If you don’t like what you have
What will you do when it’s gone?
The first in the 2024 summer series, “With what will you replace it when it’s gone?” (2 min vid + text).
Dr. Mark Eckel is Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University. Support MarkEckel.com (here). Find the MarkEckel.com YouTube Channel (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website) and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video).
Pictures: Josh Collingwood, Snappy Goat
FULL TEXT
“What will you replace it with when it’s gone?” This question has haunted me throughout the tumultuous spring on American college campuses. Yes, we have seen unrest in our country before. Protest is nothing new. But the very idea of protest, the ability to speak is premised upon Constitutional protections. So, I return to the question. If the ideas upon which this country was established, are extinguished, what then? What is the replacement for the principles formed in the democratic republic of the United States, or any nation that prizes its freedoms? But a more foundational question takes precedence. Upon what authority structure will you erect a better human government?
Here I must turn to one of the most important statements about human government in the Bible’s book of Proverbs, chapter 29 verse 18, which says in the Hebrew, “Where there is no revelation, the people are unrestrained.” The word “revelation,” often translated “vision,” is God’s disclosure of law to humans. The second part of the verse reverses the negative, making a positive statement “happy are people who keep God’s law.” As I have stated many times in our weekly Truth in Two series over six years, the Transcendent Authority of God is the best foundation for any culture. Why? As Proverbs indicates, without God’s objective Truth, people become unrestrained. The Hebrew word means to be “let loose,” literally to “let one’s hair down” in the sense of living a wild, undisciplined life.
So, to those who would throw off both the freedom and restraint God’s Word gives, I return to the question, “What will you replace it with when it’s gone?” And the applications for the word “it” are varied and important: what will you replace your country, your marriage, your friendship, your job, your church, your freedom with when it’s gone?” For the Comenius Institute, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, Executive Director of the Center for Biblical Integration at Liberty University, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.