I was running last night and thinking about the weekend to come, and what would happen if I said precisely what was in my head. Particularly about marriage, or training young people, or elder-ship in the church.

I would eat alone. Which never worries me that much: a long weekend is coming and the boys are studying. I intend to have a couple of days basically alone. And cheering on a local team at the South Island nationals.

Because we have an aversion to plain speech. We have a need to make things fit our feelings. We twist scripture, and call ourselves righteous. When we should love the truth, and hate euphemism and prevarication.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.

(2 Corinthians 4:1-12 ESV)

You have to expect dirty tricks. You have to expect obscure exegesis being presented as true. You have to expect that you are going to considered a hater, and if you don’t hate, then hatred will be planted upon you. We now have a classification of dirty tricks the most recent of which happened to Brother Aaron, and the McCain calls a moby.

Such people want to shut us down by calling us evil by quoting evil they have planted.

If it walks like a moby and talks like a moby, it’s probably a moby, and if you don’t know what a moby is, you should learn.

moby
An insidious and specialized type of left-wing troll who visits blogs and impersonates a conservative for the purpose of either spreading false rumors intended to sow dissension among conservative voters, or who purposely posts inflammatory and offensive comments for the purpose of discrediting the blog in question.
The term is derived from the name of the liberal musician Moby, who famously suggested in February of 2004 that left-wing activists engage in this type of subterfuge: “For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you’re an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, ‘What’s all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?’”

Was the commenter “TS77RP1? such a troll? I strongly suspect it. Having seen firsthand the insidious deceptions that the online Left is willing to employ, this would be par for the course. This doesn’t rule out the possibility Dictator Dad is real, but I’m extremely skeptical

Christ is pretty blunt in his teaching. He did not pretend to be polite: he saw demands for respect as teaching moments, and called the elite of his days vipers. He corrected errors in the temple with a whip,

He knew that the truth hurt, but that it was the only way to life. And the truth is that in a world of justice we would need not a Judge Dredd but a jailer, for we would all be damned. Forget Adam for a moment. We have all sinned, and all are below the glory for which we are created. A fair amount of the troubles we carry in our bodies and psyche are due to our own actions.
Left alone, we create our own hells.

It took the work of Christ to save us. Let us not get tired of saying this. Let us not get tired of discussing the lectionary. And let us not pretend that our human traditions are error free.

It is our job to preach. By our lives. Using words if needed. Today, let us do our duty.