This Thought for the Day has to be a bit shorter today because, well, I've finally been given my appointment and I'm due to get my jab!
How VERY exciting this all is!
They are going to put some small amount of fluid into my arm and then I'll end up with what is going around in my bloodstream being stronger than any infection from the dreaded COVID-causing virus that gets in there and ... hunky dory!
SARS-CoV-2 will not be able to get me down.
We hope.
But in this strange world we live in at the moment, it's apparently not just biological viruses we need to innoculated against.
Non-biological viruses
Today the BBC carried a spy STORY about the urgent need for legislation to protect the UK from information 'viruses' as hostile foreign states put untruths about on the internet to change the course of Britain's politics and government.
Apparently untrue 'truths' operate as viruses too!
And that's the sort of thing that our Verse for the Day is about today.
There were very powerful-seeming hostile ideas around the people the Apostle John is writing to in his first letter.
The fake news they were propagating seemed to be totally dominating their news feeds (such as they were) and it was getting very oppressive.
And to a situation like that, where untrue 'truth' seemed to be dominating their world's agenda, John wrote:
People were standing up, speaking out and claiming to be delivering truth yet saying things that were utterly untrue.
And that was SHAKING John's readers so John wrote:
"every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us;
but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood."
1 John 4:3-6
The Point
There are a LOT of ideas that are very contrary to the Biblical, Christian view of things going around in our time and culture.
Laws are being drafted right now in the UK that will make it illegal to speak about the Christian take on gender identity, sexuality and marriage ... not minor issues to us. These are not the only issues in the ball park - there are others similarly going around too. But the thought of them making Christian teaching illegal to repeat ... even in our own homes? That's a pretty big thing for us to deal with!
It is VERY easy in this sort of situation to feel as if things are getting on top of us and as if we are very much on the back foot.
John's readers were in the same place.
John tells them: 'don't panic, keep a steady hand on the tiller!'
"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."
The Takeaway
Our actions in response to being overcome by a tide of 'false truth' may include a measured, gracious resistance in the world of discussion, rational and scientific argument or even legal action to challenge the new ideological status quo by legal means.
But our confidence in the face of the viral anti-truth machines of our age is in God.
He is the Guarantor and protector of truth and we have confidence in His ability to take care of the truth ... enabling us to live and respond calmly, graciously and with all confidence in the Gospel to deal with the challenges to His truth that we encounter.
In the end it is the Gospel taking root in human hearts right across our society that will remedy this situation ... and until then we both pray towards that day, and in the interim place our hope and our confidence in God.
No comments:
Post a Comment