righteousness

How then can a man be righteous before God? — Job 25:4Job’s three friends are searching for Job’s sin but cannot find it. This is their last attempt. Bildad says in essence: "You cannot be righteous because no one can be righteous." Job must be dirty. Yet when God described Job to Satan, He called Job "blameless" and "upright."Many Christians seem to take up Bildad’s search for sin in every believer. You must be dirty. And if I turn you upside down and shake you long enough, sin will fall out of your pockets.But how does God describe us? "Becoming…

Further reflections from the academic dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon."And who is my neighbor?" an expert of the law asks in fury, annoyed with Jesus’ message and behavior that frustrates every notion of conventional "righteousness" (Luke 10:29). Jesus embarks on one of his breathtaking stories about a man, a "righteous" man, apparently the hero of the narrative, suddenly transformed into the "enemy," replaced by a new hero, a Samaritan, an "unrighteous" man. New Testament scholars have pointed out that in this story, the man called to love his enemy is not the Samaritan, but actually the…