Obedience to God?

[Paradigm]

Question for debate: If Jesus says to you "Friend, do what you came to do" should you obey?

[Choir Loft]

Question for debate: If Jesus says to you "Friend, do what you came to do" should you obey?

Ah, the forest of hypotheticals one has to traverse to arrive at an answer. It's like the textual version of a man walking across a bed of hot coals.

The question sets up the listener to do what he already wanted to do. What if Jesus said "no, don't do it"? What then?

The question also assumes a direct conversation with the Lord. What if that isn't taking place? What if the listener isn't listening to Jesus at all, but some tissue of a lie - a TV preacher for instance? What then?

The question at hand isn't about a Judas type motivation. If you want to do a thing bad enough, why ask permission?

The other side of the coin, all thirty of them, implies a two way conversation and a real desire to know Jesus' answer no matter what one's personal motivations are. That's the hard part.

Unfortunately a lot of people rely on someone else to interpret God's word to them. They therefore abdicate their spiritual responsibility to God and themselves out of laziness or convenience. The answer they arrive at may be initially satisfying, but in the long run could be foolish if not dangerous. Even worse, it leaves Jesus out of the conversation altogether.

[Paradigm]

The question sets up the listener to do what he already wanted to do. What if Jesus said "no, don't do it"? What then?

Excellent question. Perhaps Judas would have turned to the Roman Soldiers and said. "He isn't here. Let's check the inn." Perhaps he would have repented and apologized to Jesus and tried to stop to Soldiers from taking Him. Perhaps he would have done nothing different at all. I guess we'll never know.

If Judas had continued to betray Jesus after Jesus had said "No, don't do it" though, it would have clearly been an act of disobedience. Since what Jesus actually said was encouragement to continue though, it was by all appearances an act of obedience.

The question also assumes a direct conversation with the Lord. What if that isn't taking place? What if the listener isn't listening to Jesus at all, but some tissue of a lie - a TV preacher for instance? What then?

The question at hand isn't about a Judas type motivation. If you want to do a thing bad enough, why ask permission?

The other side of the coin, all thirty of them, implies a two way conversation and a real desire to know Jesus' answer no matter what one's personal motivations are. That's the hard part.

Unfortunately a lot of people rely on someone else to interpret God's word to them. They therefore abdicate their spiritual responsibility to God and themselves out of laziness or convenience. The answer they arrive at may be initially satisfying, but in the long run could be foolish if not dangerous. Even worse, it leaves Jesus out of the conversation altogether.

I once had a conversation with a girl about our respective beliefs. When pressed for details about her beliefs, she told me I really should talk to her pastor instead. I told her I wasn't interested in what her pastor believed, I was interested in what she believed. She informed me that whatever her pastor believed was what she believed. Since she had outsourced her belief system to somebody else, she apparently didn't even know what that belief system was.