you are probably sick of all these posts lately, but man...i just can't help but do it. i read so much good stuff. God is working mightily within me...convicting me, mostly... like with this little diddy from good ol' Piper, from a sermon preached back on april 8, 1984:
Evasive Irrationality
Now watch the universal reflex of a person trying to avoid conviction. She has to admit in v. 19 that Jesus has extraordinary insight ("You're a prophet!"), but instead of dealing with her guilt, she tries to suck Jesus into an academic controversy: "O, so you're a prophet, well, where do you stand on the issue of where people ought to worship?" Verse 20: "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you [Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." A trapped animal will chew his own leg off. A trapped sinner will mangle his own mind and rip up the rules of logic and discourse. "Why, yes, as long as we're speaking about my five husbands and my adultery, what is your stance on the issue of where people should worship?" Brothers and sisters, that kind of double-talk and evasive, verbal footwork is very common. And texts like this incline me to think that wherever I hear it, someone is hiding something. If your conscience is clean, reason can hold sway; if it's not, you will be instinctively irrational.
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I do that. when i get all irrational in arguments. when i get annoyed that someone has brought up a good point, i try to sway the conversation because i don't want them to see my weakness on the point. thank you john, for bringing this truth to my mind. thanks to God the Father, who allowed my heart to be open to this. who didn't let me try to sway from the conviction of the Spirit.
-joe
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