Six things the Lord hates. For us as Christians, those certainly sound like things we should know. And that we shouldn’t do. Add the fact that the passage I’m talking about is written by Solomon and we now it’s going to be deep. Not just six isolated things, but six things that are very much embedded in our day-to-day lives. But even this brief description doesn’t tell us just how important these things are.
Rule over the earth: COP26, how climate change impacts people. In part 2 of this series, we switch focus to how climate change impacts people. Yes, it does affect the planet. However, as we saw, the crowning achievement of God’s creation was man. Further, we say that God’s command to us was to care for His creation. Not to do whatever we wanted with it regardless of consequences. Rather, to care for it as part of His plan for us. And as we saw, we’re failing miserably.
Rule over the earth: COP26, climate change, lies and money. Given that COP26 just ended, let’s not forget that either. Not that much, if anything has changed. Sadly, it’s little more than time to say that old adage, the more things change, the more they stay the same. In other words, the more the climate changes, the more entrenched the most powerful world leaders become. Therefore, the more rule over the earth comes to mean destroy the earth.
What do you do if your neighbor is homeless? Do you think that can’t happen? Maybe that it could happen, but you know how to “fix” that problem? Or do you believe you’d be OK if that happened? Depending on where you live, it already has happened. In that case, what did you do / what are you doing about it? And why am I asking?
Since this is about looking at ourselves, let’s look in the mirror and ask the person we see there, Do you want to be immortal? To be honest, if it’s about being immortal in this word, the way it is and where it seems to be going, saying yes is very hard. I think most of us know there’s something wrong with this world. And we want something better, even though we don’t seem to be able to do anything to keep it from getting even worse.
Here’s a headline from Christianity Today: A Year After the Election, Trump’s Effect on Evangelical Churches Lingers. The subtitle says: Political tensions in the pews have calmed, and another survey shows leaders’ Trump support yielded more positives than negatives for evangelicals. That’s all well and good for the feelings of the individuals from a political point of view. However, is it good for spreading the Word of God? You know, for fulfilling things like the Great Commission?
Did Judas return the thirty pieces of silver to Jewish leaders? Well, yes. Sort of. But it’s more a question of did the Jewish leaders accept the thirty pieces of silver? More so, what did they do with the silver Judas tried to return? And of course, why do these seemingly minor detailed questions even matter?
Was Judas present for the Last Supper? This isn’t meant to be a trick question, but it might turn into one. So, I’ll give you a hint. The Last Supper was an event that tied together the Passover ceremony of the Old Testament with Communion in the New Testament. One was the Old Covenant. The other was the New Covenant. So, the question is really about whether Judas was present for that event. The Passover celebration. And, as it turns out, what we could call the first Communion.
Even a lot of non-Christians know about Judas. He’s the guy who betrayed Jesus. An act that led to Jesus’ crucifixion. Something that had to happen. The crucifixion, that is. Without it, there’s no payment for our sins, no salvation, no resurrection, and no eternity in Heaven. So it’s all a really big deal.
But how much do we Christians really know about the events surrounding Judas’ death? And why does it even matter if we know or not?
Christianity Today just asked a really interesting question – Was the U.S. never really a Christian country, or was US Christianity corrupted by politics? If you’ve read much of my stuff, you likely realize I say that with our entanglement of religion and government, we’ve never been a truly Christian country. It’s just not possible when we mix politics and religion. Given my own stance, it will be interesting to see what CT has to say on this question.
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