And Justice For All

And Justice For All




Commentary on commentary of Micah 2:12-3:4

In this installment, Dr. J. Vernon McGee at TTB.org speaks about philosophy of government.  His thesis is old-fashioned and hard to argue with:
leaders need to be of good character. 

This thought makes me think of the good leaders who were killing indiscriminately throughout history.  How can they be both good leaders and evil people?   

Actually, they weren't really killing indiscriminately.  Either they were killing their rivals, perceived rivals, enemies or terrorizing people or all three and their killing had positive results, for them!

They thought that their agenda was more important than the people they used to be able to enforce those ideas; even if their agenda was only their own advancement.  We tend to think we're right, don't we?  Even if we think we're not supposed to do a thing, we do nothing because we think we ought to, or because we can get away with it.

That's what these evil people do.  But that's what good people do too, because that's what people do. 

I suppose the definition of leading might mean that if you have the most people following you, you're doing the best job. 

What makes right?  Might?  Just because we can abuse someone terribly, we do that without judgement if all we're concerned about is ourselves.  This is easy to justify if we think ourselves correct, and who doesn't? and then tell everyone including ourselves that our opinion is good for everyone.

Mr. McGee points out that Micah compares poor government to unfeeling cannibalism.  It's an image of power and greed, disregard for life and unfeeling.  He often states that man at his core is lower than the animals.  Then he provides a commentary on the prophecy of a beautiful future breaking through the clouds of judgement that Micah might be known for.

Grace, grace.... God's grace. 

Grace that will pardon and

cleanse within.   Grace, grace,

God's grace. 


We see this in the pages of history if we only look.  Jacob is the trickster, but he didn't

stay that.  Israel means....

see other post...

Triumphant with God.

It didn't seem possible until modern times.  But when Micah was written, it also didn't seem possible that people all over the world would be reading Micah without knowing much about him. 

For 1500 years people read this passage thinking it couldn't possibly say what it says- or refer to whom it refers to.  Micah is very concerned about the problems of leadership.  He might use terms like "sins of the prophets, princes" and other leaders such as priests that we use different names for today, but we know more about leadership mistakes than Micah did.

In Romans 2 we're told that we can't criticize because then we're doing what they're doing, the people that we're criticizing, the things that we don't want to do.  Man can't be a judge.  A judge is out of his league.

Micah wants us to hear,  all ye people!  And maybe he means what he says and is referring to all people.


It's nice to be able to elect our leaders, but that only works if the people know what they're voting for.