Sunday, October 24, 2010
Avoiding the "Appearance" of Evil?
A great article on 1 Thessalonians 5:22--the verse commonly thought to say, "Abstain from the appearance of evil." I posted back on the other blog, but I thought it needed reposting. In short, Daniel B. Wallace argues that this verse does not say that we should abstain from the appearance of evil, but we should stay away from 1) false doctrine and 2) every kind of evil. If it is not inherently evil, then there is no biblical mandate to stay away from it. This does not mean that there might not be good reasons to avoid some acts (i.e. looking out for the weaker brother, etc.), but to just condemn an act because it appears to be evil is unjustified.
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It sounds to me like you are trying to rationalize your evil.
ReplyDeleteIn the words of the Tick [the animated one, not that compromised 'live' version], "Hey you evil-doers, knock off all that evil!"
That is an unfortunate misuse of scripture. You see, I make a distinction between what I call 'exegesis' and 'eisegesis'. Although, as long as you have 'gesis' [Jesus], it doesn't really matter what you do with the Bible.
Back to the matter at hand, it's funny that many examples of proof-texting involve taking whole sentences out of the context of the paragraphs, but this one is taking a dependent clause away from the clause on which it depends.
Incidentally, I think that maybe my name deserves to appear in the subtitle of this blog. I think it's safe to say that I am an integral part of it. "Leroy Lamar: Just Trying to Make Sense of it All, with constant comments by Spicher. [there is a subtle reference to Kierkegaard in that title, see if you get it].
Actually, you are the only person who reads this blog! So it should be titled, "Conversations between a black guy from Hotlanta and a honkah from the Big Apple."
ReplyDeleteI didn't catch the Kierkegaard reference at first, but it's his work on irony with constant reference to Socrates.