Did you mean: sin
Results for "sin"
Show all BWellcome's bookmarks
Luke 7:36-50
Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman
36Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. The dignity with which Jesus views this woman is ironic, given her humble, “undignified” posture before him and given the way that Simon the Pharisee views the woman. It’s a powerful picture of the principal that Jesus teaches in his little parable of the forgiven debts. While, on one level, it can be said that Simon’s “debt” is ultimately the same as the woman’s and that his self-righteousness blinds him from seeing it, I think there’s also something else going on here.
There are reputations involved. Simon is a respectable Pharisee, whom everyone looks up to due to his high position in Jewish society. The woman is looked down on, due to public knowledge of her lifestyle as “sinful.” So from the vantage point of that social value system or economy, the distance that the woman’s reputation has to travel to gain respectability is far greater than that of Simon.
HOWEVER, in forgiving the woman’s “debt,” Jesus also removes her from that social economy of respectability and reputation and places her in different economy altogether. An economy not based on the currency of reputation, respectability and outward religiosity, but rather on faith, forgiveness, and relationship with Himself – a system known in other parts of Jesus’ teaching as the Kingdom of God.
Bookmarked 11 months ago.
Luke 5:31-32
31Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
31Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
It’s not so much that everyone else, the Pharisees in particular, aren’t spiritually sick, but that they don’t recognize their sickness. They are seen, by both society and by themselves, as "spiritually together." The Pharisees seemed to presuppose that any good teacher would eat and socialize with “non-sinners” and those who were socially acceptable (versus tax collectors, who were probably Jewish, but working for the Roman government). I suppose this kind of self-righteousness is just as rampant today in the established Christian community as it was then for the Pharisees and committed followers of Judaism. After all, it is a tendency of human nature to find significance and fulfillment in condescension and self-aggrandizement. And yet, available to every Christ-follower is the power to embrace humility - to die to themselves, abandon their comfort zones, step out of their Christian subculture, and genuinely befriend those around them who are not socially acceptable or "religious." All the while remembering their own "sickness" without Jesus.
Bookmarked about 1 year ago.
Luke 5:17-26
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
17One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick. With this event, there’s almost a sub-plot developing between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. Just looking at the beginning and end of the story, it’s simply a matter of a) Jesus responding to the remarkable faith of a paralyzed man and his friends by healing him and b) the people responding to the miracle with praise and awe to God. Sandwiched in the middle, however, is Jesus’ little interaction with the religious leaders.
One almost gets the sense that Jesus is actually looking at the Pharisees when he forgives the man’s sins and it obviously rubs them the wrong way. It’s clear from v. 24 that Jesus’ intention is to connect his power to heal with his power to forgive sins. However, it seems that the Pharisees, being the theologians, are the most tuned in to this side of the issue (though it’s there for anyone to pick up on.) Jesus recognizes this, so it almost becomes an underhanded message to the religious leaders about who he is. The way Luke tells the story, Jesus is indirectly communicating his deity to these religious leaders. Not only is God the only one with the power to forgive sins, as the Pharisees acknowledge, he’s also the only one with the power to heal a paralytic on the spot, which the Pharisees struggle to grapple with.
Of course, it’s easy to say “Your sins are forgiven.” People can write him off as a crazy heretic, since there can be no evidence that he’s actually done something about their sin problem. BUT, if he says, “Get up and walk” and it works, it provides evidence that points to his ability to forgive sins, which there is otherwise no immediate evidence for.
With that said, human paralysis and other physical sickness and dysfunction is a result of sin anyway. If Jesus can take care of that more temporary consequence of sin, maybe he has the ability to address the sin issue as a whole!
Bookmarked about 1 year ago.
![[?]](http://assets0.ebible.com/images/help.gif?1196274805 "Learn more about RSS feeds")