Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Thought Bomb


Ron Dart never ceases to amaze me with his observations that fly by most people and his ability to distill a thought to an easily understood concept. He can shift your perspective ever so slightly so you see things clearer and deeper than you ever thought you could. Here is a quote from "Whose New Covenant?"

So when God sends a prophet, it is not to tell us what good boys we all are. It is usually to tell us to straighten up and fly right. But there is another misconception about this. There is a viewpoint that says the Law of God is merely an arbitrary set of rules. God could just as easily have allowed us to commit adultery as to have forbidden it. Beyond that, He gave us a set of religious observances, and because we haven't maintained those religious observances, we have made God angry. The angry God is going to punish us because we have offended Him. Lest you think I am making this up, consider this. If you believe that Christ abolished the law, then you have to believe that the law was arbitrary and unnecessary in the first place. And therefore, God’s punishment is just as arbitrary.

Let me suggest an alternative for you to consider. Imagine for a moment that there is a fundamental standard of right and wrong conduct that grows out of the nature of man and man’s social interactions. Imagine that standard is expressed in the last six of the Ten Commandments and all the other laws that can be derived from these. Then, imagine that the first four commandments are given to be the guarantors of the last six.

In other words, the form of revealed worship of God keeps us mindful of our duties to God. And our duty to God guarantees our duty to our fellow man. This means that when we neglect our duty to God, our social fabric will eventually begin to unravel. And that is the time when God usually sends a prophet to tell us what we are doing wrong.


I highly recommend requesting the tape he is offering for insights you will not hear anywhere else. You will not be sorry.

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