-----Yet we do not ponder enough upon even the simple objects we see with our physical eyes. We see a chair and sense a sitting down. But there is also a nothingness to be sensed about the chair. It is made of complex molecules composed of simple atoms comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons having vastly more space between them than they have actual material. So much space is in your chair that if it were removed to leave only the actual material, then you would need a very powerful magnifying glass to see your chair. But there is no common utility in that sense, and much utility in the sense of something to sit upon. So that is how we sense the chair, and without a second thought, we sit. Other objects are much more abstract, like the corporation. There is great wonder and beauty in the corporate concept. I could write pages about folks around the world benefiting from its profits in their retirement and investment accounts, as well as about their opportunities to share in its direction through their votes. But I think you see the picture. Yet, today’s political climate does not see any utility in that sense. A dirty word like corporatism, which has less to do with the corporate concept and more to do with the vice of politics, is misconstrued to project guilt upon the corporate concept and judge all corporations to be worthy targets for thieves. Yet truly, eyes have not been used to see because personal alignment with precontrived ideologies has been chosen.
-----The Word of God is another highly abstract object seen with physical eyes, and too often misconstrued by the sixth sense. For we see too much utility in our own desires and not enough in the Word's simple truth. Error is overcome when we use our eyes to see its truth for the sifting of our desires through confession. It is confession which opens the gate for the blood to cleanse a path to the depths of our sixth sense where the Holy Spirit mingles with the lowly spirit. In a sense then, confession is a part of the corrective lenses and hearing aids for the eyes and the ears that see and hear.
Ponder carefully,
Steve Corey
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