Boa Constrictor (Boidae) ~ Sin
i’ve been memorizing the Sermon On the Mount with a group of friends. In Matthew 5 Jesus says something rather confusing: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It’s better to lose one of your members than for your entire body to go into Hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to lose one of your members than for your entire body to be thrown into Hell.” Is He really telling us to gouge our eyes out and chop off various body parts when we sin? If so, i should have lost my tongue the moment i learned to speak, and my eyes the moment i learned to see. i believe Jesus is not telling us to literally remove our body parts (if you are skoptsy, stop it!). He is using hyperbole to emphasize a greater teaching: the hatred of sin. i heard a story once about a woman with a pet snake. This wasn’t just any pet snake; it was a boa constrictor. She’d had the snake...