Slaves to what?

I’ve decided to start blogging again as a way to order my thoughts. I recently discovered twitter and while I heart twitter it makes it too easy for me to broadcast every erroneous thought that comes into my head. It’s been over a year since my last blog entry now but time to start up again and see if having an outlet for thoughts makes them more coherent and measured.

I’ve recently started meeting up with an older Christian guy once a week. It’s been most excellent so far. Our meetings are quite brief, generally I’ll tell him what’s been going on in my life and he’ll offer some advice and a Bible passage for me to read. This week the passage was Romans 6.

This passage centres on the idea that we are dead to sin and alive in Christ. I think this passage really taps into a particular rift that exists between Christian and non-Christian world views that being the idea of a ‘natural’ state of being.

I am not a scientist. And I don’t pretend to know anything profound about evolution but it is my understanding that as humans we want to survive and evolve and as such we are constantly pushing the boundaries of our understanding and pushing the human race forward. Part of this need to evolve is evidenced in our natural and innate urges: to eat, to sleep, to make friends, to have sex, to feel safe et cetera.

Romans 6 is a good reminder to me that there are two broad ways of reconciling what is a ‘normal’ or innate urge is. Romans 6 tells us that God is the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong for he created us. It is good to remember that there was a time before the fall when the natural human inclination was to have a loving and subordinate relationship with God.

As humans our natural inclination is often toward selfishness. Which is a shame. As a Christian our natural inclination should be toward selflessness and, moreover, Godliness. For if we are truly in Christ then we aught to crave what is good in His eyes.

 

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