Thursday, August 27, 2009

Suffering versus Punishing

Yesterday's Day by Day included these sentences by Luther:
At the same time suffer evil and injustice and yet punish evil and injustice. At the same time do not resist evil and yet do resist it. For in doing the one you look upon yourself and your own interests, and in doing the other you look upon your neighbor and his interests.



Wow. That should help clear up some things I've been trying to make sense of. I keep wondering how forgiveness fits with standing up against wrong-doing. If we wish to defend and protect our neighbor, we must resist evil. But we forgive those who sin against us.

(If only this "right-hand kingdom" and "left-hand kingdom" stuff were as easy to make sense of in real life as it is when you're discussing theology in a classroom.)

No comments:

Post a Comment