Burning Bibles.

Yesterday, reports came in that the mayor of Or Yehuda, a city near Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, held a public meeting in which he burned several copies of the Brit Chadeshah (New Testament.)

The story goes that an Evangelistic group had gone door to door in the small community giving people copies in whichever language was best for them (Russian, Hebrew, English, etc.)

The chief rabbi of Hod Hasharon naturally threw a fit about it, went to the mayor and demanded that he "do something." The mayor responded with a public burning of several copies.

Several of the Messianic leaders here in the Land have expressed fear that this is a very bad, ominous sign of worse to come.

I respectfully disagree.

For starters, this is an obvious case of a politician who was forced (probably against his inclination) to "do something" about a "problem" that he probably didn't think was much of a problem but which he couldn't ignore. I'm speculating here but the mayor of a typical city in Israel is swamped with problems from unpaid salaries of city workers to garbage collection to inadequate budgets and so most of them would rather not waste time with something like this. But the city rabbi can tell people not to vote for him, so when the rabbi tells him something is a problem, the mayor has to respond.

Second, there's no such thing as bad publicity. When you ban a book, or burn it, you generate interest in it and make people wonder what the big deal is. This makes people want to read it because people are naturally drawn to that which is forbidden.

Third, being a burner of books is NOT a good image to have. It makes you look weak and insecure. Only people who are afraid of ideas burn books, and that always makes people wonder what idea it is that you are so worried about and afraid of.

So to this incident I give a resounding PRAISE THE LORD! All things work together for good, and I personally hope that as many people hear about this as possible.