So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
Interpretation
This quote discusses the moral differences in indulging in sexual pleasures versus materialism, highlighting societal perceptions of both actions.
David Platt draws a comparison between two types of indulgence: one in sexual pleasures, which is often stigmatized within the church, and the other in material possessions, which is more accepted despite both actions being contrary to biblical teachings. He suggests that the core issue lies not in the morality of the act itself, but in how society deems one acceptable and the other taboo, thus prompting a deeper reflection on genuine moral values and societal norms.
In practice
Discussing moral values during a church sermon.
The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark
What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Somewhere along the way we have subtly and tragically taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location.
Become the director, producer, choreographer of your own story
It was not the volume of sin that sent Christ to the cross; it was the fact of sin.
You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.
You knew all along that your sanctioned world was only half the world, and you tried to suppress the other half the same way the priests and teachers do. You won't succeed. No one succeeds in this once he has begun to think.
Black is real sensation, even if it is produced by entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of all sensations.
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
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