Instead of a real blog post; a bit of preaching (mostly in quotations)
Don’t have time and too busy.
But if fascination with the collapse of …. a lot of things still to be determined in extent sometimes gives way to fear, here’s something. Just because God’s taking down a lot of people doesn’t mean you or your family will be included:
Do not be afraid of sudden terror
or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes,
for the Lord will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being caught.
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.
On a related but different note, the present scurrying after a way to increase debt and spending to solve the problems of debt and spending once again show how blind we are to not read the Bible as a political book.
So here is Wisdom:
My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor,
have given your pledge for a stranger,
if you are snared in the words of your mouth,
caught in the words of your mouth,
then do this, my son, and save yourself,
for you have come into the hand of your neighbor:
go, hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbor.
Give your eyes no sleep
and your eyelids no slumber;
save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,
like a bird from the hand of the fowler (Proverbs 6.1-5).
While the Bible encourages all sorts of charity, becoming responsible for otherwise unsecured debt is treated as an incredible danger. Funny, this warning has always seemed overwrought to me until recently.
Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm,
but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure (Proverbs 11.15).One who lacks sense gives a pledge
and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor (Proverbs 17.18).Take a man’s garment when he has put up security for a stranger,
and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners (Proverbs 20.16).Be not one of those who give pledges,
who put up security for debts.
If you have nothing with which to pay,
why should your bed be taken from under you? (Proverbs 22.26-27)
Of course, all of this assumes no one is stupid enough to give away unsecured debt. I guess in our case, the populace as a whole, allegedly represented by their Federal Government, is being put up as security for a bunch of rich debtors and bankrupt corporations.
And Jesus speaks directly to it. Wisdom cries alloud in the market place.
1 Comment »
Filed under: Bible & Theology, political-economy
