Love God and our neighbour

David Jones on how the Bible speaks much of doing what is right

THE UK has won the Eurovision song contest five times, most recently in 1997.

This year’s entry must be the most disappointing, with no votes being recorded from the judges’ panel and the public at large.

The UK song by James Newton certainly did not deserve to end up at the bottom of the scoreboard as musically, even in my limited appreciation of pop music, the song seemed on a par and even exceeded others that attracted good numbers of votes.

This pattern of voting against the UK has been apparent for many years and this result, as in previous years, was no real surprise and reflects the political bias influenced no doubt by Brexit.

There have been calls for the UK to withdraw from the competition and a poll in one of the daily nationals on Monday polled over 80% in favour of the UK withdrawing from Eurovision.

Then again, that would be self-defeating and who wants to be labelled a bad loser?

However, if the political goalposts are such that there’s little hope of the UK having any chance of winning in the future, this brings the whole integrity of the competition into question.

The Bible speaks much of doing what is right.

Political bias when it comes to a song competition may seem irrelevant when we look at the world scene, but the same principle applies.

The anniversary of the death of George Floyd this week will ignite again the calls for equality and justice for those who have suffered years of inequality and prejudice.

Every second child born in the world is born into poverty, with no real hope of reaching their potential as education and basic human rights are denied.

There is within the human spirit a great capacity for good; there is also the tendency to fall short when we allow any sense of superiority or injustice to exist.

At such times, to follow the golden rule which Jesus gave – to love God and our neighbour – must be our priority and to do that with an authentic obedience always seeking the good of our brothers and sisters who remain oppressed and suffer injustice in our world.

The Bible says that this is the ‘most excellent way’. I would say Amen to that!