King David never met Ted Haggard
Posted August 27, 2007
"I've never seen the righteous forsaken or his seed out begging for bread," the Psalmist declared 2,500 years ago.
I thought of that verse when I read that disgraced televangelist Ted Haggard is now waving a "Will Study for Food" sign in cyberspace.
Haggard, former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, reportedly received a $138,000 severance package after he stepped down as pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
But he needs more money, he's telling friends via e-mail, to tide his family over while he pursues a graduate degree.
Haggard needs that secular degree because his spiritual credibility has been destroyed now that he's admitted buying meth and accepting massages from a homosexual prostitute.
Haggard reportedly still owns a five-acre-spread valued at $715,000, which he has not sold.
The preacher recently announced that he'll be moving to Phoenix in October to be close to the Dream Center. But Haggard apparently isn't going there for treatment. He'll be offering counseling to the clientele -- which he descirbed in an e-mail as "drug addicts, prostitutes and other broken people."
I'm not exactly Dr. Phil, but is it really a good idea to have Haggard counseling "drug addicts, prostitutes and other broken people" less than one year after he admitted buying drugs and accepting massages from a prostitute?
Also, why can't Haggard take out a student loan like most graduate students? Or, horror of horrors -- why doesn't he get a part-time job?
This post started with a quote from King David. It ends with a quote from the Apostle Paul, who ordered Christians to "keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teachings" of the Apostles.
Wrote Paul: "We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." (1 Thessolonians 3, NIV).