Sunday, July 25, 2010

Righteousness and Wickedness

Dr. Bruce Waltke was the guest speaker in my church's Sunday service today, and his sermon was on Proverbs 1:1-7. He explained that in the book of Proverbs, righteousness means to disadvantage yourself in order to advantage others. Wickedness means to advantage yourself by disadvantaging others. He gave this illustration. Let's say he wants his students to write a research paper that requires the use of an out-of-print book. The library only has one copy of that book. A wicked student would borrow out that book, write the research paper, and try to get an A. He doesn't care that the other students won't get A's. A righteous student would be concerned about whether the other students get access to that book and get A's.

Another example of wickedness would be to not clean up after yourself. Still another example would be to cut in ahead of others when driving in a traffic jam.

Secular society tells us that in order to get ahead, we need to advantage ourselves in all the ways that we can. The Bible teaches us to do the opposite. In fact, the cross is ultimate example of this, where Jesus disadvantaged Himself by dying on the cross in order to advantage us sinners, so that we who believe may have eternal life in His name.

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