Over at the Pyromaniacs Dan Phillips writes about John Gardner III, the animal who raped and murdered two teenage girls and dumped their bodies like garbage. Here is a man who is the poster child for the death penalty but he is also someone who should recieve something more than scorn and hatred from Christians. As Dan says, he is a man we should pray for because "let us remember that we need that same grace not one atom less than John Gardner III." What?! This most vicious of men needs grace but so do I and in the same way? Yes. From Reflections on the Gospel, repentance, and two wrecked souls.
So you see, this is yet another precise place where our inborn skewed priorities show themselves. We all choose our points of comparison very carefully and very wrongly, and end up not seeing just how desperately, how badly, we ourselves need the Gospel of pure grace through Christ alone, received by faith alone.
Is your Gospel that big? Does it reach that low?
You and I had better hope so.
Exactly. This man who committed a heinous act that is unthinkable by most suburban, middle-class churchgoing Americans is no more in need of the Gospel than the nicest soccer mom sitting in the pew in front of you. If the Gospel isn't big enough for John Gardner, it isn't big enough for me and it isn't big enough for you. If God can save murderous Saul, if God can save me, if God can save you, He can save John Gardner. I don't know if He will but I do know that if I can't pray for men like John Gardner, I have no business praying for the nice people I go to church with.
No comments:
Post a Comment