Prisoners for the Lord

Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me, a prisoner for his sake. -- 2 Timothy 1:8

Activity: Find a symbol of a prison bar--a piece of dowel rod or pipe. Pass it around and promise to serve the faith that frees us.

I'm sorry, as we go on, it seems like the writers of this pamphlet are getting lazier and lazier with the activities. *sigh* Prison is an interesting thing to ponder, though. Is its purpose to punish or rehabilitate? Revenge or justice? Which one should it be, and what can we do to make/keep it that one?  "Revenge is mine, says the Lord, and I will repay." (Romans 12:19) Letting go of vengeance against criminals, especially those who do horrible, horrible crimes, is a difficult concept to digest, but if we are to live as Christians, this is what we have to believe. With that in mind, what should the role of prisons be: To force prisoners to "serve their time" for varying degrees of wrongdoing, or to rehabilitate prisoners so they can be better people and, thus, to go in peace and sin no more? This certainly requires much more deliberation regarding murderers, rapists, and others who commit more brutal crimes, but this certainly seems like a feasible goal for lower-level first-time offenders. And, if I may be a little overly-optimistic for a moment, it would certainly benefit society more than pouring millions of tax dollars every year to prisoners locked away in prisons for small amounts of time as punishment for "smaller" crimes. This won't be the last discussion of this I engage in through these reflections, so hopefully next time I will flesh this out a little bit more.

Prayer: Lord, we remember you as we pray for all who are justly or unjustly imprisoned: "I was in prison and you visited me."

~The Original Fong~
**You wish you could pull off being me**

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