I don't want to diminish at all, even one bit, the horror and grief over the crime committed at Sandy Hook. But there is another aspect...how spoiled and protected we are, that we are ABLE to feel that horror.
Imagine a life where there is no shock at 20 children being killed.
Or worse, those children being forced to become the killer:
Did you know that often in Africa, children suffer a fate far worse than being gunned down by a crazy person; instead they are handed a gun, forced to murder their own parents, and then conscripted into an army to kill their own neighbors and friends?
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Protecting a Gospel-Centered Culture in Your Church
Including a "three tier chart"
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Given a current debate, this is a wonderful way of putting it. (MUST REMEMBER)
Evangelicalism broadly believes in an insufficient Jesus whose love is conditional, that is, that we must first meet a condition if He will help/love us. Can you imagine a parent who saw their toddler run out into traffic and first required them to meet a condition before the parent would run out to save them from oncoming traffic? No, no, no... parental love is unconditional and would run out at the risk of their life to save the child regardless of the child's will at the time because the parent loves his child and knows better than the child what is good for him/her. If this is true about love in everyday life, how much more is it true of God. No person would say that the parent who required the child to first meet a condition was more loving. That is why the argument about the necessity of free will to have true love is fallacious. In the Bible, God gives conditions, but in Jesus He meets all the conditions for us.
and
“God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requires no more than he gives, but gives what he requires, and accepts what he gives.”― Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
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