A Christian Response to the Epstein Files

 Unless you live in a duplex under a rock you've heard about, thought about and talked about the so-called Epstein Files.  In a rare act of near unanimity congress voted to direct the Department of Justice to release in thirty days the information it had on the case regarding the dead child sex offender and financier Jeffery Epstein and his accomplice.  Only one of the 535 members of congress voted against this bill and the president signed it into law.

There is, and has been for years, much talked about regarding this.  The alleged, heinous actions are gross and scandalous.  It is no joy of mine to think about rich and powerful people flying to a private island to engage in criminal sexual activity with minors who were scouted and trafficked there.

As a Christian how should we think and talk about this?  How should a biblical faith engage with this? 

I won't go so far as to say I will offer up the principles to guide us but I would like to propose a way to Christianly respond.  I would like to propose three principles that can guide a Christian.

1) This is not political. Don't make it.

I'm saddened to see how this Epstein garbage has been made political.  Politicians are likely involved in the darkness of Epstein's crimes, but that doesn't make it political.  It will undoubtedly have massive political implications, but that doesn't make it political.

If your heart reacts to this news with a hopefulness that more blues than reds are involved, I think your moral compass is out of whack.  If one of the politicians on the side you pull for is involved and you want to ignore it, I think your moral compass is broken.  If you are okay with more cover up and strategic delaying of the truth, i fear your moral compass needs repair.  Recall the story of the prophet Nathan.  Nathan had to call out King David's heinous sexual sin and the deadly coverup that followed it.  Nathan didn't reason that David was too good of a king to rock the boat.  Nathan didn't consider the military power and economic success of Israel as something worth more than calling his king to repentance for rape, murder and a gross political coverup.  Neither should you.  

We must think about right and wrong not right and left.

2) God hates this!

You cannot read your Bible and think that God doesn't hate when the rich and powerful abuse and plunder the weak and lowly.  You can't read your Bible honestly and think God doesn't burn with wrath over the crimes reported to have been done by this syndicate of sin.

According to Matthew 18:6 Jesus says it would be better for a large millstone to be tied around the neck of these creeps that would sexually violate these girls and then toss the creepos off the so-called "Pedophile Island" and into the sea.  It's undeniable that God hates this.

Hell is evidence of God's hatred of sin and Hell itself is a comfort in situations like this.  Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A Peterson say that, "... the biblical writers underscore the justice of hell in order to comfort persecuted believers.  Indeed, we could speak of the 'comfort of hell.'... hell reassured God's people that ultimately evil and evildoers would be defeated."

If God hates this, you should hate this.  Don't become calloused to the disgusting sinfulness of this Epstein crap.

3) Even pedophiles can be saved.

I think in the United States of America in 2025 sex crimes against children is considered more deeply unthinkable than even murder.  There's something righteous and burning hot about the rage that bubbles up when we hear about sexual abuse against children.  I think this is right and good.  

There is probably no class more ostracized and vilified than that of sex offenders.

Don't hear me wrongly.  I'm not saying it is Christian to ignore sexual abuse.  I'm not by any means saying that the Christian response to this is to preclude firm justice.  I'm not saying it's Christian to be foolish and let your children stay overnight at someone on the sex offender registry.  

What I am saying is that the Gospel is good news even for the pedophile if he will repent and believe.  Jesus' saving work is applicable, even to those that heinously violate children.

"The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." 1 Timothy 1:15

Christians, this good news isn't a get out of jail free card.  This gospel certainly does not and should not pervert earthly justice.  Sex crimes deserve justice.  What this good news does is cause us to awe and wonder at how good Jesus is.  What this gospel does is provoke us to tell it to all, even those we have a hard time imagining it is for.  What the good news of Jesus' propitiatory death on the cross for sins does is demand that we pray for the salvation of sinners, even sinners that we also pray that fair justice lands on.

Don't engage with this Epstein stuff as the non-Christians do.  We must be Bible-informed and Gospel-shaped people.  So, don't make this excrement political, hate this sin like your Heavenly Father hates it and remember and proclaim that the Gospel extends even to those who sin monstrously today.

Will Your Lips Exploit or Lament?

 Do you ever pay attention to the news and politics in your nation or state and wonder if everyone is crazy? 

David wrote Psalm 12 as a community lament about 3,000 years ago and it feels like it could have been written today.  The psalm is a way for the community to complain to God about how it seems that liars dominate society and run things.  Read it and you'll see what I mean.

"Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone;
for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man.
Everyone utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
those who say, 'With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us; who is master over us?'

'Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan,
I will now arise,' says the LORD;
'I will place him in the safety for which he longs.'
The words of the LORD are pure words,'like silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.

You, O LORD, will keep them;
you will guard us from this generation forever.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the children of man." Psalm 12

Do you feel like David felt while writing this psalm?  Does it feel like everyone is a liar?  Do you examine politics or the culture and conclude the place where you live is run by boastful, lying, God-ignoring men and women?

David taught the people singing this psalm to see this injustice and to ask God to do something about it.  He taught God-honoring complaining versus God-dishonoring complaining.  He instructs us on how to ask God to work, even violently, to make things right and good.  David goes even further and shows us how we can and should trust that God will rise up and make things right.  David implores us to sing with confidence that while all men may be liars, God will not lie.  In sharp contrast to the words of these men, God's words are pure and trustworthy.

Before we leave this eternally timely psalm, let's look at what the turning point of the psalm is.  What it is that arouses God to enact justice.

"'Because the poor are plunder, because the needy groan, I will now arise,' says the LORD. 'I will place him in the safety for which he longs." v. 5

I have been reading the psalms daily during this year.  You cannot soak in the psalms and not see that God is for the poor and needy and the outcasts.  God is for these people and the wicked prowl around and look to devour them just like the Devil does (Psalm 12:8; 1 Peter 5:8).

Do you see this in our culture and nation and world?  Do you see that "vileness is exalted among the children of man"?

We see things that exploit our young men, like the sports gambling industry, being labeled good, clean fun.  The murder of the unborn is called healthcare.  The lottery is said to be a fundraiser for schools and an opportunity for riches while it is actually a heavy tax on the poorest among us.  

Christians, are we involved in exploitative endeavors or industries?  Do we prop up the things that wickedly plunder the poor and cause the needy to groan?

Even the things that are mostly good must be done in a Christian fashion.  For example, we see from Psalm 10 and 12 that capitalism without a morality, and I'll argue at the very least a Judeo-Christian influenced morality, will end in gross injustice because of our own wicked bend.  That isn't an argument necessarily to get rid of it but to have all of our lives, even and perhaps especially our economic lives, dripping with Gospel morality.

Don't lie for ill-gotten gain or lie to yourself in order to ignore the vileness you end up promoting.

Will you be the one who laments and calls out to God for your nation/culture or will you be a participant and promoter of the vileness that God says arouses Him to righteous anger?  Read Psalm 12 and pray for God to make things right and good again today.

A Psalm for the Persecuted Church

 Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church.  It is this Sunday that we especially take time to pray for our Christian brothers and sisters around the world that are facing extreme persecution.

Our local church has a personal connection to the extreme, violent persecution of Christians in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Below is a video that was shown in service highlighting what some believers there are experiencing now.

Because this is the day to pray I wanted to share some ways you can pray for the persecuted church using Psalm 3.

"O LORD, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
many are saying of my soul,
'There is no salvation for him in God.' Selah" v. 1-2

The psalmist, David, cries out to the LORD.  In this particular time he was fleeing from a rebellion led by his son Absalom.  

David cried out to God and laid out his situation before God.  Did God need to be informed?  Absolutely not, but we can and should pray like this.  Get informed about a particular situation impacting the persecuted church and pray about it today.  It's fine to for the persecuted church in general, but how much more fervent will your prayer be when you put your whole heart into crying out for a particular need!

"But you, O LORD, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cried aloud to the LORD,
and He answered me from His holy hill. Selah" v. 3-4

Pray today that God would shield and protect those brothers and sisters in harms way.  Pray that they would experientially know that the God of the Universe is their shield.  Pray that God would lift their heads.  Pray that they might be encouraged... because they need courage.  Pray that God would hear and answer their cries.  Ask God to encourage them with the truth that He always hears them.

"I lay down and slept;
I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.
I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around." v. 5-6

Oh, that God would give these poor people good sleep. Can you imagine how sleepless you would be if you worried that your children would be chopped to death by a machete?  Pray that God would given them peace in the crisis that passes all understanding.  Pray that God would wake them in the morning.  I never have to think about how vulnerable I am while unconsciously asleep.  These men and women do.  Even when out of harms way sleep is difficult.  Pray that they would have unnatural courage.  That they could be fearless even though the odds are seemingly stacked against them!

"Arise, O LORD!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked." v. 7

We are to be faithful in the midst of trial but we aren't asked to not desire physical salvation here and now.  Pray fervently that God would save them.  That He would use any variety of means to stop the violence and persecution.  Many Christians would say that the only way to pray in regards to the oppressors is that they would experience a radical conversion like the Apostle Paul did.  Please pray for that.  That is a wonderful prayer.  But we can also pray that God would beat the tar out of the violent, unjust people that are doing these terrible things.  It is a Christian prayer to pray for God to strike the wicked.  

For more context, Psalm 7:12-13 say this: "If a man does not repent, God will whet His sword; He has bent and readied His bow; He has prepared for him His deadly weapons, making His arrows fiery shafts."

Pray that the violent men be stopped and stopped suddenly by either radical conversion or holy violence.

"Salvation belongs to the LORD;
your blessing be on your people! Selah" v. 8

Earlier David said people taunted him by saying that there is no salvation for him in God.  Here David proclaims that salvation belongs to the LORD.  Pray that the persecuted people of God would know their soul's salvation and experience the temporary bodily salvation they desperately desire as well.  Pray that their lives be a testimony against the lies the wicked spew.  Pray that the people of God be blessed.  Pray for an end of violence and ask for God to do abundantly more for them.

Please take time to pray for the persecuted church today.