The Error of Educating to Discontent

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by Joe Renfro, EdD

The Bible condemns complaining and discontent. Our society is being educated to chaos to a great extent because of this, that I pray we can get past. The concluding commanding of the Ten Commandment is against covetousness, and I Timothy 1:6 says that “Godliness with contentment is great gain.”  Discontent is destructive!

Bible texts such as Matthew 5:44 relate to this attitude of discontent, where the Lord Jesus says: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which dis-spitefully use you, and persecute you.” The enemies here are the divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”  I Peter 3:9 says: “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”   This poses questions to the political activism or protest which has been so evident in our society because some seem to have what you or people you represent want—discontent on the world stage!

When you see something wrong taking place in your presence, how often do you stand up and speak out about it? But on the other hand, how often do you see people complain about anything and everything to spread discontent. At every single opportunity or never? How do you resolve social evils, and how do you really determine what are the social evils?

There are many reasons why some people don’t feel comfortable openly expressing their solidarity with someone who is being victimized. For in helping one, you often hurt another.  But as Christians, Jesus calls on us to act like good Samaritans, not the passersby. We should be concern when to where there is real injustice, not just manufactured injustice.  Whether your default reaction is to intervene or ignore, we can all benefit from reflecting on who we need to be and when we’re called to speak out against injustice. We are to seek God’s guidance from his word and from prayer and from opportunity in relation to the Holy Spirit.

There is the warning from I Timothy 6: 8-10 that “But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”  Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” We can say that money is useful, but when it takes the place of God in our lives it is bad. Being discontent, friends, can often breed the loss of having what you once had or what some one else has!

There are, however, times to take a stand against what is unjust, but notice in the story of the good Samaritan that he did not protest against others who had not helped, but rather he took the bull by the horns and acted rightly to help the man who had been robbed and injured. He spent no time condemning others who failed to help the injured man.  He took a stand, but it was not in protest.  He was prepared in that he had the resources to help.  He didn’t borrow and run up his debt, something our nation has very much done, but he was unashamed to come to help of the injured regardless of the man’s ethnic background. Plus, he followed through in that told the inn keeper he would pay any extra expenses when he came back.

The Bible tells us to become children of light. That means to “have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them,” Ephesians 5:11.  We should not call sinful behavior just another lifestyle.  But much of the protest in our day I would say is often supported by very shady reasons, based on “quasi-truths.”  We are observing all kinds of discontent and political activism in much of the Western World, much of it not on truths all the way, but much on half-truths.

Yes, much of this rotates around what can be called “quasi-truth,” which when analyzed—something that is from an idea that seemingly wants to say that it can be both true and false simultaneously.  In this thinking a speck or truth in something very much wrong makes something really bad into what many of to see as a great truth. Our educational institutions that are supposed to be the ivory tower of learning have sad to say often become transformed and equated with the dirty streets of protest of quasi-truths in most of their civil rights stands. 

Schools in America have in many instances increasingly been and are being used to spawn this activism, and it is very unwise. It is my hope this can be changed, and that we should get away from complaining about rights at the expense of responsibility since the mid nineteen sixties.   Protests have been exploding from women’s rights, to racial rights, to gay rights, to rights of illegals, to rights of immigration, and on and on. You can protest about anything!

In Numbers 20 we can see how in the desert of Zin that the Children of Israel were again complaining and how in verse 20:10 & 11 that: “Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.” 

God had provided for them so many times, but they complained instead of trusting God.  Moses lost his cool and struck the rock twice instead of just speaking to it as the Lord God had commanded!  The people were not content and gathered with a type of political activism.  Moses suffered the penalty of not being able to be the one to lead the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, because he over-did the situation  to where the focus was on him and not really on the mercy of God. God was angered!

We are living at time when it seems that every little group is calling for their rights, but there is very little being said about responsible or righteous living. Proverbs 1:7 well says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”   The social activism that is becoming so loud and flagrant in much of Western education is based on a mistaken notion that equates disciplined learning with what is often very much, undisciplined activism.

Protests on college campuses, in the streets, and in public buildings have been exploded all over America, Great Britten, and other countries in the Western world.

Not only are we observing political activism in respect to women’s rights, racial rights gay rights, but political activists are making protests about restraints placed on people from certain Islamic countries in respect to migrating to the United States or standing against Israel, that is really just calling for the destruction of the nation.  It is interesting that the women’s rights groups often identify very much with the Muslims who are calling that they are being discriminated against unjustly, while Islamic thinking definitely gives women second class citizenship!

There is reason to be cautious about Islamic migration, particularly from nations that adhere to strict adherence to the Korean. There are facts hard to ignore. Many Muslims are wonderful, good people, but many are very much at war with Christianity and the Jewish people, as is directed from the teaching of their Koran.  

Yet, we have groups in America against a temporary ban on those some Islamic countries, central to the export of terrorism and are calling for political activism to protest the leftest stands. Also, just because someone is in our county does not make them citizens of our land, especially if they broke the law by coming in.

Republicans and Democrats, however, are generally divided about what it means to be “American,” according to a poll from the Associated Press. I was from an old line of Democrats, but said to say, this survey found that Republicans are much more likely to say that America’s core identity can be found in the culture of Christianity and the beliefs of the Founding Fathers, while Democrats believe that America is inseparable from its history of immigration and ethnic diversity. About 65 percent of Democrats in this survey said a mix of global cultures was extremely or very important to American identity, compared with 35 percent of Republicans. Twenty-nine percent of Democrats saw Christianity as important, compared with 57 percent of Republicans. The two parties would also most probably disagree about whether, when, and how to demonstrate and use political activism, I feel sure!  

There are good Democrats and good Republicans, as well as good Independents who stress the fear of the Lord.  But many citizens of our land at looking to political activism to solve our problems instead of the cross of Christ.  Much of this is taking place in our schools.  But to equate political activism with true education is really a quasi-truth that appears to be truth to many students or teachers, but actually is only partial truth, which ultimately means logically that the whole thing is really false. It has been said that: “There is a grain of truth in every falsehood,” but this does not make something true.

We are living at time when every little group calls for their rights, but very little being is said about responsible or righteous living.  Proverbs 1:7 well says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”  It is very much evident that these protests and demonstrations certainly don’t stress what we could call the “fear of the Lord.” Neither are they are the product of wise instruction. They are rather the product of sociopolitical activists, spawned by progressive thinking-some that is not true progress, but the opposite. The left calls for free speech, but only free speech for themselves, and this has become dominant in much of the educational establishment.

What we need is repentance as a nation!  We need a turning back, a turning back to God.  “Godliness with contentment is great gain,” as the Bible says.  The children of Israel complained, protested, and they got what they wanted for the temporary satisfaction of their thirst. But they lost much more in the long run, not only the leadership of Moses, but more wandering in the wilderness before they could realize the Promised Land.

The Bible calls for the conversion of soul as basic, and political activism can prove often very much in conflict with the basic teachings of God’s word when the conversion of the soul is neglected.   The conversion of the souls of the society is to bring people into the right relationship with God which in turn develops the right relationship with oneself and with one another.  This is much more effective in the long run than any form of political activism that often mistakenly falls into faith in some form of half-truth that really is a falsehood. 

AMEN