Choose a Side!

If you are still trying to figure out what to do with your life, you are the property of Satan. You are trapped. You are caught in a snare because it is not your life. You have already heard the gospel. You know what you have to do. You have to choose a side. There is no middle ground. There is no twilight between light and dark. Neoplatonic expressions like “both-sideism” and “moral equivalency” are Satanic—a lie of the Devil. You have to choose a side. As I speak, every 10 minutes, a child’s murder is justified by an egotistical 19th-century European theology born out of a settler-colonial King James translation of the biblical text. It is a settler-colonial text rendered in Anglo-Saxon by the court of a settler-colonial king who sought to justify the theft, dispossession, exploitation, and murder of Native Americans. Previously, European theology resulted in the barbaric and brutal persecution of our beloved Jewish brothers and sisters for centuries. These are facts.For those who are baptized into Jesus Christ, there is only one side—the judgment of God our Father—which is against you and against me. This God—the God of Scripture—does not speak Anglo-Saxon or write with vowels. In view of these facts, YOU must choose a side. YOU must TAKE A STAND—on the content of the biblical text! YOU must WRITE A BOOK—dealing with the content of the biblical text! YOU must START A PODCAST—reading aloud the content of the biblical text! YOU must WRITE AN ARTICLE—exegeting the content of the biblical text! This has nothing to do with your career choices, life goals, dreams, or what you do for a living. When you talk this way, you sound like a navel-gazing, self-serving, money-loving settler-colonial. What of the children in Sudan? Do they have dreams? Or is Sudan only a tourist stop on a checklist for impressive Ivy-League resumes? “Each one of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12)“Each one will bear his own load.” (Galatians 6:5)Each one of us must pick up our own shovel. I am speaking to each and every individual person who hears this podcast. This is a personal message to you. Take it personally. Be angry with me if you must. Your programs, activities, groups, mailing lists, ideals, altruisms, associations, parties, clubs, nonprofits, whatever—all of it—is vanity. Are you objectively teaching and spreading the objective content of the biblical text against anthropocentrism, ignorance, fundamentalism, fanaticism, political and religious ideology, philosophy, theology, colonialism, and greed? Or are you promoting your own version of the same (in other words, are you promoting yourself) by building your resume?  Are you teaching the content of Scripture? Are you writing? Are you going through Scripture verse by verse? Are you studying biblical languages? Are you teaching biblical languages?What are you doing? At this hour, plenty of people are expending a ton of energy and wealth to propagandize hate. Worse, they are expending even more energy and wealth to co-opt SCRIPTURE to propagandize genocide. Rightly did St. Paul speak of those who have received knowledge but refuse to work when he proclaimed, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:24)Because of those who know but do not teach:- 1,200 children have died in the past 5 months in Sudan, and at least 5.8 million people have been displaced since April due to civil war.- More than 500 children have been killed and 1,000 injured in Ukraine since the start of the war, and 11 million Ukrainians were displaced.- At the time of this recording, 5000 children that we know of have been killed in Gaza, almost 9000 were injured, and 1.4 million (70% of all Palestinians living in Gaza) have been displaced. Meanwhile, the US Congress, universities, colleges, and public institutions (and the majority of the European powers) continue to debate whether or not it is “racist” to call for a ceasefire.Those of you who listen to this podcast know better. Forget politics. You know what Scripture teaches. What are you doing to spread the content of God’s teaching? Not to give your feedback on how it could be done better, what other people should do, or what your priest should do.What are you doing with your own hands? Richard and I discuss Luke 5:7. (Episode 508)

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