Penny and Pound ~ A Response

Greetings Dear Reader,

I hope you realize how highly I value your responses.  Elisabeth sent me a response to yesterday’s post that I felt deserved to be shared with you Dear Reader.   She posted the address to a simple passage from the first letter to Timothy from the Apostle Paul.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, uncooperative, slanderous, degenerate, brutal, hateful of what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.  They will hold to an outward form of godliness but deny its power. Stay away from such people.

Please know that I do not intend to launch on a tirade about the last days or point a finger at anyone.  I find this passage fits greatly with the idea of a world with malleable ethics.  I could spend an entire series just pondering the meaning of each term in relation to the current state of both our national and world culture.

More important is that we realize when we see this behavior in the world we should not be surprised.  We should also assure that if we are following Christ we avoid these things.  Most interesting is that the list begins with people loving themselves.  These does not mean self-worth.  It means that people put their desires over what it right and the common welfare.

I would say that both sides of the coin do that to a great extent.  How often do we see an individual put his or her “rights” or will above the common good?  We I am not being prophetic.  I am merely commenting on what I see in the world.

I must see this list as something to avoid.  I must assure that I am not boastful, arrogant, hateful.  I must love the Father rather than what makes me feel good.  It is in being faithful to the opposite of these things that I find myself following Christ more closely.  Thank you Elisabeth.

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn

Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

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