When the church has looked for texts from scripture to clobber people, the lesson from this Sunday's gospel has been an effective choice – as it was during the Inquisition. But the lessons of the past and good scripture interpretation teach us that we cannot create justifications for our judgmental actions based on biblical predictions or prophesy. We must instead look at this passage as a forecast that Jesus' made of what would come after his resurrection and ascension rather than as a commandment to be enforced or condition that we need to bring about. As we do, we see that Jesus speaks of a truth we may not want to hear – that our faith in Him, if we take it seriously, is something both personally convicting and costly on many levels.

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