Wednesday 25 September 2013

Love the Sinner . . . ?

How many times have we heard the saying "love the sinner, hate the sin"?

And often good people mean well when they say that.

Hmmm.  Tony Campolo points out that what Jesus taught us would really be more like "love the sinner, hate your own sin".

If you have any doubt about this, check out Matthew 7:3, where Jesus says "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?"

And if that isn't clear enough, in verse 5, Jesus says "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

That looks a lot like Tony's quote: "love the sinner, hate your own sin".

Expanding on what Tony says, might look like "love the sinner and hate your own judgmental attitude for looking at the sinner as 'the sinner'".

Something to think about next time we might be tempted to look at someone in a judging sort of way.

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