National Prayer Breakfast - Eric Metaxas

I loved the things that Eric Metaxas had to say yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast. The biographer of William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointed out how both men saw truths that others in their time did not see, and we celebrate them for it. Wilberforce saw Africans as human beings worthy of our love and respect in a time when they were sold as property, and fought for the end of the slave trade. Bonhoeffer similarly saw Jews as worthy of our love and respect in the midst of Nazi Germany, and ended up dying in a concentration camp himself as a result.

It's easy for us to see now where these two men were right and the prevailing culture was horribly wrong. If we lived in their day though, Metaxas points out that we should not be so sure of the clarity of vision that we would have had, for apart from God's intervention we are no better than anyone else.

Jesus opens our eyes to though to his ideas, which are different from our own. And so, while we are called to speak out and act on behalf of the powerless, at the same time Metaxas points out, we need to be careful in our attitude toward those who do not see things as we do.

Those of us who know the unborn to be human beings are commanded by God to love those who do not yet see that. We need to know that apart from God we would be on the other side of that divide, fighting for what we believe is right. We cannot demonize our enemies. Today if you believe abortion is wrong you must treat those on the other side with the love of Jesus.

The whole talk is well worth watching, but especially enjoyed the end of it, starting around 58 minutes.