Stress Test Devotional April 27
April 27, 2024
MATTHEW 23
We rightly worry in our flawed human justice system about penalties imposed but undeserved. Yet I wonder about why modern sensibilities seem so aghast at Jesus’ teaching about hell. Is it a secret worry that God will be unjust? Is it connected to our strange obsession with being “nonjudgemental” as if the suspension or moral reason was a moral virtue? We should never write people off, of course, or use criticism to elevate ourselves by denigrating others. Yesterday’s scripture emphasized this. But God is the source of all life and all moral reality. Only he has the capacity to understand the inner workings of every human soul.
Do we really want a universe where love ignores injustice and violence and exploitation? A God who accepted all this would be like a bad parent that blithely allowed one child to terrorize another, without consequence.
Read Jesus’ criticism of exploitive leaders in Matthew 23 and notice the references to punishment in verses 15 and 23.
FAMILY TIME— What are the purposes of family discipline? Reform? Safety? Protection? Obedience?
