“In whose eyes a vile person is despised..”

Psalm 15 describes “the character of those who may dwell with the Lord.” Here’s what such a fellow looks like: he is upright. Check.  He treasures truth in his heart.  Check.  He doesn’t slander his neighbor.  Check.  He despises vile people.

Wait…

The LORD hangs out with people who despise the vile and the wicked?  That would kinda fit with Psalm 11:5 “…The Lord tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.”

In the New Testament Paul saw fit to remind us that God has loved Jacob and hated Esau. For some reason, these verses — likely not very troubling to our ancestors — violate a modern sensibility.  Don’t we hate the sin and love the sinner?  Isn’t that the Biblical thing to do?

Maybe. Maybe not. We live in an age that allows violent, child-torturing murderers to linger, state housed and fed, on death row for decades.  We won’t even allow ourselves — as Christians — to work up the sort of wrath that had Jesus overturning tables in the temple.

The enemy is plenty angry.  They see us as wicked.  They have no problem using their social index scores to deny us the basics of life, and meanwhile, we keep pretending we’re more righteous than David, Paul, or Jesus.

Wouldn’t it be nice if believers actually read their Bibles?

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