2008-10-11
 Psalm 82.3-4 is a passage that parallels Proverbs 24.11-12 in many ways:
Vindicate the weak and fatherless; do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
Through passages like these God is calling his people to intervene whenever the vulnerable are threatened, be it an individual or an entire group. Masses of German Christians should have com to the active defense of their Jewish countrymen, and a much larger segment of the American church should have joined the fight against slavery and segregation. Why didn’t this happen? Why don’t more Christians today follow these passages into the active defense of unborn children? I would suggest that most of us, myself included, have too narrow a definition of who our neighbor is and too narrow a view of what it means to love him. Regarding widespread oppression and injustice, we tend to confuse opposition in principle, with opposition in practice. We content ourselves with the idea that we’re not participating in injustice, failing to consider the fact that we’re often doing nothing to stop it either
Martin Niemoller, a German pastor imprisoned for his opposition to Hitler, made the following statement in 1946:
Christianity in German bears a greater responsibility before God [for the Holocaust] than the National Socialists, the SS, and the Gestapo.”
How could he say this? Because he recognized that those who have been rescued unto salvation are far more accountable to God than those who remain mired in blindness and unbelief. If we don’t get a better grasp of what it means to love our neighbor, history is going to again look at the church with the same indictment: “Where were all of the Christians while innocent babies were being murdered en masse?” We would do well to turn our attention to the Good Samaritan.
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2008-10-10
 While Proverbs 24 gives us the general command to intervene on behalf of those who are being killed, Exodus 1 provides us with a very specific example of this command in practice. A new king has come to power in Egypt, and fearful that Israel’s phenomenal growth will threaten Egypt’s security, he orders every newborn Hebrew boy to be put to death. To ensure that his command is carried out, he tasks the Hebrew midwives with following through on the decree. We learn in Exodus 1.17-21 that his plan did not succeed:
But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that he provided households for them.”
The implication of this passage is that those who fear God will do what they can to keep mothers from killing their babies.
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2008-10-09
While orphans, widows and abortion-vulnerable children are all “in distress” - and generally unwanted by society at large - the circumstances surrounding their distress are very different. It is one thing to provide food and shelter for people in need, and another thing entirely to intervene on the behalf of people who are about to be killed. Perhaps you wonder if the Bible actually mandates our involvement in the more extreme circumstances, whre the price of involvement is much higher, and the level of opposition is more, much more, significant. Here enteres Proverbs 24.11-12:
Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay each man according to his work?”
Like almost all biblical proverbs, the text gives zero indication what kind of specific injustice, if any, the author has in mind. It serves as a general guidline for what God’s people are called to do in the face of violent injustice. If innocent human beings are in danger, God-fearing people are to come to their rescue.
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2008-04-04
 More likely than not, this post is going to get me in trouble with the elders in charge of H20, as well as an ex-girlfriend, and various other groups of people.
I was recently told that if I would just be a little more meek, my sermons would go down easier. A couple of weeks before that, I was given practically the same advice.
I was raised Southern Baptist, with this image of
“gentle Jesus, meek and mild,”
to quote the old hymn by Charles Wesley. Then I grew up and read the New Testament for myself, and it seemed like Jesus really enjoyed screwing with religious people.
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2008-02-14
 I really would appreciate ya’ll praying about this, because I think it’s important.
It’s come to my attention, again, that my passion comes across as anger. I freely admit that for the majority of my life I’ve been a pretty angry guy. I’ve been described more than once as being emotionally closed off; personally, I’d disagree, not because it isn’t accurate, but because it doesn’t even scratch the surface.
There is one emotion, and just one, that I can tap at will. It’s anger. I freely confess that I’ve been an angry, angry guy for the majority of my life. It’s extraordinarily hard for me to contact any emotion other than pure, unadulterated rage. Because of this, I bleed anger, even when I’m not angry.
Five years in the US Army didn’t make any of it better, it just makes it worse. It added an arrogance to my personality that isn’t winsome or appealing at all. Now, what you get when you talk to me, despite a lot of work on my part, is angry arrogance.
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