Are there any Fleeing Felons out There?

For more than 20 years, I was an administrator of federal welfare programs. During Clinton's administration, Congress passed legislation that no fleeing felon could receive welfare benefits. [a ‘fleeing felon’ is one who has a warrant out for his arrest because he has committed a crime.] So every welfare application in America had to include this question: “Are you a fleeing felon?” In the years that followed, I don’t know of any fleeing felons, in all 50 states, that ever answered that question “yes.”

Last week, I wrote about Paul’s command to “flee” temptation (1 Tim 2:22). Today it occurred to me that we were all, at one time, felons—having committed ‘crimes’ against God. And at one time we were all “fleeing” from the punishment for our sin. But God loved us while we were yet felons. Jesus became a felon like us and ‘did the time’, so we would no longer need to flee; thus, we are now free & forgiven felons.

In the just-mentioned passage, Paul says we should “flee” temptation and “follow” Jesus. But of course, before you can “follow” Jesus, you must be a forgiven felon. And after you follow Jesus, you must flee your former felonious acts. So while we were once “fleeing felons,” we have become “faithful followers” who are now fleeing from anything that made us felons in the first place.