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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 09 April 2022

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 05 April 2022

In just under a decade, sports gambling has exploded into a ubiquitous activity almost as important as the sports. But why? Haven’t we heard experienced gamblers say, “You can win a race, but you can’t beat the races?” 

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #17 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The biggest gambling news in a long time in the US took place May 14, 2018. In Murphy vs National Collegiate Athletic Association, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which banned commercial sports betting in most states, violated the 10^th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In one opinion, the Supreme Court opened the biggest possible expansion of legalized betting in the US in years.

States were set loose to pass legislation allowing whatever sports wagering seemed most lucrative to them, and this is the real bottom line…states, starting with New Jersey, wanted their piece of an estimated $340 billion to $1.7 trillion annual haul in illegal sports betting.  

By legalizing sports betting, or as proponents call it, “regulating” sports betting, state legislatures got the chance to funnel funds to their own coffers. 

March Madness is America’s other gambling lollapalooza.

Las Vegas casinos have taken in over $378 million in college basketball betting during the tournament in recent years. But most sports wagering, especially during March Madness, is done illegally through local bookies or through online sportsbooks.

Some guess that legal number reflects as little as 1%-4% of the total amount of gambling done in the United States.

NCAA tournament brackets pools alone see Americans risk around $3 billion – that’s 45 million or 17% of American adults as opposed to 31 million betting on the Super Bowl – and that doesn’t even count the numerous contests put on by businesses that entice bettors and pay out prizes to winners in hopes of getting people to their stores.

Now interestingly, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had been the most stalwart sports organization opposing legalized sports wagering. 

Along with the NCAA, professional leagues—NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL—were also historically wary of sports wagering. They rightly remember the 1919 Black Sox scandal in which eight Chicago White Sox players were accused of “losing on purpose,” i.e. fixing the outcome of, the World Series, so the Cincinnati Reds would win and the players would earn gambling payouts. The Black Sox Eight, as they were called, cheated at America’s Pastime, tore out the hearts of their fans, and were eventually all banned from professional baseball and the Hall of Fame. They became a forerunner of Cincinnati Reds major leagues hit leader Pete Rose’s sports betting and subsequent 1989 banishment for life from major league baseball and the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.

But with the US Supreme Court’s 2018 Murphy decision, resistance to sports wagering rapidly collapsed in the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL. The leagues took the bait hook, line, and sinker and at the speed of light began opening their businesses to legalized sports betting, including professional leagues investing in online gambling or fantasy sports websites. 

By the end of 2021, online or in-person wagering was sanctioned in more than half the country. Revenue is skyrocketing. Professional leagues are not just going along with the wave, they “are evangelizing. And booming business means big changes for anyone who operates, plays, covers—or bets on—the games we love.”

In an astoundingly short decade, leading sports figures reversed then jettisoned their earlier concerns, platitudes, and policies regarding gambling’s threat to the integrity of sports. Why? Because culture had already dropped this idea, making it now possible for professional sports leagues to earn hundreds of millions more on the backs of their fans. If the fans don’t care, why should sports leagues remain gambling prudes?

Every major league and nearly all teams now have dozens of negotiated business partnerships with sportsbooks and gambling data companies and fill broadcasts with ubiquitous commercials for FanDuel and DraftKings. 

FanDuel, 2009, and DraftKings, 2012, created daily online fantasy sports games with cash prizes sometimes as high as $2 million. So far, fantasy sports are legally considered games of skill - not chance - if they can be won by successfully utilizing superior knowledge of the players involved. So, fantasy sports sites are technically, i.e., legally, not defined as gambling. Yet pay-to-play sites take a piece of every payout, about $35 average per player per month. 

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Sports wagering is still a key entry point to more gambling by adolescents and college students. Sports betting is like gambling kindergarten. Sports betting is the easiest and quickest way for children and youth to begin gambling because it taps into athletics opportunities that are literally “everywhere.” And because frequently, kids are emulating adults in their families who are already gambling on sports.   

But gambling is not a sport, though people often think that it is. It’s a “game” that turns into a moral and financial vampire. Kids don’t always know that you can’t serve God and money, and adults are not doing much to teach them.

Sports wagering, like most gambling, especially lotteries, tend to “tax” the poor rather than those with higher incomes, becoming a burden on already financially stressed families. 

And sports wagering robs the game of the sheer joy of competition, of its beauty, something sports has enjoyed back to the first Greek Olympics. 

People who get in deep, whether via fantasy sports sites or social gambling, testify to the change in their attitudes about the game, which goes from who is best and who wins, to what-has-to-happen-for-me-to-make-good-on-my-bet? In other words, the focus shifts from athletics to money.

Sports betting is a direct threat to the integrity of free and fair competition between individuals or teams on the court, course, field, pitch, or any other sports format. Without the sense that competition is indeed fair, played by the rules of good sportsmanship such that the best man or best woman or best team wins, sports become a charade, a silly act like professional wrestling. 

And let no one believe that somehow athletes, coaches, umpires and referees, have somehow today become morally stronger since the Black Sox. No one is above the overwhelming temptation money presents. Remember, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil,” (1 Tim. 6:10).

Sports wagering is a major threat to the integrity of athletic competition. It’s what one experienced gambler called “seasonal losing.” 

Christians are getting sucked into the gambling vortex. Some say, “There’s no Bible verse against gambling” or “Hey, it’s my money.” But they forget that God requires us to be stewards of our time, talent, and treasure. He expects us to discern, to be a testimony to others, to handle our money in a way that honors him, and to never allow ourselves to be controlled by anything other than the Spirit of God. Christians riding along on this cultural wave have forgotten their theology and the record of church history. 

Christians who gamble, particularly in sports wagering, are playing with fire. It’s almost impossible not to get burned, via debt, compulsive if not addictive behavior, loss of pleasure in sports, broken relationships and more.

Gambling in any form is little more than a time bomb in a pretty package.  

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 29 March 2022

Have you ever been persecuted for your faith?  I haven’t, though I’ve been ridiculed, but this is nothing.  I’ve met people, though, who experienced real persecution, and their faith is resilient.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #16 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Throughout the history of Christianity, persecution of individual Christians and the Church has been constant.

And today, persecution against Christians is increasing around the world. 

The ministry Open Doors, sponsors a “World Watch List,” that recounts the top 50 countries in which, in their words ,“it’s most difficult to follow Jesus.” 

According to The Watch List, more than 360 million Christians live in places around the world where they experience high levels of persecution. That’s more than the population of the United States. In 2021, some 4,761 Christians were killed for their faith, 4,888 churches and other Christian buildings were attacked, and 4,277 believers were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced, or imprisoned for their faith.

For 17 consecutive years, North Korea has been ranked #1 as the most dangerous country for Christians, only recently displaced in 2021 by Afghanistan. Add countries like China, Laos, Somalia, Libya, Nigeria, Iran, Syria, and other Middle Eastern or North African countries where persecution of minority religions, especially Christianity, is an ongoing experience. 

Persecution intersects with discussions of freedom of religion and belief, and it can be considered in at least two ways: persecution of others – how we should respond to it, and personal persecution – how we should prepare for and respond to it.

Persecution is defined by Merriam-Webster as: “to harass or punish in a manner designed to injure, grieve, or afflict,” or “specifically: to cause to suffer because of belief.” The word is typically used in association with religious violence.

Periodically, I hear someone claim the American Church or Christians are experiencing “persecution.” But I don’t use “persecution” to refer to incidents in the US. Frankly, while churches in the US have been harassed by government or other entities, and while genuine persecution will likely someday come to this country, it’s not now. 

Meanwhile, persecution of the Church, Christians, Muslims, Jews, or several religious minorities is rampant elsewhere in the world. Indeed, restrictions on religious freedom is now a global crisis, in autocratic and religiously dominated regimes but also in democratic countries.

In my view, and I believe it is a biblical perspective, Christians should defend and promote religious freedom, the “first freedom,” for all human beings, whatever their religion or no religion at all. It’s part God creating us thinking, reasoning, choosing human beings made in his image, and it is part of Love your neighbor as yourself.

In the US, rather than persecution, we can talk about opposition, harassment, discrimination, even hostility, for example:

• Eroding freedoms and a cultural tide that is more secular or pagan.
• Increasing intolerance of Christian activity, evident in fines, lawsuits, jobs lost, and public disdain.
• Increasing harassment and anti-religious or specifically anti-Christian bias in education at all levels.
• Big Tech censorship of religious or Christian viewpoints.

Yet what we experience in the US, worrisome and negatively trending though it may be, is still different from the painful struggles elsewhere in the world that Christians are enduring because of their faith. 

Christians in the US still enjoy freedoms and protections rooted in the First Amendment that make profession of faith relatively easy or unthreatened compared to Christians living where owning a Bible could cost life and limb. 

This does not mean that persecution will never come to the US, nor that we should ignore anti-religious trends in government and culture. In fact, we should learn what God says about persecution, discover how we can assist isolated believers globally, and learn how we should prepare if God allows persecution to come to our doorstep.

Let’s think about what the Scripture says.

First, persecution is predictable.

1. In John 15:30, Jesus said, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
2. The Apostle Paul said, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3:10-15. 

Second, the Scripture indicates persecution occurs within the will of God.  

3. God uses persecution to purify the church. Persecution has always made the church stronger. “Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.”  13:21, Mark 4:17
4. And persecution has been instrumental in generating the Diaspora, spreading the truth worldwide: “Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.” Acts 11:19-21

Third, the Early Church suffered persecution.    

5. The first martyr, Stephen, was arrested and stoned Acts 6:8-15, 7:1-60.
6. The Apostles were arrested and imprisoned, and all but John were eventually martyred. Tertullian, one of the 2^ndC, Church Fathers said, “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.”
7. The great Apostle Paul said, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure,” 2 Cor. 11:24-28.
8. And Scripture pays tribute to faithful followers of Christ, saying in Heb. 11:36-38, “Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated. of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.”

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Scripture also tells us what our attitude should be toward persecution and persecutors:

1. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, fortheirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matt. 5:10-12
2. “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”  5:44
3. “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”  12:14

How then should we regard persecution?

1. Expect persecution. 
2. Be informed and pray for those who are persecuted: International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church – first Sunday in Nov. See also Voice of the Martyrs, or read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563), William Tyndale – translator of Bible to English, burned at stake.
3. Stand with persecuted Christians. “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it,” 1 Corinthians 12:26.
4. Provide practical help, as possible, for persecuted Christians, including immigrants.
5. Be ready to give an answer, 1 Pet. 3:15-16.
6. Trust God for the results– Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fiery furnace, yet Stephen was stoned unto death. God said, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life,”  2:10.
7. And we’re provided perspective: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” Eph. 6:12.

In the providence of God, real persecution may indeed come to the United States. I do not know what God will ask of us. I do know he will build his church “and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” Matt. 16:18.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 22 March 2022

Isn’t it amazing to hear seemingly sophisticated people saying things that seem to lack common sense?  Does common sense even exist anymore?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #15 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

The idea of “common sense” goes back to Aristotle and, generally, refers to a kind of basic awareness or ability to perceive, understand, and judge in a manner that shared by nearly all people.

But for there to be common sense, people need to believe certain thing in common. In other words, they, and the culture they produce, embrace certain understandings, what the philosophers call “presuppositions,” about God, humanity, the created order, right and wrong. We order our lives around such presuppositions. 

But we now live in an upside-down age that defies presuppositions rooted in Christian faith. Consequently, we live in an irrational age. Pretty much, like the days of Noah, people do whatever they want to do, when they want to do it, with whom they want to do it. This sounds good. Sort of sounds like freedom.     

But what we’re doing doesn't add up. No matter if you measure by history, religion, moral philosophy, nature, or common sense, the answer is the same: a lot of what we’re doing is irrational, i.e., it makes no sense.     

Why? Because so much of what we’re doing jettisons concern for right or wrong, defies faith and reason, and is disconnected from reality as God designed it.This is the very definition of irrational.      

Freedom is a wonderful thing, a blessing, and a gift from God to humanity. God created us with free will. It’s part of being made in his image.

But freedom works best, guided by belief in God, individual responsibility, and personal accountability. For freedom to thrive, it needs a culture wherein moral concerns remind us that life is best when lived within divine parameters.

The Scripture says it like this: “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:13).    

But these are old ideas, ones contemporary culture no longer recognizes. We want no one, least of all religion or even duty to God and country telling us what we cannot do. 

Freedom to act with a moral compass of our own devising, freedom to do what’s right in our own eyes is what we want, and we’re chasing after this wind with all we’re worth.    

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And I don’t just mean “bad people,” the violent, the murderer, the rapist. Certainly, they act with no regard for anything but their own gratification, rage, or emptiness.      

Nor do I mean just the bold, often articulate, or creative, secularists, atheists, or hedonists among us. We know them today. If not “celebrities,” they’re called “influencers,” a term that means individuals who post their shallow values online, day in and day out, for millions of followers to read and emulate.

But these celebrity influencers are not a cause but a symptom. They’ve become who they are because they’ve been enabled by a culture enamored by the beautiful people, their high rent looks, or outrageous behavior, or material excess.   

So, when I say we’re riding hell-bent for leather into irrationality, I don’t mean just the wayward ones out in la-la land. I mean “us,” our culture.     

Contemporary culture—meaning our “way of life”—seems bent upon finding ways to embrace, even promote ideas, attitudes, values, and practices earlier cultures, and earlier generations in our culture, considered lacking in common sense. Indeed, in much of this, contemporary culture is celebrating irrationality.     

Some of the ideas, attitudes, values, and practices we’ve recently embraced are irreverent, some are immoral, some are ill advised, and some, at least at one time, were illegal. 

I say, “recently embraced,” but Solomon reminded us in the book of Ecclesiastes that there are no new practices under the sun, just old ones recycled (Ecclesiastes 1:9).     

Of course, what one calls irreverent, immoral, ill advised, or illegal depends upon one’s worldview. What you believe—your presuppositions—about God, life, and truth influences what ideas, attitudes, values, and practices you consider legitimate. This is the prime reason contemporary culture celebrates irrationality. It does so because the current cultural zeitgeist, or “spirit of the age,” has jettisoned the idea of moral absolutes in favor of a new (ironically) absolute called “moral relativism.”   

According to moral relativism, ultimate truth doesn’t exist…or if it does, it can’t be discerned or defined. And moral relativism also rejects the existence of clearly knowable, objectively established truth. In place of ultimate truth, or knowable, objective truth, contemporary culture affirms the idea, “There is no truth” or “What’s true for you may not be true for me.”     

Consequently, since we can know nothing for sure, we cannot believe anything for sure. If we can know nothing and can believe nothing for sure, what we believe and, therefore, what we do does not matter.     

A culture that does not believe in objective truth is vulnerable. Well, actually it is wide-open, to subjective “truth.” In other words, if we don’t believe truth is determined outside of us than it must be OK to determine it within us. 

But this idea doesn’t work well, because human beings have depraved hearts and minds (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 1:28), so, what’s inside us is not strawberries and cream but darkness, a capacity for and an inclination to evil.

Scripture repeatedly describes human beings as created good and for good. Yes, humanity by God’s design started out well. But with what’s called the Fall, human beings gave over their hearts to sin and depravity.      

Scripture uses phrases like “willingly ignorant” or “deliberately forget.” We forget on purpose what is right (2 Peter 3:5). We are influenced by sin’s “powerful delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11). We “suppress the truth by…wickedness,” we function with futile thinking and foolish hearts, and we “exchange the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1: 18, 21, 25).     

We’re so good at this we “invent ways of doing evil” and in terms of our evil ways of life we “not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:30, 32).     

This approach to what’s right allows us to determine what to do based upon personal experience, or the new catch phrase—“fairness”—as opposed to deciding what’s righteous or what’s best, based upon biblical doctrine (Philippians 1:9-11), Church teaching, history, or even “natural law.”    

So, if we want to have our cake and eat it too, or if we think “just the right amount of wrong” is a sustainable lifestyle, then what’s to stop us from joining Frank Sinatra and singing the classic humanist anthem:

“And may I say, not in a shy way
Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my wayFor what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has not
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels

The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Yes, it was my way.”

My way…

If we want to get an abortion, it’s my way.     

If we want to say heterosexual relationships outside monogamous marriage are OK, well then, “If you can't be with the one you love honey, Love the one you're with.”     

If we think we can win not just a race, we can beat the races, than why not gamble with abandon? Life is just a crapshoot anyway so let it ride.           

If we want to believe life began by chance and that human beings are descended from some animalistic humanoid, it’s my way.      

If we want to spend beyond our means including spending other peoples’ means (our children and grandchildren), there’s no piper to be paid, no reckoning. It’s all going to work out. It’s my way.     

If we think God is an unnecessary hypothesis, that we can live life, and apparently the afterlife, without him, then what’s stopping us from creating our world and our future in our image? It’s my way.

And that’s the problem. We’re creating an increasingly scary world with a scarier future.          

Celebrating irrationality is not rational. 

Our culture cannot sustain itself indefinitely with this kind of pell-mell rush to senselessness. Yet lemming-like, we keep running toward the cliff.

But God is still the God who created reality. If we want to celebrate rationality, to exercise common sense, do it God’s Way.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by Rex M. Rogers

Published: 16 March 2022

Have you ever been betrayed? I mean you discovered your trust had been misplaced and the hurt is real? Betrayal is sadly a part of life in a sinful world, but the Lord did not leave us without perspective and support.

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #14 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

A few years ago, I visited the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, and I was glad for the opportunity. It brought back a lot of memories.

When Richard Milhous Nixon was re-elected in 1972, I was a 20-year-old college student studying political science. I was thoroughly into the issues and the campaign, and Nixon became the first president I excitedly voted for. He was “my president” in the same way the college students who campaigned for President Barak Obama will forever feel a special attachment to him.

Later, as I walked to my car, I realized I felt down and a little twisted inside, and I thought, what’s this? Then it hit me. I felt betrayed, even a little angry.

The politics of Nixon’s second term had turned quickly to Watergate chaos.  “What did he know and when did he know it?” In a painful few months Nixon’s presidency collapsed under the weight of malfeasance and an unexplained 18½ minute gap in a White House audio tape.  

August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon announced his resignation. August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned, and Gerald R. Ford was sworn into office. August 10, 1974, Sarah and I got married. It was an eventful week.

It’s been over 40 years but viewing Nixon’s gravestone rekindled emotions I didn’t know remained. I’d been energized by this man’s leadership. I’d agreed with a measure of his policy perspectives, but he’d fooled me, Billy Graham, and many others. 

Nixon squandered enormous political talent and experience. His personal character was exposed and didn’t match his public persona. He cheated to win re-election. He covered up. He lied. He did this to his country. He did this to me. 

I felt betrayed because I’d put my trust in his leadership. 

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I’ve also felt betrayed a few times in more personal ways than a distant president. I’m guessing you have too. It’s more realistic than cynical to say that if you live long enough someone will eventually trade on your trust. 

And then there’s our behavior toward others. I don’t like to think that I may have betrayed someone, but as a sinner saved by grace, who’s still a sinner, I probably have.      

Betrayal comes in many forms. Maybe in your workplace: people you trusted said things publicly about you that you later heard and could scarcely believe. People close to you, or so you thought, stayed faithful while they worked for or with you but verbally kicked you on the way out the company door. People were your friends as long as they got something out of the transaction; when circumstances changed, they stabbed you in the back.  People lied about what really happened, or worse, they lied about you and assassinated your character. People you helped gain their positions used their newfound empowerment to undermine you.     

By the way, criticism and betrayal are not synonymous, particularly if you hold a leadership position. Criticism rightly given and rightly received, iron sharpening iron, makes us better, stronger. Criticism seeks to help. Betrayal seeks to harm.     

Maybe your company leaders betrayed the trust of thousands of employees, of which you are one, and now your pension fund or your investments are diminished or gone.  

Maybe a spouse you loved was unfaithful.      

And, of course, there are many more ways in which people betray people.  Human beings are infinitely creative, so they keep inventing new ways to betray. It’s one of the sins of the human race that began when Cain betrayed Abel, and it’s not going to go away this side of heaven. It’s not fun and in fact it can hurt deeply. 

Given the sin nature in all of us, betrayal, or the experience of being betrayed, is probably unavoidable. Betrayal comes to us all. So now what?       

We have a choice on how we respond to betrayal. We can retaliate, hitting back in some tangible way that attempts to hurt others who’ve hurt us. We can seek revenge (kidding ourselves that it’s justice we’re after). We can contract for legal redress (I recognize that such remedies may at times be biblically justifiable, but I’d recommend mediation or arbitration before pursuing lawsuits as a last resort). We can dissolve into bitter recrimination.  

Or we can look to the Lord for another way toward resolution that may or may not ultimately result in reconciliation. The Bible tells us how.      

1-Pray. James 5:13 - “Is any one of you in trouble?  He should pray.” My Mother used to tell me this. I’d come home from school with some story of what an evildoer had done to me and she’d say, “Have you prayed for him?” I didn’t want to pray for him. I wanted to punch him. But I did discover that one cannot pray sincerely for someone and continue ill feelings in your heart. The Spirit takes over, changing our feelings if not the circumstances and directing our response toward life.     

2-Never respond in kind. James 4:11 - “Brothers, do not slander one another.” Never put in print what you’ll be ashamed of later. Print possesses a shelf-life longer than your life. Cyberspace magnifies your responses even broader and faster, potentially to billions. Besides, vitriolic responses are about hurting, not healing.      

3-Never over-react. Proverbs 15:1 – “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” This too shall pass. It’s amazing how different personal battles appear from the vantage point of time. Not long ago I spoke with a man with whom I’d battled a few times. He and I were just different, and it came out, not in things we’re ashamed we said but in periodic friction. Funny thing was, when we talked, neither of us could remember the substance of the issues involved. All we could remember is that we used to butt heads and now we wondered why.     

4-Never seek vengeance. Romans 12: 17-19 - “Do not repay anyone evil for evil…If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge…I will repay, says the Lord.” Turning the other cheek may be one of the more difficult things we’re called upon to do in our lives. God is sovereign. He knows. He’ll make things right in his good time.          

5-Forgive. Colossians 3:13 - “Forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Responding to betrayal with forgiveness brings resolution to us even if the other person(s) never change or are never open to reconciliation. Forgiveness is not only right; it’s a release. It literally liberates us. What mattered no longer matters. When we forgive, we don’t work to make the offending parties “admit” or “apologize.” We don’t work to “win.” We simply ask the Lord to enable us to forgive when it’s beyond our ability to do so. And he does.    

6-Bless and be at peace with them. Romans 12:14, 16 - “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Live in harmony with one another.” No one’s ever been betrayed like Jesus. Judas used his three-year relationship to identify Jesus with a kiss and betrayed the Savior for 30 pieces of silver. Peter denied Jesus three times. The Disciples deserted him.

Yet Jesus loved them all, even calling Judas “Friend,” and he continued in the Father’s mission to sacrifice the Son to make forgiveness and reconciliation possible.     

I know that responding to betrayal with forgiveness is not the natural thing to do. But that’s the point. Christians aren’t supposed to be natural, but spiritual.       

Jesus is the only one who can enable us to overcome betrayal.    

Well, we’ll see you again soon. For more Christian commentary, be sure to subscribe to this podcast, Discerning What Is Best, or check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.