Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to
destruction.
Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and
needy.
The Collins dictionary deflnes an oppressor as a person or group of people that treats another person or group of people cruelly or unfalrly. The main objective of an oppressor ls to wilfully act to cause pain, and disempowerment to the oppressed. One example is the well-known story of how the Israelites were oppressed for many years by the Egyptians. Though we do not find major oppression of a people today in our worlq but oppressive behaviour towards one another still exist, even among Christians.
In every institution on earth that God has created, he made rules to ensure orderliness. Some of these institutions were established as the family (marriage), church, and social interaction (work places and in government). We exhibit subtle but brutal oppressive behaviour in these institutions taking advantage of God's instruction that a group be submissive to the other. We take advantage of those that have been instructed to be submissive to us either by withholding good from them, violating them, abuse them psychologically, refuse to give them what is due to them, denying them of their right to good life. In some cases, we make these people perpetually dependent on us. We can be oppressors in the following ways: if a spouse is abused physically and psychologically, if we treat domestic staff, adopted children, nieces and nephews under our care with disdain. If we deny colleagues or staff members their benefits (salaries or promotion) for no justified reasons and when a government official divert funds made for the people for personal gains.
The remedy to oppression is love. We must learn to love, protect, respect and treat right those God has placed under our care. We will not only give account of our stewardship to Him, we will also face physical and emotional difficulties like pharaoh who lost all as a result of his stubbornness. God is always willing to help us and in his bving kindness bring us back to him. God bless you.
