Enjoy Life, Enjoy God
BLASPHEMY
April 18, 2011
2000 years ago the church leaders were protecting the rightful authority of God against those who usurped what was rightfully God's, ergo, blasphemy.
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
--Mark 2:6,7 TNIV
Jesus heals the paralytic brought to him by his friends. But the issue quickly becomes more about blasphemy than about healing and compassion. The church leaders charge Jesus of blasphemy for he forgave the paralytic's sins. "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" They thought they were protecting God against blasphemy.
How times have changed! Today we live in a world where we tell God what God can do in our lives, what we'll believe and what we will not, what troubles us about God, and what does not. Now blasphemy is anything that is preposterous or unacceptable to us, such is our human-centered existence. Yet the truth is the definition of "blasphemy" has not changed. To usurp the place, the role, the authority of God, that's blasphemy. It's not about us, but about God. That's why we call JESUS Lord, and not ourselves, right?
Joyfully,
Dale Patterson