No matter how many red Xs we write on our hands to end slavery, as long as these same hands are clicking on pornographic websites and scrolling through sexual pictures and videos, we are frauds to the core.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the hypocrisy of condemning slavery while engaging in behaviors that contribute to exploitation.
David Platt's quote challenges us to reflect on our actions and the discrepancies between our proclaimed values and our behaviors. By drawing attention to the contradiction of publicly standing against slavery while privately consuming pornographic material, he urges a deeper integrity where our actions align with our beliefs, particularly concerning the dignity and respect of all individuals.
In practice
In a discussion about ethical consumption, this quote can highlight the importance of aligning our actions with our values.
So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark
What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
I won't touch on risky, because that's subjective. People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don't necessarily merit fear.
There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice.
If something's just, I'll let myself be hacked to bits for it.
Those men who, in war, seek to preserve their lives at any rate commonly die with shame and ignominy, while those who look upon death as common to all, and unavoidable, and are only solicitous to die with honour, oftener arrive at old age and, while they live, live happier.
It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for that long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.
This is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty - the cause of humanity.
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