The State Is My Shepherd

Here’s a challenge. Read the book of Psalms, but substitute the word “State” every time you see the word “Lord”. Watch what happens.

For example:

Psalm 106:1-2: O give thanks to the State, for it is good. It’s mercy endures forever! Who can utter the mighty acts of the State?

Psalm 103:2-3, 5, 6 : Bless the State, O my soul, and forget not all its benefits, which forgives all your iniquities and heals all your diseases ... which satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The State executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.

Psalm 6:1-3: O State, do not rebuke me in your anger, nor chasten me in your hot displeasure. Have mercy on me, O State, for I am weak. O State, heal me for my bones are troubled.

Psalm 23:1-2: The State is my shepherd. I shall not want. It makes me lie down in green pastures. It leads me beside still waters.

These quirky Psalms aren’t much of a stretch when considered in light of a telling comment from Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards during the 2004 campaign. Quoted from CNN Politics news site of October 12, 2004:

"If we do the work that we can do in this country, the work that we will do when John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."

That, my friends, is a messianic claim.

Or how about this one from the 2008 campaign:

“That this was the moment that the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

When the Book of Revelation tells us that people will bow down to worship the Beast and say, “Who is like the Beast? Who is able to make war with him?” are they doing anything other than what our culture is doing to us? Are they not putting the State in place of God and looking to the State for sustenance, support, healing, and salvation? Are they not saying, “The State is my shepherd”?

For a great message from Ronald L. Dart on this subject go this link :

Civil Religion

Program notes can be found here:

Living to Win

Writing of Virtue

“It is a risky enterprise to have to write of virtue”. Thus writes Thomas Keneally in his book Schindler’s List, made famous by Steven Spielberg’s movie of the same name. “He was Oskar Schindler”, says the book’s cover. “His name is in the Avenue of the Righteous People in Jerusalem. He ran a concentration camp. … A German-Catholic industrialist who, through daring, cunning and the use of his own great wealth, single-handedly saved more Jews at greater risk than any other person in World War II.”

He was a philanderer, a manipulator, and spendthrift. He depleted his personal fortune several times over and schmoozed his way up the Nazi hierarchy. Yet hundreds of Jews survived due to his efforts, and he openly wept that he could not save more.

It is truly a risky enterprise to write of virtue.

Scripture tells us that King David was a man after God’s own heart. Like Schindler, David was a manipulator and a liar. He was a philanderer and (worse than Schindler) a murderer. God himself called him a bloody man and would not permit him to build the temple. Many have puzzled over how such a one could be hailed as great. Yet God decreed that among David’s descendants would arise the Messiah.

It is a risky enterprise to write of virtue because God counts such men as David among the virtuous.

God sees not as men see, for God looks on the heart, and I am confident as in the case of Schindler and in the case of David that God saw things you and I would fail to see. God winked at David’s mistakes because his heart was right.

We find it right to write of virtue, for we cannot judge as God judges.

Are They Really Smarter than You?

Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on him? (John 7:48)

Are you going to believe me or your own eyes? (Chico Marx)



I hate to admit this, but after a major political event I am more fascinated by the journalistic commentary that follows it than the event itself. That might be because so many political events and speeches are yawners reminiscent of college Speech 101.

But I’m also interested in other people’s take on what happened, even though it might remind me of Chico Marx’s line at the head of this column: “Are you going to believe me or your own eyes?”

Jesus had the same type of press. He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the multitudes, and taught a new and living way.

If that’s all he ever did, it’s doubtful that the religious elite of the day would have tried to destroy him. But Jesus had a little problem. His teachings did not fit in the little box of religion that his contemporaries had constructed for their concept of God. He preached unique ideas that threatened the current power structure. That was a threat they could not let stand.

Jesus once healed a blind man, who then came to the conclusion that “if this man were not of God, he could do nothing.” (John 9:33) The religious leaders’ retort? “You were altogether born in sin, and do you teach us?” (verse 34) Are you going to believe us or your own eyes?

Another time the Pharisees and chief priests sent a contingent of temple guards to arrest Jesus, but his teaching was so compelling that the guards refused their orders. “Never has a man spoken like this,” they told the Pharisees, who retorted, “Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed on him? These people who are ignorant of the law are cursed.” (John 7:46-49)

These religious elites clearly held a high view of themselves and a condescending view of the unwashed masses. When they said, “These people who are ignorant of the law are cursed”, they sound suspiciously like certain elements of our own culture.

It’s good to seek out others’ opinions and to listen to their learned commentary, but no one has a right to tell you how to think or to call you names if you happen to disagree. There is a lot of that going on these days.

Lenny C.

Let My People Go

Finish this sentence: “Let my people go ...”.

You’ll recognize those words as those coming from Moses’ mouth to Pharaoh’s ears. They were God’s demand to free the Israelite slaves, and thus became a rallying cry for those of us who love freedom.

And yet the sentence quoted above is incomplete. “Let my people go” is a phrase closely identified with the Passover and freedom from the slavery of Egypt. For Christians, not only does it look to the freeing of the people of Israel from bondage, but also the freeing of all mankind from the bondage of sin through the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb without blemish (I Peter 1:19, I Corinthians 5:7).

But freedom from bondage is only part of the story. The rest of the story is found in the rest of Moses’ words: “Let my people go that they may serve me.”

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but it is not the ultimate good. When we have freedom, it must be exercised for a greater cause than freedom for its own sake. Experience enough generations of freedom defined as doing whatever we please, or in Biblical parlance, whatever is right in our own eyes, and you’ll get a world like that of the last days in the Book of Judges. Read the 19th – 21st chapters of Judges to see what a society of unfettered freedom produces, a society that has forgotten the purpose for freedom. Read either that or tomorrow’s newspaper.

The fact is, the path of freedom without responsibility leads to chaos, which in turn leads back to slavery. We are meant to have freedom so that we can reach our true God-given potential.

The point we can take from Moses’ full statement is that freedom from sin, while great in its own right, is simply not enough. In fact, that’s why some fifty days after the Exodus the Israelites found that Moses had led them to the foot of Mt. Sinai where they were about to receive the Ten Commandments. Those commandments taught them how they were supposed to serve God.

Put differently, they were given a law that would ensure their liberty. It defined how free men and women were to live together in such a way that everyone’s rights could be respected.

Freedom is not enough. Ironic, is it not, that we are made free so that we can serve a better Master?

Why There Are No Easy Solutions in the Middle East

Borrowed from a friend's Facebook wall.

From: Dr. Arieh Eldad:

I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war ti...me or mass casualty situations. This skin bank is hosted by the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the Chairman of plastic surgery. This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza , who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair.

We supplied all the needed Homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague, Prof. Lior Rosenberg and discharged to return to Gaza . She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva.

One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life.

It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.

This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel. It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict, or rather a war between civilization & barbarism.

Dr Arieh Eldad

Eldad is a professor and head of the plastic surgery and burns unit at the Hadassah Medical Center hospital in Jerusalem. He studied medicine at Tel Aviv University, where he earned his doctorate. He served as the chief medical officer and was the senior commander of the Israeli Defense Forces medical corps for 25 years, and reached a rank of Tat Aluf (Brigadier General). He is renowned worldwide for his treatment of burns and won the Evans Award from the American Burns Treatment Association.
He also lives in Kfar Adumim a settlement on the West Bank.

Coming Alongside

The Message is a modern semi-translation, semi-paraphrase of the Bible.
One passage from this paraphrase nails a concept in a way found lacking in most translations. “All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.” (II Corinthians 1:3-4, The Message)

The phrases “comes alongside” and “brings us alongside” do special justice to the meaning of the Greek words from which they are translated. They are derivatives of the Greek word "parakletos", a word Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit in John 14.

The word and its derivatives are sometimes translated “comforter”, “advocate”, “consolation”, and “encouragement”. In noun form its literal meaning is “one called alongside”. While “comforter” and “advocate” catch excellent nuances (the Holy Spirit does comfort and does advocate for us), The Message points out that the Holy Spirit also “comes alongside” us in times of need even as Aaron and Hur came alongside Moses to hold up his hands when he could no longer hold them up himself.

Just as God has sent a “parakletos” to us in the form of the Holy Spirit, II Corinthians 1 tells us that we ourselves need to be “parakletos”. If there is one thing that can be said about the Holy Spirit, it is an active spirit. The Scriptures begin with the Holy Spirit moving across the face of the waters and ends with the Holy Spirit flowing as living water for all who desire a drink. In between it is depicted rumbling as an earthquake, blowing as wind, flowing as water, consuming as fire, and power as coming from on high.

As the Spirit is always on the move, so the Spirit needs to flow through us that we might be a comforter, an advocate, a counselor, an encourager. We are the ones to come alongside others in times of need.

Someone once told me that the word “parakletos” painted a unique word picture for sailors of the ancient world, one that would not have been lost on the fisherman in Jesus entourage. When a ship became disabled because of wreck or disrepair, another ship would be dispatched to come alongside the first one and accompany the disabled vessel to safe harbor. The second ship was called a “parakletos”! Remember that word picture when someone you know is in need of safe harbor.