Creating A Better World
My friend, Wendy Hall, asked on FB a couple of days ago, “How do we create a better world? Any ideas?” Wendy has a great question. The answer, I believe, is pretty simple: we become servants.
It is easy to view the world from our limited time and cultural horizon and, as a result, imagine it is becoming a better place. The Western Christian establishment imagined this in the early 1900s, following the 1863 abolition of slavery in the U.S…. Then came the Third Reich and the Holocaust. The idea that the universe was on a grand trajectory toward goodness was dropped by most theologians.
Loving social change is good, an expression of God’s care and kindness, and we should always support such improvements. But as long as we live in a fallen, Satan-infiltrated world, change will we cyclical and temporary (Eph. 6:12, 3:10; 2 Tim. 2:26; 2 Cor. 4:4). In 538 BCE Cyrus the Great declared freedom for all slaves throughout his empire. His was a vast empire that encompassed most of the known world. Yet, a mere 200 years later, when Alexander overthrew that empire, slavery became firmly re-entrenched as an institution. Today, 25 million people are enslaved throughout the world (CNN, Sept 2017), roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Cyrus’s expansive kingdom.
I am not suggesting we stop supporting great causes like the powerful social justice movement Martin Luther King began. I am suggesting we serve others daily, simply in any way we can. Ultimate, enduring social justice can only come when Jesus returns and overthrows the ever-present works of power ambition and evil (1 Cor. 15:24-25, 1 John 3:8b). Our path to partnering with Jesus, to bringing true permanent social justice in the future, is to develop servant hearts now … then, and only then, can he use us to establish a permanent better world, a world filled up with goodness and social justice – as part of his coming Kingdom of Light (Mark 10:35-45, Luke 16:10, Rev. 2:26 with Eph. 2:10, Matt. 25:34-40 with Rev. 3:21).
