Bible Question: want to know what the bible says about trouble and problems in the home with your partner? and what does the bible say about appressed people? anything about what martin luther king or malcomX has said about appressed people? |
Bible Answer: Problems with your spouse are a hard thing to bear; that‘s what the Bible says. For example, “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house (Proverbs 21:9). Again, “It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman and in a wide house (Proverbs 25:24). You wonder why the writer said it twice, and so do I. Twice also one translation renders it: “Better to live alone in a tumbledown shack than share a mansion with a nagging spouse” (MSG). “Better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman (Proverbs 21:19). In that situation, a person may find himself saying, as in Psalm 55:7, “Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest“. But the God who said, “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder” is not suggesting that we dwell elsewhere. He has a better answer. For one thing, the Scriptures tell us that others have had those problems. We can learn from their stories what the bad and good choices are. Jacob once got frustrated and angry at Rachel; read it in Genesis 30. David had a problem with Michal; read it in 2 Samuel 6. Peter tells us what a wife might do (1 Peter 3:1) and what a husband should do (verse 7). Other passages such as Ephesians 5:28 and Colossians 3:19 tell us that the answer is love and 1 Corinthians 13 tells us what love does. According to that last passage, love never fails, and another passage says that love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Let us hope the second question is not directly related. The Bible says a lot about oppressed people, the sum of it being that their quest for justice will be satisfied. Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). God’s own people had been oppressed as slaves in Egypt. God told them that they should remember that and never oppress anyone (Exodus 22:21, etc.). Both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. turned to the Bible for answers. Malcolm X used passages such as Galatians 6:7 to indicate that God would bring vengeance on oppressors. He was not willing to leave vengeance in the hands of God as in Romans 12:19. He used passages in the Koran to bolster the idea that the oppressed people should protect themselves. Martin Luther King relied on the Bible, and looked to God to right things. He would quote Isaiah: “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (Isaiah 40:4). He looked for a day when, according to Micah 4:4, “They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid“. King was a preacher and a scholar and he likely knew that those verses did not refer to Negroes in particular. But he said that justice was indivisible and he felt that the same principles and the same promises applied to all peoples. Applying Romans 12:21 King believed he could use “the weapon of love” to overcome the evil of injustice. |