{"id":1896,"date":"2020-03-16T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-16T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1896"},"modified":"2020-03-15T17:57:42","modified_gmt":"2020-03-15T23:57:42","slug":"covid-19-love-others-dont-be-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=1896","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19: Love Others\/Don’t Be Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday, I wrote about social distancing<\/a> as a way to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus as recommended by people way smarter and better informed than I. Today, I want to balance that with centuries-old guidance from Martin Luther, writing during a plague in Europe. My friend Navigator Randy Raysbrook posted Luther’s counsel:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance inflict and pollute others and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely as stated above. See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy and does not tempt God.<\/em>
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0-Luther’s Works, Volume 43, p.\u00a0132,\u00a0“Whether One May Flee From a\u00a0Deadly Plague” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marvin Olasky writing in his excellent essay Love without Foolhardiness<\/a> summarizes Luther’s counsel as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Love your neighbor<\/em><\/li>
  2. Don’t be stupid<\/em><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Relationships are important, and we need to keep them up, maybe by phone? How quaint! Also, when we do cut travel and activities, we might be slowing life down a bit–not a bad thing. I know I’ll have more time by not watching 12 hours of basketball four days\/week for the next couple of weeks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22.39, NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land. (Deuteronomy 15.11, NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Yesterday, I wrote about social distancing as a way to “flatten the curve” of the coronavirus as recommended by people way smarter and better informed than I. Today, I want to balance that with centuries-old guidance from Martin Luther, writing during a plague in Europe. My friend Navigator Randy Raysbrook posted Luther’s counsel: I shall … Continue reading COVID-19: Love Others\/Don’t Be Stupid<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-uA","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1898,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1896\/revisions\/1898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}