{"id":7109,"date":"2015-11-13T00:05:15","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T08:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7109"},"modified":"2015-11-12T14:03:51","modified_gmt":"2015-11-12T22:03:51","slug":"divided-loyalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/11\/13\/divided-loyalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Divided Loyalties"},"content":{"rendered":"

No worker can serve two bosses:<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll either hate the first and love the second<\/p>\n

Or adore the first and despise the second.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou can\u2019t serve both God and the Bank.<\/p>\n

\tWhen the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them: \u201cYou are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what\u2019s behind the appearance.<\/p>\n

What society sees and calls monumental,
\nGod sees through and calls monstrous.
\nGod\u2019s Law and the Prophets climaxed in John;
\nNow it\u2019s all kingdom of God\u2014the glad news
\nand compelling invitation to every man and woman.
\nThe sky will disintegrate and the earth dissolve
\nbefore a single letter of God\u2019s Law wears out.
\nUsing the legalities of divorce
\nas a cover for lust is adultery;
\nUsing the legalities of marriage
\nas a cover for lust is adultery. (Luke 16:13-18)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tYou can do all the right things, follow all the rules, and still be wrong. The religious leaders in Israel were concerned that they always did the right thing. Not because they wanted to be right, so much as they wanted to protect themselves and their reputations. <\/p>\n

\tSo they consistently missed the point of the law, which is something that escapes the notice of all legalists everywhere. Legalists like the Pharisees were really only concerned with figuring out how not to get into trouble for whatever it is they did.<\/p>\n

\tJesus pointed out that this attitude arose from a divided loyalty. To illustrate the problem, he used as an example how they treated their wives. The religious leaders knew that adultery was forbidden and that adultery meant having sex with a woman they weren\u2019t married to. But what if they wanted to have sex with a woman other than their wives? They found a way. They would divorce their current wife and then marry the other woman. When they tired of the other woman, simply repeated the process. They could then have sex with whomever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and they never broke the law. The religious leaders were very good at making the law work for them. <\/p>\n

\tAnd that was the problem: it was all about them. They didn\u2019t love God. They didn\u2019t love other people. They were misusing the law for their own selfish purposes. Their loyalties were divided.<\/p>\n

\tWho do you serve? God or yourself? You can\u2019t do both.<\/p>\n

Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No worker can serve two bosses: He\u2019ll either hate the first and love the second Or adore the first and despise the second. You can\u2019t serve both God and the Bank. When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard him say … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7109"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7111,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7109\/revisions\/7111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}