Abraham and Virginia

One snippet of my fairly liberal seminary training that has stuck with me, was that we should read the Bible with the newspaper in our other hand, and we should read the newspaper with our Bible close at hand, too.  Liberals (and dispensationalists) go all kinds of crazy ways with this truism, but it's true because God's Word and current events do relate to each other.


THE BIBLE
My personal devotions a day or two ago included this zinger from Genesis 14:

"When Abram heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people."

Abram had 318 trained men, which means trained for battle.  Though he trusted God’s promise to give him the promised land on God’s own time, he also prepared for the safety of his clan in a hostile place.  And when the circumstance called for it, as it did when Lot and his family was carried off captive, he used the force he had retained and cultivated, to defend and preserve his own.

I’m not a big gun guy – don’t know much about them and don’t have any – but this text is a strong case for armed defense by those looking to God for their ultimate protection in a hostile world.

SO BACK TO THE NEWSPAPER

Democrats in Virginia have taken the legislature and have kept the governorship through scandals, and so are waxing bold to pass strong gun control measures.  The rally that took place, Doug Wilson says, shows us how to resist and speak against poor or unbiblical or unconstitutional leadership.  He gives a good case for for it here.

The media keeps showing how out of touch it is with real people.  They set up the narrative that of course only kooks and dangerous freaks would protest such common-sense regulations on guns.  What one side sees as common sense the other sees as a horrific violation of the constitution.  Wilson is insightful in seeing the vast gulf between liberals, who see rights as things we don't yet have that the government needs to provide people, and conservatives, who see rights as things we inherently have that the government may not take away or intrude upon.  

Do we have a right to health care, basic income?  Or do we have rights to assemble, to bear arms, to speak as we wish?  Which set are enshrined in the constitution?