23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
Romans 2: 23-24
It’s easy to make these devotional and memory pursuits about ourselves. I already told you that I’m particularly fond of the self help section in the bookstore (well, on Amazon, but you get my drift.) But like I wrote recently, our journey with Christ cannot be a strictly personal one. Our actions do not simply affect ourselves.
Look at verse 24 today. Paul is telling the Jews that they’re hypocrites. More than that, he’s saying that the gentiles recognize how hypocritical the jews are, and they blaspheme God because of it. The gentile don’t respect God, because they see that the Jews don’t respect God–and they’re the ones who claim to be God’s chosen people, so how can the gentile be expected to respect him?
Did you ever read what Ghandi said about Christianity?: “I love their Christ, but I hate their Christian.”
That’s the same situation as the Romans had, just centuries later. And we too can be in that boat. IF we call ourselves Christians, but non believers see us act like fools, and adulterers, and evildoers then they will hate our hypocrisy and hate our faith because of it. They could even hate our God because of it.
