Married Couples Sleeping Separately

Josh Yergler pointed me to this article from the NY Times.

Apparently one in four married couples sleep in separate beds.

There are potentially multiple factors at play here, yet, with Scriptures' referencing of keeping the marriage bed pure (Hebrews 13:4), it's assuming of cohabiting (Romans 7:1-6), it's enjoinder to free and frequent sex (1 Corinthians 7), and it's celebration of really good and enjoyable sex (Song of Songs) - this is a sad situation.

Yet, it's a situation that can only be addressed with the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Two idolatrous, pleasure-seekers living together will inevitably grow apart, unless their pleasure is firmly in what Christ has promised them.

Interesting Study about Facebook

See it here.  (HT: Tim Challies) 

Thoughts? 

I wonder if those numbers are really any different for young men.  Obviously the study was done by Oxygen and so was interested in women. 

I think it's a good reminder that things that are innocent can easily be made into idols.  See John Piper's article about Twitter here. 

Resource on Eating Disorders

You can find it HERE.

If you minister to women face to face OR from the pulpit, this is probably worth your time.

Evolutionary "Science"

Apparently, the new Science Minister in Canada, a country far more postmodern and post-Christian than my own, is a Christian.

See the article here.

And he won't say that he believes in evolution. Now, I'm not saying as a Christian one can't believe in evolution; I just love that this guy is up front - 'I'm a Christian.'

I also laughed out loud when I read evolutionary scientists stating that
1) evolution is a scientific fact
2) evolution is the foundation of all modern biology (they said this in my undergrad evolution classes - ridiculous then AND now)
3) evolution has been TESTED

Okay, seriously... regardless of whether you believe in it or not - evolution is not science. It hasn't been tested. There have been no repeated experiments in controlled environments that show that biological organisms are present on our planet today as a result of naturalistic evolution.

Sometimes it's amazing to me how utterly foolish very educated people can be.

Jesus' name makes sinners ANGRY

Jesus said, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you... but all these things they will do to you on account of my name..." (John 15:20, 21).

Isn't it interesting that in our culture you can talk about spirituality - or even 'God' in general terms - but as soon as you bring up Jesus, you're in trouble? (At least, the Jesus of the Bible!)

That's not exactly what this passage is talking about, though it certainly could be included in it.

In John's gospel, the way that Jesus' ministry is talked about is that Jesus makes his glory known - the glory of the unique Son of the Father - and some believe, while some hate. That's what Jesus' "name" means - it's his glory. It's who he truly is.

So what do people resist? Surely not the name, "Jesus." But they do, as soon as they see who he truly is - very God - Creator, Life-giver, Ruler, Sovereign, Risen-from-the-dead, Judge of the world -

People don't like that.

But as a Christian, that's what we are called to represent: his name, his person, his glory. We don't represent some vague 'god' out there. We represent the glory of the Risen Messiah - Jesus, who is coming again!

Legalizing Polygamy

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/01/21/8101186-ap.html

Now, that's just consistency.

And the end of it is throwing out any sort of morality altogether. Either there is an absolute, personal, knowable standard - or there's no standard at all.

Read: It's the Bible or nothin'.

Homosexuality in the news...

First, eHarmony has been forced to open a site for homosexuals. eHarmony was founded by a Christian, who, as such, believes homosexuality to be a breach of God's Law.

You can read the story here.

Is this the beginning of the government interfering with the Church exercising it's right - yea even duty - to act according to the gospel of Jesus Christ? I admit I'm surprised. Didn't expect this kind of stupidity this soon.

In a related story, Tony Jones, one of the heavy hitters in the emergent (we like to think happy thoughts, just not about Scripture) circles, decided that homosexuality is a-okay.

That story is here.

He says in the story that now his detractors have more ammo to say that he's continued his leftward slide.

Yes, you let go of Scriptural authority, and you will start calling evil 'good.' And you will let people go to hell feeling just a tad bit better about themselves.

Don Carson, at Acts 29 - Five Trends in the Church Today

Here.

DA Carson on Deeds of Mercy and The Gospel

Presbyterian post tomorrow, God willing, I'm tired.

But for now - DA Carson, NT professor of awesome, notes two things in answer to this question:

"Granted that we ought to be engaged in acts of mercy, what safeguards can be set in place so as to minimize the risk that the deeds of mercy will finally swamp the proclamation of the gospel and the passionate desire to see men and women reconciled to God by faith in Christ Jesus and his atoning death and resurrection?"

The two are...

"First, it is helpful to distinguish between the responsibilities of the church qua church and the responsibilities of Christians. Some writers flip back and forth between references to "Christians" and references to "church" as if there is no difference whatsoever. But many Christian thinkers, from Kuyperians to Baptists, have argued that if the church qua church is responsible for some of these substantial works of mercy, such works of mercy ought to come under the leaders of the church. It is very difficult to find any warrant for that step in the New Testament. Even before there were pastors/elders/overseers, the apostles themselves, according to Acts, recognized that they should not be diverted from the ministry of the Word and prayer, even by the inequities of food distribution among the faithful, so they saw to it that others were appointed to tackle the problem. Ministers of the gospel ought so to be teaching the Bible in all its comprehensiveness that they will be raising up believers with many different avenues of service, but they themselves must not become so embroiled in such multiplying ministries that their ministries of evangelism, Bible teaching, making disciples, instructing, baptizing, and the like, somehow get squeezed to the periphery and take on a purely formal veneer.

Second, one pastor astutely urged, "Preach hell." Two things follow from this. (1) By adopting this priority we remind ourselves that as Christians we desire to relieve all suffering, from the temporal to the eternal. If we do not maintain such a panoramic vision, the relief of immediate suffering, as important as it is, may so command our focus that we fail to remind ourselves of Jesus' rhetorical question, "What good will it be for you to gain the whole world yet forfeit your soul?" Read the closing lines of Revelation 14 and Revelation 20 when your vision becomes myopic. (2) As long as you are prepared to plead with men and women to be reconciled to God and to flee the coming wrath, you are preserving something that is central in the Bible, something that is intimately and irrefragably tied to the gospel itself—and those who want to shunt such themes aside and focus only on the relief of present suffering will not want to have much to do with you. Thus you will be free to preach and teach the whole counsel of God and to relieve all suffering, temporal and eternal, without being drawn into endless alliances in which people never focus on anything beyond threescore years and ten."

Non Christians Not Gossiping?

Check out this article.

Very interesting. So hey kids, we struggle with gossip - let's face it. How do you fight it? Spill it!

People are by nature idiots....

There's got to be more to this story: a monkey-god was made the chairman of a business school. But, wow, this is stupid.

Lord, what do you have to say about this? OH, right...

But let's face it, we run to things to save us from pain on earth, for pleasure here, rather than Jesus. Sin makes us stupid... and makes us forget Jesus.

In other news, two dudes wearing thongs over their heads robbed a convenience store. They were caught because, well, thongs don't cover much. That'll teach robbers to shop at Victoria's Secret. Wal-Mart Granny Panties are way better for such things...

How You Should Vote

The following text is the outline for the video which appears above.

1) God created governments
2) God created governments to execute righteousness on earth
3) God’s righteousness is evinced in the Law – the OT Law
4) Other nations are held responsible for disobedience to God’s Law in the prophets
5) There is no normative ‘moral Law’ outside the OT Law – every time conscience/natural law is mentioned it’s negative and subjective
6) So the purpose of government is to uphold God’s Law
7) That includes everything in it – including just war, capital punishment, wisely taking care of the poor to an extent, and even the worship of God. – some things more important than others.
8) That will never actually happen until Jesus returns
9) But we have some authority in our government – and thus responsibility to make sure our government conforms to God’s Laws.
10) We also have the responsibility to be honest with our presuppositions – we don’t start from the position of pragmatism – we start with a belief that God owns us, and that his Law is an expression of love to bring us to Jesus.
11) We also have to start with the presupposition that international or national law (Geneva convention; Constitution) aren’t ultimate. We have to submit to law given, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to change them.
12) Practically, I typically vote republican. Morally, I believe they are closer to God’s Law. Economically, no one is advocating we stop taking care of the poor. And quite frankly, someone whining about poverty in our country, I believe, is myopic – and probably has never been out of the Western world.

Do the sins of others sadden you? (News)

If you read Habakkuk 1:1-4, you'll see how sad he is at the sins of others even though he's not personally suffering. And that is a mark of one's desire that God be glorified - and thus - love for God... let's repent of our lack of love for God and thank him that he's forgiven us because of Jesus.

That said, a few news items -

Two teenagers make a bong (for weed) out of a human skull.

That guy that kept his daughter in the cellar and raped her repeatedly is saying he's sorry; he was wrong. How should we respond? How much are his apologies playing on your emotions?

This is what happens when we start saying 'God told me' and are referring to something that Scripture does not say or define. Sick.

Witches are protesting the war in Iraq! I think I'm won over. Quite convincing behavior...

And finally, I'm glad that we can be honest and say that statistics and pragmatism are more reliable than God's word when it comes to how we should behave sexually. Forget about the fact that you have no basis for believing in statistics or have any basis for even defining happiness without the Scriptures.

Jeremiah Wright and the Pope

What do they have in common? Apparently, according to many 'Evangelicals,' they're my brothers in Christ.

I feel rebuked. I mean, yes, Jeremiah Wright, professional racist, says 'Jesus' a lot. Click here for that story.

Oh, and the Pope, professional dress and stupid hat wearer, is anti-abortion. Click here for that one.

So I guess being my brother in Christ has nothing to do with the Gospel. Or in Greek, the 'evangelion' - where we get the word 'Evangelical.' Good thing, too! Because, man - if I broke fellowship with those guys I might end up being called a racist. Or a heretic.

For Dr. James White's commentary on Wright, click here.
And to read about how the Roman Catholic Church condemns the Gospel, click here.

I'm so very glad we don't live in a democracy... and re: the new Christian left

You know why I'm glad the US isn't a democracy? Because then we'd have a bunch of ignorant, armchair wannabe politicians running a show they know nothing about. I'm glad I have the power to elect a set of values to do the hard work of research and decision-making.

That said, that's not the point of this post.

When I was a kid, if you were a Christian, you were a Rush Limbaugh listening, James Dobson loving, pro-life, party line Republican.

Or at least close to it.

Now days, it seems it's the opposite, especially with young people. Young Christians seem bent on political liberalism. And at least part of the reason for that is that they're rebelling against the excesses of older Christians who often subjugated Scripture to political agenda - often speaking without love for the opposing side.

News flash: those of you in this 'movement' - you're doing the same thing. And stop pretending you're the little minority doing the right thing in complaining against this big majority of old mean Christians who hate poor people. Seriously. Get over yourselves. You're a result of reactionary groupthink.

When I was in seminary, I had a crisis. Should I be against 'gay marriage?' (I mean in a legal sense. Of course if anyone in the church did that we'd discipline them and excommunicate them if necessary.)

But what about the laws of the land? Should they prevent 'gay marriage?'

This resulted in a search of what the Scriptures said about governments and how we as God's people are to interact with such institutions.

Now, you might, and rightly, say, that there was no representative government in those days! Well, that's sort of true. But so what? Do we believe the Scripture is sufficient for every good work or not? That means it will provide us a framework through which to think about how we interact with government - about how we vote and who we vote for even.

And quite frankly, I think it's quite stupid to assume one knows what that framework is unless one has studied it.

And a greater weight of responsibility lies on the pastors in God's Church to make sure his sheep know what that framework is.

And as a closing thought - it makes me sick to see how Christians are swayed by smooth talking, content lacking, emotion-grabbing politicians. But hey, the same is true of a lot of pastors that are popular today. Guess it shouldn't be that surprising.

College Students: They're Geniuses.

A good friend recently sent me a link to this article that was published in my alma mater's newspaper.

http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2008/04/28/OpinionColumns/Science.Religion.And.New.Internationalism-3352144.shtml

Fun stuff. I love how college students think they're so smart and novel. *grin*

Anyway, here's my brief response:

First, what I'm interested in in this article is that this is one of the few opinions I've read from a totally modernistic outlook in a long time. The celebration of science, reason and accomplishments for a positive and growing future are all very modernistic concepts that postmoderns, despite their own issues, have rejected as fallacious, empty, and failing to satisfy the deep longings of the human soul. I'm interested about the fact that he is celebrating a position which is quickly becoming a minority position.

Second, his big presupposition is that all religions are false. He makes unhistoric and untrue claims about Christianity, and interprets facts through his atheistic/naturalistic lens. (i.e. - tribal origins of monotheism to him means tribes made it up. To us it means that, well, duh, there is one God who's revelaed himself to different extents - of course monotheistic practice will be a reality.)

Third, because of his presupposition, he drives an unnecessary wedge between science (drawing conclusions from repeated, controlled observations) and religion (which says that whatever God says is of highest epistemological value.)

Fourth, this author, because of his naturalism, cannot define 'progress' or even what is 'good.' (Or logic for that matter.) But he employs those things, and thus assumes a Christian worldview though he decries Christianity.