The first thing we did, academically, on our first day of school is review Ancient Rome. I picked up my TruthQuest History Guide for Ancient Rome
and read a few pages that we covered last year. I had not
previewed those pages in order to have a discussion. WOW, I was
so excited the way God worked out the pages I was reading. Let me
tell you about it.
From the "Reality Check-The Poverty of Rome" section of Ancient Rome TruthQuest History guide
...the
Romans were becoming quite worldly, thus indebtedness increased, and
the huge number of slaves changed teh way Romans lived. . .Too, it was
hard for little farmers and businessmen (small businesses) to compete with the nobles who produced goods using cheap slave labor and thus charged lower prices (big business).
Skills and productivity dripped away. The Roman people figured
that if the government was so rich, it ought to cough up the money to
feed and entertain everyone. The
people cared less and less about participating in government,
especially since their tiny fractional votes were of so little value (sound familiar?)....
...Yes,
I did earlier say the Romans started out with a good system of
laws. But no legal system can stem the tide of sin if people
aren't willing to be self-governing, which means doing the right thing
without being forced to , simply because it honors God and is good for
others. (beginning to tie into New Orleans)
...And the wrongdoer didn't learn his lesson sice there were no
consequences. Thus, without self-government or fear of
punishment, the Romans soon become lawless. (Superdome, New Orleans just happened over the weekend)
Remember, Romans 13:3-4 tells governments to protect good citizens and
punish evildoers. The government of Rome wasn't doing either! (neither was the police force of New Orleans as they were attacked)
You must learn something from this! Whenever bad government is
not righted, there are only two eventual outcomes: chaos/anarachy
or tyranny/dictatorship. Chaos ususally comes first, then a
tyrant takes over, who is tolerated because people can't endure the
chaos!
Comments in parenthesis are mine!
WWe
discussed this as I read and at dinner last Tuesday night. Now, I
was not saying New Orleans would have a dictator soon, but we can
easily see the chaos produced from the lack of self-government and the
lack of punishment for wrong-doers.
History DOES repeat itself!
Kerry
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