Who's carrying the handbasket?

"The whole world is going to hell in a handbasket!" I can't tell you how many times I heard this expression growing up. It usually came along with a rant about some kind of sin or deviant behavior that was taking over. And in most cases, it was a behavior that the ranter was not (or in some cases like abortion couldn't be) tempted by. I'm always reminded of this expression when I read Romans 1. Take the last verse of that chapter.

And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best!

Yeah! Those [insert pet sin here] are ruining our society. They're destroying the fabric of America. It's time to take this country back for God before all those [insert favorite scapegoat here] take us to hell in a handbasket.

But, if you read Paul's letter the way the original audience would have (rather than stopping at arbitrary chapter markings) then you proceed from this thought right into this one.

Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.

 Oh, hold up. You mean it's me? I'm carrying a handbasket too? Wait, I thought it was the, ummm, I mean, but that guy, it was those, but what about all those people who. . .

I love the absolute, brutal honesty that Paul uses in his letters. He stands firm and calls a sin a sin, but he also never lets us think for a minute that because we have entered the forgiveness Jesus offers that we can look down on people who are still trying to figure it out.

I love the simple language Peterson uses in his translation of Paul's letter. "It takes one to know one." Why am I so good at identifying sinners? Because I am the chief among them. And only by the grace of God, the resurrection of Jesus, and the filling of the Holy Spirit is that fact not a death sentence for me. The good news is that it doesn't have to be a death sentence for anyone else either.