I’m pastor Paul with the Bible factor update.
Bad jokes and filthy communication.
There is quite the backlash happening to comedian Kathy Griffin as she begs for forgiveness for what can only be termed a vile photo shoot.
She posed with the fake severed head of President Donald Trump and she holding the severed head for her photographer, Tyler Shields, who is quite famous for taking edgy photos.
But these were more than edgy. These were disgusting and they had certain implications. She joked that she would have to leave the country after the shoot. But even people on the left, find this to be unacceptable.
Chelsea Clinton being one of them has said, “this is vile and wrong, it is never funny to joke about killing a President.
And the Secret Service also took this seriously. Now while Griffith has since apologized saying “I’m sorry. I went too far. I was wrong.” The apology was not enough to stop the furious online backlash against her and the act was interpreted by many as a threat towards the president himself.
The Secret Service while not citing the video or image, as is their custom, chose to remind its followers on Twitter that the agency monitors social media and took any threats against the president very seriously.
Now, Kathy Griffin said that she quote, “obviously does not condone violence.” I don’t know how she could use that word “obviously” when she was holding up a fake severed and bloody head of President Donald Trump.
She is a comedian and she does have freedom of speech. But there are limits to our freedom of speech as the Supreme Court famously decided centuries ago. A person does not have the right under the Constitution to yell fire in a crowded theater and we certainly don’t have the right to make threats against people. Either with our words or with images that depict violent acts against people. It gets even more serious when you’re referring to the president of the United States, and in not such a subtle way.
We should also understand that as believers in Jesus Christ these limitations of speech go beyond what is dictated by law. And they actually are commanded by God to be limited.
In the book of Colossians and chapter 3, the Bible tells us that we belong to God. It says in verse 3, “for you dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life shall appear then ye also appear with him in glory.” The scripture continues in verse 8. Well actually verse 7 that we should in which he also walked some time when he lived in them talking about being children of disobedience.
Now in verse 8 it says, “But now he also put off all these anger wrath malice blasphemy filthy communication out of your mouth.” See. Jesus tells us that we should control our tongue. His brother James said the same sort of thing that we should master our tongues.
Kathy Griffin, while most likely not a believer, has not only threatened the President of the United States with these photos, even though she has apologized, it is still a very serious matter to threaten the President of the United States even with images.
But she has also blasphemed against God Himself during a Grammy awards, and I won’t repeat what she said, but during the Grammy Awards she blasphemed Jesus, saying that most people give thanks to God but she wouldn’t do that and then used some terrible language towards our Lord and Savior.
Now we should be praying for Kathy Griffin. She is definitely lost and separated from God in the choices that she has made. We should pray that the Lord would convict her heart to turn away from such wickedness and to turn towards the Lord because we should never want anything bad to happen to any other person even when they say terrible things.
You see as believers in Jesus Christ we might disagree with a person’s beliefs. We might disagree with their choices and we might even believe their choices to be sinful and evil.
But the fact is that we are not to carry out evil against others ourselves. Wrath belongs to God. The judgment belongs to the Lord not to us. So we should lift up not only Kathy Griffin but other people that have allowed hatred and such vitriol to overtake them and to control them.
They believe they’re being funny. They believe that they are doing a public service. When, in fact, they are working against the common good. They are bringing division. They’re bringing anger and hatred.
And these are all things that the enemy himself does.
And so we should lift up Kathy Griffin because she too deserves God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness.
She too deserves the salvation that each of us have received when we put our trust in Jesus Christ.
We should pray for our president. We should definitely pray for our leaders even the ones we disagree with.
Here’s what the Lord wants of us, to not engage in filthy communications ourselves but to bless, to lift up and to nurture.
These are things that are good and right and I encourage us all to take this higher road and to be a blessing instead of a curse.
I’m pastor Paul Holt with a Bible Factor update and you can find me at thebiblefactor.com
