Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. 17Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. 18If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. 19Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” 20No, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.Read Julie Ackerman Link's outstanding reflections on these words, today's installment of Our Daily Bread.
Showing posts with label September 11. Show all posts
Showing posts with label September 11. Show all posts
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Bless those who persecute you...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good
From Romans 12:14-21, in the New Testament:
Friday, September 10, 2010
September 11 Prayer
Tomorrow, I'm scheduled be one of a number of local clergy offering prayers during a September 11 commemorative prayer service happening in our community. I've been assigned praying for our government. Here's the prayer I plan on offering (unless God has other plans):
Gracious God: Your Word tells us that there is no authority on earth that does not come from You. And so, we pray for the leaders of governments throughout the world, especially for those in our own country. To our president provide Your protection and Your wisdom. Grant these same blessings to all federal, state, and local officials, so that they will be guided by Your will. Grant that we, as citizens of this republic, even if we disagree with those who govern, will remain respectful of them. We pray guidance and protection for all in government service—from first responders to Peace Corps volunteers, from those in diplomatic service to those who regulate industries and ensure our safety, from cabinet secretaries to those in our Armed Forces. Mindful of the fleeting nature of life on this earth, aware that we are sinners by nature in need of our Savior, and knowing that we have nothing for which we can boast, we cling to Jesus Christ as our hope for this life and the one to come. We pray these things in Jesus’ holy and mighty Name. Amen
Forgiving the 9/11 Perpetrators?
A commenter on a friend's Facebook page said that, irrespective of what Christians are called to do, she would never forgive the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks. Another commenter suggested that if a person can forgive the terrorists, "then you need to check yourself."
I understand their sentiments, of course. In the days following the 9/11 attacks, my wife and I were fond of the political cartoon showing an American eagle sharpening its talons preparing to respond. We liked it so much that we posted it on our refrigerator. Without getting into the specifics of endorsing or condemning any particular policies, my wife and I, like hundreds of millions of others thought that some response to the September 11 outrages had to come.
But I didn't agree with the commenters at my friend's site today when it came to this business of forgiveness. This is what I wrote:
I understand their sentiments, of course. In the days following the 9/11 attacks, my wife and I were fond of the political cartoon showing an American eagle sharpening its talons preparing to respond. We liked it so much that we posted it on our refrigerator. Without getting into the specifics of endorsing or condemning any particular policies, my wife and I, like hundreds of millions of others thought that some response to the September 11 outrages had to come.
But I didn't agree with the commenters at my friend's site today when it came to this business of forgiveness. This is what I wrote:
There's a difference between forgiveness and heedlessness. In an imperfect world where people do evil things, God has provided for the establishment of governments in part to pursue justice--whether through domestic police powers, economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, imprisonment, or armies. The government that is heedless of injustices like the September 11 attacks would not be doing its job.[Similarly, the woman, for example, who fails to get out of an abusive relationship or fails to take the necessary legal steps to keep an abuser from continuing to harm her, is not doing the right thing. She will be right to forgive, but she will be reckless to take no action, to be heedless of the threat her abuser poses in her life. She must do something to stop her abuser!]
But Jesus leaves no question as to whether we should forgive. Not forgiving will, if allowed to prevail in our lives, make us monsters who also commit injustices against others.
Forgiveness is hard to do. It requires supernatural power given to us only by God, which is why Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
Vengeance is not the same thing as justice.Forgiveness is not the same thing as excusing.Release (aphiemi is the word in the Greek in which the New Testament was written) is one word for forgiveness used in the New Testament. [When we forgive,] we not only release others from their indebtedness to us, we release ourselves from the corrosive, hellish feelings that accompanying holding onto hatred, vengeful sentiments, and putting ourselves on God's throne of judgment.[Government leaders can only think clearly about how best to mete out justice, including the possibility of waging war, by getting all notions of revenge out of their minds. When armies wreak vengeance, they violate one of the most important principles of Christian belief on what constitutes a just war: proportionality.[We similarly escalate relational discord in our own lives when we seek revenge rather than justice.]
I'm only a student of the lessons God wants us to learn, by the way.
What I try to do when faced with my inability to forgive or love others is to ask God to forgive or love them through me, in spite of my feelings. [Imperfectly,] I try to follow as Savior Who, as He died at the hands of hateful, violent people, against all common sense and evidence to the contrary, put the most charitable construction on his murderers' actions and prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!"
If Jesus can do that in His own power, maybe He can do it through [me in spite of] my weakness.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Burn Korans? Not If You Want to Do Christ's Will
It's hard to fathom the motives of the Gainseville, Florida pastor and his 50-member flock who plan on holding what they call an "International Burn the Koran Day," this coming Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
I can't help suspecting that a big motivator on the part of the pastor, Terry Jones, is to gain attention for himself and his struggling church.
He has certainly gotten that. Newspapers, TV news shows, and Internet web sites are filled with stories about the planned event. There have been protest demonstrations in the Islamic world, where pictures of Jones have been set afire. A U.S. State Department spokesperson and the White House press secretary have condemned the planned Koran-burning. General David Petraeus has taken time from his combat duties in Afghanistan to warn that the Jones event would endanger U.S. combat forces and every American by inciting Jihadists and confirming the Muslim world's worst misapprehensions about Americans. (And about Christians too, I would add.)
It's difficult to see what good that Jones and his flock think all this attention will produce. It certainly won't advance the cause to which every follower of Jesus Christ should be committed.
That cause, which we Christians believe the risen Jesus gave to us just before He ascended to heaven, is called, the Great Commission. Forms of it appear in all four of the New Testament gospels and in Luke's history of the early Church, the Book of Acts. The most famous version is in the Gospel of Matthew. There, Jesus commissions Christians to:
But none of this should lead a Christian to burn Islam's book, even if we don't believe that the Koran came from God.
In fact, it should lead us away from such off-putting actions. If we want all people to come to faith in Christ, we should be looking for ways to build bridges, not burn them down.
Mr. Jones and his congregation might want to turn to the apostle Paul for an example of how to approach Muslims, a small fraction of whom act as the seedbed from which Jihadists grow terrorists.
Paul was the greatest of the early Church's preachers, a devout Jew who once persecuted believers in Christ, then became a great champion of Christian faith, and who spent most of his adult life traveling the Mediterranean basin, starting churches, winning converts, and encouraging believers. Ultimately, he was martyred for his faith in Christ.
Sometime around 50-52AD, Paul spent time in Athens awaiting the arrival of friends. The Book of Acts in the Bible's New Testament says that Paul was "distressed to see the city was full of idols." For a Jewish Christian like Paul, steeped in the Old Testament's teaching (and what would also be the New Testament's teaching) that there is just one God, the many statues depicting false gods was undoubtedly disgusting. The temptation to throw a fit and pour condemnations on the Athenians would have been huge for a man like Paul, passionate, sharp-tongued, and devout. He might have felt that he had good warrant to do just that.
But Paul had a higher call, a great commission! A rhetorical assault on the Athenians and their worship of many Gods would have been the first-century equivalent of burning a Koran, momentarily satisfying to the one with the torch, maybe, but ultimately useless to the cause of Christ.
Instead, we're told that Paul went to the synagogues there to tell his fellow Jews about Jesus and also to the Athenian marketplaces where learned people discussed life issues. He debated, but he didn't attack.
Then, one day, Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, curious about, if disdainful of, Paul's message about Christ took him to a place called the Areopagus, a low Athenian hill. With the city's multiple idols visible to everyone, Paul didn't attack.
“Athenians," he began, "I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." Paul, starting with where the Athenians were, told them about the one God of the universe he believed was first revealed to God's people, Israel, and was ultimately revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus. He even quoted one of their poets as he talked with them.
After Paul finished speaking, some simply wrote him off. Others said that they wanted to hear more. Still others became followers of Christ. Paul wouldn't have seen these results if he had decided to scold and excoriate the Athenians for their evil beliefs. Instead, Christians believe that God's Holy Spirit used Paul's approach to make disciples of some.
Abraham Lincoln is widely reported to have been asked once by partisans why, instead of attempting reconciliation with his enemies, he didn't try destroying them instead. Lincoln replied, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
In an imperfect world in which violent people pose threats to others, there is a place for military, police, jails, prisons, and aggressive government action.
But the Bible I read and the Savior I follow gives Christians no encouragement and no warrant to burn Korans. Doing so will not only endanger the lives of many Americans who want no part of what Terry Jones and his Gainesville congregation are planning to do, it will also hurt the cause we Christians are commissioned to pursue: Making new friends and followers of Jesus.
I can't help suspecting that a big motivator on the part of the pastor, Terry Jones, is to gain attention for himself and his struggling church.
He has certainly gotten that. Newspapers, TV news shows, and Internet web sites are filled with stories about the planned event. There have been protest demonstrations in the Islamic world, where pictures of Jones have been set afire. A U.S. State Department spokesperson and the White House press secretary have condemned the planned Koran-burning. General David Petraeus has taken time from his combat duties in Afghanistan to warn that the Jones event would endanger U.S. combat forces and every American by inciting Jihadists and confirming the Muslim world's worst misapprehensions about Americans. (And about Christians too, I would add.)
It's difficult to see what good that Jones and his flock think all this attention will produce. It certainly won't advance the cause to which every follower of Jesus Christ should be committed.
That cause, which we Christians believe the risen Jesus gave to us just before He ascended to heaven, is called, the Great Commission. Forms of it appear in all four of the New Testament gospels and in Luke's history of the early Church, the Book of Acts. The most famous version is in the Gospel of Matthew. There, Jesus commissions Christians to:
"19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”As an evangelical Christian, I take this commission seriously. Jesus claims that He is God in the flesh and that repentance for sin and belief in Him is the only means by which human beings can grasp the grace of God and be reconciled with God. I pray every day that God will use me, inadequacies, faults, sins, and all, to share with everyone I contact, the good news of new and everlasting life from God that, as I believe the Bible teaches, only comes through Christ. I want all people to know the joy and the peace that comes from Christ, even in the midst of life's challenges.
But none of this should lead a Christian to burn Islam's book, even if we don't believe that the Koran came from God.
In fact, it should lead us away from such off-putting actions. If we want all people to come to faith in Christ, we should be looking for ways to build bridges, not burn them down.
Mr. Jones and his congregation might want to turn to the apostle Paul for an example of how to approach Muslims, a small fraction of whom act as the seedbed from which Jihadists grow terrorists.
Paul was the greatest of the early Church's preachers, a devout Jew who once persecuted believers in Christ, then became a great champion of Christian faith, and who spent most of his adult life traveling the Mediterranean basin, starting churches, winning converts, and encouraging believers. Ultimately, he was martyred for his faith in Christ.
Sometime around 50-52AD, Paul spent time in Athens awaiting the arrival of friends. The Book of Acts in the Bible's New Testament says that Paul was "distressed to see the city was full of idols." For a Jewish Christian like Paul, steeped in the Old Testament's teaching (and what would also be the New Testament's teaching) that there is just one God, the many statues depicting false gods was undoubtedly disgusting. The temptation to throw a fit and pour condemnations on the Athenians would have been huge for a man like Paul, passionate, sharp-tongued, and devout. He might have felt that he had good warrant to do just that.
But Paul had a higher call, a great commission! A rhetorical assault on the Athenians and their worship of many Gods would have been the first-century equivalent of burning a Koran, momentarily satisfying to the one with the torch, maybe, but ultimately useless to the cause of Christ.
Instead, we're told that Paul went to the synagogues there to tell his fellow Jews about Jesus and also to the Athenian marketplaces where learned people discussed life issues. He debated, but he didn't attack.
Then, one day, Stoic and Epicurean philosophers, curious about, if disdainful of, Paul's message about Christ took him to a place called the Areopagus, a low Athenian hill. With the city's multiple idols visible to everyone, Paul didn't attack.
“Athenians," he began, "I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." Paul, starting with where the Athenians were, told them about the one God of the universe he believed was first revealed to God's people, Israel, and was ultimately revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus. He even quoted one of their poets as he talked with them.
After Paul finished speaking, some simply wrote him off. Others said that they wanted to hear more. Still others became followers of Christ. Paul wouldn't have seen these results if he had decided to scold and excoriate the Athenians for their evil beliefs. Instead, Christians believe that God's Holy Spirit used Paul's approach to make disciples of some.
Abraham Lincoln is widely reported to have been asked once by partisans why, instead of attempting reconciliation with his enemies, he didn't try destroying them instead. Lincoln replied, "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
In an imperfect world in which violent people pose threats to others, there is a place for military, police, jails, prisons, and aggressive government action.
But the Bible I read and the Savior I follow gives Christians no encouragement and no warrant to burn Korans. Doing so will not only endanger the lives of many Americans who want no part of what Terry Jones and his Gainesville congregation are planning to do, it will also hurt the cause we Christians are commissioned to pursue: Making new friends and followers of Jesus.
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