Jun 5, 2008

2010 Census--David's Servant or Slave

Much planning has gone into the 2008 U.S. Census. This will be the first census to use hand-held computing devices with GPS capability, a feature to collect even more data about our citizens. The question becomes more pronounced--are we servants, or are we slaves of the State?

I'm on travel and often pick up the Gideon Bible (New King James version, 1982) published by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and read a little of the old Testament. In my home Bible (Douay-Rheims), I finally finished reading the old Testament about two months ago. This morning I saw an interesting reference to counting people in a nation. [Another important Biblical reference to a census is the one being conducted when Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem when his foster father, Joseph, was required to register in his city of origin.]

This morning I re-read I Chronicles 28, 21 where David was inspired by Satan to conduct a census of Israel. Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. Joab tried to dissuade David by saying But my lord the king, are they not all my lord's servants? Why then does my lord require this thing? Why should he be a cause of guilt in Israel?

David then counted his people in a census and found that Israel had one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword.