When I drive to work, I often listen to a religious broadcast, Thru The Bible. Before he passed away, Dr. J. Vernon McGee broadcasted and recorded a five-year journey thru the chapters of the Bible. So every five years his Bible commentary is heard anew in many languages around the world.
Of late, with his pleasant Texas accent, Dr. McGee has been discussing The Book of Galatians. What did he talk about today?
Galatians 5:22-26
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Dr. McGee explained that we do not live the Christian life on our own. Imagine the serenity that comes from knowing you are loved by God. This we can achieve by yielding to the Holy Spirit and letting His love indwell us. Love results in the remaining fruit.
- Love, joy, and peace is the fruit that strengthens us.
- Patience, kindness, and goodness is the fruit we each bear in love to strengthen each other.
- Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is the fruit we yield up in worship to God.
How do we learn to yield to the Holy Spirit? Dr. McGee spoke of the Christian walk. How did we each learn to walk? We practiced. We learned by trial and error. In our eagerness to learn, we accepted the fact we would sometimes fall. We knew that with our parents help we could pick ourselves up and try again. The Christian walk is much the same. We learn with His help and with His steadying hand.
If we let ourselves be filled with the fruit of the Spirit, how would that affect our political debate? Would we would start listening to each other in an effort to understand, or would we remain eager to condem those who disagree with us? Instead of arguing and calling each other names, would we try speak to each other with mutual respect? Why not?
Truth is not something any of us owns. Only God knows the whole Truth. Why should any of us be so conceited as to believe we have all the answers? Why should we needlessly provoke our fellows with our own half-baked beliefs?
Consider the nature of American politics. Our nation is composed of people from all over the world. Have people across the world ever agreed on how a society should be run? How much of what we believe has changed over the last 400 years? Is there any reason to believe everything will remain the same? Is the situation static? Isn’t our nation an experiment? Will the same answer always be the right answer?
Does not wisdom begin with the fear of the Lord? Only God is God. Only with God’s help can we succeed. If we must debate, then let it be respectful and thoughtful debate between friends. Perhaps then our discussions will yield from us something that approximates what He would have us do.
Good points, Father Tom
I always shrink at the hypocrisy of starting the BOCS meetings with a prayer, not because I think it’s the wrong thing to do, but because certain members of the BOCS seem to be seeking their own glory and not the peace you discuss. They support groups that generate hatred and dissention instead of solutions.
We are all human, and particularly as someone who has ADHD, I struggle with that blurting out-self control thing. But I have to fight it and admit, in retrospect, when I have gone over a certain line. That is the issue–seeking the wisdom to know you have crossed the line between personal weaknesses and the right thing to do. There are many, many gray areas for sure, but some are not so gray as others.
I would say, for example, referring to minorities as “vermin” and “invaders” as part of an immigration debate is more than just crossing that line. I would say referring to people on TANF as “bloodsuckers” is more than crossing that line. These are giant leaps into dangerous government and society.