Hello
Today’s Holy Nougat requires a personal response.
“Everyone who saw it said, “Such a horrible crime has not been committed in all the time since Israel left Egypt. Think about it! What are we going to do? Who’s going to speak up?”” Judges 19:30 NLT
Which was the horrible crime really? The priest’s nameless concubine was gang raped and left for dead. She barely made it to the door of the home where they were guests. He knew she would have been raped, but didn’t expect her to be dead/on the verge of death. He did not prevent the rape; but when she didn’t respond after he awakened and found her at the door; he cut her to pieces to protest the rape.
Abuse is not always as hard as what was earlier depicted; tho its impact may be as strong on the victim. Especially emotional abuse which often shatters the abused for way beyond the moment. So where do we factor in?
Evil flourishes when good people fail to act. Far too often we have permitted ourselves to be silent bystanders to protect our own interests. Probably because we are not related to the one, or we value our lives above anyone else. Or it brings us back to our own experience and we become impotent to respond.
Whatever our reason, men and women are being abused every minute somewhere on this planet. And inclusion of this in the Bible does not justify our failure to respond. We have a mandate to share the good news of God’s love for humanity, which includes offering hope (and protection where feasible) to the abused and helping the abused to become transformed by Christ’s grace.
What are we doing about violence in our contexts? Who is speaking up? Who is offering God’s healing for the hurting?
Selah In Christ’s love and grace . . .
