Exod 20:5-6; Deut 5:9-10
A reader and long-time friend emailed me this week with a question concerning the statement in the Decalog that God “visits the iniquities of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate [God]” (Exod 20:5; Deut 5:9; my translation; cf. also Exod 34:6-7; Deut 7:9-10; Jer 32:18; and Ps 105:8=1 Chron 16:15). On its face, this Continue reading Q&A: Intergenerational Guilt
And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (John 9:2 NAS)
Poverty is not (proof of) sin. Poverty is not a character flaw. Poverty happens to people.
John’s Gospel records an episode in Jesus’ ministry in which his disciples revealed their sadly respectable conventionality. Two prominent strands of theological tradition running throughout the Old Testament converged in their question concerning the identity of the sinner responsible for an unfortunate man’s blindness.