Help, LORD, for no one is faithful anymore; those who are loyal have vanished from the human race. – Psalm 12:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 11, 2019): Psalm 11 & 12

As the investigation into the College Scandal of 2019, codenamed Operation Varsity Blues, continues, a question has emerged. Why were there not more safeguards that could have stopped the scandal? What happened to the guidance counselors and teachers who must have suspected that something was wrong as these students were being admitted to schools with either higher scores than normal or under the guise of sports that the students had never played. And the response might have been a little surprising. Apparently, up until this moment in time, we have had people of high integrity operating under the assumption that everyone else that is involved in the process possesses that same level of integrity. That situation, in the wake of the scandal, has probably changed forever.

In the area where I live, we just emerged out of a rather emotional political campaign. And what frustrated me was that most of the advertising that I saw, much of which was driven by Facebook, was negative and accusatory. It was slanderous, and Christians were involved in the slander despite the Bible’s clear command that slander is considered to be a sin which we are to avoid. As far as I was concerned, the slander disqualified both of the leading parties from governing. I ended up voting for a friend while secretly being very uncomfortable with the party that he represents, not because of policy but rather because of the negative campaign. The truth is that I was very unclear as to what the policies of the various parties were because to decipher policy statements I had to decide that one party was dealing in good faith while the other parties were lying. And that was a conclusion that I was never able to make.

David mourns the lack of faith in his day. No one is loyal. Nostalgically, David believed that that had not always been the case. There used to be people of high integrity, but those people had largely disappeared. Now, there are no people of high integrity left. And that means that there is no one that David can trust. For a political leader, that is a huge problem. Repeatedly we have seen political leaders who have been brought down by untruthful advisors. No King or political leader of any kind can do the job without good advisors who are truthful and loyal. And in a post-truth world, that becomes a massive liability for all of us.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 13 & 14