This passage makes my head hurt. It is important for many reasons — at a time when the secularists are increasing, anti christian rhetoric is so common to be unremarkable, and many doubt and wish to fall away… we forget that Christianity is supposed to be about truth, joy and life.

We instead buy into the tactics of Saul Alinsky, who said that you should make your enemies live up to their standards. This, for any Christian, is impossible, for we all are unable to meet God;s standards. this world is fallen and evil sticks to us.

The emphasis in reformed theology that we are only saved by grace as a huge risk of hypocrisy. We can claim to be of Christ and do evil. However, it is in doing Christ;s work and believing what he says that we grow.

And that is measured in love, not law.

1 John 5:1-12

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. ²By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. ⁵Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

⁶This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. ⁷There are three that testify: ⁸the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. ⁹If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. ¹⁰Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. ¹¹And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

We can so easily get distracted here. As to how many sacraments there are, or the status of Mary. (One of the things I like about Reformed theology is that it strips things back to a fair minimum. But in doing so, it removes a whole pile of glosses that give great comfort to some faithful, particularly our Catholic friends. )

For many years my ex-wife accused me of being catholic. I would fail, seek forgiveness, and then fail again. She forgot that firstly (as good Presbyterians) we believe in the universal or catholic church, and that all people fail. Repeatedly. Often in the same areas.

By the grace that is not ours we do good, we manage to help others, despite this. We manage to love, but not perfectly — indeed the only people who may approach perfect love are the religious in their adoration of God, and (if you read their writings) you realise just how aware they are of their failings and imperfections

So we should not let secular people make us legalistic and joyless. Nor should we let them make us have no standards, nor attempt obedience. because the latter is what God wants — obedience. He does not ask for perfection, for none could attain that. And to make a way for us to meet him, given that we cannot be perfect in his site, he sent Christ to atone for us.

Christ has risen, and he will come again, but at present his church is made up of humans, and we are all flawed. We should therefore expect that we cannot keep the standards of our accusers — who look for a perfection higher than Christ, who they called a drunkard and an associate with scum.

The reply therefore to the alinskyite logic is simple. We have some standards, and are honest about them. You have no standards and thus not spine. You demand the virtues of duty, courage and obedience, and deny the logical methods that allow a man to do this and the disciplines of faith and practice that train a man in doing his duty.  You are not an example. Your argument is invalid, and will be therefore ignored.

Ir as they say in the forums…. don’t feed the trolls.