Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Stripper VS The Pharisee

VS 


  After I posted that particular blog message I realized that perhaps I may not have been clear.  In my brevity (and in the case of a 2 year old constantly wanting my attention) I may have been too brief.

  Let me be clear.  I am not suggesting we all jump into a flood of dissipation.  However, let me highlight some things so that my point may be fully understood.

  I am trying to demonstrate the inate repugnance of the pharisee.  Many of you may have been around religious people and something in you just recoils from them.  Perhaps you tolerate it, good manners after all. Or perhaps you don't, because you are more honest in who you are than most of us.  I truly believe this repugnance is god given, we do not wish to be around pharisees.  Inately we understand there is a deep seated hypocrisy in them.  This is why I call them spiritual vampires.  Jesus was much less polite in how he termed them.  This is what he said;

Matthew 23:15
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (NIV)

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are going about the sea and the dry land to make one proselyte, and whenever he may be becoming one, you are making him more than double a son of Gehenna than you are.(CLNT)


  How would you like to be called a child of destruction?  That IS in essence what these pharisees are.  They are leading people into destruction, out of their overweening religious pride.  The whole of Matthew 23 is a real doozy, if you ever needed a list of "How to identify a pharisee" that's a good one.

  Like I said, sex is like holy water to a vampire, as it is to a pharisee.  The Christian religious world is so hung up on sex.  The greater issues, like, lust for power, selfish ambition, abandonment of the family (too much time out there converting more sons of destruction I suspect), and learning to correctly cut the word of truth are far more important than something that is naturally god given.  Yes, I said that.  Sex is natural and god given.  Christians can be so dysfunctional about sex.

  Here are two other sexy points I'm going to make.

  The pharisees like to heap up tons of laws regarding sexual relations.  Like that really ever works.  

Matthew 23:1-4
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. (NIV)

More Rules only bring an increased desire to break them.

Romans 7:9-11
 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

Recognizing this, Paul the Apostle of grace gave the gentiles very few "laws" to stick to..

Acts 21:25
25 As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”(NIV)

Whoops!  The translators got that last word wrong... let's correct that;

25 Now concerning those of the nations who have believed, we write an epistle, deciding they are to guard themselves from idol sacrifice, besides from blood also, and what is strangled, and from prostitution." (CLNT)

Wasn't that sneaky?  Let's just change a word here, and we can have a whole grab bag of sexual sins to heap on our Churches.  Disgusting.  I have seen more people twisted into unnatural and perverse human beings by the twisting of the scriptures to guilt them regarding the very natural expression of humanity that God has given us.

One last one... this is the atom bomb for Pharisees.  You gotta love Paul, he's my hero;

Romans 2:1
1 Wherefore, defenseless are you, O man! everyone who is judging, for in what you are judging another, you are condemning yourself, for you who are judging are committing the same things. (CLNT)

The whole of Romans 2 completely blasts pharisees apart, honestly.  Hell, all of Romans completely blasts pharisees apart.  It's a love letter to the gentiles regarding the extreme grace of God.  And until we choose to live in that grace, rather than the laws the pharisees shame and guilt us with; we will never be free and we will NEVER truly understand how wide, and deep, and broad the love of God is.

Peace be with you,

Travis Penner

PS. I really DO suggest you go see strippers instead of going to church.  It's much better to admire God's beautiful creation than it is to watch a bunch of self righteous men congratulate themselves on their own hypocrisy.  They even have good food!

PPS. I've had to edit this as I'm not sure why some of the verses got whited out.  I've corrected this.  It's not great but it works for the time being til I get a better grasp of this blog editor.