Actscelerate.com

caseyleejones

Do you find it difficult at times separating the person from the behavior?

Acts-perienced Poster Posts: 11791 **5/9/19 11:13 am**

Local guy..kind of a notable in our area. I know him. Nice guy. People like him in the community for the most part. Attends a good church in our area and does an adult SS class that people oooo and ahhhhh over.......according to those who attend.

...however, the place where my wife works checks receipts on the way out due to a great amount of theft. Anyway, the guy was obnoxious and word spread of his obnoxiousness throughout business. I attempt to think if I was in that position that people would extend mercy and grace to me.....

shaunbwilson

Site Admin Posts: 3209 **5/9/19 11:50 am**

Yes. I have a hard time reading Karl Barth because I find it hard to separate his ability to parse theology from his inability to see his decades-long affair as sinful. If he was able to justify his behavior in light of what the Scripture teaches about adultry, then what other theology of his is flawed due to his personal desires?
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Cojak

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24275 **5/9/19 1:01 pm**

Strange this should come up. The wife and I were talking about this just yesterday. A friend just passed away. He was a leader in the local church and a business man. We were in the same business for a few years and he gave me a lot of advice, some good and some questionable.

His theory, business is business church is church. He took some of his merchandise thru the back door (so to speak). The origin of which was questionable. All cash, no receipts, and no question of where it came from.

Yes it bothered me. Shocked

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Dave Dorsey

[Insert Acts Pun Here] Posts: 13654 **5/9/19 2:53 pm**

Cojak

Re: Do you find it difficult at times separating the person from the behavior?

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24275 **5/9/19 8:29 pm**

Aaron Scott

There are two of us....

Hon. Dr. in Acts-celeratology Posts: 6032 **5/10/19 10:26 am**

There are inmates that serve in the Education Department at the prison. They are often the sort that, under other circumstances, would seem to be the type that one would enjoy having a cup of coffee with.

Then you find out what they're in for....

It's not the murderers or drug fiends/dealers or gang members that register so much on my radar, as it is the child molesters and the such.

And yet...you would never be able to detect that they were capable of such evil. There is no dead eyes, scowls, or the such. You would never know unless someone told you.

Christians can be like that too. They can absolutely wonderful men and women of tremendous and anointed talent...and then we find out the rest of the story.

Back in the day, there were lots of good evangelists, it seems. But while preaching ability was important, the integrity of the preacher was most important--especially to those Church of God folks whose holiness life was sincere. Preaching ability can take you a good ways, but eventually, since judgment begins at the House of the Lord, those who were not true-blue often crashed and burned due to moral failings, questionable behavior, etc.

Of course, some of these things happened to the very best of ministers. They simply had a moments of weakness (like Moses, I suppose), and it caused deep damage.

If our Christianity is only a "church thing," we have failed ourselves. The true Christian, I think, when made aware of these dichotomy, seeks forgiveness, changes his/her ways, does what they can do to walk uprightly.

But compartmentalization is apparently a real thing. Some folks who claim to be Christians will say and do things that just leave us shaking our heads.

perhaps most important. No doubt there were preachers who could preach circles around my dad, but I've never met anyone who exceeded his holy lifestyle--at home, on the road, in the pulpit, in the parsonage, etc.

Cojak

Re: There are two of us....

01000001 01100011 01110100 01110011 Posts: 24275 **5/10/19 3:38 pm**