Cultural Values, Hopelessly Lost, Outward Morality, Quibbling Fault-Finder

5/19       Jonathan   (see HERE)

In response to the “sinful woman” who wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, Jesus said “…her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7)

Jesus was referring to the Pharisees who, in their self-righteousness, showed him little love or appreciation by comparison.

Those who have had the benefit of a religious upbringing and training, both back in Jesus’ day and today, often find it easy to lose perspective in a culture steeped in sin and corrupt worldly attitudes. We are all dealt a different hand when it comes to our moral upbringing, and we need to understand that “those to whom much is given, much is expected.” Many who suffer from a difficult and immoral upbringing and who feel hopelessly lost in their many sins and addictions find it comforting to know that “God knows the heart”. He sees what they have been up against, and they are grateful for any mercy they might receive.

In contrast, many who now benefit from solid moral guidance and discipline from childhood and who as a result are able to live outwardly positive and upright lives probably need to be more concerned that “God knows the heart.” He knows our sin despite our outwardly moral lives, and His standard of comparison is not the behavior of other people but His own holiness.

I had a short street outreach conversation with a young man named Jonathan, whose father is a chaplain, in which my main focus was on using God’s moral law as a standard of goodness. I usually try to do a lot more listening and discerning where people are at spiritually, but Jonathan had informed me upon my asking if I could record our conversation of both his religious upbringing and his five minute time limitation, so I decided to make this moral standard the focus pretty early on in the conversation. I used some of the 10 commandments as a sort of “good person test” in an effort to try and help Jonathan evaluate himself by God’s holy standard, rather than a worldly one based on other people.

As it turned out, Jonathan admitted to telling lies, but felt pretty innocent in other areas I asked about, like theft, hurtful words, anger and lust. How could I communicate the gravity of his sins of dishonesty without feeding into the myth that the Bible presents God as a quibbling fault-finder?

I felt that Jonathan had fallen into the trap of both trivializing God’s holiness, and trivializing the depth of his sins by comparison. James 2 tells us “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” If you break just one law you are, by definition, a lawbreaker. So were Adam and Eve, and the consequences were devastating.

If we ever start to believe our few sins aren’t such a big deal, we need only compare ourselves to the consequences of that one act of willful disobedience that brought about the Fall of Man and our alienation from God as a result. Ultimately, we need only to look to the cross to begin to fully grasp the seriousness of our sin, and the depth of God’s love and mercy. I hope Jonathan will return to that familiar story he heard growing up, and begin to show the appreciation shown by the woman of Luke 7.


Thanks, Jonathan, for allowing me to record our conersation!  It's found HERE.