Repost: Plundering the Egyptians

Sorry I haven't been posting regularly.  I could make numerous excuses about being busy with other stuff such as school, but I won't.  However, I do want to mention one of the things I've been working on lately which you may have already noticed.  It's a new blog focused on helping other Christians utilize their talents for God's Glory.  I thought I'd share one of the posts here, because it's relevant to this blog's purpose and content.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plundering the Egyptians

Last month I read a very good book by Nancy Pearcey entitled Saving Leonardo: a Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning (I highly recommend the book... if you're a Christian, you should probably read it!).  One of the cool things that the book talked about is what's known as "plundering the Egyptians," something I had never heard of before.  The term refers to Exodus 3:19-22, which says:

"But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go. And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians."

So what does it mean to "Plunder the Egyptians?" Basically, it means to take anything non-Christian and convert it for Christian purposes.  But that's kind of oversimplifying it, so I'll let Saint Augustine explain it to you.  He says this:

"For, as the Egyptians had not only the idols and heavy burdens which the people of Israel hated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and garments, which the same people when going out of Egypt appropriated to themselves, designing them for a better use, not doing this on their own authority, but by the command of God, the Egyptians themselves, in their ignorance, providing them with things which they themselves, were not making a good use of; in the same way all branches of heathen learning have not only false and superstitious fancies and heavy burdens of unnecessary toil, which every one of us, when going out under the leadership of Christ from the fellowship of the heathen, ought to abhor and avoid; but they contain also liberal instruction which is better adapted to the use of the truth, and some most excellent precepts of morality; and some truths in regard even to the worship of the One God are found among them. Now these are, so to speak, their gold and silver, which they did not create themselves, but dug out of the mines of God’s providence which are everywhere scattered abroad, and are perversely and unlawfully prostituting to the worship of devils. These, therefore, the Christian, when he separates himself in spirit from the miserable fellowship of these men, ought to take away from them, and to devote to their proper use in preaching the gospel. Their garments, also,—that is, human institutions such as are adapted to that intercourse with men which is indispensable in this life,—we must take and turn to a Christian use."

Hopefully that made sense.  So even though the Egyptian culture was bad and the Egyptians worshiped false Gods, there was still some good stuff in Egypt -- namely, gold and silver.  At God's command, the Israelites "plundered" the Egyptians of some of this Gold and Silver, and used it for better purposes (some of it may have even ended up on the Ark of the Covenant!).  In the same way, we Christians should realize that there are little grains of truth, good things, gold, scattered within secular and non-Christian teachings, art, and media.  We need to see the value of this gold, and then use it for the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

Let me give a few examples.

Lecrae is a Christian Rapper.  When  first heard that, I rolled my eyes too.  However, Lecrae has done a good job of plundering the Egyptians.  He has taken the rap/hip-hop medium, refined it to take out the worldly dross, and is now using the gold for Christ's glory.  When my friends first introduced me to Lecrae's music, I silently scoffed at the idea of a 'Christian rapper' ("isn't that an oxymoron?" I thought) and was expecting the worst from his music.  But when I heard the lyrics, I was pleasantly surprised.  They're really good!  I especially like his song Truth.  Lecrae has done a good job of using the rap/hip-hop platform to spread the truth of the gospel.

 

Another example would be C.S. Lewis.
C.S. Lewis read a lot of mythology in his younger years, and displayed an interest in folklore and the like.  Though most myths and folklore, such as that of the Greeks and Norse, often promote false gods, C.S. Lewis still saw the power that these stories had.  He wrote his own series of fantasy books known as the Chronicles of Narnia.  His books are not only inspiring and entertaining to read, but they also communicate biblical truths.  For example, the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe presents a wonderful allegory of the way Christ conquered sin through death.  C.S. Lewis plundered the fantasy genre from the Egyptians and used it to promote biblical truths.

 

And then there's me!  Just kidding.  Kind of.  Now I like C.S. Lewis, because I'm trying to do something similar to what he did.  You see, I really like science fiction.  Sadly though, the messages behind most science fiction books aren't very Christian, and are often very anti-Christian.  Most either promote man or nature.  If it's not man triumphing over nature with his amazing technological advancements (think Star Trek and almost anything writen by H.G. Wells) it's nature turning the tables on that technology and triumphing over man (think Jurassic Park and Jame's Cameron's Avatar).  However, I think there are some good elements in science fiction.  The amazing locations, the cool technology... I think it can be plundered from the Egyptians and used for Christ's glory.  Which is why I'm writing a Christian sci-fi series of novels.

I think this is important to us Christians today.  We need to be plundering the Egyptians. If we don't, we not only miss out on some good gold and wonderful Gospel-sharing opportunities, but we end up like the Amish.  And we all know how good they are at evangelizing.

 

However, it is very very VERY important not to go off the other end and absorb every worldly thing out there.  We are to be in the world, and not of the world.  Not every non-Christian thing out there has gold in it.  Some of the stuff out there has too little gold in it to be worth refining.  We don't want to plunder the Egyptians of their garbage!  And when we do plunder them, we need to make sure that we're taking just the gold, and not all of the worldly dross with it.  To sum up, we need to be careful of how we plunder the Egyptians and what we plunder from them.  What should we plunder from them?

"whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable..."-- Philippians 4:8

You'll know the gold when you see it.

Are you plundering the Egyptians?  Let me know how in the comments! :)