Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, July 15, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
The plot thickens. What makes these false prophets even more condemnable is the fact that at one point they knew the truth, and were even on the right path, but at some point made a conscious decision to turn away from it and pursue their own agenda. In other words, spewing negativity about God from a place of ignorance of who God is and who we are in relationship to God is forgivable. Knowing the truth and deliberately twisting it for your own ends is not. (Well, okay, everything is forgivable—that’s what God does. That’s who God is. But you get what I’m saying.)
Of course I can’t pretend to know everything about God and what God wants. But I know enough to be aware of when I am tempted to turn away from what I know to be true simply because it doesn’t suit my ambitions in the moment. I might sometimes still act out of genuine ignorance, and that’s okay, as long as I can own it when it’s called out. But I have to be honest about when I might be deliberately forgetting to avoid discomfort or accountability.
Have I said or done something I regretted out of genuine ignorance? Have I deliberately ‘forgotten’ what I know in order to justify a wrong action? In either case, how did I rectify the situation?
