“For they do not speak peace, but against those
who are quiet in the land they devise words of deceit.”
Contentious, evil people always take advantage
of those who can’t or won’t fight back. If that’s not a universal truism, it’s
as close to one as matters.
Our political, legal and social structures
are so constructed as to allow the forceful and aggressive to dominate the peaceful.
The Quiet Get Plowed Under
At law, you have the right to defend
yourself from a civil suit — provided you can afford your legal bill. If
you can’t, and have the misfortune to come into conflict with the sort of
slavering dogs David described in Psalm 35, expect to get
chewed up.
In politics, the public
discourse increasingly and relentlessly trends toward socialism, big
government and sexual license. Why? Because conservatives are generally the
quiet sort, and Progressives do not speak peace, but devise words of deceit.
Western societies are among a very small
number in the history of the planet so “quiet” as to allow a small number of people
with an agenda to give away their own countries. That very passivity originates
in distorted Christian generosity and free-floating corporate guilt.
Only in God’s economy do the meek inherit
the earth. Everywhere else, “those who are quiet in the land” can expect to be
plowed under.
Moral Passivity and Cultural Invisibility
Now, if you think I’m going to suggest the
answer is pushing for an overhaul of the legal system, more political activism or
a feistier corporate public face for Christians, those are not really the kind
of responses I have in mind. But David’s words apply pretty broadly, and
Christians ought to be careful that aspiring to “live quietly, and to mind your own affairs” doesn’t inadvertently morph into moral passivity and cultural invisibility.
The godly are by nature quiet. But we
should not be silent. As the writer of Proverbs puts it:
“Whoever says to the wicked, ‘You are in the right,’ will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations, but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.”
Quiet, yes. But we must be careful our
silence does not give the deceitful the false impression they are “in the right”.
Do Not Resist?
The behavior of the quietest of men and women
may be a rebuke, but words must accompany actions at some point. The men of
Sodom were offended at Lot even though he generously and incorrectly referred to them as “brothers”. But
notice that he got the word “wicked” in there to rile them up. He was quiet, but not silent.
The Lord’s command not to “resist the one who is evil” is not a universalism. It has to do with how individual followers of Christ handle offenses against our own persons. There is
nothing particularly moral or Christian about standing by and allowing injury
to families, neighbors, churches or societies.
And the Lord Jesus practiced what he preached.
When personally insulted, Isaiah says about him:
“I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.”
But insult the Lord’s loved ones?
Family Matters
It turns out that’s a very different
story:
“Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”
“ ‘As you did not do it to one of the least of [my brothers], you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment.”
“And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, ‘Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.’ ”
Where the Lord’s friends and family are concerned, it doesn’t seem to much matter whether the insult to them is direct, implicit or even a sin of omission. The consequences were — and will be — serious indeed.
Against Wicked-But-Accepted Practices
The gospels record that the Lord cleared
the temple at least twice; and since, according to John’s gospel, he made the journey to Jerusalem only three times during his ministry, it looks an awful lot like the Lord stood up against the wicked-but-accepted religious practices in which his fellow Jews were engaged at pretty much every
opportunity.
He was quiet, as the prophets affirm. He was not silent.
There’s an example in there somewhere.
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