Summary: <p>Self-righteousness is dangerous. When people who believe they are “right” apply rules to each other, even rules that were meant to protect us become instruments of abuse, cruelty and exploitation. You need look no further than the barbarity of Twitter mobs—liberal or conservative—to understand this dynamic. For politicians, sooner or later, this lack of humility results in civil strife. For clergy and religious teachers, it leads to a kind of apostasy, in this case, an outcome of teaching that renounces the teaching of the Bible. The Torah was given to show each of us that our behaviors are unclean. Yet, somehow, we always manage to transfer this shame from our behaviors to the person (or persons) of our neighbor. Our neighbor, like the wild man exiled to the Gerasene graveyard, or the woman with a flow of blood, is eventually deemed unclean. This is the sin. This is the apostasy. This is the very thing the Law was given to correct. Have you never heard what was written? The Lord said to Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.” (Acts 10:15) And again, what Peter himself proclaimed: “God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean.” (Acts 10:28) Richard and Fr. Marc discuss Mark 5:21-43.</p> <p>Episode 159 Mark 5:21-43; Subscribe: http: // feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature (http://feedpress.me/the-bible-as-literature); “Bittersweet” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com (http://incompetech.com/)) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http:// creativecommons .org/ licenses /by/3.0/</p>
