Which are you choosing?
February 4, 2009 (Wednesday)
One of the Superbowl commercials that ran only in Texas (rejected by all the rest of the local T.V. stations throughout the country) promoted a dating service for married people. In other words, it promoted adultery as a trivial pursuit. Reading straight through the Bible finds me in Leviticus this week, a part of the Bible which takes adultery quite seriously. Levitical law demands the death penalty. Quite a difference between that ancient culture and our modern one, wouldn’t you say? By the way, the promoter of the dating service said he had received 147,000 calls –presumably all from Texas — by Monday afternoon in response to the commercial.
When I finally reach the New Testament in my Bible reading, I’m going to see Jesus being urged to approve the execution of an adulterous woman, but I’m going to see His mercy and grace at work as He forgives the woman and urges her to “sin no more.” Not only did he not condemn the woman as the crowd demanded, He asked them to search their own hearts and proceed with their stoning of the woman only if they found no sin within themselves. One by one, the angry men unclenched their hands and let the stones fall to the ground.
One of the most profound verses in the Bible is Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin of any and every kind always brings suffering to the one who sins and to every person whose life may also be affected. The wording of Romans 6:23 reveals to us that we are working for wages when we sin, and we can count on being paid. Eternal life, on the other hand, is not a wage — it is God’s gift to us. All of us have sinned in some way, and all of us can be saved by accepting God’s gift of salvation in Christ. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).