You made some excellent comparisons in your discussion thread. Also, I agree
with you when you write that the African American community and the children of
Israel have “many similarities.” For example, in the Old Testament we read, “The
Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter with hard work, with brick and mortar
and all kinds of work in the fields” (Exodus 1, 14, p. 138, EHV). This passage
reminds of how the lives of the African American slaves were made indescribably
brutal by the greedy European slave traders and African slave traders who first
sold them into slavery, and then white slave owners in America who oversaw their
completed their suffering.
d d d d In your discussion of the fall, I thought that you made another interesting
point. You seem to say that just as Adam and Eve were held accountable for
disobeying God’s Law (in The Garden of Eden), modern man should be held
accountable if he does not use the mental health services including the brilliant
mental health professionals which are available to help them. Please pardon me if
I misunderstood, but you seem to infer in both cases that ignorance of the law,
either the state’s law or God’s law, is no excuse. In other words, just as the
ancient Israelites were not aloud to blame Satan for their failure to follow God’s
law, contemporary humans should not be permitted to seek to blame their
shortcomings and sins on forces outside themselves, especially when help is
available to them. In my own case, I remain grateful for God’s mercy towards us
because I often forget to ask for his help when I need it, and I stubbornly try to
do things my own way. I am afterall, a work in progress.
I think you make another important point when you say paraphrase Wolters
(2005) who said at the heart of all human discord is arrogance, disobediances
and defiance. Nevertheless, you go on to say that God is forgiving, because he
loves us. d “For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son, that so
ever believes in him shall not perish. For God did not send his son into the world
to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (Holy Bible, 2015; John
3, 16:17).
At any rate, I am grateful , that our God is a forgiving God who loves us in spite
of out failures and shortcomings. Thanks again for an interesting discussion
thread.
