The Thief

 The Thief

By: George Bowers

December 2020

There is a wicked thief

That causes bitter grief.

But one we welcome in

To multiply our sin.

It steals the heart and mind,

And leaves emptiness behind.

It robs us of our prayer,

And proliferates our care.

It takes children’s innocence,

And breeds their angry insolence.

It costs us hours of sleep

Or thoughts so rich and deep.

Our purity’s snatched away,

Day by endless day.

It kidnaps Sabbath hours

By its captivating powers.

Holiness is its plunder,

Loss of worship and wonder.

Family time it takes

And arguments it makes.

Its ever incessant pleading

Steals our time for reading.

Our waistlines become swollen,

As our exercise stolen. 

Imagination’s slain

With the heartlessness of Cain.

It’s very plain to see,

This thief is our TV!

 

 

An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries

 By: Jupiter Hammon - 1711-1805

 

 

Salvation comes by Christ alone,

   The only Son of God;

Redemption now to every one,

   That love his holy Word.

 

Dear Jesus, we would fly to Thee,

   And leave off every Sin,

Thy tender Mercy well agree;

   Salvation from our King.

 

Salvation comes now from the Lord,

   Our victorious King.

His holy Name be well ador'd,

   Salvation surely bring.

 

Dear Jesus, give thy Spirit now,

   Thy Grace to every Nation,

That han't the Lord to whom we bow,

   The Author of Salvation.

 

Dear Jesus, unto Thee we cry,

   Give us the Preparation;

Turn not away thy tender Eye;

   We seek thy true Salvation.

 

Salvation comes from God we know,

   The true and only One;

It's well agreed and certain true,

   He gave his only Son.

 

Lord, hear our penetential Cry:

   Salvation from above;

It is the Lord that doth supply,

   With his Redeeming Love.

 

Dear Jesus, by thy precious Blood,

   The World Redemption have:

Salvation now comes from the Lord,

   He being thy captive slave.

 

Dear Jesus, let the Nations cry,

   And all the People say,

Salvation comes from Christ on high,

   Haste on Tribunal Day.

 

We cry as Sinners to the Lord,

   Salvation to obtain;

It is firmly fixed, his holy Word,

   Ye shall not cry in vain.

 

Dear Jesus, unto Thee we cry,

   And make our Lamentation:

O let our Prayers ascend on high;

   We felt thy Salvation.

 

Lord, turn our dark benighted Souls;

   Give us a true Motion,

And let the Hearts of all the World,

   Make Christ their Salvation.

 

Ten Thousand Angels cry to Thee,

   Yea, louder than the Ocean.

Thou art the Lord, we plainly see;

   Thou art the true Salvation.

 

Now is the Day, excepted Time;

   The Day of the Salvation;

Increase your Faith, do not repine:

   Awake ye, every Nation.

 

Lord, unto whom now shall we go,

   Or seek a safe abode?

Thou has the Word Salvation Too,

   The only Son of God.

 

Ho! every one that hunger hath,

   Or pineth after me,

Salvation be thy leading Staff,

   To set the Sinner free.

 

Dear Jesus, unto Thee we fly;

   Depart, depart from Sin,

Salvation doth at length supply,

   The Glory of our King.

 

Come, ye Blessed of the Lord,

   Salvation greatly given;

O turn your Hearts, accept the Word,

   Your Souls are fit for Heaven.

 

Dear Jesus, we now turn to Thee,

   Salvation to obtain;

Our Hearts and Souls do meet again,

   To magnify thy Name.

 

Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,

   The Object of our Care;

Salvation doth increase our Love;

   Our Hearts hath felt they fear.

 

Now Glory be to God on High,

   Salvation high and low;

And thus the Soul on Christ rely,

   To Heaven surely go.

 

Come, Blessed Jesus, Heavenly Dove,

   Accept Repentance here;

Salvation give, with tender Love;

   Let us with Angels share. 

 

Finis.

 

This poem is in the public domain.

 

Jupiter Hammon

1711–1805

Jupiter Hammon was the first African American poet to be published in the United States. He was born in Lloyd Harbor, New York, on October 17, 1711, and was enslaved by Henry Lloyd. The Lloyd family encouraged Hammon to attend school, where he learned to read and write, and he went on to work alongside Henry Lloyd as a bookkeeper and negotiator for the family’s business. In his early years, Hammon was heavily influenced by the Great Awakening, a major religious revival of the time, and became a devout Christian.

 

Hammon published his first poem, “An Evening Thought. Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries: Composed by Jupiter Hammon, a Negro belonging to Mr. Lloyd of Queen’s Village, on Long Island, the 25th of December, 1760,” as a broadside in 1761. Eighteen years passed before the publication of his second work, “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatley.” In this poem, Hammon addresses a series of quatrains with accompanying Bible verses to Wheatley, the most prominent African American poet of the time. In 1782 Hammon published “A Poem for Children with Thoughts on Death.”

 

After Henry Lloyd died in 1763, Hammon remained enslaved by Lloyd’s son, Joseph, with whom he moved to Connecticut. There, he became a leader in the African American community and attended abolitionist and Revolutionary War societies. At the inaugural meeting of the Spartan Project of the African Society of New York City in September of 1786, Hammon delivered his most famous sermon, “Address to the Negroes of the State of New York.” His writing was reprinted by several abolitionist societies, including the New York Quakers and the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

 

Hammon is widely considered one of the founders of the early American and African American writing traditions. His date of death is unknown, although he is believed to have died sometime around 1806, having been enslaved his entire life. He is likely buried in an unmarked grave on what was once the Lloyd property and is now Caumsett State Historic Park Preserve in Long Island, New York.

 

Caesar and God

It just so happens that my small group is looking at Matthew 22:15 - 22 for next week. Here is the handout I sent them this morning.

 Good morning brothers,

Perhaps it is an accident that we have this passage next week...but maybe not.

I don't cry often, but I cried yesterday...not just for our nation, but for the abdication of a distinct witness by much of the church in this land - when Christians are politicized all hell breaks loose. 

Matthew 22:15 – 22.

 

This is the first of four questions in Matthew Chapter 22:

 

1.    Matthew 22:15 – 22, a sociopolitical question about taxes; how much should we give ourselves to our country?

2.    Matthew 22:23 – 33, a supernatural question about Resurrection.

3.    Matthew 22:34 – 40, a Scriptural question about the Greatest Commandment.

4.    Matthew 22:41 – 46, a Sonship question about the Lordship of Christ.

 

Pharisees = think religious group

 

Herodians = think political group

 

Isn’t it nice when both groups combine?

 

They both have an interest in killing Jesus.

 

If Jesus says that the tax shouldn’t be paid then He can be accused of violating Roman law and siding with those against Rome – inciting the Herodians. If Jesus says that it should be paid then He can be accused of endorsing Roman occupation and inciting the Pharisees, and more radical Jews.

 

Jesus literally asks, “Show me the coin of the tax.” The silver denarius was a coin minted for this tax, with the head of Tiberius Caesar on one side and the head of his mother, Livia, on the other. On one side of the coin was printed, “Ti[berius] Caesar, worshipful son of the divine Augustus.” You might call this a “portable idol.”

 

When Jesus asks whose image and inscription is on the coin, He forces them to say “Caesar’s”, to acknowledge the image on the coin and who the ownership of the coin belongs to.

 

Bruner writes, “Their reply half answers their own question: they possess in the coin the possession of another. Is it ever wrong to return property to its owner? Jesus could have stopped there. But he adds one more stroke, his great principle, to teach with all possible clarity the truth of loyal but limited responsibility to political power.”

 

When Jesus says, “Render” the Greek word means to “give back” – since it belongs to Caesar give it back to Caesar.

 

Here are some other passages regarding Christians and government:

 

1 Timothy 2:1 – 2 (many Christians seem to only pray for those they agree with); Romans 13:1 – 7 (note context); Titus 3:1 – 3 (many Christians ignore this, “Christian” vitriol and sarcasm is sickening); 1 Peter 2:13 – 20 (the context of this is suffering, Peter expects his readers to respect the state even if the state persecutes them).

 

I’m going to close this handout with an extensive quote from Frederick Dale Bruner’s commentary on Matthew, Bruner is a Presbyterian, but what he has to say is not unusual historically, nor among those who struggle with the implications of the Bible’s teaching (the Barman Declaration that Bruner mentions was a document of the faithful German church (a minority) drawn up during Nazism when most of the church was being politicized for nationalist and political ends – of course that would never happen here, thank goodness). The underlining is mine:

 

“But if the first half of Jesus’ answer means the honor of the state, the last half means the limitation of the state. “But [you give back] to God the things that belong to God!” As Caesar’s coin bears Caesar’s image and belongs to Caesar, so God’s human beings bear God’s image and belong to God. God provides humanity with all kinds of services through the state, and so now God mandates through his Son that humans honor God’s servant state, with a due reciprocity – with a due, not a deified, reciprocity. The “total” in the word totalitarian signifies undue respect for the state. “My country, right or wrong” is a totalitarian statement. The only reality with a total claim on conscience is God. Jesus’ Caesar – God formula means that we are to give Caesar a great deal, but not an allegiance that knows no bounds. God is the boundary of the state.

 

“The state is God’s servant, and the preponderance of NT witnesses to the state lays emphasis on this dignifying fact. But the state can become demonic, and it is one ministry of the book of Revelation to paint this fact colorfully (esp. Rev. 13 and 18). The state becomes demonic in the measure that it asks for itself “the things of God,” such as total commitment, unconditional obedience, or uncriticizing allegiance (e.g. “America, Love It or Leave it”). Some governments play God or the special friend of God. In such cases, the warning of the Presbyterianism’s Confession of 1967 is salutary: “Although nations may serve God’s purposes in history, the church which identifies the sovereignty of any one nation or any one way of life with the cause of God denies the Lordship of Christ and betrays its calling” (see the fifth thesis of The Theological Declaration of Barmen for similar limitations).

 

“Implicit then, in Jesus’s imperial answer is a twofold critique: (1) of those who give the (even usurper) state too little, such as the anticolonial revolutionaries and later the Zealots, and (2) of those who give the state an almost divine too much, like the Herodians and all later hyperpatriots. Jesus’s command frees the secular – political realm from ultimacy and makes it penultimate. Every attempt to make our politics God’s, or to make the political divine or ultimate, as the Far Right and the Far Left are always inclined to do (“Far” usually means the divinization of a cause), must shatter on this Word of Stone. Fundamentalisms of all kinds illustrate this evil dramatically.”

 

Much love,

 

Bob