Mining the Minors: Micah (5)

The most avid promoters of tolerance on the political left are among the most intolerant people in existence. They will not tolerate intolerance of their pet vices, and those who express any disagreement with their chosen path earn a bitter enmity you almost never see coming from any Christians other than maybe members of the Westboro Baptist Church. But in expressing their intolerance of intolerance, the promoters of tolerance demonstrate that it is impossible to have no strongly held opinions at all. The opinion that one should have no opinions remains an opinion, and the people who tell you not to preach invariably end up preaching.

This was as true two and a half thousand years ago as today.

Mining the Minors: Micah (4)

YHWH instituted the year of Jubilee in Israel for several reasons. One was to ensure that ownership of Israelite land outside the cities never changed hands, because the land belonged to God. If the rich were allowed to coerce the poor into permanently selling their inheritance to pay off debt, ancient Israel would quickly have descended into the abyss of present-day global economics, where the most affluent 10% of the population own 76% of the world’s wealth.

Time and Chance (28)

Many years ago I went for counseling. A man with a big white beard (I am so not making this up) asked me a number of questions, listened quietly to my responses, then assured me I was a good person and that I should not be down on myself.

Needless to say, I never went back. I can’t tell you whether he was right or wrong, but I can tell you he had taken all of twenty minutes to reach his conclusion. He was pronouncing on my life in utter ignorance. He could have made a more meaningful diagnosis of my situation by hurling darts at a dartboard.

Advice is only useful when it comes from people with actual knowledge. That is true whether we are talking about praise or criticism.