Help for the Human Race

Everywhere you turn today: TV, radio, Facebook, Twitter, newspapers, and newsfeeds all carry the same ugly scene. Protests, violence, rioting, looting, burning and in some instances, murder appear to be the order of the day. Violence is met with violence. One can hardly think over the roar of all the voices proclaiming solutions to the problem that has brought such fear, pain, and distrust.

Millions of dollars are being pledged to a variety of organizations that are supposed to be able to help craft solutions. Some have suggested defunding the police or abolishing police forces altogether. All these solutions are destined to fail. Why? Because the police are not the problem. We are!

Until we are ready to return to a Biblical worldview and see each other as God created us, our best solutions can only provide temporary relief to superficial symptoms.

Genesis 1:26-27  (NIV)

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

Until we are ready to see all people as image-bearers of God and therefore worthy of dignity and respect, we will continue to allow pride and arrogance to deceive us into believing that some of us are better than others. Racism will continue until I see all people as created in the image of God. Injustice of all kinds will only be resolved when we agree to treat each other with the same respect and dignity which we desire to be treated.

This is the truth entrusted to the Church. We would do well to master it in our churches and then respond to the world out of that same truth.