Category: Cultural Comment

 Your Ideas are Showing

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

In this age of trends, buzzwords and memes we Americans are eager to show what we believe in ways that often fail to think through what we are really saying. I recently saw a bumper sticker that read “Protect Abortion Rights-Don’t Criminalize Women.” The ideas, presuppositions, and implications in those six words are powerful. They reflect the zeitgeist of our time. I am distressed at the way we, as supposed “enlightened” and “educated” people, have succumbed to such shallow thinking, careless logic and complete moral blindness.

Let’s pull apart the thoughts in this bumper banner. The well-coifed and immaculately groomed driver of the upscale (and upsized) SUV is shouting at every driver and passerby what she believes. I daresay it is likely she has never thought through the implications of what she is saying.

The “right” to an abortion is a legal perversion of our time. When a child is conceived, sexual intercourse has taken place. With very rare exception (rape or incest) these interactions have been a CHOICE for the parties involved. Each partner has consented to an act in which human beings have engaged since the beginning of time with the full knowledge that the conception of a human child is a possible or even likely outcome.  Until very recently in human history the taking of the life of an unborn or newly born child was considered murder.  Our society has thrown off the “shackles” of admitting we live under the  Creator who has declared the taking of human life a heinous moral wrong.  (One of the 10 Commandments: Thou shalt not kill. Exodus 20:13) As a result our lowest, twisted moral selves have legally sanctioned self-indulgent and irresponsible behavior and even called the evil of murdering the weakest and most defenseless of us “good.”

The couple who CHOOSE to have sex which results in pregnancy can CHOOSE to carry the baby to term. Then, in a few days or months, if they find the baby is inconvenient or not perfect, they can CHOOSE to “terminate” it. “WAIT!” you cry. “That’s murder!” Yes. So what is the difference? What makes killing a baby who is 9 weeks from conception different from one that is 9 months and one hour from birth and one who is 9 years old? Absolutely nothing except time, nutrition and location.

from conception to natural death we are obliged to honor and preserve the life God has bestowed

We “enlightened” and “educated” people of the 21st century have taken leave of our sense. We have abandoned our God-given conscience regarding life and the moral imperative for its preservation.

Consider that bumper sticker: “Don’t Criminalize Women.” Why not? If a woman CHOOSES to murder her child, why not recognize she has committed a criminal act? She has violated what humans have known for millennia: the unborn child is a living human being. The “tissue” in a woman’s womb, from the moment egg and sperm unite, is a living being created in God’s image. That “unwanted” or “inconvenient” child did not CHOOSE to be conceived. We “already-born” “former fetuses” have the obligation to CHOOSE to care for those we conceive. Self-indulgence may run headlong into personal responsibility and “Adulting” may be hard, but there are so many resources and ways to deal with “mistakes” or “problems” that none has an excuse worthy of murder.

QUESTION: What do you believe? Are you giving thought to what is behind the clever saying you posted or “liked” on Facebook? Is it morally true?

Why Weddings? Why Marriage?

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

Weddings are so romantic! From the small and simple to the grand and elaborate, everyone seems to think the ceremony and celebrations are the focus. Very few give serious thought to the vows and relationship the two parties are entering as they “get married.” Marriage in the 21st Century is in a really strange place. As Valentine’s Day came and went this year I couldn’t help noticing how it always brings out the “aw, isn’t that romantic?!” soft news stories on local TV channels. There are stories of unusual proposals and folks finding the lost love of their lives after years of being separated by choices and circumstances all designed to elicit warm fuzzy emotions from viewers. But an interesting turn in our local reporting the other day got me stirred up to think about marriage in America. The news anchors shared the interesting and, to me, rather alarming statistics about it. Back in the 1960’s nearly 75% of Americans were married and most married in their early 20’s. By contrast, today only about 50% of Americans are married and most are now waiting until their late 20’s or early 30’s to tie the knot. Reasons for not being married include “not finding the right person” (60%), “waiting to be financially stable” (40%), and 20-30% are “not ready to settle down.”

Committing to one person for the rest of one’s life is a sobering and daunting undertaking and we rightly are nervous about it. But despite the expected “rough spots” married people plow into, it is true that marriage has great benefits for the participants and society at large. Stable marriages develop stable families which contribute dramatically to a stable society. Shared financial efforts and tax breaks are part of the benefit package. Statistically married people have better mental health and live longer, healthier lives. So what is it about the institution of marriage that is becoming so hard, so undesirable and so avoided or abandoned?

I would lay the blame at the foot of the Church and consequently the culture. The two are inextricably linked because “ideas have consequences.” What we believe, especially about God, directs our thinking and actions in every way and that is especially true in our ideas about marriage.

I am convinced that the Church is primarily responsible for the low view our culture has of marriage. Since about the mid-20th Century the theologians and pastors have begun succumbing to the lies about Holy Scripture. Many began to depart from the conviction that the Word of God is authoritative, particularly regarding human sexuality and the relations ships between men and women. Compromise has crept into the Church regarding what is plain in Scripture about sexual purity before marriage and fidelity within it. The efforts of churches to be “seeker-friendly” has become a placation of the lost and self-absorbed by ignoring or changing the awkward words and positions the Scripture contains. Excusing ‘fornication’, ‘adultery’, and ‘homosexuality’ became more important than being willing to obey God’s Word –even in the face of scoffing and derision from the world. As a result of this subtle drift, the cultural tide gathered momentum and now we have rushed into promiscuity, infidelity and all sorts of evil and perversion. God’s boundaries for our behavior have been discarded and flaunted and the result is misery and trouble for individuals and the society in which we live.

As we became more self-absorbed we began to dismiss the value and dignity of our fellow man. We elevated our own “choice” as the standard of right and wrong. As a consequence we justified tossing out marriage vows with the shallow excuse of “I don’t love him/her anymore.” Our selfishness has given us license to kill those we deem inconvenient. One young man I encountered years ago at a Crisis Pregnancy center said he was urging his girlfriend to abort their child because he “didn’t want her to lose her figure during swimsuit season.” He and more than 54 million of us have succumbed to lies about the children we have conceived. “It’s just a blob of tissue.” “It’s my/her body.” “I can’t support a child right now.” “I will have to give up my education/job/home.” “My parents will kill me.” Notice all the focus on “self”? Satan is a liar and deceiver. He has twisted our thinking to focus it around ourselves instead of God and His standards.

So what do all these skewed ideas about sexuality and conception have to do with marriage and our society? As we have embraced immoral sexual choices and devalued the lives of our un-born, we have lost our ability to see the need and worth of a committed, one-man, one-woman lifelong marriage. We have believed the lie that we are just an evolved form of amoeba-life rather than the special creation of God Almighty—image bearers of God Himself. We have dismissed marriage that God instituted in the Garden of Eden as a legal affair that is on par with the agreement to buy a car. We fail to regard it as a mysterious union of two people designed to bring more image bearers into being, to give mutual encouragement in the difficulties of life and to accomplish a joint life-work that would be incomplete or impossible for just one or the other to do alone.

To be sure, we live in a fallen world and there are many who find themselves married to an adulterer or an abuser. Our gracious God has given us guidelines and grace in Scripture to help in these heartbreaking troubles. But for most of us, marriage should be faithful lifelong commitment. We ought to see it through God’s lens and value the purposes for which He instituted it.

God instituted marriage for four main reasons:

For companionship

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18

For procreation

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” Genesis 1:27-28

For service to God and man

…And God said to them, “…fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1: 28

For a display of the relationship of Christ and His Church.

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Ephesians 5: 31-32 (for context see the entire passage: Ephesians 5: 22-33)

Let us embrace the high calling of our marriages as one of the best ways to live out our love to God and man. Let us accept the challenges marriage brings as part of God’s sovereign way of “growing us up” into the likeness of Jesus.

QUESTION: What is your evaluation of marriage? Does it reflect what God says or your own (selfish) ideas, desires and “needs.”?

Perplexing Political Problems

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

There are two people running for the highest office in our land. I am utterly horrified at the criminal activities and immoral stances of the one, and the boastful, careless and immoral behaviors of the other. How can I as a Christian, in good conscience vote for either one? I am perplexed. There is no parallel in Scripture for the situation that faces our nation. But I believe we can know what to do in November and today, and tomorrow and the next day.  Here is how I think that is possible.

First: pray for wisdom (James 1:5).  This requires spending time reading His Word.  You need to read in other places than Daniel and Revelation in an effort to “know the times and the seasons” Act 1:7 to the exclusion of seeking to “know Jesus” 2 Peter 1:3. You need to read other places than just a verse or two that accompanies a daily devotional booklet. (That is like eating one saltine cracker in the morning and thinking it will suffice for all your nutritional needs for the day.)  You need a well-rounded understanding of who God is and what His thoughts are. That requires time and diligent effort. Read Isaiah 55:6-13 for a powerful encouragement. This passage will give you some helpful perspective.

Wisdom doesn’t come in one “ahha!” moment that is a specific answer once-and-for-all solution. Gaining wisdom is a lifelong process. But God has promised to lead those who keep seeking Him. No time spent reading His Word is wasted. EVER!

Seek the LORD while He may be found...

Second: realize we live in a time that, to us, looks utterly out of control. But God is still sovereign and is working out His plan. He says in His Word that He will deal with boasters, liars, and wicked people of every kind. Read the first 5 Psalms. This is a short but very comforting read!

Third: don’t throw up your hands and just fatalistically say, “I can’t do anything about the political mess and God is going to rapture me out of here and I won’t have to deal with it anyway…” That is not what Scripture says about the end times… but that is another conversation altogether.

Fourth: remember we are not given directions now for our actions in November. We must keep thinking, keep praying, and keep reading. We must keep expecting God to lead us because He has promised over and over to show us the way to walk. When the time comes, the Spirit will superintend our decision. In the meantime, we need to walk quietly with our God. We need to walk in the Light He has given. We need to keep reading and seeking to know Him because He is our wisdom. He is our Peace. He is our Shepherd. His being our Good Shepherd is His promise to lead us in the perfect path at the perfect time. He knows! We don’t. Trust Him.

Keep asking for wisdom. Keep seeking to know Jesus and then trust God to guide your thinking. He is faithful and will give the wisdom, reveal Himself to you and lead you in the way you should go.

WWJD in Roseburg?

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

live at peace

Beloved Brother just wrote an e-mail to us this morning asking about what we thought regarding the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:38-48. “”but I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on our right cheek, turn the other to him also…” His Men’s Bible study group had apparently tried to apply this to anyone who might have rushed at and assaulted the shooter in the Roseburg shootings in an effort to save lives. I assume they think Jesus requires us to not “assault” the bad guy but just let him do his evil. Hmmm. I disagree. Here is what I wrote to my brother.

Very interesting passage of Scripture your Men’s Bible Study tackled! We (Spouse, Mother and myself) discussed it over breakfast –thrashing out the issues your group must have worked over, too. “Spouse” is like you and knows if he were in a situation like the Roseburg shooting (or any of the ones in the past few years) that he would rush the shooter with the intent to stop the carnage. (He candidly admits his human instinct would be to “smash the guy’s face” in the doing.) His motive would be to defend others from the evil intent of the shooter to kill.

Turning the other cheek is often misread, I believe. Scripture teaches us to defend the helpless [Psalm 82:3, 4] and to seek righteousness [James 3:18]. KILLING IS A CLEARLY EVIL ACTIVITY in this context. [Exodus 20:13] Doing whatever you can to stop someone from killing is acting righteously.

Notice the wording of Matthew 5:39, 40. The aggressor is facing you, smacking you on the cheek. Now think about the shooting situation. To stand, watching, while someone else makes a punching bag or shooting target out of another is wrong. In contrast to this assault on other human beings, if someone smacks you they want to stir up a fight with you. It may be a verbal goad or an actual physical assault, but it is aimed at an individual trying to provoke conflict. We are called to be at peace with our fellow man in as much as possible it lies with [us][Romans 12:18]. So not retaliating (“turning the other cheek”) will make the perpetrator’s intention of confrontation fizzle. “FOR LACK OF WOOD A FIRE GOES OUT.”[Proverbs 26:20] We get to choose to live as people who are not quarrelsome and belligerent. We represent Jesus who always responded peaceably. However, if an attacker is trying to kill you or hurt you, defend yourself. But if he is only trying to pick a fight, don’t go there! Love him enough to not let him sin against his fellow man (you). Stop the fight before it begins.

Our contemporary culture has been trumpeting the humanistic idea that if we all are “nice” bad things won’t happen. But they do, no matter how pleasant we may try to be. We must stand for the right and yet must love our enemies. Sometimes love shows by saying, “I love you too much to let you continue in this evil activity. It will gather God’s wrath on your head, and you don’t want that.”

One of the most fundamental things about studying God’s Word is to remember that Scripture will never contradict itself. Scripture will interpret Scripture. Faithful study requires digging and thinking—and most of all a reliance on the Holy Spirit for the true teaching we need. Wisdom from God teaches us to hear the whole counsel of Scripture and to apply God’s wise principles on what we read and study. It is very easy to cherry pick verses from the Bible to satisfy any human idea. Probably you have heard this example of two different passages that show this: “Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.” [Gen. 4:8] and then “And Jesus said… ‘Go thou and do likewise.’ ” [Luke 10:37]. Think the Matthew 5 passage through in light of all else you hear God saying in His Word.
Hope this answers your questions about what we think.

QUESTION: Are you a peacemaker or a willing participant in quarrels and fights?