In the year AD 1979
How Can Christians Change the System ?
Read : ( Proverbs 21 : 1 )
How can Christians change the system ? Does the Bible teach any ways by which we can change the way people live, and make our rules more fair and our life more happy ? Think of 2 men who came to Jerusalem. One was a trained revolutionary. He was skilled in violence; he knew the tactics of fear and war. He came because he wanted to change the system. It needed to be changed. There were a lot of bad things happening to his people. He believed he could change it. He even murdered people to do it. But his revolution did not work. He was caught and thrown into prison. His name was Barabbas. You can read about him in the Bible in Matthew 27:16-26 and in Mark 15:7-15.
The trouble with Barabbas was that in trying to change the system he forgot that he was in the system. He saw the greed, the injustice and the wrong in his nation. He did not like what it did to him or to his friends. But what is the system ? The system is people. Barabbas had the same evil in his heart that he hated in others. And no system can be changed until you find a way to change the people in it. The trouble with his revolution was that it was not revolutionary enough. It tried to change the outside, when the real problem was the inside. It dealt with the leaves & branches of the problems, but not the root of it. And no one can really change the world for better until he himself has been changed that way. No one can make his world unselfish until he has solved the problem of selfishness in his own life. How could Barabbas think to overthrow greed, stealing from others, and the violent invasion of other people's rights and lives when he himself was a robber, a thief and murderer ?
They put Barabbas in prison. They took the other Man who came to Jerusalem too. He had come to change people. His way was not the way of hate and fear. He knew how to change people inside, so that the world would become right outside. But they were more afraid of this Man than they were of Barabbas. It is always easy to deal with men like Barabbas. You just crush him with power and death. But you cannot do that with the message Jesus brought. So they let Barabbas go and crucified Jesus. No one ever heard of Barabbas again. But in less than 50 years, it seemed as if half the Roman Empire had become followers of Jesus ! Now you tell me who won the revolution ?
This is God's way of changing the world. We must deal with problems at the heart. Problems start with people, in their heads & their hearts. God has power to change people in both places. And when people really change, in both high & low places, the system will change. This is God's way of changing the world. The early Christians knew how to do this. People said of them, "These that have turned the world upside down have come here also." It is not easy to change people God's way. It cost God His Son. It cost Jesus His life. But if we pay the price, we can see our world changed !
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Holy Matrimony : 3 June 1995
ÿ
Email : revival3@singnet.com.sg
Regards
Wong Chee Kong
Born : 10 March 1954
Place : Bethesda ( Bedok-Tampines ) Church
" Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old
he will not depart from it "
( Proverbs 22 : 6 )
" . . . out of his heart
will flow rivers of living water . "
( John 7 : 38 )
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