It’s Nothing New

The world is going to give its thoughts on everything. Especially on biblical things. It is our place, as Christians, to set the example on how others who are not believers view the New Testament teachings.

Here is what I have been trying to accomplish ever since I decided to become a Christian:
“In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you would want them to treat you.”
   -Jesus-

Now, Christianity is simple, but it’s hard. We have been given simple teachings, but it’s going to be hard to follow them. I feel this may be the hardest of all, to treat others the way you would want them to treat you. But Jesus said this himself.

Having said the basics, this is to be said: sin is sin. We have tons of lists in the Bible. I don’t need to give them to you, we both know what sin is. But we each have it. We each have sin.

I love when Jesus said this:
“He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

What’s so great about this story is that the woman was caught in her sin. Sin of adultery. Now we can take the story apart and pick at it. But what I want you to do, is to think of yourself as her. What if you were caught in your sin and the whole town, city, community, school, workplace found out what you deal with? How would you feel?

So, when that person is dealing with alcohol or pornography or homosexuality or fornication or whatever the sin may be, treat them the way you would want to be treated. Don’t throw them under the bus. Talk to them and show them you love them.

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man’s actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. For a long time I used to think this is silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life – namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, somewhere he can be cured and made human again. 
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity-