At the heart of Paul's gospel is an idea that strikes a mortal blow against all human pretension and the human inclination to then divide the race between "those who deserve something" and "those who don't."
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| He read the Text with great care! |
It's called grace ... the love of God reaching out to those who cannot reach beyond themselves, their sorrows and their plight.
"None are righteous," says Paul, and therein he demolishes any and ever wall erected by pride of place or power.
In God's eyes, humanity is a pauper of soul, and only by divine largess, both in its initiating and in its sustaining, it is always and forever grace that enables life.
Hence, no one can claim a higher ground, either in the initial awakening, or in whatever good fortune, spiritual or material, may emerge.
Only God's Big Government is big enough to undertake the rebuilding of God's earth - devastated by greed and its demented cousin, War!
The Biblical Message of Grace is the ultimate Liberal Agenda, a Progressive ideal, and when embraced, can only generate the healthiest of all emotions: humility before life, especially if life has been favorable, and kindness toward one another, especially those for whom life has been less than favorable.
No wonder the Medieval Church didn't want people reading the Bible, and no wonder Evangelical Preachers chop it up into tiny little bits and pieces, and then rework it all to become a "personal message of salvation" (which it isn't) or a "Harvard Business Model for Success" (not even close). These are the forces arrayed against Grace, those they tout their own righteousness and speak easily of Jesus, as if they were all his political advisors.
Nevertheless ...
It's God's Big Government, intervening in the affairs of humankind, injecting massive amounts of spiritual wealth into the human system, that puts Humpty Dumpty together again.
And to God be the glory ...
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