Record!

July 27th, 2019| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

A few months ago, Nimeron Mike applied to be a city police officer in Stebbins, Alaska (pop. 646). He didn’t really expect to get the job.

You see, the guy was a registered sex offender and had served six years behind bars in Alaska jails and prisons. For assault, domestic violence, car theft, drunken driving, and so on and so forth.

Confessed Mike, 43:

My record, I thought I had no chance of being a cop,”

I’d agree and I’m sure you would, too. But he and you and I would be wrong.

That very day, the city of Stebbins hired this new cop, supplying him all the privileges that appertain thereunto, including a cellphone to answer calls for help.

Mike:

Wow! Am I a cop now? It’s like, that easy?”

Yup!

A newspaper reported that in Stebbins, all of their seven police officers had pled guilty to domestic violence charges in the last decade. Oh, and only one has received any formal law-enforcement training.

Said the Anchorage Daily News:

The current police chief pleaded guilty to throwing a teenage relative to the ground and threatening to kill her after drinking homebrew liquor in 2017. (Alcohol is illegal in the village.) He was hired a year later. He declined to answer questions in person and blocked a reporter on Facebook.”

At least two of the seven officers once pled guilty to spitting in the faces of other officers—that, of course, before the spitters became coppers. Another exposed himself to a child.

Said the paper:

The seven-man police force has served a combined six years in jails, prisons and halfway houses on dozens of criminal charges.”

And further:

At least 14 cities in Alaska have employed police officers whose criminal records should have prevented them from being hired under Department of Public Safety regulations. The news organizations identified more than 34 officers who should have been ineligible for these jobs. In all but three cases, the police hires were never reported by the city governments to the state regulatory board, as required.”

And guess what? Those towns that have no police or have criminals now functioning as police have the highest rates of domestic violence and sexual assault, not just in Alaska, but in the country!

In June, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr declared a “law enforcement emergency” in rural Alaska. He announced $10.5 million in US Department of Justice spending to support village police.

As go the leaders (in this case, enforcers of law) so go the people (in this case, society).

No wonder leaders are held to a higher standard in God’s economy.

Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren,
knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment.
James 3:1

You see, we, God’s people, will be only as good as they, God’s leaders, are. If they are up there, they pull us up to their level. If they are even higher, they help us rise further. We, God’s people, are only as good as they, God’s leaders, are.

All that to say, when you think about it, the criteria for God’s leaders in Scripture are entirely applicable to each one of us non-leaders. God raises up his leaders so that we might be like them and, thus, all of us might become more like Jesus Christ.

An elder, then, must be above reproach ….
1 Timothy 3:1

Appoint elders in every city ….
If any man be above reproach ….
Titus 1:5–6

Irreproachable! The word is anengklētos, which literally means “not having been arraigned before a judge,” i.e, without a record!

Recordless!