{"id":303,"date":"2015-03-20T08:24:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T12:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=303"},"modified":"2021-04-19T16:01:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-19T20:01:06","slug":"the-reverend-charlie-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2015\/03\/the-reverend-charlie-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"The Reverend Charlie Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">A great man died this week, though few outside of Grand Rapids have ever heard of him. I never met <a title=\"Charlie Jones Obit\" href=\"http:\/\/obits.mlive.com\/obituaries\/grandrapids\/obituary.aspx?n=charlie-jones&amp;pid=174418733\">Charlie Jones<\/a>, but when I hear his name, I think, \u201cforgiver.\u201d Several years ago, after his brother Willie was brutally tortured and beaten to death by four teenagers, Charlie was able not only to forgive the four young men but also minister to their families. It was a stirring example of what it looks like to heed Jesus\u2019 admonition to \u201cturn the other cheek,\u201d and Paul\u2019s reminder to \u201cforgive others as God in Christ has forgiven you.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Charlie and Willie were African-American, old enough to have experienced the Jim Crow South and the de facto segregation of Grand Rapids. Charlie told the Grand Rapids Press in 2000 that the brothers learned to respond to mistreatment by reminding each other, \u201cThey don\u2019t know no better.\u201d Charlie said the same of the white boys who killed his brother. That response \u2013 echoing Jesus\u2019 response to his own murderers \u2013 has stayed with me ever since. I don\u2019t always remember it, but when I do, it helps me forgive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000; font-family: Calibri;\">Thank you, Pastor Jones, for teaching me about forgiveness, and for modeling the love of Christ. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A great man died this week, though few outside of Grand Rapids have ever heard of him. I never met Charlie Jones, but when I hear his name, I think, \u201cforgiver.\u201d Several years ago, after his brother Willie was brutally tortured and beaten to death by four teenagers, Charlie was able not only to forgive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":306,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}