This Week's Reflections
Typically in this space, I point you to some of the best articles I've found that I hope will edify you. During this challenging week that has seen our country torn apart in the wake of a series of injustices against black men and women that received national attention, I offer reflections from men and women I am listening to and learning from. Some of those below are personal friends.
I recognize that the issues are complicated. There are no easy answers. As a Christian I believe that not only is every individual a sinner, but every system in this world is broken as well. There is no just person and there is no just system.
Furthermore, while every person is sinful and every system is broken, there are godly men and women who are protesting and there are godly men and women who are serving in law enforcement. I’m grateful for every fellow believer striving to live out Christ’s prayer, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Our only hope is in our God who can unite Jew and Gentile, change the heart of the murderous Paul, and who will bring about perfect justice on that final day.
Your co-laborer,
John
"Evangelicalism needs a more humble posture of receiving and learning. Allow the church that has been deemed the other, the marginalized church, to be the teacher at this moment, and to have the most dominant form of the church in America be the student who is learning to share power."
"There is a God who loves you and died that you might know him. This love is sufficient to gather the divided peoples of the world, even when all the politicians and philosophers fail."
"I couldn't sleep last night.....I thought about his family and wept...I can't get the image of his murderers knee on his neck out my head.....flood of emotions.....just tired."
“Now is the time in which need our best preaching, our most robust theology, a more righteous indignation, and an honest account of the evil at work in the world to flow from our pulpits. Pray for we who preach The Gospel to be courageous.”
"My heart can't take it especially now during a global pandemic and black and brown people are dying in record numbers. There is no justice and and no peace… Oh when will justice come oh Lord! How long will we endure in this suffering. Lord have mercy!"
"The nightmare is not just the violent incident that takes our loved ones. The nightmare also includes the aftermath: seeing the murders, the agony of wondering, trying to console children when you're in anguish, crying to God who may not answer as you wish."
"This tragedy—in a long series of similar tragedies—raises a long overdue question: How do we end systemic racism in our society? The only way we see ourselves in a true light is to listen to the voices of so many who are hurting and grieving. Those who set out to silence those voices do not understand the meaning of America—or how it becomes a better place."
"Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city! She listens to no voice; she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord; she does not draw near to her God. Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves..." Zepheniah 3:1-3
“The Bible & the negative results of rioting. Riots never leads to biblical results. Genesis 9:4-11, Judges 6:11-12, Luke 4:28-30, 2 Corinthians 6:5, Matthew 26:3-5 27:20-24, Mark 15:6-15, Acts 6:8-14, 17:5-9, 19:23-24, 19::35-41, 21:25-27, 24:5-12, 25:5-12”
"We must righteously voice our dissent but we must simultaneously follow it up with a strategy for a long-term solution. We need more than words. We need more than a protest. We need a plan. The primary source for this potential solution comes through the church."
"When the Romans tortured Christians, the tomb was empty. When the Natives walked the trail of tears, the tomb was empty. When the Africans were kidnapped and forced into slavery, the tomb was empty. Today in the midst of it all, the tomb is empty. God sees. God cares."
"Often, we can fool ourselves into believing that somehow history itself will take care of problems of racial injustice."
"As a believer, my hope is not in this broken world; my hope is in Jesus.
As a black man, I refuse to live as one without hope within this fallen world.
Through tears, heartache and pain.."
"When I read the Bible, I see these four things clearly:
Christians ought to be sold out for racial justice.
Christians should be deeply concerned about the poor.
Christians should be pro-life.
Christians should believe that, at least for Christians, sex should only be between a man and woman in marriage.
Two of those beliefs look very conservative and two of those look very liberal, and the Church has to find a way to preach both. Most Christian churches will feel pressure to focus on two of these and neglect the others. You can't give in to letting politics direct what you teach and believe as a church."
"Christianity should never be subject to anyone else's movement."
"For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility."
The Apostle Paul, Ephesians 2:14-16
"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'”
The Apostle John, Revelation 7:9-10