We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Today We Can’t Lighten Up
We usually post something light-hearted or funny on Fridays. Not today. Not in the aftermath of the massacre in Charleston.
Instead, we wanted to share with you the words of our friend Osheta Moore. You can read her post in its entirety here, but we wanted to highlight this portion:
I’m kneeling at the cross today, wetting the ground with my tears for the suffering of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. I’m full of sorrow for Dylann Roof. And right now, I need to hear, I’m sorry and I’m listening. I suspect, I’m not the only one. Will you let your words be few and your love great today as we process the shooting in Charleston? Will you practice Shalom by putting aside your agenda and taking up the call of the cross to die to yourself? Will you hold ground for healing where violence trampled our hope? The choice is yours, Kingdom person.
Lord, have mercy.
Image by Tim Kimzey, The Spartanburg Harald-Journal/AP
Related Reading
Tribalism
Sandra Unger spoke for Greg while he was on vacation the week after the 4th. In this clip, Sandra explains whats tribes are and how that creates unintended separation between people. In the full sermon, she speaks about what it means to be part of the Jesus Tribe. She discusses the reasons people are prone to…
What did Jesus mean when he said he came not to bring peace, but a sword (Mt 10:34)?
Given Jesus’ uniform teaching about loving enemies and abstaining from violence, and given that his followers were known for their refusal to engage in violence for the first three hundred years of church history, it’s obvious that Jesus wasn’t saying he came so that his disciples would use swords. The context of Jesus’ comment makes…
When the Law Demanded the Death Penalty
The Sinai covenant is significantly structured around violence. It motivates behavioral conformity by promising rewards and threatening violence. Without the threat of violence, the law looses its “teeth.” If the law is an acquiescence to sin, then the divinely sanctioned violence that is associated with it must also be considered an acquiescence to sin. The…
Podcast: If You Could’ve Killed Hitler, Wouldn’t You?
Greg challenges the intuitively appealing notion of killing Hitler and thereby preventing the massacre of millions of people. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0326.mp3 —Edvard Munch, “The Murderer,” 1910
Frank Viola’s Interview With Greg: OT Violence and the Spirit World
I have not yet personally met Frank Viola, but over the last several years we’ve conversed and debated a good deal, to the point that I consider him a good friend. He is one of those all-too-rare types of people who is solidly grounded in the Word and yet who is not enslaved to traditional…
Becoming Like the Accuser
When the Adam and Eve yielded to Satan and surrendered their God-given authority over the earth and animal kingdom (Gen 3), Satan became “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), the “ruler of the world” (Jn. 12:32; 14:31) and the “principality and power of the air” (Eph. 2:2) who “has power over the whole…