11.26.2005

is turned over within me

In 1964, a brash Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston in a match whose result even he admitted surprised him. He was so delighted at the outcome that he bounded about afterwards declaring "I shook up the world!"

Separate boast and taunt from clear reality, and note the remark of the Jews in Thessalonica. They disrupt Paul's teachings and bumrush a believer's house to bully men who they refer to as "these men who have upset the world". This would be the same as if it were not a bounding Ali but a wounded Liston declaring his taunt.

It is disconcerting, then, that what once was a world-upsetting vision and faith has now become so mainstream as to be tailoring the world-upsetting message to not upset anything, but rather to assimilate. This is the devil's argument against the Willow Creekers of the world. Tactics where the faith becomes like the world upsets nothing except perhaps the Lord.

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