Tag Archives: Justice

Evil Implodes

March 5, 2026 Tom Vander Well 3 Comments

Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, “A pole reaching to a height of fifty cubits stands by Haman’s house. He had it set up for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king.”
The king said, “Impale him on it!”
Esther 7:9 (NIV)

Evil eventually implodes. It is inherently unstable.

This is a lesson that I’ve learned on my journey. The first place I remember learning it was in The Lord of the Rings. It’s a recurring theme throughout the trilogy, but I first noticed it in the character of Gollum. He’s a despicable creature, driven from the start by selfish hunger for the Ring. Despite the opportunity to kill the creature as an act of justice, Gandalf wisely refuses. Mercy, he suggests, may prove wiser than vengeance—because the story isn’t done yet.

Evil eventually implodes—and when it does, it often finds its own unforeseen justice. Were it not for Gollum’s selfish intent and lust for the Ring, it would never have been destroyed.

I thought about this as I meditated on today’s short, but thrilling climactic chapter in Esther’s story. The entire story of Esther is a study in “reversals,” and today’s chapter is full of them as the evil Haman’s plot quickly implodes on him.

Haman’s Plan	Actual Outcome
Mordecai will be impaled	Haman is impaled
Esther will die	Esther triumphs
Haman gains honor	Mordecai gains honor
Haman controls the king	The king destroys Haman

In a wonderful ironic cosmic twist, Haman is impaled on his own spike that had been set up to kill Mordecai.

Evil eventually implodes. It is inherently unstable.

In the quiet this morning, I take solace in this simple truth as each morning Wendy and I eat our breakfast, peruse the news, and discuss the evils of the world.

Evil often looks unstoppable—until the moment it collapses.

For six chapters Haman appears untouchable:

He has royal authority.
He controls the narrative.
He manipulates the king.
He has the gallows ready.

But beneath the surface, the story is quietly turning.

God’s providence works like underground water.

Silent.
Invisible.
Patient.

Until suddenly the earth gives way.

Haman’s downfall happens in minutes.

Years of arrogance.
Then one moment of collapse

The hard part is in the waiting and the discerning. It’s one of the places where I find that God’s ways are not my ways. Blessing those who curse me and praying for my enemies doesn’t feel like justice, and God asks that I leave the justice to Him and the larger Great Story.

Like Gandalf understanding that Gollum may yet have a role to play in the tale of the Ring.

But I don’t want to wait. I want justice now.

There are seasons in life when it feels like Haman is winning.

The arrogant rise.
The cruel prosper.
The faithful seem powerless.

Esther reminds me that history has trap doors built into it. The proud eventually step on them. Evil implodes.

I am asked to do what Esther did:

Wait.
Discern the moment.
Speak when the time is right.

And when the moment arrives, a single courageous and well-crafted sentence can change everything.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Promotional graphic for Tom Vander Well's Wayfarer blog and podcast, featuring icons of various podcast platforms with a photo of Tom Vander Well. — These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Same Table, Same Measure

January 20, 2026 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light.Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small.You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 25:13-15 (NIV)

I have mentioned over this past year that I’m working on writing a book. The project is now in the home stretch. We’re designing a cover and in the final editing stage. I’m excited for the launch which should be in the next 4-6 weeks.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the book. It’s entitled This Call May Be Monitored (What Eavesdropping on Corporate America Taught Me About Business and Life). The book is not only about the lessons I’ve learned while listening to and assessing over 100,000 business phone calls. It is also my personal story—my early belief that my life’s calling was pastoral ministry, and how God led me down an unexpected path. Along the journey, I discovered something surprising: my faith informed my business—and my business, in turn, refined my faith.

With the content of my book spinning ceaselessly in my head, today’s chapter certainly dovetailed. God through Moses doesn’t flirt with abstractions when it comes to the justice of every day life and business. It rolls up its sleeves, plants its feet in the dust, and whispers,

“Justice is not an idea. It’s how you treat the body in front of you…every one….every day.”

Deuteronomy 25 is a collection of case laws—not lofty theology, but law with calluses. Each vignette is small, but together they form a human braid of justice, dignity, memory, and restraint.

Fair punishment: Justice must be measured, not excessive. Even the guilty remain human.
The ox and the grain: Don’t muzzle the ox while it treads the grain—labor deserves sustenance.
Levirate marriage: A dead man’s name matters—to his children, the community, and to God. Family continuity is an act of mercy.
Honest weights and measures: Cheating corrodes the soul of a community.
Amalek remembered: Never forget cruelty that preys on the weak.

Today’s chapter pulses with a single heartbeat: God cares deeply about how power touches flesh.

That heartbeat was channeled into the foundation of my business when our founders, a married couple, established it back in 1987. Though the name of the business has changed, the mission statement they etched as a cornerstone of who we are as a company remains:

Intelligentics designs and implements customer-centered systems to measure and enhance customer experience. By applying the principles of God’s Word to our lives and work we become examples of servant leadership and integrity, bring measurable value to our clients, and profitably build our lives.

Doing right by clients, team members, and community is at the heart of our mission. It is merely an extension of what God established through Moses thousands of years ago in today’s chapter. It has pulsed at the core of my career with every customer survey, every analyzed phone call, and every client coaching session.

Every interaction between a business and their customer is human. Every interaction between me and my client is human. When business dehumanizes customers, clients, or its own team members in order to profit or gain power, God is offended. It’s a spiritual issue. God wants His people to lead with love-charged integrity both at home and in the marketplace. It’s foundational to building community that thrives.

It’s time for me to start the daily transition from sitting at the table in the quiet with God to sitting at the desk to serve our clients. Guess what?

It’s the same table, and the two are inexorably intertwined.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Kingdom & Empire

October 23, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.”
Nehemiah 5:1 (NIV)

One of the overarching themes of the Great Story is God trying to establish His Kingdom on earth amidst humanity’s endless and insatiable desire for empire.

As Nehemiah and the Hebrews in Judah attempt to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem it is the Persian empire that holds sway. As the story opened, we learn that Nehemiah is a right-hand man of the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes. Nehemiah has a front-row seat in that empire and its palace back in Susa. He has the power and wealth that comes with that position.

In today’s chapter, he gets a front-row seat at what the policies of the Persian empire are doing to the lives of average people in flyover country far from the Emperor’s gilded throne room.

Persia had steep taxes along with grain restrictions and regulations. People around Jerusalem had to mortgage their fields in order to make their tax payments. It was Hebrew nobles and merchants with wealth who loaned them the money and mortgaged their fields. When famine hit, and the poor farmers couldn’t make payments, their Hebrew lenders foreclosed or else they took their debtors children into slavery as collateral.

These were common financial practices in the culture of that day. This is how human empires operate. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to human empire. The rich and powerful rig the system to get richer and more powerful, while the poor and the outcasts find it harder and harder to survive.

What’s crucial for me to consider as I read about the circumstances with which Nehemiah is faced in today’s chapter, is that God had instructed the Hebrews from the beginning of their covenant in Exodus that He wanted them to do things differently. God wanted them to operate by the principles of His Kingdom rather than human empire.

In Exodus 22:15, Leviticus 25, and Deuteronomy 15 God prohibits Hebrews from charging interest from their fellow Hebrews. God established a system by which every seventh year there was a jubilee. All debts were forgiven. Any mortgaged land was given back to the ancestral family who inherited it from God. Slaves were set free. The Hebrews were to be generous and acknowledge that everything belonged to God, not to them. This is how God’s Kingdom works.

This is not what was happening in and around Jerusalem. Here is Nehemiah, an agent of the human Persian empire who created the circumstances in which God’s people have been corrupted. Yet, Nehemiah knows God’s law. He sees the injustice.

Why rebuild the wall to protect God’s Temple and God’s system of redemption if within those walls there is nothing but corruption? Why waste the time, energy, and resources if the Hebrews become nothing more than another human empire?

Jewish rabbis call Nehemiah’s response in today’s chapter mussar. It’s an ethical rebuke that is intended to restore community, not merely punish. Nehemiah not only rebukes the nobles and wealthy money lenders, calling them to repent and follow God’s law, but he once again leads by example. As the Emperor’s right-hand man, Nehemiah had wealth and resources at his disposal. Nehemiah acts out of the generosity that is at the heart of God’s laws. He channels his stipend and food allowance into generously feeding others. He refuses to place more of a tax burden on the people.

As I meditated on today’s chapter in the quiet this morning, it struck me that yesterday’s chapter was about external opposition from neighboring enemies. Today’s chapter is about the enemy within. Yes, it was corruption within the Hebrew people, but it was even deeper than that. It was selfish ambition, greed, and lust for power that had penetrated the hearts and minds of the Hebrew nobles, merchants, and ruling class. It is that same selfish ambition, greed, and lust for power that fuels all human empires, while God’s Kingdom cries out for love, justice, hospitality, and generosity.

Human empire is typically thought of on a global and national scale, but I’m reminded this morning that it also exists on a personal scale. When selfish ambition, greed, and the desire for power are in the driver’s seat of my heart and mind, then my own life, home, family, and business become Tom’s little personal empire. In contrast, Jesus sent His Spirit to dwell within me and He made me and my body His temple. I am God’s Kingdom on earth. I am to live out God’s principles of love, justice, hospitality, and generosity. I can’t do that if I’m more concerned about Tom’s little personal empire.

Lord, help me be a Nehemiah.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Cities of Refuge

September 17, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“The accused must stay in the city of refuge until the death of the high priest; only after the death of the high priest may they return to their own property.”
Numbers 35:28 (NIV)

Our city of Pella here on the Iowa prairie has an incredible history. It was created by a Dutch pastor and his congregation who were fleeing religious persecution from the state church in the Netherlands. It was named Pella after an ancient city called Pella that was a “city of refuge” and to which early Christians fled from persecution and an impending war in Jerusalem between the Jews and Romans.

In today’s chapter, God commands Moses to create six evenly distributed towns throughout the Promised Land where the tribe of Levi would settle. Remember, the Levites were responsible for maintaining God’s traveling tent temple and the overseeing the entire on-going sacrificial system. God was their inheritance, not a plot of land. Nevertheless, they needed a place to live, so six cities were created for the Levites and God designated them “cities of refuge.”

In the entire history and development of human civilization, today’s chapter stands as a critical and revolutionary step forward. Other ancient cultures had largely undeveloped policies regarding sanctuary for the accused. God didn’t invent the idea of sanctuary out of thin air in today’s chapter, but He transformed a scattered, uneven practice into a theologically rich, justice-mercy structure that was unique to Israel and transformed the principles and policies of human justice.

There were six cities evenly distributed. The cities were Levite towns, meaning that the accused was under the protection of the priests and both mercy and justice were viewed directly as coming from God’s appointed representatives. The accused could not leave the walls of the city of refuge until the death of the high priest, so fleeing from an avenger was not just a blank check of forgiveness. There were boundaries to which the accused must adhere. There was also a very clear system that God put in place that required witnesses and a form of due process. Humanity had never seen anything like it.

Cities of refuge became a part of the human landscape and they have had a ripple effect throughout history. The early Jesus Movement largely survived and flourished because of a prophecy in which Christians were instructed to flee to ancient Pella. Had they stayed in Jerusalem, they may have been wiped out when the Romans destroyed the temple and city in 70 A.D.

In the 1800s, H.P. Scholte realized that there was little or no future for his largely poor, uneducated, and lower-class congregation members. He and his flock had no freedom of religion. He had already been imprisoned for obeying his conscience and defying the king who was head of the state controlled church. Scholte saw America for what it was, a land of opportunity where he and his followers were free worship however they wanted and where poor uneducated farmers might make a life for themselves and their descendants that would have been impossible in the Netherlands. So, he dreamed, designed, and built a new city of refuge on the Iowa prairie and named it after the ancient city that saved and launched the success of the Jesus Movement.

In the quiet this morning, as I meditate on the chapter and the history of cities of refuge, there are three things stirring in my soul:

God as Refuge: In both Jewish and Christian traditions, God carves out spaces of mercy in the midst of justice. This life journey contains moments where guilt—intentional or accidental—feels like a crushing weight. In today’s chapter God whispers: there is a place to run, and a God who receives you.

Boundaries of Grace: The city walls of the Levite towns remind me that refuge comes with boundaries. Forgiveness and safety are not license; they invite us to dwell in a different rhythm of life until God’s appointed time of release.

Death that Brings Freedom: For both Jew and Christian, the death of the High Priest as part of the system is key. It’s a reminder that death itself—Christ’s, and one day my own—is not an end but the doorway to freedom.

Grace often blooms most vividly when something old dies and something new begins.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

God’s Radical Decision for Women

September 4, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

So Moses brought [the case raised by Zelophehad’s daughters] before the Lord, and the Lord said to him, “What Zelophehad’s daughters are saying is right. You must certainly give them property as an inheritance among their father’s relatives and give their father’s inheritance to them.
Numbers 27: 5-7 (NIV)

The Hebrew tribes are camped on the Jordan River across from Jericho. On the other side of the Jordan lies the Promised Land. The time has come to take possession and everyone in the camp is talking about the land that their tribe and their families will eventually be given. The idea of land to farm and graze and a homestead for the family and future generations to live and flourish has been a common human dream throughout history.

This is a moment of promise for the Hebrews. At Mt. Sinai almost 40 years earlier God gave them a vision for this moment. He gave them his guidebook for life and community with God and others in Leviticus. God told the Hebrews that He was going to show them His ways and they would be an example to all the other nations, empires, and peoples of His ways. This included radical new ideas like a sabbath day of rest, the care for strangers, societal protection for the poor and vulnerable, and being a nation with no human king, pharaoh, or emperor.

Now, at this very moment of history on the edge of fulfilled promise of a land to call one’s own, one of the most amazing stories in the entirety of the Great Story takes place. It is a prime example of God wanting things to be different than human defaults. It is a tale no one taught or talked about in all my many years of sermons and Bible classes. It is the story of Zelophehad’s daughters.

At this moment when everyone is thinking about the land they will be given, the daughters realize they have a problem. Their father died and he had no sons. It’s just the sisters. The ancient near east, especially Mesopotamia, the nations and people groups were staunchly patriarchal. Women had no autonomy. They owned no land. They could inherit no land. Everything was legally channeled through the males in the family.

So, with divine chutzpah, the daughters approach Moses and the elders of the community. This in itself was a radical departure from cultural norm. Women didn’t participate in the meetings of the elders or the formal business affairs of the community. Nevertheless, the daughters broke protocol and they made their case before Moses. They had listened and embraced what God had said at Sinai and what Torah taught about God caring about the marginal, societal protection for the vulnerable, and justice. Why should another family get their family’s promised plot of the Promised Land simply because they had no brother?

Then something more amazing happens. Moses takes the daughters’ case before God. God quickly and unequivocally decides for the daughters. Women can inherit land and own it. God sides with women and demands that it become the law of His people. While there were other ancient cultures in which women had the right to own and inherit land (Egypt being prime among them) the right typically had certain patriarchal limits. Never before had there been a divine decree that simply and directly conferred upon women the right to inherit and own their family property. This was radical.

Remember, in the Great Story everything is connected. What God is doing with physical inheritance here in Numbers is the same thing He will do with spiritual inheritance through Christ:

“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…” Romans 8:17 (NIV)

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28 (NIV)

There are two main themes that flow out of my meditation on Zelophehad’s daugthers in the quiet this morning.

First, I love the holy audacity of the daughters to step-up at the right moment and stand for what was right. It echoes the same chutzpah I see in Wendy and in our daughters. I love it. I love their heart for what’s just for everyone. I love that God blessed their courage and that God divinely cut against what was entrenched human cultural tradition. I hear echoes of the prophet Isaiah: “Your ways are not my ways.”

Second, history has taught me that human defaults and entrenched human culture traditions never change easily. In just a few chapters, the men will find a way to use human legal means to hem in the radical rights God has just granted to women. Early Christian “fathers” made similar moves to hem in the spiritual equality Jesus brought to the table. The tension remains to this day. I don’t think the tension will ever abate this side of eternity because it is connected to the consequences of the Garden in just the third chapter of the Great Story.

But, I can embrace God’s heart. I can embrace and celebrate what He did for the daughters of Zelophehad thousands of years ago and all the women their precedent effected through the centuries. I can embrace and celebrate what Christ did in bringing women to the table as full and equal heirs of God’s Kingdom. And, where it is in my ability I can speak and act in supporting and encouraging that spiritual reality and all that it means.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Maturing Takes Time

July 18, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

“Say to the Israelites: ‘Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty and must confess the sin they have committed.’”
Numbers 6:6-7 (NIV)

About a month ago, our grandson Milo attended worship with us among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. Milo is seven and is an explosive bundle of unbridled, kinetic, little-boy energy. Underneath the exterior of all that normal physical energy lies one of the softest, most genuinely open hearts I’ve ever experienced in a boy his age. He asks big questions. He thinks big thoughts. He feels big feels. And, he has a passionate curiosity about God.

What was fascinating to watch that morning was the mixture of both. He was, at once, a squirrelly little boy who at times needed discipline and a sweet little boy who was genuinely trying to understand and interact with the divine. He was so eager to go up for the bread and cup that Yaya had to hold him back multiple times while it was still being prepared.

He is a boy. He is maturing. It takes time.

Today’s chapter is one of those chapters with which casual modern readers struggle. It has to do with purity and fidelity, but it is easy for the surface of the text to produce intense negative reactions. At the heart of it, God is repeating what He has already established in the priestly instruction manual, Leviticus. If God, who has delivered them from slavery, is going to live in the midst of the Hebrews, if He is going to travel with them through the wilderness and lead them to the Promised Land, then there are going to be some ground rules. He is a holy God and they have to learn to be clean from the outside in. That means dealing with their bodies, their relationships, their emotions, and their consciences.

Specifically, what God deals with in today’s chapter is:

Skin diseases (physical issues on the outside)
Interpersonal conflicts (issues within the community)
Marital infidelity (issues within the marriage covenant)
Jealousy (intense negative emotions that may cause unjust harm)
Guilt and honesty (being spiritually honest with God and self)

The example given for the last three is man who feels jealous and believes his wife has been unfaithful. He has no proof and she is adamant about her fidelity. He is to bring her to the priest. The priest is to bring her before the Lord. A test is rendered to determine if she is being honest, in which case she is cleared – or if she is lying, in which case she is potentially cursed.

By modern standards it seems harsh and politically incorrect. For human civilization in the ancient near east, this was a radical, revolutionary, giant leap of social development. In that day, and that culture, a man would typically just follow his jealousy into violence against both his wife and the man he suspected she slept with. There would be no accountability and no civil recourse. There was no law. In most small people groups there was no developed or official justice system. It was a king-of-the-mountain free-for-all in which the powerful beat, clawed, and killed their way to the top. Those who were weak simply tried to survive the powerful doing whatever they wanted however they wanted because no one would stop them.

Now Yahweh, the miraculous God who freed these weak, just surviving Hebrews from slavery to the king-of-the-mountain Egyptian empire, is telling them “You must do things differently.” He is a holy God. He demands people to be clean outside-in.

But they’re not.

They have physical ailments they can’t control.
They have conflicts and misunderstandings.
They have intense negative emotions that lead to conflicts.
They are at times not honest with themselves or others.

In each case, God provides a process for addressing each of these.

This is a human civilization in the toddler stage of development. They throw tantrums. They can’t control their emotions, and they are constantly acting out of their sheer emotion. They aren’t educated, can’t write, can’t read, and have been slaves for generations.

Father God is doing what good parents do with toddlers. He is teaching them one step at a time.

“Let’s wash your hands.”
“Give her back her ball. It’s hers, not yours.”
“Now, say you’re sorry and give her a hug.”
“Did he really hit you? I didn’t see anything.”
“Are you lying to me?”

In other words, like Milo trying to understand why he can’t just run up in his excitement and grab the bread and cup, this fledgling group of humans is slowly maturing.

It takes time.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself meditating on the reality that human civilization has matured over thousands of years. We are more educated and more developed than any generation in the history of human civilization. Yet, with all we’ve learned…

We have physical ailments and tragedies we can’t control.
We have conflicts and misunderstandings.
We have intense negative emotions that lead to those conflicts.
We are at times not honest with ourselves or others.

Lord, have mercy.

Obviously, there’s something broken we can’t fix ourselves.

And, Father God is still holy. He still demands we be clean outside in.

So, He sacrificially made a way for that to happen. It’s a gift.

I just have to receive it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Taking the Loss

January 9, 2025 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?
1 Corinthians 6:7 (NIV)

John Sexton, former President of New York University, wrote a book that I have in my personal library entitled, Baseball as a Road to God. In the book, Sexton shares the many things that the game and spirituality share. This includes things like faith, doubt, miracles, conversion, and the sacred. I agree with him. There are many spiritual lessons to be learned from the game

Every year, each major league team has its ups and downs. Every team, even the best ones, occasionally end up on the wrong end of a blowout. The sting of getting shellacked often gives way to some much needed comic relief when managers reach the point where they don’t want to waste any of their pitchers arms in what they know is going to be a defeat. They take the loss and place an infielder or outfielder on the mound to do the best they can. It makes for some funny moments and match-ups.

For those who are highly competitive, this strategy just feels wrong. The truth is that it’s a very wise move. It’s about the proper use of energy and resources in a 162 game season. Some days it’s best to take the loss and save your bullpen for tomorrow.

I have also learned that I sometimes have to do the same thing in life. It particularly occurs when I’ve been wronged by another person. Believe me, I feel the anger, the hurt, and the desire for vengeance and justice. Along life’s road, I began to ask myself about the usefulness of all those negative emotions along with wisdom of spending my energy focused on the person who wronged me. Often, the wrong I experience is relatively petty and small in the grand scheme of life, and I have much better things to do with my time, energy, and resources. Sometimes forgiveness feels like I’m letting my enemy off the hook, when the truth is that it’s freeing me to use my thoughts, energy, and resources more productively.

For those who have a heightened sense of justice, this just feels wrong.

In today’s chapter, Paul addresses his fellow Jesus followers in Corinth who were experiencing all sorts of conflicts between one another. Some of them had even escalated to the point where believers were suing one another. He asks the same question: Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? I can descend into anger, hatred, slander, and a lust for retribution, but all of those are character qualities Jesus teaches me to avoid at all costs. Choosing to switch the focus of my thoughts and energy towards ultimately more profitable, productive, and spiritually healthy pursuits is strategically the wise move. Life is a long season.

I’m reminded of two episodes in Jesus ministry. In one, the people of a town tell Jesus that they want nothing to do with Him. He and His followers were not welcome. In the other, Jesus’ disciples hear that someone who isn’t officially part of Jesus’ ministry was spreading Jesus’ teaching and even casting out demons. In both of these instances, Jesus’ disciples wanted to pursue their anger and indignation. They wanted Jesus to call down fire from heaven to burn up the town that rejected them. They wanted to go find that man who was doing their job without permission and tell him to cease and desist. In both episodes, Jesus told his disciples to let it go and take the loss. He had more important and more strategically productive ways to focus their time, energy, and resources.

In the quiet this morning, as I’ve meditated on these things, my mind has conjured up the names and faces of individuals who wronged me along life’s road. Some of them are distant memories. One or two are so recent that I still feel the internal struggle and the desire for justice and vengeance. I realize, however, that I have never regretted taking the loss with those former experiences and in fact it was the best decision for me in the long run. That helps me with the sting of my more recent experiences.

I’ve only got so much time, energy, and resources in my personal bullpen. I need to use them wisely. It’s a long season.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!

Chapter-a-Day

Boiling it Down to Bullet Points

January 23, 2024 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

Dear Reader,

I am on my third trip through the Bible on this chapter-a-day journey and my fourth or fifth trip through the New Testament. The truth is that I rarely remember what I’ve written each day. In fact, Wendy often comments that she just read my post from a day or two before and I have to ask her what it was about because I’ve already forgotten it. Thus, in the quiet this morning, when I vividly remembered what I’d written about Micah 6 in July of 2015, I figured maybe there was something there that should be dusted off for those of you who were not on the journey back then. And for those of you who were, I hope it is as good a reminder for you as it was for me in my dusting it off.

Have a great day!
Tom

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8 (NIV)

I am on the road training this week. When our group analyzes a company’s phone calls, we methodically tear it down into a ton of behavioral and analytical data points. When sharing the data with Customer Service Representatives and translating it into actionable training points I find that the sheer volume of data and the machinations of our analytical process can easily overwhelm them. As I walk through the information, I sometimes see my client’s eyes glaze over and I know that I’ve lost them.

Over time, I’ve learned that many individuals simply need things boiled down for them. They don’t want lengthy explanations or an exhaustive review of all the data. They just want the Cliff Notes, the Reader’s Digest condensed version, the bullet points, or the crux of the matter. The client I’m working this week has well over 50 different data elements that we measure in their phone calls, but in my training this year I’m only talking about the five things that matter most.

Life and faith can sometimes be like that. God’s Message is a lengthy tome assembled over centuries in different languages. The contents are arranged categorically rather than chronologically. Some of it is history, while other parts are poetry and song lyrics. Other parts are letters and some of the stranger bits are prophetic messages in poetic form. It can be confusing to find and grasp the larger storyline. Sometimes we just want things boiled down into a bullet list.

God’s message through the prophet Micah does it nicely in today’s chapter:

Act justly (e.g. do the right thing by God, others, and yourself)
Love mercy (e.g. love tangibly, forgive continually, give sacrificially)
Walk humbly (e.g. be considerate of others; put their needs ahead of your own)

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day, Uncategorized

Prudent Silence, Bold Speech

October 25, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Therefore the prudent keep quiet in such times,
for the times are evil.
Amos 5:13 (NIV)

I remember Garrison Keillor once saying that a small town newspaper isn’t really the news, it’s just the table of contents. The real news, the stuff that’s really going on, never made it into print. Having lived in a few different small towns along my life journey, I feel the truth of Keillor’s statement. Yes, every small town has a City Council, but I’ve observed that there are always unelected individuals in small towns who wield unofficial power.

In the ancient days of the prophet Amos, the seat of justice was always at the local city gate. Small towns handled their own justice right inside the gates of the city. The town’s elders met there regularly to visit, share news, and conduct business. If there was a criminal or legal matter, it was the town elders who heard the case and meted out justice.

There was only one problem with this system, of course. Just like any small town, there were those individuals who wielded unofficial power. The wealthy and prominent puppet-masters pulled the strings of justice as they saw fit. And because the populace feared the threat of what the puppet masters could do in retaliation, they kept their mouths shut and their heads down.

Enter the prophet Amos.

Amos, the blue-collar prophet from Judah, strolls into town with words that bite. He calls the people of Israel to repent from the shady local politics and power games in which the poor and weak suffered at the hands of the rich, local puppet masters.

Today’s chapter was written as lyrics to a funerary lament. It was a way of Amos saying to his audience, “You’re already dead, you just don’t know it yet.” Amos then ends his lament with a proclamation of the “day of the Lord” when God would pronounce judgement on Israel. The justice of God contrasting the injustice of the local puppet-masters.

In the quiet this morning, I was struck by Amos’ description of the silent bystanders who are “prudent” in keeping silent. That is a theme that resonates deeply in the current events of today. Researchers say that the level of anxiety in young people today is off-the-charts, and one of the reasons is the daily fear that saying the wrong thing will get them cancelled and ostracized in the classroom or social media. Just yesterday I listened to an interview with Palestinians inside Gaza explaining that they must prudently keep quiet about what’s really happening inside Gaza or their Hamas puppet masters will torture and kill them and their families. On college campuses, the administrations who have always been quick to speak out about social justice issues suddenly find it prudent to keep silent about terrorists indiscriminately torturing, raping, and murdering innocent people, including children.

One of the things that I love about the prophets is their willingness to say the things that needed to be said. Of course, things did not always end well for them. The power brokers and puppet masters regularly found ways to silence their prophetic critics. Jesus offered His own lament over this reality:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

Just last week I was reminded of the words of Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor who initially supported Hitler’s rise to power, but then became the leader of clergy who opposed the regime. He wrote:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

May God grant me the boldness of a prophet to speak and to pen the right words at the right time with a heart that is ever motivated by love.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“The More Things Change…”

October 17, 2023 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“The Lord roars from Zion
and thunders from Jerusalem…”
Amos 1:2 (NIV)

It was a time of incredible prosperity and affluence for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah when God called Amos to proclaim his message. Amos was not a noble member of the court like Isaiah. He didn’t hail from blue-blood priestly families like Jeremiah or Ezekiel. Amos was a blue-collared common man. He was a shepherd. He worked with his hands harvesting figs to make ends meet.

What Amos sees around him is that the rich get rich off by oppressing the poor. The powerful use corruption to keep themselves in power. The weak don’t stand a chance. And it’s not just the northern kingdom of Israel or the southern kingdom of Judah. It’s everyone in the region. At the feet of the powerful and wealthy lies hatred, human trafficking, violence, genocide, greed.

So God gives Amos a message. The Lion of Judah is about to roar.

As I read today’s first chapter of the prophet Amos’ message, I couldn’t believe how relevant it felt to today. Just a week and a half ago, the terrorist group, Hamas, brutally attacked Jewish communities just outside of Gaza. Screaming words of hatred, women and children were killed. Babies were cut from their mother’s wombs. Infants were beheaded. Families were kidnapped. A girl was raped next to the body of her dead friends.

Amos’ opening message addresses the kingdoms surrounding Israel and Judah, including Gaza which was Philistine territory in that day. God through Amos, describes their behavior that has stoked His anger. It seemed to me that it came right from this past week’s news:

“…she took captive whole communities.” (vs. 6)
“…she sold whole communities of captives to Edom disregarding a treaty of brotherhood.” (vs. 9)
“..he slaughtered the women of the land.” (vs. 10)
“..his anger raged continually and his fury flamed unchecked.” (vs. 10)
“…he ripped open the pregnant women in order to extend his borders.” (vs. 13)
“I will send fire on the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses.” (vs. 7)

Amazing.

As I read today’s chapter in the quiet this morning, I couldn’t help but think of the prophet Amos as an Oliver Anthony of his day belting out his own version of Rich Men North of Richmond. Amos sees the same things in his day that Oliver Anthony sings about from his perspective today. There are double standards. The rich get richer by oppressing the poor. Corruption flourishes and the powerful get away with their crimes. As Bob Dylan sang, “You know the Golden Rule? The one who’s got the gold rules.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same. History changes. Technology changes. Knowledge increases. Yet, the human condition remains the same. We need justice today as much as humanity has ever needed it. So, I’m anxious to hear the cries of the blue-collared working man’s prophet, Amos in the days ahead. If the human condition and the circumstances haven’t changed all that much since his day, and it appears that they haven’t, then I think he just might have something relevant for me, my life, and my times.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Wayfarer

Tag Archives: Justice

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Just another wayfarer on life's journey, headed for Home. I'm carrying The Message, and I'm definitely waiting for Guffman.

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Just another wayfarer on life's journey, headed for Home. I'm carrying The Message, and I'm definitely waiting for Guffman.