No one argues that 2020 has brought major problems. Not only has COVID-19 turned our world upside down, bringing death and destruction in its wake, but we face other obstacles as well.
Pastor and author Dr. Michael Stevens says we’re dealing with “a virus called injustice” as well as “a third virus intertwining and intermingling … And that’s the virus of racism, whether you want to call it systemic, institutional or even the overt and obvious, there’s a white silence that’s leading, unfortunately, to violence,” he says.
In a recent episode of his Straight Talk With Dr. Mike podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, Stevens seeks to answer the question he says many white evangelicals have: “Why the outcry? Why the outrage, why the upset … what’s the big deal?”
Stevens says, “The truth of the matters is you cannot just simply get over 430 years-plus since slavery [entered] the United States of America. You cannot sweep under the rug the Jim Crow [laws], the civil rights movement of the ’60s. And you just can’t simply say, ‘It’s something of the past; as Christians, as believers, we’re to walk hand in hand and act as if it never happened.'”
But Stevens has another question as well: “Who’s standing on the Word? … Where is the objective, independent, solid unwavering Word of God? Where’s that in this equation here? And I know we have so many African Americans who say, ‘Oh, I’m so sick of you using a white man’s Bible with the white man’s Jesus, trying to colonize and shoved down our throats this white man’s gospel,” but I’m a firm believer after 30-plus years of being saved and walking with the Lord and being filled with the Holy Spirit : white, black, red, blue or green, the Word of God is the word of God.
“And there’s something about the spirit of the word that penetrates ethnicity. There’s something about the Word of God that penetrates nationality. I believe that the word of God stands,” Stevens says. “How shall a young man cleanse his way but [by] taking heed to the Word of God?’ ‘Thy word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.’
“The Bible says in Psalm 107 20, ‘He sent forth His word, and His word healed them, and the word delivered them from destruction,’ Stevens adds. “If America wants to be healed, we’ve got to go back to the Word of God. If America wants to be healed or delivered from destruction, we have to go back to the Word of God.
“Second Timothy 4:2 reminds us to preach the word. We’re preaching opinions, we’re preaching emotions, we’re preaching commentary and all types of popular narratives. But where’s the preaching of the Word of God, the grafted, unchanging Word of God?”
For more of Dr. Mike Stevens’ teaching on “burdened in black America,” click here to listen to the entire podcast. {eoa}
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