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newton3003
Guest
At the end of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech, he says “…when we allow freedom [to] ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
As he was a reverend, his words above can be found with little variation in the Bible. As regards to everyone joining hands, Galatians 3:28 says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That is, we are all equal under God, each with our own burdens to bear, each with our own tests to see if we will abide by the first and second great commandments of Jesus, the first being to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and the second being to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And the Bible says that faith without works is dead.
Who is our neighbor? Jesus says in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 that our neighbor is someone who can help us. Jesus also says, in referring to that Parable, that we should be neighbors to others, as we ourselves might be helped by neighbors.
When MLK says in his final words of his speech that all of us might declare that we are free at last, that includes the freedom to not feel that we have to stick to folks who live by bigotry and prejudice. Instead, we are free to love our neighbors no matter if they are “black men and white men Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics...” and all other God’s children, that if we live as God’s children we will be doing well and we will be sure to meet and be friends with others who live as God’s children and not with the yoke of the slavery of bigotry and prejudice. MLK’s final words call to mind Galatians 5:1 which says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That passage refers not just to physical slavery, but to the metaphysical slavery of feeing obligated to share and indulge in the bigotry and prejudice of others.
While MLK focuses on the slavery endured by everyone as it relates to black people, we know that the freedom he talks about applies to everyone. It is easy to let others do our thinking for us, and to trust ourselves in the hands of people in our group, be it one of the groups alluded to in Galatians 3:28. After all, sometimes it seems there are not enough hours in the day for us to do our own thinking and discerning, to ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing the right thing as Jesus would want us to?’ Or the problems of our households, which we are obligated to provide for, overshadow our interactions with those among us who are apart from our households.
There is a certain parallel between the roots of the black people in our country and of the Hebrews in Egypt, but regarding the latter, it goes further back than the time of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. The story is told in Genesis 37 and 38, in which the brothers of Jacob’s son Joseph allow Joseph to be sold to passing traders who bring him into Egypt and in turn sell him to the captain of the guard in Egypt. Is that not like the blacks in Africa who were sold to traders who in turn arrange for them to be brought to America as slaves for sale here?
There is another certain parallel, in that Joseph finds favor with this captain, and later, after some missteps with the Pharaoh, Joseph tells his family to come to Egypt where there is no famine and grain is plenty, due by the way to the advice Joseph gave the Pharaoh about conserving the grain. Did not the Pharaoh and his people get a bonus from Joseph being brought into Egypt? You might say that Joseph became a neighbor to them!
So anyway, Joseph and his family went to Egypt and they settled there. Fast forward 4,000 years to America in the late nineteenth century, when people from other nations heard of the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by those in America, in contrast to the famines and oppressions of their own countries, and they came here, sharing their wares and their labors. Were they not neighbors to us?
It took a while longer for blacks in America to start enjoying the freedoms and prosperity enjoyed by other people here, and in turn, they contributed their wares and their labor, being neighbors to the rest of us. It took the consciousness of most of the nation, of the Almighty God, to realize that we are all one under Him. Many of those may not be aware of Galatians 3:28, but in their sense of righteousness which was cultivated those who have a dedicated understanding of God, such as MLK, they at least had an awareness of the notion of seeing other groups as equal under Jesus.
We in America still have a ways to go, when we can have equal regard to others in terms of values and Godly morals, to fulfill loving our neighbors as ourselves in accordance with Leviticus 19: 34 which says “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God,” and Galatians 3:28, both encompassed in the second great commandment of Jesus.
And under Galatians 3:28, we should be, as also said by MLK in his speech, judging eachother by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin, or, for that matter, rather than however we look like on the outside.
As he was a reverend, his words above can be found with little variation in the Bible. As regards to everyone joining hands, Galatians 3:28 says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That is, we are all equal under God, each with our own burdens to bear, each with our own tests to see if we will abide by the first and second great commandments of Jesus, the first being to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and the second being to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. And the Bible says that faith without works is dead.
Who is our neighbor? Jesus says in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 that our neighbor is someone who can help us. Jesus also says, in referring to that Parable, that we should be neighbors to others, as we ourselves might be helped by neighbors.
When MLK says in his final words of his speech that all of us might declare that we are free at last, that includes the freedom to not feel that we have to stick to folks who live by bigotry and prejudice. Instead, we are free to love our neighbors no matter if they are “black men and white men Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics...” and all other God’s children, that if we live as God’s children we will be doing well and we will be sure to meet and be friends with others who live as God’s children and not with the yoke of the slavery of bigotry and prejudice. MLK’s final words call to mind Galatians 5:1 which says “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” That passage refers not just to physical slavery, but to the metaphysical slavery of feeing obligated to share and indulge in the bigotry and prejudice of others.
While MLK focuses on the slavery endured by everyone as it relates to black people, we know that the freedom he talks about applies to everyone. It is easy to let others do our thinking for us, and to trust ourselves in the hands of people in our group, be it one of the groups alluded to in Galatians 3:28. After all, sometimes it seems there are not enough hours in the day for us to do our own thinking and discerning, to ask ourselves, ‘Are we doing the right thing as Jesus would want us to?’ Or the problems of our households, which we are obligated to provide for, overshadow our interactions with those among us who are apart from our households.
There is a certain parallel between the roots of the black people in our country and of the Hebrews in Egypt, but regarding the latter, it goes further back than the time of the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. The story is told in Genesis 37 and 38, in which the brothers of Jacob’s son Joseph allow Joseph to be sold to passing traders who bring him into Egypt and in turn sell him to the captain of the guard in Egypt. Is that not like the blacks in Africa who were sold to traders who in turn arrange for them to be brought to America as slaves for sale here?
There is another certain parallel, in that Joseph finds favor with this captain, and later, after some missteps with the Pharaoh, Joseph tells his family to come to Egypt where there is no famine and grain is plenty, due by the way to the advice Joseph gave the Pharaoh about conserving the grain. Did not the Pharaoh and his people get a bonus from Joseph being brought into Egypt? You might say that Joseph became a neighbor to them!
So anyway, Joseph and his family went to Egypt and they settled there. Fast forward 4,000 years to America in the late nineteenth century, when people from other nations heard of the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by those in America, in contrast to the famines and oppressions of their own countries, and they came here, sharing their wares and their labors. Were they not neighbors to us?
It took a while longer for blacks in America to start enjoying the freedoms and prosperity enjoyed by other people here, and in turn, they contributed their wares and their labor, being neighbors to the rest of us. It took the consciousness of most of the nation, of the Almighty God, to realize that we are all one under Him. Many of those may not be aware of Galatians 3:28, but in their sense of righteousness which was cultivated those who have a dedicated understanding of God, such as MLK, they at least had an awareness of the notion of seeing other groups as equal under Jesus.
We in America still have a ways to go, when we can have equal regard to others in terms of values and Godly morals, to fulfill loving our neighbors as ourselves in accordance with Leviticus 19: 34 which says “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God,” and Galatians 3:28, both encompassed in the second great commandment of Jesus.
And under Galatians 3:28, we should be, as also said by MLK in his speech, judging eachother by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin, or, for that matter, rather than however we look like on the outside.