One of the unpardonable sins in our culture today is telling someone they’re unqualified—that they don’t meet the standard necessary for participation in a given activity, employment in a specific field, or identification with an individual group. To tell someone that they can’t be or do whatever they want is actually considered by some to be an act of aggression and evidence of hatred. The problem is that we know intuitively (and certainly biblically) that carte blanche affirmation is unsustainable and, in many cases, incredibly unloving. Jesus, as he continues in his famous Sermon, tells an entire nation that they’ve missed the mark and that they don’t qualify. And just as his message wasn’t politically correct in the 1st-Century, so we’re going to be reminded that it’s the same today: That salvation and godliness are built atop a divisive reality, but that the declaration of that reality is not at all hateful but immeasurably loving.
Key Passage: Matthew 5:17–48
Speaker: Josiah Boyd
