Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Corinthians 6:9-10  (New International Version 2011)

⁹ Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men ¹⁰ nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

There must be something wrong with this list of sins. I mean, someone must have made a mistake when creating the list.

The list includes the obvious, horrible sins:

• sexually immoral
• idolaters
• adulterers
• men who have sex with men
• thieves
• drunkards

But really, why are these in the list?

greedy – isn’t greed good, isn’t that what drives the economy?

slanderers – why, that’s just saying something that is sort of bad about someone else, we all do that, right?

swindlers – that is a harsh translation, it is really talking about good business people, those who are able to sell $1 worth of goods for $5 and drive the economy

They put fill-in-the-blank-with-a-little-sin right next to fill-in-the-blank-with-a-big-sin. That must be wrong.

This is all subjective – on our part. From God’s perspective, it isn’t so subjective. Note – everything in the list hurts someone. God advises us to avoid things that hurt people. If we are hurting people, we are not loving them, and God wants us to love one another.

Funny how so much of this adult stuff goes right back to what we were told as small children in Sunday School – love one another.