S(Deuteronomy 21:18-21) ... Then his father and his mother shall take hold of him ... and say to the elders of the city, "This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he is a glutton and a drunkard." Then all the men of the city what stone him to death ... so shall you purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
O
What happens in the privacy of homes--the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of private disciplines--can disfigure individuals, families, and an entire nation's personality. In Hebrew, stubborn [5627] is the state of defecting from and resisting a healthy relationship. Rebellion [4784] is overt defiance, a callous and bitter offensiveness. Gluttony [2151] is a flighty, frivolous inability to value morals or appreciate the gravity of larger consequences. Drunkenness [5435] is a dependence on being inebriated (hiding reality). God holds people corporately and individually responsible for identifying and purging the both presence and practice of such evils. This perfect storm, however, of rejecting correction (stubbornness), disregarding or even denying others' pain (rebellion), defending moral delusions (gluttony) while defying truth (drunkenness), is best summarized as a rejection of Jesus Christ--the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
A (Personal)
Herod and various Hebrew kings (including David) demonstrate the terrifying and subtle ease with which these deceptive patterns can take root in one's heart. In history, we learn of destructiveness of the Milosevics, Stalins, Hitlers, and Chairman Maos, and we lament not having stopped them from gaining such power. The question begs to be answered: "What am I doing to resist the seeds of such harm in my own soul and in the souls of people I love and live near?"
A (Psychological)
In her book, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend (2007), Barbara Oakley has brilliantly set the problem of evil in the intersection of history, psychology, and genome-based research. The collision is spectacular. She defines this Machiavellian personality in a way that, from my view, matches the successfully sinister evil that Moses proscribed: "a person who is charming on the surface, a genius at sucking up to power but capable of mind-boggling acts of deceit for control or personal gain... [a person who is] unscrupulous and self-serving and therefore capable of deeply malign behavior... a person whose narcissism combines with subtle cognitive and emotional disturbances in such a fashion as to make him believe that achieving his own desires, and his alone, is a genuinely beneficial--even altruistic--activity. Since the Machiavellian gives more emotional weight to his own importance than to that of anyone or anything else, achieving the growth of his preeminence by any means possible is always justified in his own mind. [These disturbances mean Machiavellians] can make judgments that dispassionate observers would regard as unfair or irrational. At the same time, however, the Machiavellians' unusual ability to charm, manipulate, and threaten can coerce others into ignoring their conscience and treading a darker path" (pp. 280-281).
P
Lord, I echo David's prayer: "Who rises up for me against the wicked? If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would have lived in the land of silence" (Psalm 94:16,17). I commit myself to stand against--first of all--the evil that seeks safety and welcome in my own thoughts. Lord, I cry out for Your insight so I could discern rightly between good and evil, and so I'd have courage to follow You even when it seems difficult (1 Kings 3:5-13). Lord, save us from ourselves.
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