“Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.’[1] Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:33,34).
I ate my Cheerios this morning to the beat of an old Bob Dylan song. (Carolyn was listening to Dylan’s album, “Slow Train Coming.”)
When you gonna wake up; when you gonna wake up;
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
“Good words for us,” Carolyn said.
Counterfeited philosophies have polluted all your thoughts;
Karl Marx has got you by the throat…
Karl Marx has got you by the throat…
When you gonna wake up; when you gonna wake up;
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain.
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain.
I thought of Paul’s letter to the folks at Corinth, immersed in a culture very much like ours: “Adulterers in churches and pornography in the schools. Gangsters in power and lawbreakers making rules.” Faced with a confusion like ours, Paul called for “wokeness,” long before the current woke-craze corrupted our “habits.”
His answer? Personal righteousness and the proclamation of the gospel. This has always been the primary mission of the Church and the final answer to all that ails us.
And so we gather as God’s people to learn what it means to be God-like and we disperse to show His likeness to others. Why? Because, more’s the pity, “some do not have the knowledge of God.”
Equality? Justice? Secondary goals on our agenda. What good would it do to liberate our kinsmen if, in the end, they have no knowledge of God?
There’s a man up on a cross whose been crucified for you;
Believe in His power—that’s all you gotta do.
When you gonna wake up; when you gonna wake up,
When you gonna wake up and strengthen the things that remain?
David Roper
3.25.21
