Dec 7, 2019 | Parents and Family
I had an experience recently with a Christian young man who shall remain nameless, and it inspired a blog post. He looked me in the eye (which I respected) and told me that it’s okay for Christians to have sex before marriage. I was taken aback, and asked him why he thought this. He said, because the Bible doesn’t say you can’t, that’s why! I was embarrassed how poorly I answered his challenge. Most Christian young people wouldn’t say such a thing out loud, especially to someone considerably older than they are, and it had never happened to me. After all, surely young Christians know that sex before marriage is not okay, right? Even if they indulge in it? I guess not, so I wasn’t prepared. I’m going to flesh out a short response that includes “the Bible says so,” but goes beyond that. I don’t doubt there are many books on the broader topic of Christian sexuality, so I can only scratch the surface here. (more…)
Dec 5, 2019 | Explanatory Power
This appears to be a strange question. You might answer, I see a leaf of Romaine lettuce, and of course you would be right, but you would also be wrong. Am I contradicting myself? No. The leaf, as with all created things, points beyond itself. So yes, the leaf is a leaf, but it is also an amazing creation of Almighty God! If we don’t see all of reality this way, we are not seeing reality biblically, and have been sucked into the vortex of the stultifying secular culture we swim in every day. I’m not sure there is anything more important as we raise our kids, or develop our own faith, than learning to see reality biblically. That means we daily, hourly, minutely, constantly affirm God as Creator, of everything! That means we stop taking those things for granted, and have moments of wonder at the sheer bizarreness of existence. As I did with my Romaine leaf. (more…)
Dec 1, 2019 | Gratitude
Since we’re still in the Thanksgiving state of mind, I thought I’d address something that doesn’t come easily to saved sinners: giving thanks to God when we don’t feel thankful. The reason gratitude is so difficult at times is our benighted interpretation of circumstances. Life is a continuous process of interpretation, and our fallen tendency is to interpret events and situations in our lives by our finite, self-centered assessment. If something (or someone), is difficult, painful, or frustrating, if it keeps us from getting what we want, or think we want, we naturally interpret it as a “problem” (take a look at the many synonyms for that word). It’s easy when obstacles are thrown our way to think something is “wrong.” How could this happen? Why is this happening? Ugh! This response is sinful, and not worthy of a person who claims God in Christ as our Savior, who is the Almighty Sovereign ruler of the universe. Yet we do it all the time. It’s a constant theme of repentance in my own life. (more…)
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