In our free store conversation on Wednesday morning Carlos led us in another fascinating and fun discussion of a passage in Galatians 4. Although before we got started we had a bit of fun at Sheila's expense when a rather unpleasant sound came from her direction. She immediately blamed it on the chair which got us all laughing and it took a while for us to settle down enough to resume the discussion.
Carlos started the conversation with the observation that the Apostle Paul was mad at his friends because they were reverting to behaviors that were not consistent with their freedom in Christ. Sheila thought that freedom was a very good thing. We also found it refreshing to see such a human side of such a "holy man." We talked a bit about the importance of being completely honest about ourselves and our lives and not putting so much importance on our image or appearance. This led Sheila to share a bit about her experience of being homeless a couple years ago. She talked about how it was something you could never really understand unless you have gone through it. She told us about watching someone eat a hamburger and not being able to get one for herself and how helpless she felt.
Carlos observed how it was very common for people to try to gain God's and other people's approval through the things they do. We talked about the different kinds of things that people think are required to get right with God, like tithing, or going to church, or getting baptized, or believing a certain set of doctrines. But none of those things get to the heart of what really matters about life. We also talked about how all of those actions can be performed without the need for faith at all. One of our friends brought up the example of how we will often promise to do things for God if God will do certain things for us. George said he prayed like that many times when he was in prison.
Someone said that since every person reflects the image of God that when we do harm to ourselves or others we are actually hurting God. It is an amazing thing to recognize that each person is an extension of the divine being. One of our friends talked about a Christian group that goes to the funerals of gay military personnel and condemns them to hell for their homosexuality. He said that he thought this was showing disrespect for God.
As our discussion moved to a conclusion someone asked the question, "Why are people so attracted to religious groups that focus on the rules?" Someone suggested that maybe it is easier to focus on specific rules rather than embrace some vague thing like love as a guide for our actions. Carlos thought it was an excellent question and hoped we could talk more about it in future conversations.
2 comments:
Sounds like a very interesting discussion, life includes rules from childhood up, whether its our parents, school systems, churches, work places - rules govern our lives, rules define right / wrong. No one ever told me that if I don't follow rules I wouldn't be loved but how many of us have felt the "rath" of breaking a rule? If society didn't have rules where would we be? Do we follow the rules because of our love for life, the persons in our lives? Do we follow the rules because of our love?
Thanks for joining the conversation. We did talk a bit in our discussion about how love motivates us to do many of the behaviors aimed at by the rules. Please keep reading along and sharing your thoughts with us. Also, we like to know the names of our friends as far as possible. :-)
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