The following is a brief article by R.C. Sproul Jr. Just read it!
God tells us in Exodus 20 that He will visit “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,” (verse 5). That might settle the issue, but then God also told us this, “In those days they shall say no more: ‘ The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge.’” (Jeremiah 31:29). Does this mean that there was, in the old covenant, familial curses, and that in the new they no longer exist? I think not.
I would suggest instead that what was still is, and what is not, never was. God’s promise in Exodus 20 is not that He will send fresh judgment against one generation for the sins of another generation. God does not have beside His throne a box full of thunderbolts that He hurls down on sinners. Much less does He hurl down thunderbolts against someone’s great grandchildren. The consequences of our sin are much more organic than that, as are the results of our obedience.
Suppose that I suffered from covetousness. God is unlikely to, if I am outside the kingdom, send me boils to punish me. Neither is He likely, if I am inside the kingdom, to send me boils to coax me toward repentance. What He is far more likely to do, in either case, is afflict me with collection calls, repo men, crippling interest rates and foreclosure. Now suppose my sons grew up in this covetous household. Is it not more likely that they will learn covetousness from me? Will they not likely see the afflictions as normal life? They certainly are not likely to receive an inheritance that could bless them. They would, in this sense, live with the consequences of my sin, for multiple generations. My iniquity would be visited on them.
That said, if they in turn live covetous lives, will they be able to blame either God or me for the collections calls, repo men, etc? Of course not. They are still responsible to be financially responsible. They are in like manner free to live in gratitude, and to end the cycle.
Those who promote the notion of “familial curses” are correct to note that our sins are not hermetically sealed, affecting only the sinner. (Remember that multiple “innocent” families lost husbands and fathers at Ai because of Achan’s sin at Jericho (Joshua 7:4).) God does indeed deal with us corporately, not just in the family but in churches, communities and nations. Those who think there is some sort of mystical cure, beyond repentance, are, I fear, mistaken.
In the end, if we are suffering and wondering why, the last answer we should come to is, “It is my ancestor’s fault.” On the other hand, when we are tempted to sin, we ought never to lose sight that the consequences certainly can outlive us, and afflict those we love. Thus I pray often that God would spare my children from the fruit of my sins. In either case the answer is to repent and to give thanks. We all enjoy so much more than we are due. And even suffering, for the believer, is blessing. We are to count it all joy.
(Emphasis added.)
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking. Show all posts
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Googling Ourselves to Death
I find many of the things mentioned here true about myself. I hardly ever take time to put very many thoughts together anymore. :( There are many snippets and fragments of ideas running around in my head. I find it a chore to put them together into a blog post. This article presents a challenge. Will I work on it or not?
Googling Ourselves to Death
by Jason Stellman
I distinctly remember the period after I first began to embrace Reformed theology while a pastor with Calvary Chapel in Europe. The Bible had come alive to me as a result of having discovered that “the gospel” was not just the “Roman Road” down which we take unbelievers in order to get them to “pray the prayer” and accept Jesus into their hearts, but it was so much more. The gospel as I came to realize, refers not just to our evangelistic tactics and formulae, but to all of the doctrines of grace that shape our lives as Christians: election, regeneration, saving faith, justification, sanctification, and glorification. In a word, I was overwhelmed with the new insights I was gaining. For this reason I would sit and study God’s Word for hours without interruption, often pursuing a biblical or doctrinal question as far as I possibly could, and exploring it as deeply as I possibly could, until I was satisfied that I understood the matter satisfactorily.
But now? Now, things have changed.
I still have the same love for God’s Word as I always have (and I hope it’s even greater than it used to be), but what has changed is the ability to study it without distractions. The reason for this, I think, has to do with the all-pervasive role that the Internet has come to play in our lives as Americans. We are constantly connected and thus susceptible to incessant email notifications, Facebook friend-requests, and inane texts and tweets. If I may wax somewhat self-incriminating, after finishing my last paragraph and beginning this one, I took a break to check the score of the Lakers game (they’re losing). My point is that the context in which one can sustain a single uninterrupted thought is much rarer and harder to create than it was only ten years ago.
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that the way we often evaluate the effects of the Internet is by considering its content, but ignoring its nature as a medium. It is the way that information is being relayed and processed that stands to harm us more greatly than the information itself. Carr quotes Wired’s Clive Thompson, “The perfect recall of [Google’s] silicon memory can be an enormous boon to thinking,” and then writes:
The boons are real. But they come at a price. Media aren’t just channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
As Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan have argued in times past, the message is important, but so is the medium, and the medium of the Internet and other forms of modern technology may indeed make things quicker and easier (and in case you were wondering, yes, I did a Google search to find Carr’s quote above rather than type it in by hand from the book sitting here on my desk), but at what cost to our brains, our minds, our study habits?
There’s something unique about Christian disciplines — and especially the study of Scripture — that renders them altogether distinct from other pursuits. And what’s more, those things that tend toward growth in the faith, whether public means of grace or private devotions, can even be immune from the supposed aid and ease that technology may offer in other arenas. For example, a graduate student may truly benefit from being able to access mountains of information at the click of a mouse, but I am not convinced that the minister will equally benefit from the same. Unlike in other fields, the pastor who labors over the Greek or Hebrew text of Scripture, or the theologian who forces himself to dig deeply into the writings of some saint or early father, actually undergoes an inward and spiritual change as a result of these disciplined pursuits, and the depth of that change may very well be related to just how painstaking his research really was.
In a word, there are just no shortcuts to true piety. The more we attempt to achieve our spiritual goals quickly and painlessly by circumventing the old ways trod by those who have gone before us — such as time spent in prayer and in study of God’s Word — the more shallow our spiritual lives will become. As inconvenient and time-consuming as our spiritual disciplines may be when pursued without the aids of modern technology, we can rest assured that the effort will be more than worthwhile.
It is easy to lament the ill-effects of texting and tweeting upon punctuation, spelling, and the English language as a whole, but have we stopped to consider that such grammatical shortcuts and shortcomings may end up serving as a metaphor for twentyfirst century Christian piety? What may be bad for the secular goose is much worse for the sacred gander, and lazily abbreviated text-messaging can become a steppingstone for a lazy and abbreviated prayer life.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Googling Ourselves to Death
by Jason Stellman
I distinctly remember the period after I first began to embrace Reformed theology while a pastor with Calvary Chapel in Europe. The Bible had come alive to me as a result of having discovered that “the gospel” was not just the “Roman Road” down which we take unbelievers in order to get them to “pray the prayer” and accept Jesus into their hearts, but it was so much more. The gospel as I came to realize, refers not just to our evangelistic tactics and formulae, but to all of the doctrines of grace that shape our lives as Christians: election, regeneration, saving faith, justification, sanctification, and glorification. In a word, I was overwhelmed with the new insights I was gaining. For this reason I would sit and study God’s Word for hours without interruption, often pursuing a biblical or doctrinal question as far as I possibly could, and exploring it as deeply as I possibly could, until I was satisfied that I understood the matter satisfactorily.
But now? Now, things have changed.
I still have the same love for God’s Word as I always have (and I hope it’s even greater than it used to be), but what has changed is the ability to study it without distractions. The reason for this, I think, has to do with the all-pervasive role that the Internet has come to play in our lives as Americans. We are constantly connected and thus susceptible to incessant email notifications, Facebook friend-requests, and inane texts and tweets. If I may wax somewhat self-incriminating, after finishing my last paragraph and beginning this one, I took a break to check the score of the Lakers game (they’re losing). My point is that the context in which one can sustain a single uninterrupted thought is much rarer and harder to create than it was only ten years ago.
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, Nicholas Carr argues that the way we often evaluate the effects of the Internet is by considering its content, but ignoring its nature as a medium. It is the way that information is being relayed and processed that stands to harm us more greatly than the information itself. Carr quotes Wired’s Clive Thompson, “The perfect recall of [Google’s] silicon memory can be an enormous boon to thinking,” and then writes:
The boons are real. But they come at a price. Media aren’t just channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Whether I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
As Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan have argued in times past, the message is important, but so is the medium, and the medium of the Internet and other forms of modern technology may indeed make things quicker and easier (and in case you were wondering, yes, I did a Google search to find Carr’s quote above rather than type it in by hand from the book sitting here on my desk), but at what cost to our brains, our minds, our study habits?
There’s something unique about Christian disciplines — and especially the study of Scripture — that renders them altogether distinct from other pursuits. And what’s more, those things that tend toward growth in the faith, whether public means of grace or private devotions, can even be immune from the supposed aid and ease that technology may offer in other arenas. For example, a graduate student may truly benefit from being able to access mountains of information at the click of a mouse, but I am not convinced that the minister will equally benefit from the same. Unlike in other fields, the pastor who labors over the Greek or Hebrew text of Scripture, or the theologian who forces himself to dig deeply into the writings of some saint or early father, actually undergoes an inward and spiritual change as a result of these disciplined pursuits, and the depth of that change may very well be related to just how painstaking his research really was.
In a word, there are just no shortcuts to true piety. The more we attempt to achieve our spiritual goals quickly and painlessly by circumventing the old ways trod by those who have gone before us — such as time spent in prayer and in study of God’s Word — the more shallow our spiritual lives will become. As inconvenient and time-consuming as our spiritual disciplines may be when pursued without the aids of modern technology, we can rest assured that the effort will be more than worthwhile.
It is easy to lament the ill-effects of texting and tweeting upon punctuation, spelling, and the English language as a whole, but have we stopped to consider that such grammatical shortcuts and shortcomings may end up serving as a metaphor for twentyfirst century Christian piety? What may be bad for the secular goose is much worse for the sacred gander, and lazily abbreviated text-messaging can become a steppingstone for a lazy and abbreviated prayer life.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Making Sense of It
This article appeared in the latest issue of No Greater Joy magazine. Michael Pearl addresses some of the questions I've had about why liberals/progressives think the way they do.
Making Sense of It
Article by Michael Pearl, February 2011
The average American knows our country is being driven to extinction, and its demise is not far away. We cannot make sense of the decisions politicians make. “Stupid” comes to mind, but stupid is without pattern or purpose.
We see men and women who are highly intelligent and very well informed in political sciences, economics, business, and in history making decisions that are contrary to the best interests of the country and of the poor they claim to represent. And then there is the anti-Christian bias in the media, the courts, Hollywood, and in the pubic schools and the universities. Why? What is so threatening about the Bible and those who believe it?
The Constitution is held in as much contempt as the Bible. What is so menacing about a document that guarantees individual liberty of conscience and action, free speech, free association, and ownership and management of one’s property? The way the politicians are legislating and the courts are ruling, you would think faith and the founding Fathers are the most sinister evils to ever stand in the way of positive genetic mutations.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; That put darkness for light, and light for darkness; That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter”! (Isaiah 5:20)
For many years I observed the political theatre and wondered at the motivation of the American left. Lately I have come to understand that progressives are motivated by a conviction of their own righteousness. They attack Christianity and the Constitution of the United States because they stand in the way of their universal utopia. They want to save us from ourselves and our delusions. They think they are more enlightened than the rest of us and believe their understanding requires them to take charge of the helm, even if they have to kill the captain and throw some of the crew overboard.
Human salvation is thought to be in the collective. They seek the redemption and restitution of mankind in a way that assures our survival as a race. It is the Tower of Babel all over again. The kingdom builders get into politics, education, entertainment, rewriting history, and especially into the news media because that is where people are molded to a worldview that will cause them to be willing participants, or at least passive supporters, in the New World Order.
The utopitarians are trying to establish what God has already promised to institute, a kingdom of peace and happiness in a paradise where all share in the bounty of a renewed earth. They too want that kingdom, but since there is no god to determine man’s destiny, it is up to them to institute this kingdom. They abort babies to prevent increased population from placing further stress on an already overtaxed planet. They must purge society of any religion that looks to the sweet by and by, for it prevents men from getting serious about the here and now. They are anti-American because the United States supports a divided world where American exceptionalism prevents us from entering into commune with the have-nots of the third world. They must save every butterfly and lizard nearing extinction because they don’t have a God that will create more.
If they had ten commandments they would read something like this:
1. Thou shalt have no gods above thy fellow man.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any absolutes that cannot be ignored for the sake of the common good.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of any religion in vain, for they are all created equal.
4. Observe the holy days of all religions with equal fervor.
5. Honor the state as your father and nature as your mother, that your days may be long upon mother earth.
6. Thou shalt not kill, even in self defense.
7. Thou shalt not call consensual sex adultery or sodomy.
8. Thou shalt not steal from the poor by accumulating to thyself wealth more than thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not bear witness against thy government.
10. Thou shalt not covet the power that belongs to the elite.
The progressive/socialist has an anthropological world view that parallels theological doctrine. They believe in the fall of man and in depravity. Man, in oneness with mother nature, living in blissful harmony in a communal paradise of unbounded sexual license and village simplicity, fell into a selfish world of materialism and consumption, damaging mother earth.
In their confused anthropology, man is both evil and good. He is good as long as he is true to himself, following his own light and living his personal truth, not being judged by any outward standard. He is evil in that he is selfish and judgmental and therefore destructive to the collective good.
They believe in temptation. Man is tempted by the lure of independent action. He is tempted to judge his own actions and the actions of others on grounds of a supposed absolute good existing outside of human nature and independent of the material world.
To the progressives original sin is inherited by children from their parents who teach religion as a pie in the sky, sweet by and by, do it or be damned doctrine, inflicting crippling guilt.
They believe in salvation. Their new birth is forgiving oneself and acquiescing to one’s passions as normal, rejecting guilt as a foreign, dark force intruding upon their otherwise liberated souls.
They believe heaven and hell are here and now. Heaven is the new world order—the socialist’s New Jerusalem, the utopia, where there will be no more war, or pollution, or bigotry, or hunger.
Hell is fossil fuels belching out deadly gasses upon fragile Mother Nature, pollution caused by capitalism. False doctrine is unbending religion that segments people. Demons are rich business owners and judgmental religious bigots.
Liberal Socialists/Utopitarians are crusaders for salvation. To understand these kingdom builders you must recognize that they are motivated by what they consider righteousness. They think the masses, especially the political right, are evil or, at the very least, out of touch and need to be pushed into the right path. You are self-destructive and they want to commit you for your own good, thus saving mother earth, the only eternal life the human race will ever know. Surely the survival of this planet is more important than the luxury of liberty. They know that if you are not with them you are against them, and they are willing to sacrifice the few to save the many.
To make sense of the present hour:
Why are our politicians, supported by the news media and Hollywood, seemingly trying to break our country economically? It is obvious that they are deliberately legislating so as to bring about high energy and food prices. With the certain increase in population and the limited resources on this planet, they want to create a worldwide commune where population is kept in check and resources are equally shared.
But they also know that this “sharing” will never come about through legislation. It will take a revolution where shortage is the enemy, not politicians. They need crises, so they are creating the biggest crisis this world has ever known. Why? Because the creation of a new world order necessitates destroying the old one. They know we must fall and suffer before we will be willing to rise in a world with less liberty and more expensive goods and services. No one will accept legislation that results in a 75 percent cut in wages and a great reduction in his consumption of goods and services unless he first loses everything and lives in abject poverty for a while; then he will be grateful to a government that puts him in a three hour food line and allows him to live in a two room apartment that has electricity for five hours every day. During times of stress and deprivation he will gladly receive a mark upon his hand or his forehead by which he can buy food for his family.
My final word:
Don’t look to politicians to save you. Jesus will bring in the kingdom, and he will be the king of kings and the lord of lords, bringing in everlasting righteousness. Until then, pray for those in authority so we can live a quiet and peaceful life until God tires of men trying to take the kingdom by force. That is his job and he will do it soon enough.
Making Sense of It
Article by Michael Pearl, February 2011
The average American knows our country is being driven to extinction, and its demise is not far away. We cannot make sense of the decisions politicians make. “Stupid” comes to mind, but stupid is without pattern or purpose.
We see men and women who are highly intelligent and very well informed in political sciences, economics, business, and in history making decisions that are contrary to the best interests of the country and of the poor they claim to represent. And then there is the anti-Christian bias in the media, the courts, Hollywood, and in the pubic schools and the universities. Why? What is so threatening about the Bible and those who believe it?
The Constitution is held in as much contempt as the Bible. What is so menacing about a document that guarantees individual liberty of conscience and action, free speech, free association, and ownership and management of one’s property? The way the politicians are legislating and the courts are ruling, you would think faith and the founding Fathers are the most sinister evils to ever stand in the way of positive genetic mutations.
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; That put darkness for light, and light for darkness; That put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter”! (Isaiah 5:20)
For many years I observed the political theatre and wondered at the motivation of the American left. Lately I have come to understand that progressives are motivated by a conviction of their own righteousness. They attack Christianity and the Constitution of the United States because they stand in the way of their universal utopia. They want to save us from ourselves and our delusions. They think they are more enlightened than the rest of us and believe their understanding requires them to take charge of the helm, even if they have to kill the captain and throw some of the crew overboard.
Human salvation is thought to be in the collective. They seek the redemption and restitution of mankind in a way that assures our survival as a race. It is the Tower of Babel all over again. The kingdom builders get into politics, education, entertainment, rewriting history, and especially into the news media because that is where people are molded to a worldview that will cause them to be willing participants, or at least passive supporters, in the New World Order.
The utopitarians are trying to establish what God has already promised to institute, a kingdom of peace and happiness in a paradise where all share in the bounty of a renewed earth. They too want that kingdom, but since there is no god to determine man’s destiny, it is up to them to institute this kingdom. They abort babies to prevent increased population from placing further stress on an already overtaxed planet. They must purge society of any religion that looks to the sweet by and by, for it prevents men from getting serious about the here and now. They are anti-American because the United States supports a divided world where American exceptionalism prevents us from entering into commune with the have-nots of the third world. They must save every butterfly and lizard nearing extinction because they don’t have a God that will create more.
If they had ten commandments they would read something like this:
1. Thou shalt have no gods above thy fellow man.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any absolutes that cannot be ignored for the sake of the common good.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of any religion in vain, for they are all created equal.
4. Observe the holy days of all religions with equal fervor.
5. Honor the state as your father and nature as your mother, that your days may be long upon mother earth.
6. Thou shalt not kill, even in self defense.
7. Thou shalt not call consensual sex adultery or sodomy.
8. Thou shalt not steal from the poor by accumulating to thyself wealth more than thy neighbor.
9. Thou shalt not bear witness against thy government.
10. Thou shalt not covet the power that belongs to the elite.
The progressive/socialist has an anthropological world view that parallels theological doctrine. They believe in the fall of man and in depravity. Man, in oneness with mother nature, living in blissful harmony in a communal paradise of unbounded sexual license and village simplicity, fell into a selfish world of materialism and consumption, damaging mother earth.
In their confused anthropology, man is both evil and good. He is good as long as he is true to himself, following his own light and living his personal truth, not being judged by any outward standard. He is evil in that he is selfish and judgmental and therefore destructive to the collective good.
They believe in temptation. Man is tempted by the lure of independent action. He is tempted to judge his own actions and the actions of others on grounds of a supposed absolute good existing outside of human nature and independent of the material world.
To the progressives original sin is inherited by children from their parents who teach religion as a pie in the sky, sweet by and by, do it or be damned doctrine, inflicting crippling guilt.
They believe in salvation. Their new birth is forgiving oneself and acquiescing to one’s passions as normal, rejecting guilt as a foreign, dark force intruding upon their otherwise liberated souls.
They believe heaven and hell are here and now. Heaven is the new world order—the socialist’s New Jerusalem, the utopia, where there will be no more war, or pollution, or bigotry, or hunger.
Hell is fossil fuels belching out deadly gasses upon fragile Mother Nature, pollution caused by capitalism. False doctrine is unbending religion that segments people. Demons are rich business owners and judgmental religious bigots.
Liberal Socialists/Utopitarians are crusaders for salvation. To understand these kingdom builders you must recognize that they are motivated by what they consider righteousness. They think the masses, especially the political right, are evil or, at the very least, out of touch and need to be pushed into the right path. You are self-destructive and they want to commit you for your own good, thus saving mother earth, the only eternal life the human race will ever know. Surely the survival of this planet is more important than the luxury of liberty. They know that if you are not with them you are against them, and they are willing to sacrifice the few to save the many.
To make sense of the present hour:
Why are our politicians, supported by the news media and Hollywood, seemingly trying to break our country economically? It is obvious that they are deliberately legislating so as to bring about high energy and food prices. With the certain increase in population and the limited resources on this planet, they want to create a worldwide commune where population is kept in check and resources are equally shared.
But they also know that this “sharing” will never come about through legislation. It will take a revolution where shortage is the enemy, not politicians. They need crises, so they are creating the biggest crisis this world has ever known. Why? Because the creation of a new world order necessitates destroying the old one. They know we must fall and suffer before we will be willing to rise in a world with less liberty and more expensive goods and services. No one will accept legislation that results in a 75 percent cut in wages and a great reduction in his consumption of goods and services unless he first loses everything and lives in abject poverty for a while; then he will be grateful to a government that puts him in a three hour food line and allows him to live in a two room apartment that has electricity for five hours every day. During times of stress and deprivation he will gladly receive a mark upon his hand or his forehead by which he can buy food for his family.
My final word:
Don’t look to politicians to save you. Jesus will bring in the kingdom, and he will be the king of kings and the lord of lords, bringing in everlasting righteousness. Until then, pray for those in authority so we can live a quiet and peaceful life until God tires of men trying to take the kingdom by force. That is his job and he will do it soon enough.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Do We Worship the Market?
Here's a great article from Campaign for Liberty. Click here to go directly to the article's link.
Among other common accusations, we libertarians are accustomed to the charge that we "worship the market." We are lumped in with conservatives, Republicans, and big businessmen, all of whom ostensibly have turned private enterprise into some sort of god to be honored and obeyed regardless of the consequences for humanity. To oppose state interventions in the economy -- especially in the form of regulations or welfare -- is supposedly the sign of dogmatic fanaticism, but without the saving grace of spirituality. No, our worship is that of cold, hard, inhumane materialism.
Ironies and confusions abound from this gross mischaracterization. First off, we do not, as libertarians, categorically have to have any position toward the marketplace other than that it should be free from coercive intrusion. Our only necessary moral take on capitalism is that it should be separated completely from aggression. To say that libertarians worship the market is no more correct than saying that drug policy reformers worship drug abuse because they question the notion that government force is the proper remedy. At a minimum, libertarians only tolerate the market and wish for it to be separated from state violence. This is the presumed liberal position on religion -- that government should neither actively promote nor restrict religion -- yet this does not mean all liberals worship every faith that they wish to see isolated from coercive sanction.
Of course, most libertarians happen not to be neutral on the market itself. We do, not out of first ethical principles, but from other considerations, tend to positively favor the market. Some of us would say we love it, even if we would come short of admitting any sort of religious devotion to it.
This is where understanding economics comes into play. Although the voluntary nature of the market alone makes it necessarily more attractive to libertarians than the government, economic science and simple empirical evidence make the bulletproof case that we owe much more to the market than is realized by most people, including -- and here's one of those ironies -- conservatives, Republicans and big businessmen.
It is not an exaggeration to say that civilization itself depends upon the free exchange of goods and services, rooted in private property rights and freedom of association. Without private property, there would be no commerce, no culture, no society of which to speak. There would be no food and clothing for the masses, no medical technology, no comparative frivolities such as musical equipment, athletic gear, art supplies, nor the leisure time during which to indulge in them. There would, for nearly all humans living today, be no life. To reject private property and the right to buy, sell and trade is to reject the foundations of economic progress, out of which comes the time for men and women to engage in charity, to improve themselves in matters scientific and spiritual, to philosophize and better all of humanity with insights that bring us closer to the civil ideal.
Now have I just conceded that which I have set out to refute? Some might read my above words and conclude that I indeed worship the market, that I see in materialism the salvation of humanity. How crude. How vulgar. How oversimplified.
Well, consider the socialist alternatives. Economic interventionists of all stripes wish to hamper the market, to constrain it, to force it into their own mold. It is clearly no small institution in their assessment. They seem to see it as a bane nearly as much as we see it as a blessing. What's more, they understand that wealth is required for all their central planning schemes, whether the ones that will one day achieve utopia or the ones that will inject some pragmatic order into the chaos of the marketplace. How do they seek to fund their beloved government interventions? By stealing from the market.
Whether by inflating the money supply, seizing land and resources outright, or confiscating the fruits of production, labor and exchange, all government programs have depended upon preying on the private sector for their budgets. Even as those who question the majesty of the market can conceive of only one way of funding their alternative institution -- by robbing from that which they disparage.
Thus do all regulators, welfare workers, public schoolteachers, police officers, soldiers, bureaucrats and politicians get paid by looting the demonized and misunderstood voluntary sector of economic life. Thus do all who depend upon government handouts ultimately depend ever more fundamentally upon the market that produces the wealth in the first place. While the market does not need politicians and social workers in order to do its magic, without the market as host the parasitic state would have nothing on which to prey, and it would die instantly.
The socialists used to believe markets could not produce wealth for the masses, feed and clothe them. Now they have mostly abandoned that argument and focused on the inequalities and obscenities of mass production. They even belittle those of us who defend the market as being beholden to materialism, commercialism, and mere things as opposed to people. Yet at the core of all their demands for a thousand new government programs is a demand for material goods. Those who chant that health care is a human right are really talking about bottles of antibiotics, surgical tools, hospitals and beds for the infirmed. Those who demand more money for schools are similarly talking about books, chalkboards and other physical goods. They are just as materialistic as we are. They see dollar signs on everything too. For them, all of social life also revolves around commodities. The only difference is how they seek to get goods to those who need them. We see cooperation and voluntary exchange, rather than robbery, as the answer.
Yet there is another element in economics that cannot be forgotten, without which no physical good can be of use to anyone. That is the human component -- the labor, the organizing, the mental work it takes to get things done. All the hospital beds are nearly useless without nurses or doctors, to say nothing of those who truck them around, deliver them, and assemble them.
As socialist programs continue to violate and loot from the market in order to achieve their supposed goals, they eventually run into a fundamental problem. You can move beds around. You can transport chalkboards. You can steal money. But what about the people involved? The human beings? The doctors, nurses, teachers, and workers of all kinds? They must either be bought off with stolen wealth or, failing that, coercion must be applied on them. The more socialism persists, the more society moves from voluntary means to compulsory means. Ultimately, Herbert Spencer was all too right when he said, "All socialism involves slavery," for the more the voluntary means of the market are discarded and replaced with the political means, the more people are enslaved to the socialist project.
Even leftists understand on some level the connection between human rights and free markets. Many of them decried the sanctions on Iraq, for example, a cruel imposition of political priorities to the fatal detriment of millions of people's inalienable rights to own property and trade it voluntarily. The Iraqis did not need handouts from the US government, only to be left alone to trade. Yet conservatives who pay lip service to free trade had little problem defending these unspeakably wicked violations of Iraqis' human right to trade. Oddly, the left didn't learn the lesson that every such government violation of the market order has terrible effects, both seen and unseen, for those who need material goods and thus property rights just to live healthy and be adequately fed.
Do we worship the market? Nah. But we do recognize that we owe to it all the wealth around us, the material progress that the socialists call superficial even as they expropriate it and try to mimic it with their own violent institution, the state. We do recognize that civilization could not exist without economic exchange. We also recognize that as imperfect as the market might be, just as humanity itself falls short of perfection, it is infinitely superior to the intrinsically violent and dehumanizing organization known as the state.
I would make a wager to all the statists: We'll see how well we fare with just the market, without the state constantly imposing its edicts and robbing from its product. Then we can see how well we would do if we eliminated voluntary exchange, production and private property altogether -- see if the state could even survive not having something to feed off of. Of course, this wager is unnecessary since every time socialism has been seriously attempted, the burdened civilization simply couldn't handle it and something had to give way. In the process inevitably come enslavement and impoverishment on a wide scale. Eventually the state itself collapses as the host can no longer support it.
So instead I'll just pose a question: If the market is so horrible, why can't the state create its own wealth and achieve its goals without robbing the market? Of course, if it could, it wouldn't be a state at all, but just another voluntary, market institution. Is it really any wonder that we prefer that which is necessary to humanity and inherently productive to that which can only live violently at its expense?
Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com
Among other common accusations, we libertarians are accustomed to the charge that we "worship the market." We are lumped in with conservatives, Republicans, and big businessmen, all of whom ostensibly have turned private enterprise into some sort of god to be honored and obeyed regardless of the consequences for humanity. To oppose state interventions in the economy -- especially in the form of regulations or welfare -- is supposedly the sign of dogmatic fanaticism, but without the saving grace of spirituality. No, our worship is that of cold, hard, inhumane materialism.
Ironies and confusions abound from this gross mischaracterization. First off, we do not, as libertarians, categorically have to have any position toward the marketplace other than that it should be free from coercive intrusion. Our only necessary moral take on capitalism is that it should be separated completely from aggression. To say that libertarians worship the market is no more correct than saying that drug policy reformers worship drug abuse because they question the notion that government force is the proper remedy. At a minimum, libertarians only tolerate the market and wish for it to be separated from state violence. This is the presumed liberal position on religion -- that government should neither actively promote nor restrict religion -- yet this does not mean all liberals worship every faith that they wish to see isolated from coercive sanction.
Of course, most libertarians happen not to be neutral on the market itself. We do, not out of first ethical principles, but from other considerations, tend to positively favor the market. Some of us would say we love it, even if we would come short of admitting any sort of religious devotion to it.
This is where understanding economics comes into play. Although the voluntary nature of the market alone makes it necessarily more attractive to libertarians than the government, economic science and simple empirical evidence make the bulletproof case that we owe much more to the market than is realized by most people, including -- and here's one of those ironies -- conservatives, Republicans and big businessmen.
It is not an exaggeration to say that civilization itself depends upon the free exchange of goods and services, rooted in private property rights and freedom of association. Without private property, there would be no commerce, no culture, no society of which to speak. There would be no food and clothing for the masses, no medical technology, no comparative frivolities such as musical equipment, athletic gear, art supplies, nor the leisure time during which to indulge in them. There would, for nearly all humans living today, be no life. To reject private property and the right to buy, sell and trade is to reject the foundations of economic progress, out of which comes the time for men and women to engage in charity, to improve themselves in matters scientific and spiritual, to philosophize and better all of humanity with insights that bring us closer to the civil ideal.
Now have I just conceded that which I have set out to refute? Some might read my above words and conclude that I indeed worship the market, that I see in materialism the salvation of humanity. How crude. How vulgar. How oversimplified.
Well, consider the socialist alternatives. Economic interventionists of all stripes wish to hamper the market, to constrain it, to force it into their own mold. It is clearly no small institution in their assessment. They seem to see it as a bane nearly as much as we see it as a blessing. What's more, they understand that wealth is required for all their central planning schemes, whether the ones that will one day achieve utopia or the ones that will inject some pragmatic order into the chaos of the marketplace. How do they seek to fund their beloved government interventions? By stealing from the market.
Whether by inflating the money supply, seizing land and resources outright, or confiscating the fruits of production, labor and exchange, all government programs have depended upon preying on the private sector for their budgets. Even as those who question the majesty of the market can conceive of only one way of funding their alternative institution -- by robbing from that which they disparage.
Thus do all regulators, welfare workers, public schoolteachers, police officers, soldiers, bureaucrats and politicians get paid by looting the demonized and misunderstood voluntary sector of economic life. Thus do all who depend upon government handouts ultimately depend ever more fundamentally upon the market that produces the wealth in the first place. While the market does not need politicians and social workers in order to do its magic, without the market as host the parasitic state would have nothing on which to prey, and it would die instantly.
The socialists used to believe markets could not produce wealth for the masses, feed and clothe them. Now they have mostly abandoned that argument and focused on the inequalities and obscenities of mass production. They even belittle those of us who defend the market as being beholden to materialism, commercialism, and mere things as opposed to people. Yet at the core of all their demands for a thousand new government programs is a demand for material goods. Those who chant that health care is a human right are really talking about bottles of antibiotics, surgical tools, hospitals and beds for the infirmed. Those who demand more money for schools are similarly talking about books, chalkboards and other physical goods. They are just as materialistic as we are. They see dollar signs on everything too. For them, all of social life also revolves around commodities. The only difference is how they seek to get goods to those who need them. We see cooperation and voluntary exchange, rather than robbery, as the answer.
Yet there is another element in economics that cannot be forgotten, without which no physical good can be of use to anyone. That is the human component -- the labor, the organizing, the mental work it takes to get things done. All the hospital beds are nearly useless without nurses or doctors, to say nothing of those who truck them around, deliver them, and assemble them.
As socialist programs continue to violate and loot from the market in order to achieve their supposed goals, they eventually run into a fundamental problem. You can move beds around. You can transport chalkboards. You can steal money. But what about the people involved? The human beings? The doctors, nurses, teachers, and workers of all kinds? They must either be bought off with stolen wealth or, failing that, coercion must be applied on them. The more socialism persists, the more society moves from voluntary means to compulsory means. Ultimately, Herbert Spencer was all too right when he said, "All socialism involves slavery," for the more the voluntary means of the market are discarded and replaced with the political means, the more people are enslaved to the socialist project.
Even leftists understand on some level the connection between human rights and free markets. Many of them decried the sanctions on Iraq, for example, a cruel imposition of political priorities to the fatal detriment of millions of people's inalienable rights to own property and trade it voluntarily. The Iraqis did not need handouts from the US government, only to be left alone to trade. Yet conservatives who pay lip service to free trade had little problem defending these unspeakably wicked violations of Iraqis' human right to trade. Oddly, the left didn't learn the lesson that every such government violation of the market order has terrible effects, both seen and unseen, for those who need material goods and thus property rights just to live healthy and be adequately fed.
Do we worship the market? Nah. But we do recognize that we owe to it all the wealth around us, the material progress that the socialists call superficial even as they expropriate it and try to mimic it with their own violent institution, the state. We do recognize that civilization could not exist without economic exchange. We also recognize that as imperfect as the market might be, just as humanity itself falls short of perfection, it is infinitely superior to the intrinsically violent and dehumanizing organization known as the state.
I would make a wager to all the statists: We'll see how well we fare with just the market, without the state constantly imposing its edicts and robbing from its product. Then we can see how well we would do if we eliminated voluntary exchange, production and private property altogether -- see if the state could even survive not having something to feed off of. Of course, this wager is unnecessary since every time socialism has been seriously attempted, the burdened civilization simply couldn't handle it and something had to give way. In the process inevitably come enslavement and impoverishment on a wide scale. Eventually the state itself collapses as the host can no longer support it.
So instead I'll just pose a question: If the market is so horrible, why can't the state create its own wealth and achieve its goals without robbing the market? Of course, if it could, it wouldn't be a state at all, but just another voluntary, market institution. Is it really any wonder that we prefer that which is necessary to humanity and inherently productive to that which can only live violently at its expense?
Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Scrapbooking
One of my goals for 2010 was to get caught up on my scrapbooking. I was at November of 2007, now 17 pages (sides) later I'm only at February 2008. Scrapbooking is something I want to do, but it is not something I like, let alone love. I used to like it, but now I find it more of a chore. Maybe because of my goal I'm just trying to get it done instead of trying to create. Contributing to the "problem" is that I'm not remembering where all the scrapbooking stash is located. I am slowly finding things and remembering to use certain items. Just last night I thought about the corner rounder.
What to do? I've accomplished quite a bit over the last few weeks and that not at a mad dash, so I'll keep on slowly. Meanwhile, I think I'll go look at the other scrapbooks I've done and see if I can get some motivational inspiration or inspirational motivation. ;-)
Tomorrow is another day and another weekly quilt block. Right now I'm enjoying that more.
Totally unrelated, but cheerful:
What to do? I've accomplished quite a bit over the last few weeks and that not at a mad dash, so I'll keep on slowly. Meanwhile, I think I'll go look at the other scrapbooks I've done and see if I can get some motivational inspiration or inspirational motivation. ;-)
Tomorrow is another day and another weekly quilt block. Right now I'm enjoying that more.
Totally unrelated, but cheerful:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Shopping experience(s) and some ranting
Today we went shopping for a pair of jeans for Amy to turn into shorts. (We didn't go to the thrift store, but we should have!) Since we had shorts in mind, I was looking at the clearance rack for shorts or jeans to cut off. The shorts there were what I call "denim underwear." There were several racks of these on clearance which encourages me slightly, not many people wanted them, maybe. By that point I felt an mini-rant coming on. I let loose a little to Amy (poor dear) saying how I'm sick & tired of clothes that look like c____. Then I had a shocked daughter that such a word would come out of my mouth, so I had to apologize. :( But the feelings that evoked such an episode are still with me.
Why on earth do people, teens or otherwise, want to wear ripped, stained worn-out looking jeans, shorts, skirts, etc.? On purpose. And who in their right mind would want to parade about in their denim underwear? (These questions are rhetorical, just in case you feel like you want to argue with me. Just DO NOT go there.) I, of course, have some answers floating around in my mind. I haven't put them into words yet. But I know there's got to be a spiritual battle somewhere there.
Since I'm ranting already, when did it become OK for Christians to look like the world, in the name of Christian liberty? Is in OK for tattoos, piercings and body modificaton to be a part of a Christian's life? If so, why? I know someone who got a tattoo. He's a Christian. Why did he feel like that was a good thing to do?
Leviticus 19:26-29
26 ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.
29 ‘Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.
More questions: If it's now OK to get a tattoo, does that mean it's now OK to prostitute your daughter? Or practice divination? Where is the line drawn?
Here are two links to articles that deal with some of these issues. They are a bit disgusting in spots.
http://americanvision.org/2745/body-modification-the-return-to-paganism/
http://americanvision.org/2752/body-modification-and-a-christ-rejecting-culture/
OK I'm done with my rant, for now.
Why on earth do people, teens or otherwise, want to wear ripped, stained worn-out looking jeans, shorts, skirts, etc.? On purpose. And who in their right mind would want to parade about in their denim underwear? (These questions are rhetorical, just in case you feel like you want to argue with me. Just DO NOT go there.) I, of course, have some answers floating around in my mind. I haven't put them into words yet. But I know there's got to be a spiritual battle somewhere there.
Since I'm ranting already, when did it become OK for Christians to look like the world, in the name of Christian liberty? Is in OK for tattoos, piercings and body modificaton to be a part of a Christian's life? If so, why? I know someone who got a tattoo. He's a Christian. Why did he feel like that was a good thing to do?
Leviticus 19:26-29
26 ‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor shall you practice divination or soothsaying. 27 You shall not shave around the sides of your head, nor shall you disfigure the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the LORD.
29 ‘Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a harlot, lest the land fall into harlotry, and the land become full of wickedness.
More questions: If it's now OK to get a tattoo, does that mean it's now OK to prostitute your daughter? Or practice divination? Where is the line drawn?
Here are two links to articles that deal with some of these issues. They are a bit disgusting in spots.
http://americanvision.org/2745/body-modification-the-return-to-paganism/
http://americanvision.org/2752/body-modification-and-a-christ-rejecting-culture/
OK I'm done with my rant, for now.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Fear Factor
Here's another encouraging article from last month's Tabletalk.
Fear Factor
by Keith Mathison
When I moved to central Florida in 1992, I was told that this part of the state had not been directly hit by a hurricane since the fifties. We were hit by the outer edges of some hurricanes and tropical storms on occasion, but nothing major. All of that changed in 2004 when this one small part of the state was hit by not one, but three strong hurricanes in the short space of six weeks. Hurricane Charley hit us the evening of August 13. Three weeks later we were hit by Hurricane Frances. Three weeks after that we were hit by Hurricane Jeanne. It was not a pleasant time to live in this part of Florida.
There was one side effect of the 2004 hurricane season that I probably should have expected but did not, and that was the effect it would have on our local meteorologists. As the 2005 hurricane season approached, some of them lost their minds. If I may be permitted a bit of hyperbole, the typical weather report that year could be paraphrased as such: “A tropical depression has formed off the coast of Africa. It is probably going to turn into a major hurricane. It is probably going to hit us, and we are probably all going to die.” They seemed to have one goal — to create a perpetual state of fear and anxiety. I stopped watching after a few weeks of this and asked my wife to let me know if and when we needed to board up the windows or evacuate.
Those who have watched or read the news over the last several years have likely noticed this tendency regardless of where you live. Watch the news long enough and a monologue begins to develop in your mind: “The economy will soon collapse, hampering our war against the terrorists who are on the verge of attacking us again. The only thing that may stop them is a pandemic of bird flu, swine flu, or the black plague, but this pandemic will only affect those of us who haven’t already succumbed to the dire effects of global warming. Stay tuned for a report on what popular food product has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats and chimpanzees.”
How do we deal with all of this media-induced paranoia, fear, and anxiety? An example from church history proves instructive. Saint Augustine (354–430) lived at a time of great fear and anxiety. His world changed dramatically in A.D. 410 when the barbarian Alaric entered Rome. This was the beginning of the end for the western half of the Roman Empire. As refugees fled to northern Africa, bringing all manner of ominous reports, Augustine was forced to deal with the issues as many were going so far as to blame the fall of Rome on Christianity. His classic work The City of God was written to respond to the crisis. One of my favorite quotes from this book addresses the fearfulness of his readers. He encourages Christians who are surrounded by danger on every side, saying: “Among the daily chances of this life every man on earth is threatened in the same way by innumerable deaths, and it is uncertain which of them will come to him. And so the question is whether it is better to suffer one in dying or to fear them all in living” (bk. 1, chap. 11). These are the words of one who trusts the sovereignty of God. Augustine knew there was no point in being constantly fearful about all of the dangers surrounding him. He knew God was in control and that not a single hair could fall from his head apart from God’s will.
The world is fearful and anxious, but it is fearful and anxious about the wrong things. The world is fearful about the economy. The world is fearful about retirement accounts. The world is fearful about natural disasters and man-made disasters. The world is fearful of terrorism, and the world is fearful of disease. The world, however, is not fearful of God. Jesus tells us that we are not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead we are to fear God who can destroy both (Matt. 10:28). The wrath of God makes all other objects of the world’s fears seem like nothing in comparison. A truly fearful thing is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).
Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, however, have nothing to fear from man, or from anything else for that matter. Those who trust Christ have nothing to fear from hurricanes, diseases, economic collapse, war, famine, or even death. All of these things are under the control of our sovereign Father in heaven. Of course, this is easy enough for us to say, but we all too easily take our eyes off of God and dwell on the dangers surrounding us.
Is there anything we can do to fight worldly fear and anxiety? I believe Paul provides one important clue by contrasting fear with prayer. He writes: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6–7). A neglect of prayer almost always results in a corresponding rise in our fear and anxiety. This is no coincidence. Prayer is an act of faith in God, and faith in God leads to the peace of God.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Fear Factor
by Keith Mathison
When I moved to central Florida in 1992, I was told that this part of the state had not been directly hit by a hurricane since the fifties. We were hit by the outer edges of some hurricanes and tropical storms on occasion, but nothing major. All of that changed in 2004 when this one small part of the state was hit by not one, but three strong hurricanes in the short space of six weeks. Hurricane Charley hit us the evening of August 13. Three weeks later we were hit by Hurricane Frances. Three weeks after that we were hit by Hurricane Jeanne. It was not a pleasant time to live in this part of Florida.
There was one side effect of the 2004 hurricane season that I probably should have expected but did not, and that was the effect it would have on our local meteorologists. As the 2005 hurricane season approached, some of them lost their minds. If I may be permitted a bit of hyperbole, the typical weather report that year could be paraphrased as such: “A tropical depression has formed off the coast of Africa. It is probably going to turn into a major hurricane. It is probably going to hit us, and we are probably all going to die.” They seemed to have one goal — to create a perpetual state of fear and anxiety. I stopped watching after a few weeks of this and asked my wife to let me know if and when we needed to board up the windows or evacuate.
Those who have watched or read the news over the last several years have likely noticed this tendency regardless of where you live. Watch the news long enough and a monologue begins to develop in your mind: “The economy will soon collapse, hampering our war against the terrorists who are on the verge of attacking us again. The only thing that may stop them is a pandemic of bird flu, swine flu, or the black plague, but this pandemic will only affect those of us who haven’t already succumbed to the dire effects of global warming. Stay tuned for a report on what popular food product has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats and chimpanzees.”
How do we deal with all of this media-induced paranoia, fear, and anxiety? An example from church history proves instructive. Saint Augustine (354–430) lived at a time of great fear and anxiety. His world changed dramatically in A.D. 410 when the barbarian Alaric entered Rome. This was the beginning of the end for the western half of the Roman Empire. As refugees fled to northern Africa, bringing all manner of ominous reports, Augustine was forced to deal with the issues as many were going so far as to blame the fall of Rome on Christianity. His classic work The City of God was written to respond to the crisis. One of my favorite quotes from this book addresses the fearfulness of his readers. He encourages Christians who are surrounded by danger on every side, saying: “Among the daily chances of this life every man on earth is threatened in the same way by innumerable deaths, and it is uncertain which of them will come to him. And so the question is whether it is better to suffer one in dying or to fear them all in living” (bk. 1, chap. 11). These are the words of one who trusts the sovereignty of God. Augustine knew there was no point in being constantly fearful about all of the dangers surrounding him. He knew God was in control and that not a single hair could fall from his head apart from God’s will.
The world is fearful and anxious, but it is fearful and anxious about the wrong things. The world is fearful about the economy. The world is fearful about retirement accounts. The world is fearful about natural disasters and man-made disasters. The world is fearful of terrorism, and the world is fearful of disease. The world, however, is not fearful of God. Jesus tells us that we are not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead we are to fear God who can destroy both (Matt. 10:28). The wrath of God makes all other objects of the world’s fears seem like nothing in comparison. A truly fearful thing is to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb. 10:31).
Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, however, have nothing to fear from man, or from anything else for that matter. Those who trust Christ have nothing to fear from hurricanes, diseases, economic collapse, war, famine, or even death. All of these things are under the control of our sovereign Father in heaven. Of course, this is easy enough for us to say, but we all too easily take our eyes off of God and dwell on the dangers surrounding us.
Is there anything we can do to fight worldly fear and anxiety? I believe Paul provides one important clue by contrasting fear with prayer. He writes: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6–7). A neglect of prayer almost always results in a corresponding rise in our fear and anxiety. This is no coincidence. Prayer is an act of faith in God, and faith in God leads to the peace of God.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Unshakable Purposes of God
This article was encouraging to me, so I thought I'd share it here.
The Unshakable Purposes of God
by Douglas Kelly
Hebrews 12 approaches the vast changes to come in church and culture as orchestrated by God for the advancement of His kingdom of grace: “‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken — that is, things that have been made — in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain” (vv. 26–27).
Periods of change, at times dizzying and violent, are providentially ordained by God for the advancement of His unchangeable, unshakeable kingdom. Changes in world culture, often accompanied by a literal “shaking down” of established institutions make way for something better, something that can never be shaken — the glorious reign of the crucified, risen Christ, of whom Isaiah says, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7).
As we attempt to keep our balance in the midst of the billowing surf of rapid change that is breaking upon us constantly, our attitude must be informed by the perspective of Hebrews 12 and Isaiah 9. With the serene plan of God in mind, we never have an excuse for panic or despair, even in the face of frightening shifts and disruptions in the economic and political systems where we have to live. This twenty-first century is, for instance, not an occasion for Christians to despair over the certainty of the Islamization of Europe. Philip Jenkins in God’s Continent argues that this grim scenario is very far from certain. Nor is it a time to wring our hands at the long-predicted, “inevitable” secularization of America. One could easily argue that current statistics actually point in another direction. A leading sociologist of southern American religion, Professor Samuel Hill, had predicted in the early 1960s (when he was my much-respected teacher) that evangelicalism in the south would be largely washed out by American secularism within the next thirty or forty years. But recently, in the 2000s, he has concluded that the precise opposite has happened: evangelical Christianity is even stronger in the southern states than it was forty years ago.
It is probable, though not yet certain, that the last 150 or so years have placed us among the four or five great “shakings down” of Western history since the incarnation of Christ some two thousand years ago. In AD 70, Jerusalem was shaken down by the Roman army, the old Jewish church-state system, which had in many ways hindered the expansion of the gospel, lost its major power. Its people were scattered, and many parts of the world were opened in a new way to the victorious mission of the Christian church.
Within four or five hundred years of Christian expansion, the powerful Roman Empire itself, which had once persecuted the church, and then nominally established Christianity, was also shaken down by its own corruption that made it impotent to stand against barbarian invasions. The downfall of a mighty centralized empire made way for the eventual rise of decentralized Christian kingdoms throughout much of eastern and especially western Europe. The central Roman state was no longer the key institution of Europe; it was for over a thousand years replaced by the Christian church. After the shaking down of Jerusalem, millions were brought to faith in Christ. After the shaking down of Rome, far more millions were won to Christ throughout Europe.
Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book After Virtue, identifies what happened: a world empire was functionally replaced by more local moral and civic communities: “A crucial turning point … occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead — often not recognizing fully what they were doing — was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness” (p. 244).
Another massive shaking down of established institutions severely limited the control of western Europe by the Roman Catholic system after a thousand years of apparent hegemony. The Protestant Reformation burst forth like a tidal wave in Germany around 1520 and spread in nearly every direction. This shaking down came on the wings of religious revival, frequently accompanied by a resurgence of nationalism and hastened by the recent invention of printing. The gospel of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ came into ascendancy, causing the collapse in many lands of the medieval synthesis between sacramentalism and works-righteousness. The breaking of Roman Catholic unity wrought by earthly political structures within European Christendom made room for something truer to the gospel of Christ: a reformational return to the truths of Holy Scripture and the joyful deliverance of millions of souls from lack of assurance of salvation, which was part and parcel of the medieval penitential system.
I suspect that our Western culture is now once again in a time of massive shaking down “of things that can be shaken” in order that that which cannot be shaken may remain. The aftermaths of the earlier Industrial Revolution, followed by the more recent Information Revolution, and the radical unbelief of the various phases of the European Enlightenment have all come together and constituted the most severe challenge to Christianity in all its two-thousand-year pilgrimage. In addition to these emitters of deep shock waves, the early twenty-first century is in the beginnings of the breakdown of the once mighty nation state.
Ironically, it was rapid changes in technology that made possible the nation state, and it is also technology that is eroding its viability and relevance today. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson maintains that the invention of printing and accurate timekeeping are what allowed the development of the modern nation state in the sixteenth century. But new technologies are leading to the irrelevance of the nation state. Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, shows us what is currently happening: “New forms of technology, especially information technology, fragment culture … [and] threaten the very existence of the nation state… . The new instantaneous global communication technologies are not marginal to how we live our lives. They affect the most fundamental ways in which we think, act and associate… . Information technology changes life systematically. It restructures consciousness; it transforms society… . The growth of computing, the modem, the mobile phone, the internet, email and satellite television will change life … . Ours is a transitional age” (The Home We Build Together [London: Continuum, 2007] 67–68).
What is perhaps most characteristic of what Alvin Tofler several years ago named as “future shock” is the sheer rapidity of the changes that make our heads swim. Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone described this in a recent Wall Street Journal article as “The Ten-Year Century”: “Changes that used to take generations — economic cycles, cultural cycles, mass migrations, changes in the structures of families and institutions — now unfurl in a span of years.” They note that “when your computer hard drive becomes overwhelmed with too much information it is said to be fragmented — or “fragged.” Today, the rapid and unsettling pace of change has left us all more than a little, well, “fragged” (August 11, 2009, A17).
Yet the grand overarching viewpoint of Hebrews 12 on all change gives us hope. In all of history, instead of remaining “fragged” and bewildered, we may face the unknown future with glad confidence and strong hands to take advantage of new opportunities for the spread of the gospel and the renewal of the culture on a more biblical basis. In all of the shakedowns we have surveyed — from Jerusalem to Rome to the end of medieval Catholic dominance — after every collapse of authority structures, there has been the advancement of something generally more Christ-honoring and humanly edifying. Old structures were shaken down to make room for the growth of the kingdom of God in Christ. Why should it be any different with the shaking down of our secularized nation states today? Their dominance will be replaced by something more amenable to the spread of the good news of Jesus Christ and the liberation of millions of men and women by the power of the Holy Spirit. What it will look like, we do not yet know, but we do know who is in charge!
The otherwise exhausting changes comprised in “the ten-year century” present the church with remarkable opportunities to offer something better to a “fragged” society. Let us speak of only one. The church should employ a classical response to the technologically based shift from “word to picture,” which has shortened people’s attention spans to as little as three minutes. Why not once again require our children to memorize parts of Holy Scripture and the catechisms of the church? That will do wonders to increase their ability to comprehend and concentrate in every area of truth. By returning to that and to the other biblical elements of worship and service, the church will always be ahead of the curve — a refuge for the fragmented and a mighty instrument of redemption and renewal as she moves in to inhabit the ground being vacated by the shaking down of things that can be changed by He who cannot be shaken nor changed.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Periods of change, at times dizzying and violent, are providentially ordained by God for the advancement of His unchangeable, unshakeable kingdom. Changes in world culture, often accompanied by a literal “shaking down” of established institutions make way for something better, something that can never be shaken — the glorious reign of the crucified, risen Christ, of whom Isaiah says, “Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7).
As we attempt to keep our balance in the midst of the billowing surf of rapid change that is breaking upon us constantly, our attitude must be informed by the perspective of Hebrews 12 and Isaiah 9. With the serene plan of God in mind, we never have an excuse for panic or despair, even in the face of frightening shifts and disruptions in the economic and political systems where we have to live. This twenty-first century is, for instance, not an occasion for Christians to despair over the certainty of the Islamization of Europe. Philip Jenkins in God’s Continent argues that this grim scenario is very far from certain. Nor is it a time to wring our hands at the long-predicted, “inevitable” secularization of America. One could easily argue that current statistics actually point in another direction. A leading sociologist of southern American religion, Professor Samuel Hill, had predicted in the early 1960s (when he was my much-respected teacher) that evangelicalism in the south would be largely washed out by American secularism within the next thirty or forty years. But recently, in the 2000s, he has concluded that the precise opposite has happened: evangelical Christianity is even stronger in the southern states than it was forty years ago.
It is probable, though not yet certain, that the last 150 or so years have placed us among the four or five great “shakings down” of Western history since the incarnation of Christ some two thousand years ago. In AD 70, Jerusalem was shaken down by the Roman army, the old Jewish church-state system, which had in many ways hindered the expansion of the gospel, lost its major power. Its people were scattered, and many parts of the world were opened in a new way to the victorious mission of the Christian church.
Within four or five hundred years of Christian expansion, the powerful Roman Empire itself, which had once persecuted the church, and then nominally established Christianity, was also shaken down by its own corruption that made it impotent to stand against barbarian invasions. The downfall of a mighty centralized empire made way for the eventual rise of decentralized Christian kingdoms throughout much of eastern and especially western Europe. The central Roman state was no longer the key institution of Europe; it was for over a thousand years replaced by the Christian church. After the shaking down of Jerusalem, millions were brought to faith in Christ. After the shaking down of Rome, far more millions were won to Christ throughout Europe.
Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book After Virtue, identifies what happened: a world empire was functionally replaced by more local moral and civic communities: “A crucial turning point … occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead — often not recognizing fully what they were doing — was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness” (p. 244).
Another massive shaking down of established institutions severely limited the control of western Europe by the Roman Catholic system after a thousand years of apparent hegemony. The Protestant Reformation burst forth like a tidal wave in Germany around 1520 and spread in nearly every direction. This shaking down came on the wings of religious revival, frequently accompanied by a resurgence of nationalism and hastened by the recent invention of printing. The gospel of salvation by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ came into ascendancy, causing the collapse in many lands of the medieval synthesis between sacramentalism and works-righteousness. The breaking of Roman Catholic unity wrought by earthly political structures within European Christendom made room for something truer to the gospel of Christ: a reformational return to the truths of Holy Scripture and the joyful deliverance of millions of souls from lack of assurance of salvation, which was part and parcel of the medieval penitential system.
I suspect that our Western culture is now once again in a time of massive shaking down “of things that can be shaken” in order that that which cannot be shaken may remain. The aftermaths of the earlier Industrial Revolution, followed by the more recent Information Revolution, and the radical unbelief of the various phases of the European Enlightenment have all come together and constituted the most severe challenge to Christianity in all its two-thousand-year pilgrimage. In addition to these emitters of deep shock waves, the early twenty-first century is in the beginnings of the breakdown of the once mighty nation state.
Ironically, it was rapid changes in technology that made possible the nation state, and it is also technology that is eroding its viability and relevance today. In Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson maintains that the invention of printing and accurate timekeeping are what allowed the development of the modern nation state in the sixteenth century. But new technologies are leading to the irrelevance of the nation state. Dr. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Britain and the Commonwealth, shows us what is currently happening: “New forms of technology, especially information technology, fragment culture … [and] threaten the very existence of the nation state… . The new instantaneous global communication technologies are not marginal to how we live our lives. They affect the most fundamental ways in which we think, act and associate… . Information technology changes life systematically. It restructures consciousness; it transforms society… . The growth of computing, the modem, the mobile phone, the internet, email and satellite television will change life … . Ours is a transitional age” (The Home We Build Together [London: Continuum, 2007] 67–68).
What is perhaps most characteristic of what Alvin Tofler several years ago named as “future shock” is the sheer rapidity of the changes that make our heads swim. Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone described this in a recent Wall Street Journal article as “The Ten-Year Century”: “Changes that used to take generations — economic cycles, cultural cycles, mass migrations, changes in the structures of families and institutions — now unfurl in a span of years.” They note that “when your computer hard drive becomes overwhelmed with too much information it is said to be fragmented — or “fragged.” Today, the rapid and unsettling pace of change has left us all more than a little, well, “fragged” (August 11, 2009, A17).
Yet the grand overarching viewpoint of Hebrews 12 on all change gives us hope. In all of history, instead of remaining “fragged” and bewildered, we may face the unknown future with glad confidence and strong hands to take advantage of new opportunities for the spread of the gospel and the renewal of the culture on a more biblical basis. In all of the shakedowns we have surveyed — from Jerusalem to Rome to the end of medieval Catholic dominance — after every collapse of authority structures, there has been the advancement of something generally more Christ-honoring and humanly edifying. Old structures were shaken down to make room for the growth of the kingdom of God in Christ. Why should it be any different with the shaking down of our secularized nation states today? Their dominance will be replaced by something more amenable to the spread of the good news of Jesus Christ and the liberation of millions of men and women by the power of the Holy Spirit. What it will look like, we do not yet know, but we do know who is in charge!
The otherwise exhausting changes comprised in “the ten-year century” present the church with remarkable opportunities to offer something better to a “fragged” society. Let us speak of only one. The church should employ a classical response to the technologically based shift from “word to picture,” which has shortened people’s attention spans to as little as three minutes. Why not once again require our children to memorize parts of Holy Scripture and the catechisms of the church? That will do wonders to increase their ability to comprehend and concentrate in every area of truth. By returning to that and to the other biblical elements of worship and service, the church will always be ahead of the curve — a refuge for the fragmented and a mighty instrument of redemption and renewal as she moves in to inhabit the ground being vacated by the shaking down of things that can be changed by He who cannot be shaken nor changed.
From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine. Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org. Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Because it's Earth Day
Fomans 1:18-25
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Psalm 95:1-11
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the LORD is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice:
“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work.
For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Psalm 95:1-11
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the LORD is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice:
“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work.
For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Goals for 2010
Here are last year's goals:
*The first one is to read the whole Bible this year using Tabletalk's plan.
*The other one is to cook through the pile of recipes I have copied from on-line.
I am happy that I accomplished the first one. I'm amazed at how wrong my attitude was be about Bible reading. At times, it would seem like such a drudgery to read three or four chapters in a day. Sometimes it take a whole 20 minutes! Gasp. Then I would turn around and easily read that many chapters of some fiction or spend way more time than that on the computer. In that sense, I really learned something about myself. I worked to correct my thinking. I came to enjoy doing the reading. Not always, but most of the time. I am glad the intensity (keeping up with it everyday, so as not to get behind) of it is done.
The other goal I didn't exactly accomplish, but instead added more to the pile. I did get through most of the recipes that I wanted to. Some of them just wouldn't work for our family, that is I'm the only one who would want to eat them. So I've still got plenty of recipes to try.
Now for the new year. I actually started thinking and praying about it in November. It started with realizing the Bible reading plan would be finished and what I should study next. I was talking with dh about it on our anniversary and he reminded me that I had want to delve more into Revelation. So, that's my first goal for 2010.
The second one is to catch up on scrapbooking. I usually enjoy doing it, but it takes a back seat to sewing. I want to do our family scrapbook regularly to keep it up to date. I've also got a special project in mind that I can't tell here or it wouldn't be a surprise (and if I don't get to it this year no one will be disappointed.).
Now in order to accomplish goal number two I've got to clean off the desk. ;-)
*The first one is to read the whole Bible this year using Tabletalk's plan.
*The other one is to cook through the pile of recipes I have copied from on-line.
I am happy that I accomplished the first one. I'm amazed at how wrong my attitude was be about Bible reading. At times, it would seem like such a drudgery to read three or four chapters in a day. Sometimes it take a whole 20 minutes! Gasp. Then I would turn around and easily read that many chapters of some fiction or spend way more time than that on the computer. In that sense, I really learned something about myself. I worked to correct my thinking. I came to enjoy doing the reading. Not always, but most of the time. I am glad the intensity (keeping up with it everyday, so as not to get behind) of it is done.
The other goal I didn't exactly accomplish, but instead added more to the pile. I did get through most of the recipes that I wanted to. Some of them just wouldn't work for our family, that is I'm the only one who would want to eat them. So I've still got plenty of recipes to try.
Now for the new year. I actually started thinking and praying about it in November. It started with realizing the Bible reading plan would be finished and what I should study next. I was talking with dh about it on our anniversary and he reminded me that I had want to delve more into Revelation. So, that's my first goal for 2010.
The second one is to catch up on scrapbooking. I usually enjoy doing it, but it takes a back seat to sewing. I want to do our family scrapbook regularly to keep it up to date. I've also got a special project in mind that I can't tell here or it wouldn't be a surprise (and if I don't get to it this year no one will be disappointed.).
Now in order to accomplish goal number two I've got to clean off the desk. ;-)
Monday, May 11, 2009
Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things." NKJV
I just had a thought this afternoon about this verse and how it might relate to worry and news reports. I have a tendency to obsess about some things, like the government taking over everything and like my health. (Confession: I think the bottom line is that I treasure my personal safety and comfort.) How does this verse affect how I view these things? I'm not sure I have an answer yet. I think some of the things I think about are true and just, but not lovely or of good report. Maybe the key word is meditate. My meditating is probably more in line with worry. Of course, worry is a sin no matter which way you look at it, so worrying about anything is wrong. In fact, Philippians 4:6, 7 speaks to that. When I listen to a news report I find frightening what do I do? Do I meditate on it with fear? That's usually what I do, but God through His grace turns me back to Him. You know, He's constantly having to do that. One thing I've noticed is that if I don't keep His word ever before me then I get to a near panic state sometimes. I should also add that just because I meditate on His word and have His peace does not mean that my personal safety and comfort will not be compromised. Just thinking about that gets me to fretting again...I better be off to His word.
I just had a thought this afternoon about this verse and how it might relate to worry and news reports. I have a tendency to obsess about some things, like the government taking over everything and like my health. (Confession: I think the bottom line is that I treasure my personal safety and comfort.) How does this verse affect how I view these things? I'm not sure I have an answer yet. I think some of the things I think about are true and just, but not lovely or of good report. Maybe the key word is meditate. My meditating is probably more in line with worry. Of course, worry is a sin no matter which way you look at it, so worrying about anything is wrong. In fact, Philippians 4:6, 7 speaks to that. When I listen to a news report I find frightening what do I do? Do I meditate on it with fear? That's usually what I do, but God through His grace turns me back to Him. You know, He's constantly having to do that. One thing I've noticed is that if I don't keep His word ever before me then I get to a near panic state sometimes. I should also add that just because I meditate on His word and have His peace does not mean that my personal safety and comfort will not be compromised. Just thinking about that gets me to fretting again...I better be off to His word.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
One more
This one was hard because of all the tree branches that sort of go everywhere.I've been thinking I'd like to blog more often, but I just don't have much to say...although I've got enough soap-box issues I could probably come up with something. ;)
Speaking of which, someday I want to write something about modesty. I just haven't got all my thoughts sorted out. Mostly I just want to scream from the mountain tops that women need to put on more clothes, especially Christian women who really ought to know better (or so it seems to me). More on that later, maybe.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Puzzles & movies
I've been using Flickr instead of uploading pictures directly to my blog. They are too small and I haven't figured out how to resize them in Flickr. But here are the latest puzzles. My favorite one to do was the pumpkin one. 
The above puzzle is a Jane Wooster Scott. Most of the ones I do are Charles Wysocki, but hers are fun also. I read on-line that Hasbro has no plans to continue making Wysocki puzzles. This makes me sad and also explains why the prices for them on ebay are rising.With dh traveling Amy & I have watched a couple movies. The first was Flywheel (since it was a library DVD and had to go back, dh didn't get to see it). Tonight we watched The Inn of the Sixth Happiness the story of Gladys Aylward.
I've been reading For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn. The first chapter, "Your Love is Not Enough" is about how men need to feel respected more than they need to feel loved. Two quotes stood out to me.
"Always assume the best and you will find it easier to show respect."
"She has to make me feel respected so that can command respect out in the world. If she defeats me emotionally, I can't win the race and bring home the prize for her."
Friday, March 13, 2009
Unquestionable Authority
Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God
Unquestionable Authority by Burk Parsons
I am terribly vexed. I have just finished reading an article from the notoriously left-wing magazine Newsweek. In the cover story, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” author Lisa Miller argues the case for gay “marriage” using the Bible as her authority. Miller opens with this line: “Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does.” She later asserts, “The Bible gives us no good reason to oppose gay marriage.”
It takes no brains but a lot of guts to try to make a case for gay “marriage” (of course, the phrase itself is a contradiction in terms). But it’s just downright crazy to try to make a case for the legitimacy of gay “marriage” using the Bible.
I was recently at an event with Mike Huckabee as the keynote speaker, and I was delighted when the former governor quoted from the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6). This recurring assessment from Judges is certainly applicable to our own day. While the Lord has shown that He will raise up and sustain a faithful remnant of His people in every generation, in His providence He has also shown the chaotic and noetic effects of the fall in every generation. And if you haven’t yet realized it, I’ll let you in on something — we are among the faithful remnant in this generation.
With the Bible as our only infallible authority for every aspect of faith and life, we must stand on the truth and for the truth with uncompromising commitment to the truth and unwavering compassion for those who hate the truth, deny the truth, and use the only infallible authority for truth to defend their lies. By God’s grace, we have been called out of darkness in order to stand in His marvelous light so that we might boldly go into the darkness of this world as a light to the world, proclaiming the way, the truth, and the life before the face of God, coram Deo, and before the faces of our enemies. But in doing so, we must not in practice deny our allegiance to the authority of the Word of God by saying we believe it while continuing to live according to what is right in our own eyes.
Burk Parsons is editor of Tabletalk magazine and minister of congregational life at Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida, and is editor of the book John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology.
Coram Deo by Burk Parsons introduces the theme of each month's issue of Tabletalk and explains why everything we study should contribute to the living of a holy life before the face of God.
© Tabletalk magazinePermissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred (where applicable). If no such link exists, simply link to www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Any exceptions to the above must be formally approved by Tabletalk.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine.Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org.Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Unquestionable Authority by Burk Parsons
I am terribly vexed. I have just finished reading an article from the notoriously left-wing magazine Newsweek. In the cover story, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” author Lisa Miller argues the case for gay “marriage” using the Bible as her authority. Miller opens with this line: “Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does.” She later asserts, “The Bible gives us no good reason to oppose gay marriage.”
It takes no brains but a lot of guts to try to make a case for gay “marriage” (of course, the phrase itself is a contradiction in terms). But it’s just downright crazy to try to make a case for the legitimacy of gay “marriage” using the Bible.
I was recently at an event with Mike Huckabee as the keynote speaker, and I was delighted when the former governor quoted from the book of Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6). This recurring assessment from Judges is certainly applicable to our own day. While the Lord has shown that He will raise up and sustain a faithful remnant of His people in every generation, in His providence He has also shown the chaotic and noetic effects of the fall in every generation. And if you haven’t yet realized it, I’ll let you in on something — we are among the faithful remnant in this generation.
With the Bible as our only infallible authority for every aspect of faith and life, we must stand on the truth and for the truth with uncompromising commitment to the truth and unwavering compassion for those who hate the truth, deny the truth, and use the only infallible authority for truth to defend their lies. By God’s grace, we have been called out of darkness in order to stand in His marvelous light so that we might boldly go into the darkness of this world as a light to the world, proclaiming the way, the truth, and the life before the face of God, coram Deo, and before the faces of our enemies. But in doing so, we must not in practice deny our allegiance to the authority of the Word of God by saying we believe it while continuing to live according to what is right in our own eyes.
Burk Parsons is editor of Tabletalk magazine and minister of congregational life at Saint Andrew’s Chapel in Sanford, Florida, and is editor of the book John Calvin: A Heart for Devotion, Doctrine, & Doxology.
Coram Deo by Burk Parsons introduces the theme of each month's issue of Tabletalk and explains why everything we study should contribute to the living of a holy life before the face of God.
© Tabletalk magazinePermissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you do not make more than 500 physical copies. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred (where applicable). If no such link exists, simply link to www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Any exceptions to the above must be formally approved by Tabletalk.
Please include the following statement on any distributed copy:From Ligonier Ministries and R.C. Sproul. © Tabletalk magazine.Website: www.ligonier.org/tabletalk. Email: tabletalk@ligonier.org.Toll free: 1-800-435-4343.
Monday, March 9, 2009
quote
From A Journey by Chance by Sally John p. 212
"Gina didn't know what triggered this all-encompassing sense of well-being.
...She suspected it had a lot to do with her new faith. Once she decided to accept as fact that God's ear was tuned to her very thoughts, talking to Him quickly became a habit. With such a powerful audience, it seemed silly to spend every waking moment fretting over her career. Of lack of one."
Emphasis added. And we could insert any life worry in place of the word "career."
"Gina didn't know what triggered this all-encompassing sense of well-being.
...She suspected it had a lot to do with her new faith. Once she decided to accept as fact that God's ear was tuned to her very thoughts, talking to Him quickly became a habit. With such a powerful audience, it seemed silly to spend every waking moment fretting over her career. Of lack of one."
Emphasis added. And we could insert any life worry in place of the word "career."
Friday, March 6, 2009
What's your opinion
"Make all the things you worry about become all the things you're investing in."
This is from a commercial for Key Bank, so their context is money and investing, but do you think there is spiritual truth in it? What would it look like to invest in the things we worry about? e.g. If I worry about my health, does it mean I should invest time or money in fixing it?
OR is the about not spiritual at all? Let me know what you think.
This is from a commercial for Key Bank, so their context is money and investing, but do you think there is spiritual truth in it? What would it look like to invest in the things we worry about? e.g. If I worry about my health, does it mean I should invest time or money in fixing it?
OR is the about not spiritual at all? Let me know what you think.
Monday, February 23, 2009
More encouragement
I was reading ch. 10 in Do Hard Things. In light of all my fears lately this encouraged me also. (see previous post)
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
"When we think about salt, our first thought is probably something along the lines of, Gotta have some of that on my popcorn. But Jesus isn't talking about salt like we use it today. Although salt was used to flavor food during the Roman era, its primary use was as a preservative. In a world without refrigerators or deep freezers, a little salt rubbed into meat would slow decay.
"So when Jesus tells us we are 'the salt of the earth,' He's saying we have been placed here to preserve it until He returns--to fight against the decay of sin, to combat sickness and suffering, and to oppose corruption and injustice.
"What about light?....In the Bible, light is often used to represent truth, especially the truth God has revealed in His Word. The picture of us as a city on a hill or a lamp on a stand means that as Christians we display the truth in word and action--shining the light of God's Word and the gospel all around us, in every corner.
"....Francis Schaeffer made this profound statement:
'Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital "T." Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality--and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.'
"That is what Jesus meant when He called us to be light. Where secular methods and philosophies hold sway in fields of business, education, the arts, or any other area of society and culture, we are called to bring biblical philosophies and methods founded on that 'total Truth'--that's what it means to be light." Do Hard Things pgs. 171-173.
I get very discouraged when I read the news. I feel like I'm one of the very few people screaming for people to wake up to what's going on in government today. I take my eyes off of God and His power; I forget His mandate for us to have dominion and His commission to take the gospel to every nation. Sometimes I just see the uphill battle. I've been encouraged the last few days. What's in store for us may be hard, but God is God, He's not going anywhere. He is my strength in life, in suffering and in death. I have nothing to fear. (Remind me of that, will you?)
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."
"When we think about salt, our first thought is probably something along the lines of, Gotta have some of that on my popcorn. But Jesus isn't talking about salt like we use it today. Although salt was used to flavor food during the Roman era, its primary use was as a preservative. In a world without refrigerators or deep freezers, a little salt rubbed into meat would slow decay.
"So when Jesus tells us we are 'the salt of the earth,' He's saying we have been placed here to preserve it until He returns--to fight against the decay of sin, to combat sickness and suffering, and to oppose corruption and injustice.
"What about light?....In the Bible, light is often used to represent truth, especially the truth God has revealed in His Word. The picture of us as a city on a hill or a lamp on a stand means that as Christians we display the truth in word and action--shining the light of God's Word and the gospel all around us, in every corner.
"....Francis Schaeffer made this profound statement:
'Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital "T." Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality--and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.'
"That is what Jesus meant when He called us to be light. Where secular methods and philosophies hold sway in fields of business, education, the arts, or any other area of society and culture, we are called to bring biblical philosophies and methods founded on that 'total Truth'--that's what it means to be light." Do Hard Things pgs. 171-173.
I get very discouraged when I read the news. I feel like I'm one of the very few people screaming for people to wake up to what's going on in government today. I take my eyes off of God and His power; I forget His mandate for us to have dominion and His commission to take the gospel to every nation. Sometimes I just see the uphill battle. I've been encouraged the last few days. What's in store for us may be hard, but God is God, He's not going anywhere. He is my strength in life, in suffering and in death. I have nothing to fear. (Remind me of that, will you?)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Some needed encouragement
From Jesus to the disciples after He rebuked the wind:
"Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" Mark 4:40
I desperately need to ask myself that practically everyday. I read my email, read a blog and I'm in a state of near panic. I have to make myself trust God with all the things going on in the world today.
I wrote the following a couple days ago:
I have been allowing myself to occasionally obsess with the state of our country (it's not good and getting worse, and please don't tell me it's better than anywhere else, maybe so, but this is our reality.). Anyway, most of my prayers concerning this go up as groanings. So today I was praying and God convicted me of my worry. What am I really concerned about? The bottom line is that I don't want to give up my personal comfort. When I read stories about Monsanto, the FDA as well as the state departments of agriculure wanting to take control of all our food sources I get panicky. When I read that the stimulus package includes discriminatory practices against religion and will control who gets medical care (under Medicaid and Medicare) I get angry. When I read that the Consumer Produst Safety Improvement Act pretty much bans all children's items including books printed before 1985, clothes, toys, pens, etc., etc. I get even angrier. When I call and email my senators to no avail I wonder if they really care about what I think. Have I put too much trust in our government? I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure. More likely I've put too much faith in the flesh.
Dh reminded me in a conversation we had about someone else that we have a big God. Of course, I believe that, but...even God allows persecution and death of his people.
1 Peter 5:8-10 (New King James Version) 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Matthew 6:25-34 (New King James Version) 25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
So I need your prayers to overcome my fear and worry. While you're praying, pray for our country, our leaders, our churches, our families to follow God's way in everything.
"Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?" Mark 4:40
I desperately need to ask myself that practically everyday. I read my email, read a blog and I'm in a state of near panic. I have to make myself trust God with all the things going on in the world today.
I wrote the following a couple days ago:
I have been allowing myself to occasionally obsess with the state of our country (it's not good and getting worse, and please don't tell me it's better than anywhere else, maybe so, but this is our reality.). Anyway, most of my prayers concerning this go up as groanings. So today I was praying and God convicted me of my worry. What am I really concerned about? The bottom line is that I don't want to give up my personal comfort. When I read stories about Monsanto, the FDA as well as the state departments of agriculure wanting to take control of all our food sources I get panicky. When I read that the stimulus package includes discriminatory practices against religion and will control who gets medical care (under Medicaid and Medicare) I get angry. When I read that the Consumer Produst Safety Improvement Act pretty much bans all children's items including books printed before 1985, clothes, toys, pens, etc., etc. I get even angrier. When I call and email my senators to no avail I wonder if they really care about what I think. Have I put too much trust in our government? I didn't think so, but now I'm not so sure. More likely I've put too much faith in the flesh.
Dh reminded me in a conversation we had about someone else that we have a big God. Of course, I believe that, but...even God allows persecution and death of his people.
1 Peter 5:8-10 (New King James Version) 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. 10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
Matthew 6:25-34 (New King James Version) 25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
So I need your prayers to overcome my fear and worry. While you're praying, pray for our country, our leaders, our churches, our families to follow God's way in everything.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
CPSC another link
http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/legislating_montana_small_businesses_out_of_business/7197/
The whole article is at the above link. Here are a few excerpts.
While you might think that small business minded representatives from Montana would be wiser about this than their urban counterparts, you'd be wrong. Sens. Baucus and Tester both voted in favor of the House/Senate compromise version HR 4040 (the bill that became the CPSIA), and Rep. Rehberg voted yes on the House version HR4040. Frankly, I have to wonder if anyone in Congress even considers the impact of laws on small businesses and home businesses. Why? The combined House and Senate votes on this legislation yielded only three "No" votes. Three. More people failed to vote on this measure, including Senators Obama, McCain and Clinton, than voted against it. Want details? The House vote is here, the final Senate vote is here.The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), passed on July 31 2008 and signed into law by President Bush on August 14 2008, makes it illegal to manufacture or sell toys, clothing and other items for children that do not meet the act's testing and labeling requirements. Even better, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been given an additional $620 million so they can enforce this law, whose details were largely left up to the commission.
Here are a few examples of businesses that will be impacted by the CPSIA, otherwise known as "reasons to care:"
~If you're like Mrs. Santa, who makes wooden toys in her workshop in Evergreen, you get to pay $4,000 per toy to a testing lab to assure compliance with the CPSIA.
~If you make the classic gray sock monkeys and sell them at Depot Park during the Hockaday's big craft event, during Columbia Falls Heritage Days or during the litany of events in downtown Whitefish - you have three choices: sell them in violation of the law, close up shop or pay the fee to have your items tested. Each SKU = $4000, most likely. If you're running the Hockaday, your biggest fundraiser of the year is at least partially threatened by this act.
~If you own a small toy store, have items that cater to kids, or you sell antique toys, like Station 8 in Columbia Falls, or the Imagination Station in Whitefish – you have to pay to test every toy you import from Europe, or make sure that it has been tested (CPSIA-compliant items are labeled as such). Note that the requirements for toys imported from Europe exist despite the fact that for years Europe has had tougher toy safety standards than ours.
~If you buy and sell science kits for homeschoolers, the CPSIA applies to you as well.
~If you're a school who buys such kits, ditto your suppliers.
~Every large U.S. toy manufacturer who actually *does* still manufacture items here at home - and had nothing to do with the toy recalls from 2007 - still has to pay to test their toys. Actually, I'm ok with that one.
~If you enjoy shopping for your kids at craft fairs, online at Etsy.com or eBay, or you like buying used toys and clothing - sales of items that do not conform to CPSIA regulations and that have not been tested will be illegal to sell - thus reducing your ability to choose.
~If you sell items for kids on eBay, all your existing untested or non-compliant inventory has to be gone by February 10, 2009 or it cannot be sold.
Retailers, you too can be held liable for selling any handmade toys or children's items that are not tested by a CPSIA-compliant lab and labeled per the CPSIA.
The whole article is at the above link. Here are a few excerpts.
While you might think that small business minded representatives from Montana would be wiser about this than their urban counterparts, you'd be wrong. Sens. Baucus and Tester both voted in favor of the House/Senate compromise version HR 4040 (the bill that became the CPSIA), and Rep. Rehberg voted yes on the House version HR4040. Frankly, I have to wonder if anyone in Congress even considers the impact of laws on small businesses and home businesses. Why? The combined House and Senate votes on this legislation yielded only three "No" votes. Three. More people failed to vote on this measure, including Senators Obama, McCain and Clinton, than voted against it. Want details? The House vote is here, the final Senate vote is here.The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), passed on July 31 2008 and signed into law by President Bush on August 14 2008, makes it illegal to manufacture or sell toys, clothing and other items for children that do not meet the act's testing and labeling requirements. Even better, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been given an additional $620 million so they can enforce this law, whose details were largely left up to the commission.
Here are a few examples of businesses that will be impacted by the CPSIA, otherwise known as "reasons to care:"
~If you're like Mrs. Santa, who makes wooden toys in her workshop in Evergreen, you get to pay $4,000 per toy to a testing lab to assure compliance with the CPSIA.
~If you make the classic gray sock monkeys and sell them at Depot Park during the Hockaday's big craft event, during Columbia Falls Heritage Days or during the litany of events in downtown Whitefish - you have three choices: sell them in violation of the law, close up shop or pay the fee to have your items tested. Each SKU = $4000, most likely. If you're running the Hockaday, your biggest fundraiser of the year is at least partially threatened by this act.
~If you own a small toy store, have items that cater to kids, or you sell antique toys, like Station 8 in Columbia Falls, or the Imagination Station in Whitefish – you have to pay to test every toy you import from Europe, or make sure that it has been tested (CPSIA-compliant items are labeled as such). Note that the requirements for toys imported from Europe exist despite the fact that for years Europe has had tougher toy safety standards than ours.
~If you buy and sell science kits for homeschoolers, the CPSIA applies to you as well.
~If you're a school who buys such kits, ditto your suppliers.
~Every large U.S. toy manufacturer who actually *does* still manufacture items here at home - and had nothing to do with the toy recalls from 2007 - still has to pay to test their toys. Actually, I'm ok with that one.
~If you enjoy shopping for your kids at craft fairs, online at Etsy.com or eBay, or you like buying used toys and clothing - sales of items that do not conform to CPSIA regulations and that have not been tested will be illegal to sell - thus reducing your ability to choose.
~If you sell items for kids on eBay, all your existing untested or non-compliant inventory has to be gone by February 10, 2009 or it cannot be sold.
Retailers, you too can be held liable for selling any handmade toys or children's items that are not tested by a CPSIA-compliant lab and labeled per the CPSIA.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Needing Encouragement
2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 NKJV
"Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one."
Feel free to leave comments about what encourages you.
"Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one."
Feel free to leave comments about what encourages you.
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