Discussion about this post

User's avatar
A. A. Kostas's avatar

This was very very good to read Ross. It gets to the heart of a lot of what I find lacking across many denominations I have attended or visited. There can be no expectation of discipleship if we are utterly incapable of doing anything except sinning and confessing in a vicious cycle, waiting for Jesus to come back and justify us because we called upon His name.

We know in our hearts it's true that we are called to keep attempting to live as Jesus commanded, to reach towards completion/perfection (despite our failings), to allow each time we succeed in pleasing God's heart and each time we fail be a way for our capacity to forgive and be forgiven (or love and be loved) be expanded or deepened. There is a scurrilous cowardice in the way churches teach (implicitly and explicitly) that we are all sinners and there's no hope in trying to follow Jesus perfectly/purely.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to write and share this clarifying essay.

Expand full comment
Sid Davis's avatar

Great stuff.

The modern man only has faith in his own internal experience. Anything outside of what he sees or feels is viewed as illusory. The modern man doesn't really believe in friendship as an external reality, but only as an internal experience. The same is true for love, glory, honor, beauty, goodness etc. Even in the evangelical world, this has become the norm. Which is why the fruit of the spirit - "love, joy, peace, longsuffering" etc. - are so often talked about as internal experiences rather than realities that exist between us. Forgiveness requires faith in a reality outside of my own internal experience. Thus why the modern man manages relationships in all sorts of complex ways, while never truly forgiving.

Expand full comment
15 more comments...

No posts