So, you know how I was rambling on about the song City on Our Knees, and how I hoped it was about evangelism and the such? Well, I just found a quick youtube clip of Toby explaining what the song was about. Great, I thought, now I'll know. So I watched it, and, though I know now what it's about, I don't think it's as great as I once did.
The song, says Toby, is about Unity. The moment when we lay aside our differences and we all come together, blah blah blah. What? Why are saints and sinners coming together, and what's their common ground? I'm not trying to be too critical here, but the whole point of sinners is that they're not saved yet. I, Toby, am saved. I, Toby, don't exactly have the ability to lay aside my differences--I'm saved and that's that. I, Toby, should be coming and sharing the gospel with them. We, Toby, are not going to a city with One King with said sinners if those sinners didn't get saved. We, Toby, are the light of the world, and if we can't differentiate between sinners and saints, than we need brighter lightbulbs.
And honestly, I'm not trying to sound like a grouch here, but the difference between me and my lost neighbour is that I have Jesus Christ living in my heart, and he doesn't (yet). That difference shouldn't prevent us from talking (and it certainly shouldn't prevent me from evangelizing, especially since my flesh seems to get in the way of that on its own enough as it is), but it certainly does prevent my neighbour and I from coming together in a unified, fellowshippy way. Sorry, Toby, you tried, and you missed.
3 comments:
See, I'm not sure I saw this one the same way as you did at all. Like, in mtg, we know that we're saints. But I think probably a lot of the rest of Christendom reads the word "saints" in the same way worldly people do if that makes sense. It's seen as a state that's unattainable to most of us--something reserved for the Mother Teresas of the world--the kind of people who become "saints" Catholic-style.
So I thought of it as "Sinners and the saints" like all of us who feel we've failed our God--which I'm sorry, but that includes me a lot of times--and the people who look like they've done everything right. I thought it was kind of a "sinner saved by grace," kind of sinner. I just read it more as like when all Christians--whether they were missionaries to aids orphans in Africa their entire adult lives, or whether they were the sin-liest of sinners saved on deathbeds, having only moments to live for Christ--when all of us from whatever degrees of Christian-walk-success fully realize the love we've been given in Him and His value to us--and I saw the "moment" he was talking about as when He comes for His own. I don't know, apparently a completely different interpretation! :) But I definitely see where you're coming from.
Oh, and I like your new background, haha. The end.
Ooh, good point. I like. I guess I just latched onto the NT/Paul definition of saint--every believer. But... I guess I see what you mean. I just was so sad that the song wasn't about evangelizing. =)
Post a Comment