In chapter 3, Under the Sun, Kary dives into detailing the Separatist and Conformist ideals. In short, separatists cutting themselves off from whatever, and conformists growing comfortable with whatever. He demonstrates that even back in the Garden of Eden we can see examples of these two groups, Eve being our separatist and Adam our Conformist. There so many “Trees of life” out there. Let’s look at drinking. The Bible says to not get drunk in many places (one being Ephesians 5:18) Some people don’t drink at all so that they do not fall, but get to a point where they think it’s bad to drink at all and others will drink, but fall into getting to a point that is beyond harmless to fit in the hope of reaching out to others in the long run.
Where do we fit in, what group do we belong? Is it affecting our relationship with God and how we relate to those around us? Are our rules actually rules or just something that we got carried away with, have we been to compromising?

In the chapter The Ancient Donkey, Oberbrunner, describes relevance and the struggle everyone has of being relevant in today’s world. Using the story of the good Samaritan, Kary shows us that it may be as simple as a little character change. Love God, Love people, if we show love to those around us, our neighbors, we become relevant to them. It’s not who we know or what we do, it’s just plain and simple love. How can we become relevant to someone, how can we love them as Jesus does, unconditionally. What can you do for your neighbor?

Phil,

Thanks for the report on this chapter. Would love to hear others thoughts.

Ha the title made me laugh... Seems there is a lot of whatever going on in our society from both ends... I like the way you put it Phil. I think the fact that the whatever exists signals that we aren't doing a good enough job of giving them a whatever to agree or disagree with.

I think the questions of rules vs. compromising is a very good one too... I think especially with TMH and current young adults and youth, there is the trend to swing the opposite way from rules aka.. legalism.. aka certain death of freedom as some see it.. and to move towards complete compromising justifying it in saying at least it isn't legalistic. I think that's how many of our youth who claim to be strong followers of Christ justify things like sex, or extreme partying saying they are compromising so their friends don't see them as legalistic thus hating christianity.. when they don't realize their friends are instead seeing them as the same as they are with no definitive boundaries between Christ followers or not.. leaving a very large whatever out there on the table. Sorry for the lengthy response. Phil good thoughts on the chapter! : )

Thanks Lauren, I agree with you on the compromising, it's a tough thing to get out of too. We need to evaluate how effective we actually are and change where needed.

To add to the end of my last post, I was just thinking, in this world everything is imposed into us to think about ourselves and how we can better our lives get ourselves ahead of everyone else. There is the struggle to love our neighbors as ourselves but it's even more of a struggle to even get into that mind set at all with all the outside influence. Just thoughts.

What were your thoughts on how to break out of that? : )

It's such an honor to have you guys studying this important conversation of how to be in the world, but not of it. I am praying for you guys in your journey. May God keep guiding you!