Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 13:38-41

38 If a man also or a woman have in the skin of their flesh bright spots, even white bright spots;

39 Then the priest shall look: and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin; he is clean.

40 And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.

41 And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean.

Today’s verses present a lesson that might seem laughably obvious, but which have a deeper symbolic meaning worth considering. In today’s verses it describes that simply going bald is not a sign of leprosy. If there is a discoloration of the skin, then that might indicate that the hair is falling out due to an underlying illness, but a man who goes bald as part of the regular aging process is not cause for alarm!

Simple and obvious, perhaps, but thus far we have seen how the principles for recognizing leprosy have all been important lessons in how to recognize social spiritual infections as well. And just as how natural baldness is not in-and-of-itself a sign of leprosy, a civilization suffering a loss is not in-and-of-itself a sign of spiritual decay. The fact is, sometimes baldness just happens, and so, too, sometimes tragedy just happens.

We live in a fallen world, after all, where things will not always be ideal. Tragedy remains tragic, whether it is a consequence of wrong decisions or a random act of nature. To know if a society has gone astray, we need to look deeper than what has happened to them, we need to look at what happenings are coming from them. Only then can we know clean from unclean.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Taking Accountability- The Responsibility of Us All

A Tragedy and an Evil)

I don’t typically comment on world events or change my post lineup for special days. The way I see it, gospel study should be a constant in life, something steady and reliable, no matter what else is going on. So, whether it’s a special day or a mundane one, whether a happy day or sad, studying the gospel remains my rock through it all, and I try to have this blog reflect that.

But I recently saw a connection between something I wrote a couple weeks ago, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and I thought it might be instructive to talk about it.

First of all, let me emphatically renounce the assassination itself. It was evil, and cowardly evil at that. As Isaac Asimov said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Anyone that feels any sort of satisfaction from the occurrence, and celebrated it, is also evil, and cowardly evil. Those that commit and celebrate violence upon the innocent are devolving from the divine to the animal.

In the face of such abhorrent evil, it is only natural to ask, “how did we get here?” and “what can we do about it now?”

And these are the questions that brought me back to my post from two weeks ago. On September 5, I shared this simple prayer:

May my first reaction to every problem in the world 
And every problem in my personal life
Be "What did I do to contribute to this?"

Taking Accountability)

Well, that was my prayer at the time, but will I actually hold to its ideals in this moment? Will I say that only people other than myself need to change? Will I comfort myself with the assurance that I’m ‘one of the good ones’ and that I contributed nothing to what transpired? Or will I try to find some piece, even if it is small, that I can take accountability for?

Over the next three days I want to take my intentions and make them into actions. I want to look at this terrible thing that happened and see what I can change about myself as a response to it. I want to take ownership for the ways that my behavior has helped build a culture that produces tragedies such as these. I want to be realistic, and pragmatic, and honest.

I want to do this, because I truly believe it is my responsibility to do so. I believe it is the responsibility of us all. Only by focusing first and foremost on our own accountability will we become innocent of the world’s evil and transcend it. If enough of us take accountability, then we will transcend the world’s evil by changing the world so that events like these don’t happen anymore. Or, if not of us take accountability to accomplish that, we will at least transcend the world by no longer being part of the cycle that creates moments like these. Either collectively or individually, we can only create a better world by each of us taking accountability for ourselves.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Captive Heart- Question

The end of my last study was very impactful to me. It brought up the point of how we so often choose the very things that hurt us the most, and how God must intervene to save us from our own selves.

But to be sure, each of us are also victims to the onslaughts of others. Indeed most of our own acts of self-harm have their roots in the way others cut our confidence out from under us. We were made to question our worth, and that wasn’t right. So God must also intervene to save us from others.

Yet is it any wonder that others have learned to be cruel, given how harsh and uncompromising this world can be? Sometimes it is neither ourselves nor another that causes offense, it is the misfortune of nature, of chance, of having a physical body and a frail mind, of being subject to disease, deterioration, and death. So God must also intervene to save us from the mortal world.

And He does so. With this study I would like to examine how we are assaulted, and how we find reclamation in the gospel. In the meantime I would invite you to consider in what ways you have been hurt by yourself, by others, and by the world? How are you hurting right at this moment? In what ways is God trying to rescue you? Are there ways in which you are blocking Him? What are the reasons why?