Sunday, July 19, 2015

Second Commandment - Repost

I have neglected my duty.  There are really very few things I provide here that you couldn't get a hundred other places. But the reminder that the Second Commandment, not taking the Lord's name in vain, has nothing to do with bad language and swearing oaths, is one of the things you won't find elsewhere.  The intent is to prevent people from putting God's signature under their ideas.  That is what taking the Lord's name in vain means.  If you recall your OT, the Revelation, and Jesus's harshest words for blind guides and false teachers, you will see that this is what torques Him off. And so, Reflections on the Second Commandment, from 2011 and 2006. I should be on this more often, as it is a lesson that is sorely needed on FB.

This comes up because I have had several recent incidents of liberal nonbelievers making political comments with the implied backing of Jesus.  These usually take the form of "those evil hypocritical conservatives are always shoving Jesus at us, but they don't follow his most basic teachings, which are Not to Judge (homosexuals and transexuals), Heal the Sick (via gov't health insurance), and Feed the Poor (again, gov't as preferred method.)  I had neglected in my previous writing how commonly nonChristians will do this.

So today it's liberals, but conservatives are very frequently guilty of this as well - just not on my current feed. That seems to occur more from politicians, and with indirect language. We all should be paranoid about claiming that God endorses our POV. It's apparently one of the worst sins we can commit.

3 comments:

Sam L. said...

God's on OUR side (well, we sure do hope so). I've heard that according to the Westboro Baptist Church, God hates fags. I have this recollection the admonishment is to hate the sin, love the sinner.

Grim said...

That's an interesting insight, AVI. I had never thought of it that way.

jaed said...

There are also a number of strictures and warnings against false prophets... which I see as basically the same thing. "Thus saith the Lord" is not semantically equivalent to "I demand that you all to do this", although we'd really, really like it to be.