Sunday, May 5, 2019

Row Well and Live

In our lives, we are each given a task (or a series of tasks) to complete.
In the movie Ben Hur (the real one with Charlton Heston), Judah Ben Hur, a man of privilege (did you know that Ben Hur means "son of white?. But I digress) is unjustly sent to be a galley slave by a man he trusted as friend.
His friend was a functionary of the earthly system that oppressed mankind, the Roman Empire.

Serve the system and live.




At a point shortly after this scene, the Roman admiral, who had just admonished him, orders that in the event of the upcoming battle, Hur (#41) is to be unchained.
This is a very unexpected (to put it mildly) act of mercy that is pivotal to the story line.
If the prisoners are chained to the ship, they know that their fate is tied to that ship.
Row well and live indeed!

Spoiler alert to a story over a hundred years old:

The ship is rammed in the battle and as the ship is sinking, Hur unchained in turn releases the other slaves. We know not their fate, but Hur survives.

I awoke this morning to a sermon by J. Vernon Mcgee  speaking about the coming collapse of this world and it's judgment.
The economy is booming, we are generally safe in our beds and it's hard to imagine it all going away.


But when it does, are you chained to it? 
Will you go down with it?
Are you busy unchaining others?




11 comments:

  1. Excellent. Our faith removes our chains. Our tasks release the slaves.

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  2. You can’t “save yourself” and live. We are our brothers’ keepers.

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    Replies
    1. To save your life you must lose it.
      I read that somewhere.

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    2. No religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things mammon will do. Peter and the apostles only realized this after the Master was resurrected. It was only then that they put fishing behind them, and became fishers of men.

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    3. I like your thinking.
      I appreciate your comments.

      Delete
  3. Good stuff as per usual. Food for thought. Now I want to watch that movie again.

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