The great objective is the Kingdom of God. In realizing the Reign of God on earth three recalcitrant forces have to be brought into obedience to God's law: the desire for power, the love of property, and unsocial religion. We have studied Christ's thought concerning these in the foregoing chapters. The advance of the Kingdom of God is not simply a process of social education, but a conflict with hostile forces which resist, neutralize, and defy whatever works toward the true social order. The strategy of the Kingdom of God, therefore, involves a study of the social problem of evil.
Daily Readings
First Day: The Consciousness of Sin in the Lord's Prayer
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.—Matt. 6:12, 13.
The Lord's Prayer expresses the very mind and spirit of the Master. It begins with the Kingdom of God; it ends with the problem of sin. As we stand before God, we realize that we have loaded up our life with debts we can never pay. We have wasted our time, and the powers of body and soul. We have left black marks of contagion on some whose path we have crossed. We have hurt even those who loved us by our ill-temper, thoughtlessness, and selfishness.
We can only ask God to forgive and give us another chance: “Forgive us our debts.” Looking forward we see the possibility of fatal temptations. We know how fragile our power of resistance is. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Thus the consciousness of sin is written across this greatest of all prayers.
Is a sense of unworthiness an indication of moral strength or of weakness?
Where do we draw the line between a normal and abnormal sense of sin?
Second Day: Evil Embodied in Character
Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by its fruit. Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.—Matt. 12:33-37.