6/3/14 John see video about 65
What
is the central problem of humanity according to the Bible? In a coffee shop conversation I asked John, a
retired professor of medieval studies, who happened to stop at the coffee shop
on his way to a vespers service at a nearby monastery. I was especially interested in his answer
because I wondered how one could understand the people and culture of the Middle
Ages without understanding their basic orientation toward God and the
Bible? Because of the influence of the
Catholic Church and it’s teachings on purgatory and writings like Dante’s
“Inferno”, many people wrongly associate the Church of the Middle Ages as the
source of teachings about God’s wrath and the condemnation of man. But it goes back a lot further than the Middle
Ages, all the way back to the fall of man into rebellion and the curse of
Genesis 3, and much of the horrible imagery of hell that comes from Jesus
himself. But when I asked John, he
really didn’t identify our estrangement from God as being the basic problem of
humanity, which until only the last century or two has been the basic and clear
understanding of most people and cultures with a biblical or Christian
influence. How we are to get back into a
right relationship with God has been the source of a lot of confusion and
manipulation, and has led to hypocrisy and disillusionment as the emphasis has
been on the works of man rather than the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Unless we come to terms with the basic
biblical foundation that we as sinners are under God’s wrath, we can never find
out way back to a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus. I didn’t have time to talk with John about
all this before his vespers service, but just a reminder of the biblical
foundation of our condemnation, hard as it is to talk about, might have been a
help for a man who seems to be searching for God without even realizing that he
has been lost.
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