True or Fake IX (RV)

Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.

 - From 2 Samuel 18

Everybody wants to quote the Bible. They use it like their evidence to prove they are right, "on the right side of history," or to build a case that their opponent "lied," or "committed treason," or is "Hitler."

Christians quote it, while their opponents don't care.

Their opponents quote it, but only to make Christians squirm.

Everybody misuses it. They avoid the complexities of it, and the plain statements that, at face value, are paradoxical.

At it's heart, the Bible never really says exactly what we wish it were saying. Consider King David, the "man after God's own heart." You can't compare Trump to David . . . because the Trump haters will just disdain your mentioning of David and Donald in the same breath.

Okay then, let's look at it another way. Let's compare you to King David. What example does he provide, that we wish he didn't? What characteristic did we know he had . . . that we'd rather not think about too much?

How about the way he felt about the most formidable enemies in his life?

We've talked about his predecessor, King Saul. David knew that Saul's soul was tarnished, that he was corrupt and egocentric. Yet David always treated the king with deference, and when Saul died, David mourned as much as anybody.

But how about David's own son, Absalom? Absalom seems to have been inhabited by the spirit of Saul. Saul's anger and vengeance came back upon David, in the person of his own flesh and blood. And Absalom, meanwhile, had become obsessed with toppling his father. The rivalry, the resentment, and the rage had taken over the son.

But David's military was charged only with defeating Absalom's armies . . . which they did, handily. But they were to bring Absalom in to David, intact. The King would prepare a seat at his table, for his most disloyal and dangerous subject.

Saul and Absalom were two of the worst people in David's life. Yet he loved them both and treated them with grace. He did not bring them before trial, to see them sentenced and handed over to an angry (and impressionable) crowd! He would restore them to their positions of favor in his court, and family. He would have them honored, once again, by his subjects.

Are you like David? Or are you like the fickle mobs - - - the crowds of people that come under the spell of marches, movements, waves of anger and resistance to anything that represents a limit on the crowd's temper?

Do you wish well to those that you should consider your enemy? Do you long to restore everybody to their original place of friendship and favor?

Are you like David?