The notoriously hard to grasp offside rule in football states that if you’re on the attack and you’ve run ahead of the ball and there’s only one member of the opposing team between you and the goal (normally the goalkeeper) then you’re offside and no-one can pass to you. But if two or more members of the opposing team are ahead of you then you are onside. The rule works all too often in my Christian life. If I can think of two or more examples of people ‘ahead of me’ in sin then it plays me onside. I think of Christians who (I judge) are more compromised, more self-indulgent than me and that makes me feel ‘onside’. ‘They’ are on the opposing team – the really bad guys. And they have played me onside. And the rule works all too often in preaching as well. If I can think of two or more examples of terrible false teaching (preachers selling miracle oil, cures for AIDS, blessings with an MPESA number attached, churches refusing to bury members who die before 70 years...
Living and preaching at the foot of the Cross