Commencement Speaker pays student debt for graduating class.

This is Dr. Jim Benison's The Daily Article podcast for Monday, May 20, 2019.

There are more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the United States.

I'm guessing that none of them heard a commencement address quite like the one delivered

at Morehouse College yesterday.

Robert F. Smith, a billionaire investor known as the wealthiest black man in America, told the crowd

that he and his family would pay off the entire graduating class of student debt.

David A. Thomas, president of Morehouse, called Mr. Smith's generosity, a liberation gift,

meaning this frees these young men from having to make their career decisions

based on their debt. This allows them to pursue what they are passionate about. Mr. Smith's gift may be

worth about $40 million, according to Morehouse officials. Imagine that you were one of the

396 young men graduating from Morehouse yesterday. I can think of three reasons you might

decline,

Mr. Smith's remarkable generosity. You could do so out of a self-reliant determination to pay your

debts yourself. You could refuse to feel indebted to Mr. Smith, or you could consider yourself

unworthy of such grace. Now, let's consider Robert Smith's gift to the Morehouse graduates as a parable.

The creator of the universe considers our eternal life worth the death of his son.

As 2 Corinthians 521 says, for our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Our father loves us unconditionally, as Romans 837 through

39 says, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate

us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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