Hebrew 12, near the end of the chapter reads, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake....
Today's thoughts are about listening to God.
Hebrews chapter 12 begins with that part about laying aside our sins and keeping our focus on Jesus Christ...who endured such "contradiction of sinners" against himself, (KJV..) ... or as the NIV says, "opposition from sinful" men.. or in the NASB.."endured such hostility by sinners against Himself." In contrast, I have always been one to run away. Gods word, bringing home the reality once again of Christ's suffering ,serves to remind me not only of the importance of listening to God's commands, his words and his instructions, his promises... which are all fine and good, but to also look at Jesus as an example of who God is, and his love for sinners, his love that endures forever and to remember how much hatred from evil men he endured for... what? Doing that which is right... raising the dead to life, healing the sick, the blind, the deaf and ultimately trusting not in men at all, but trusting God. I want to keep my eyes upon Jesus, even when I am discouraged.
It's easy to get discouraged. It's easy to give up believing God and what he has told us is true and right and good, in exchange for being accepted by others.
Jesus, being crucified, being spit upon and hated, didn't seek to gain the approval of man HE didn;t argue with them to prove himself right and he didn't get made when they refused to believe the things he said. He simply pressed on. He spoke the truth to them and he called a viper a viper. He even forgave them as they did evil things to him because he would not submit to their every beck and call. As I consider it, I think that he was probably discouraged when Pilate looked at him and asked him, "What is truth.?" Bliinded by his own ambition unto greatness and man's apporoval Pilot didn;t recognize truth, or God, even when it was right before his eyes. For Jesus, this must have been just a little bit discouraging...and yet, he pressed on...trusting what he know to be true and right and good, knowing first and formost, he had the love and approval of his Father. Jesus God with us was fully human, loving God and fully God, was demonstrating his love for sinful man.
Funny how often people think they know better than God does. Even Peter the apostle thought he did when he told Jesus he would not be killed and raised again from the dead. (Matthew 16:23) Jesus told him, right then and there, where every thought that is not captive to the will of God and subject to the revelation of his Holy Spirit is from. We do not know more than God does. Jesus said it, God recorded the truth in his word, and as children of God, we may not always understand it, but we must be willing to stand under it, and declare that it is true. Yet, remarkably, some people think that they know so much more than Almighty God..
Take for example, the issue of homosexuality. Some people think that they know better than God about the matter. Some even faulting those who bear Jesus' name, Christians, for "wrongly" thinking that homosexual behaviors are wrong. Using the scriptures they even argue that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not homosexuality, but inhospitably and violence; and their own great wisdom and understanding, they declare emphatically that the bible and the Christian church has actually got the whole sodomy story wrong.
"The sin of Sodom," they say, "is not homosexuality," (which if they do not personally participate in, they endorse, support and give lip service to.) "It is the sin of not being loving..for example, to those who might be considered "sinners" in the eyes of God," (and in particular homosexuals, because the church says that this behavior is "a sin.")
It's time to set the record straight, tell it like it is: God does not hate homosexuals... what he does hate is lies and perversion of the truth. Let's make no mistake about it; the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is outright rebellion and unrepentant hearts. The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not loving, or willingly obeying God. But let's call a viper a viper if he is one. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah did not hide the sin of homosexuality in any closet. In fact, in today's terms, they were openly quite "gay."
Look at the Biblical account:
Lot is living in Sodom when some angelic beings come to him and being a hospitable person, he welcomes them into his home, feeds them and gives them shelter for the night, knowing that it would not be safe for these men to be out in the night on the city streets.. Lot, though he lived in such a city, was showing hospitality to these men, even though they were strangers to him , he had never seen them before. When all the men of the city, young and old surrounded his house and demanded that the strangers be handed over to them, saying, “Bring them out to us that we may know them.” Lot refused, knowing that the men of the city were not simply showing hospitality, wanting to befriend these strangers, be their friends. Lot, and bible readers understand what they said to mean that they want to “know” the visitors in a sexual way.
It's a rather bizzare story in the Bible, but it only gets stranger when Lot desires to protect the strangers ( who are really angels in disguise) and offers the mob at his door his virgin daughters, telling them, “do to them as you please” with them.
Talk about hospitality... This was going overboard. One cannot help wondering what it was that Lot was even thinking with such a gesture. Whatever he was thinking it didn't matter too much because the men outside would have nothing to do with the women. They didn't want something unless it was defiled. What they desired could only be a replica of themselves.
Outside Lot's door were violent, men breaking down his door, so bent on their perversion that they abhored anything pure or natural. Filled with evil, they would pervert if they could even the angels of God, and nothing would stop them, except an act of God.
The angels blind the intruders, Lot and his family escape the city and Sodom and Gomorrah gets destroyed by God. We read about it all and see how homosexuality was not the sin of Sodom, but let's be real. It was certainly symptomatic, obviously one of the evil fruits that rebellion to God produces in a person's life. Homosexuality, like other sinful behaviors, is a obvious perversion of the blessed and holy things of God.
Note also that homosexuality was not and is not the "unpardonable" sin. Lot knew this. Maybe this why he even offered them his daughters...his virgin daughters, hoping perhaps that they would cease their evil... escape their life of rebellion and sin and be diverted from such violence, but they would not. They had a mind of their own to do what they ought not, and they would not relent.
2 Peter 2tells us, God didn't spare the ancient world when he brought the flood.... (except for Noah and his family... Seven others...) It tells us that God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; what will ultimately happen to those "those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority."
What authority? God.
Sodom and Gomorrah was filled with those who followed, not God, but their own dark and foolish hearts, who did whatever it pleased themselves to do. You might say that they were completely given over to the love of self. Rejecting God completely, rejecting all that is pure and holy and good, desiring to even pervert angels who had come into their midst to see if they would change their ways, they were bent on evil and so their cities were destroyed forever, by the judgment of Almighty God.
I am rather dismayed that homosexuality is so pervasive in our society, but I am not surprised. It's symptomatic. People want to be great, in control of thier lifestyles... doing what peleases them and keeps discouragement over who they really are, far away from the shore of their lives, far out, "at bay." Perhaps without even realizing it, they are God haters. Some of my favorite people in the world have turned a deaf ear to the truth and now think they know better than God on the issue of homosexuality.
Some boast that they are engaged in homosexual exploration or relationships, explain that they are just being the person that God made them to be, or that they are trying to discover the person they really are deep inside, just being the person they really want to be, never realizing that they have fallen prey to the lying lips of Satan who tells them, man, and man's wisdom is so much better to listen to than God. It's a matter of pride they say. "Gay Pride." Pretending to find happiness in rebellion towards God, they call it ,"being gay-." hoping that you and me and all the world will see how happy they are, leave them alone and ultimately fault God, and Christians who take God at his word, for being so wrong.
Those who hate God, hate wisdom, reject understanding and knowledge, love death. (see:Proverbs 8)
They also love lies.
We know that men have healthy, loving and kind relationship with men. We see examples of fathers who love their sons, cousins who love their cousins,, brothers who love their brothers. In the Bible we read about the love of David for another man, one named Jonathan, and you can see how David's love for Jonathan was real, but he was not homosexual. Love can exist between same sexed people without it playing itself out in any sexual way and to do so is quite real and right and good. David, had some other sins to deal with though, that of adultery and murder... but he repented too. It's our unrepentant sins that leads us to our destruction.
Scripture tells in Romans Chapter 1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men...who hold the truth in unrighteousness . . . . " To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be to be a mocker or a hypocritical liar, you might say. In the world of perverted truth sometimes it hard to know for sure who is telling the truth of a matter and who exactly is the liar.
"But do not be decieved, Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. 6)
One thing we can be sure of it that the liar is not God, nor can God be mocked. Christians, true Christians are those who take him as his word and who, despite their own human frailty and weaknesses, believe him and what those who believe him say he says, not because they know better, but because they take him at his word. Lot did. In fact, Lot is a lot like a "lot" of us who consider ourselves to be "Christian" today. And what a lot we are... sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers (does that cover it all?) is exactly " what some of you were." (1 Cor. 6)
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8; and see 1 Corinthians 15:3)
"And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law..." Note how the Son in law did not escape when the angel of the Lord ushers Lot and those who believed God away....
"...And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city” (Genesis 19)
Lot's wife... looking back, she became a pillar of salt.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Take a Quantum Leap?
What is a quantum leap? This is a most interesting term, for while the term "quantum" refers to the smallest realizable unit of anything, like “a photon of light;” a "quantum leap," according to the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia, is a term often used to denote "a sudden dramatic increase or advance." The term implies a very large movement. "Quantum leap" is the idea that moving something seemingly small and insignificant can make a big difference.
The dictionary gives the old adage about the straw that broke the camel’s back as an example of a ‘quantum leap,’ saying that the 'last straw,' (however seemingly insignificant, however light and fluffy by usual standards,) made all the difference in the world to that camel. Point being that in the minuscule worlds of matter, in engineering and science, everything little ounce of matter, matters; and if one very teeny tiny thing is in or out of place, it can make all the difference in the world for the whole system of things.
Contrary to what most people have learned the world of atoms, the “quantum model of the atom is much more complex” than the over-simplified, "traditional model" that most of us people learn in elementary science books. Some of us hang our hats on knowing the simple concept of the proton, neutron and electron… while others unravel things much deeper.
According to Jim Tucek, an enthusiastic student of science on the Internet, complex mathematics is needed in order to understand the “blurred clouds of probabilities around the nucleus” of an atom. In these realms, everything matters.. every little tiny particle, and scientists, like Tucek who work and think within these minuscule realms subatomic particles of “organized chaos” take everything into account. They work hard to find even the statistical probability of the location of a moving electron at an expected, given moment in time.
Creation believing scientists look at these minuscule things and marvel at God’s wisdom at keeping such chaos in perfect order; meanwhile evolutionists’ marvel at how such order comes from nothing but incredible chaos. Meanwhile, all scientifically minded, thinking, reasoning, inquisitive intellectuals move forward in time, counting the particles, unraveling the secrets of the universe like a ball of string, all hoping to see, to understand, maybe even to prove once and for all, who and what man is and discover what is at the end, (or is it the beginning) of the proverbial string.
Ahhh, the string. Enter the “string field theory,” and the "grand unified theory," conceptual scientific theories that attempt, believe it or not, to link all things together as "one." Such theories however are not always spiritual or spiritually minded, for some scientists do not acknowledge or may not realize that such a wonderful being known as God even exists. Others do believe in the spiritual nature of life, but not always are these spiritual theories Christian. Some recognize how God’s marvelous scarlet thread is woven through all of life... throughout all time and space, how this singular thread of God's love and redemption is the very thing that holds the universe together…but they are few and far between it seems. Meanwhile, high minded, supposedly "scientific" man, is unraveling the universe around him, examining what is there. Unraveling the string he builds his own conceptual idea of the "whys" and "hows" of it all, rarely, if ever giving consideration that all this time "God" has been holding on to the end of the string.
No, they do not believe things were created and are falling apart over time, they believe things are getting better and better. Some even believe that order comes from chaos, all by itself.
In The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe (1988) by the Templeton Laureate, Paul Davies, Davie explains that from his point of view as a scientist, the universe is developing an essential, unfolding pattern and order. He suggests it is not going from order to disorder but the other way around. Davies says that virtual particles can and do ‘pop” into existence from nothingness, and that this takes place through something known in scientific circles as “quantum tunneling.” He suggests that this is the manner in which the whole universe popped into existence. (Pg. 141)
Quantum Tunneling?
Davies also suggests, that in the future, upon the universe's demise, mankind might scramble into a new universe of their own manufacture based upon these understandings and scientific discoveries. He is not alone. Alan Guth, professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT) also believes there is a possibility that a new universe could be created through “quantum tunneling."
En.Wikipedia reports that Guth says, it would be dangerous, (to actually create another universe) since it would be the equivalent of a 500 kiloton explosion. But to create a universe, all one needs is one ounce, ( a seemingly quantum amount) of high energy and false vacuum. Guth speculates that once false vacuum exists, the evolution of the universe is independent of what came before and says that it would take only 10-37 seconds for such a universe to disconnect from it’s parent. He even suggests that the universe originated from a false vacuum filled with high energy.
We exist in a fascinating world.
It's quite amazing really, to see how we have moved so far beyond the standard models of perceived reality, into things few, usually only the most highly educated by the standards of the world can even see, things which must simply be taken on faith by the rest of us. After all, if the textbooks are wrong, or incomplete, what are we building our understanding of reality upon?
Science, Religion, Politics, even Economics is all being redefined for us by the experts and such things as the Grand Unified Theory and New Physics, not to mention New Spirituality are emerging hoping to take us... where? You would think that they are hoping to take those who believe them and their theories, who believe what they do, with them, into a new universe, even a New Age.
Fred A. Wolf, dubbed by some to be “a new hero of modern science,” wrote the book titled, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Non-Scientists.(1989) While the product description says that the book “entertainingly traces the history of physics from the observations of the early Greeks through the discoveries of Galileo and Newton to the dazzling theories of such scientists as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Bohm., it neglects to say that Wolf guides the reader through all of this to ultimately explain that the human mind becomes the shaper of the universe and each of us is "god.” Point being of course that he believes we and we alone control our destiny. Is this Science or religion?
Perhaps it is both. They call it, the New Physics.
Wolf was also featured in a film called, What the Bleep Do We Know: Down the Rabbit Hole (2004) a film that attempted to help the average person understand not only Quantum Physics but also the New Age way of viewing the world.
Fred Wolf, also made a film called Ups and Downs in San Francisco, a film exploring the Jewish Mysticism religion of self-mastery known as Kabbalah. In it he remarked to colleague Jerry Satinover, “I don't give a da** about top scientists or the scientific establishment at all, I …I don’t care what they think, all I care about is saying what I have to say and I will say it…. What I care about is changing and transforming this planet that we're on - and I believe we have to introduce new thinking. And if it turns out that it's scientifically total garbage I don't give a flying ****(bleep!) It makes no difference to me, because science has little credibility as the only way of seeing the world. It's only one very narrow very limited way.”
The tables have turned. Now the scientific thinkers are what Christians used to be, "narrow-minded." There seems to be a little bit synthesis going on...Adding faith in what they want to believe in, to agnostic/atheistic thinking about the physical world, something completely different emerges, something spiritual, but without the spirit of the true and living God. This is New Age thinking.
The New Age way of thinking (without God) is like having a dot to dot picture to figure out, but instead of following the number system, you make up your own; you simply connect them the way you want to imagine them to be connected. Spiritual man, outside of God’s revealed understanding, will be ever learning and unable to come to the truth. He will only mix natural thought and instincts with every false religion. The end result will not be the picture it was intended to be.
To trust in something that is not what it was intended to be in the first place is a lot like getting aboard a faulty airplane. Faulty theology, like faulty science can builds a faulty plane, bring disastrous results. In the end, the proverbial “leap of faith” it takes to believe in God, (or not,) may be merely the quantitative size of a mustard seed, but what you actually put your faith in can make all the difference in the world.
The thing to remember is “the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.” There are some interesting dot-to-cot pictures being made for our eyes to see, some very fascinating observations people have made about life the universe and everything that exists within in, even the intricacies of it all, speculations about what or who holds it all together and how it all began.
The ultimate questions is, which one do YOU believe in, for "faith, the size of a mustard seed, can move mountains after all. In fact, you can take a quantum leap.
"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20)
The dictionary gives the old adage about the straw that broke the camel’s back as an example of a ‘quantum leap,’ saying that the 'last straw,' (however seemingly insignificant, however light and fluffy by usual standards,) made all the difference in the world to that camel. Point being that in the minuscule worlds of matter, in engineering and science, everything little ounce of matter, matters; and if one very teeny tiny thing is in or out of place, it can make all the difference in the world for the whole system of things.
Contrary to what most people have learned the world of atoms, the “quantum model of the atom is much more complex” than the over-simplified, "traditional model" that most of us people learn in elementary science books. Some of us hang our hats on knowing the simple concept of the proton, neutron and electron… while others unravel things much deeper.
According to Jim Tucek, an enthusiastic student of science on the Internet, complex mathematics is needed in order to understand the “blurred clouds of probabilities around the nucleus” of an atom. In these realms, everything matters.. every little tiny particle, and scientists, like Tucek who work and think within these minuscule realms subatomic particles of “organized chaos” take everything into account. They work hard to find even the statistical probability of the location of a moving electron at an expected, given moment in time.
Creation believing scientists look at these minuscule things and marvel at God’s wisdom at keeping such chaos in perfect order; meanwhile evolutionists’ marvel at how such order comes from nothing but incredible chaos. Meanwhile, all scientifically minded, thinking, reasoning, inquisitive intellectuals move forward in time, counting the particles, unraveling the secrets of the universe like a ball of string, all hoping to see, to understand, maybe even to prove once and for all, who and what man is and discover what is at the end, (or is it the beginning) of the proverbial string.
Ahhh, the string. Enter the “string field theory,” and the "grand unified theory," conceptual scientific theories that attempt, believe it or not, to link all things together as "one." Such theories however are not always spiritual or spiritually minded, for some scientists do not acknowledge or may not realize that such a wonderful being known as God even exists. Others do believe in the spiritual nature of life, but not always are these spiritual theories Christian. Some recognize how God’s marvelous scarlet thread is woven through all of life... throughout all time and space, how this singular thread of God's love and redemption is the very thing that holds the universe together…but they are few and far between it seems. Meanwhile, high minded, supposedly "scientific" man, is unraveling the universe around him, examining what is there. Unraveling the string he builds his own conceptual idea of the "whys" and "hows" of it all, rarely, if ever giving consideration that all this time "God" has been holding on to the end of the string.
No, they do not believe things were created and are falling apart over time, they believe things are getting better and better. Some even believe that order comes from chaos, all by itself.
In The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe (1988) by the Templeton Laureate, Paul Davies, Davie explains that from his point of view as a scientist, the universe is developing an essential, unfolding pattern and order. He suggests it is not going from order to disorder but the other way around. Davies says that virtual particles can and do ‘pop” into existence from nothingness, and that this takes place through something known in scientific circles as “quantum tunneling.” He suggests that this is the manner in which the whole universe popped into existence. (Pg. 141)
Quantum Tunneling?
Davies also suggests, that in the future, upon the universe's demise, mankind might scramble into a new universe of their own manufacture based upon these understandings and scientific discoveries. He is not alone. Alan Guth, professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT) also believes there is a possibility that a new universe could be created through “quantum tunneling."
En.Wikipedia reports that Guth says, it would be dangerous, (to actually create another universe) since it would be the equivalent of a 500 kiloton explosion. But to create a universe, all one needs is one ounce, ( a seemingly quantum amount) of high energy and false vacuum. Guth speculates that once false vacuum exists, the evolution of the universe is independent of what came before and says that it would take only 10-37 seconds for such a universe to disconnect from it’s parent. He even suggests that the universe originated from a false vacuum filled with high energy.
We exist in a fascinating world.
It's quite amazing really, to see how we have moved so far beyond the standard models of perceived reality, into things few, usually only the most highly educated by the standards of the world can even see, things which must simply be taken on faith by the rest of us. After all, if the textbooks are wrong, or incomplete, what are we building our understanding of reality upon?
Science, Religion, Politics, even Economics is all being redefined for us by the experts and such things as the Grand Unified Theory and New Physics, not to mention New Spirituality are emerging hoping to take us... where? You would think that they are hoping to take those who believe them and their theories, who believe what they do, with them, into a new universe, even a New Age.
Fred A. Wolf, dubbed by some to be “a new hero of modern science,” wrote the book titled, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Non-Scientists.(1989) While the product description says that the book “entertainingly traces the history of physics from the observations of the early Greeks through the discoveries of Galileo and Newton to the dazzling theories of such scientists as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Bohm., it neglects to say that Wolf guides the reader through all of this to ultimately explain that the human mind becomes the shaper of the universe and each of us is "god.” Point being of course that he believes we and we alone control our destiny. Is this Science or religion?
Perhaps it is both. They call it, the New Physics.
Wolf was also featured in a film called, What the Bleep Do We Know: Down the Rabbit Hole (2004) a film that attempted to help the average person understand not only Quantum Physics but also the New Age way of viewing the world.
Fred Wolf, also made a film called Ups and Downs in San Francisco, a film exploring the Jewish Mysticism religion of self-mastery known as Kabbalah. In it he remarked to colleague Jerry Satinover, “I don't give a da** about top scientists or the scientific establishment at all, I …I don’t care what they think, all I care about is saying what I have to say and I will say it…. What I care about is changing and transforming this planet that we're on - and I believe we have to introduce new thinking. And if it turns out that it's scientifically total garbage I don't give a flying ****(bleep!) It makes no difference to me, because science has little credibility as the only way of seeing the world. It's only one very narrow very limited way.”
The tables have turned. Now the scientific thinkers are what Christians used to be, "narrow-minded." There seems to be a little bit synthesis going on...Adding faith in what they want to believe in, to agnostic/atheistic thinking about the physical world, something completely different emerges, something spiritual, but without the spirit of the true and living God. This is New Age thinking.
The New Age way of thinking (without God) is like having a dot to dot picture to figure out, but instead of following the number system, you make up your own; you simply connect them the way you want to imagine them to be connected. Spiritual man, outside of God’s revealed understanding, will be ever learning and unable to come to the truth. He will only mix natural thought and instincts with every false religion. The end result will not be the picture it was intended to be.
To trust in something that is not what it was intended to be in the first place is a lot like getting aboard a faulty airplane. Faulty theology, like faulty science can builds a faulty plane, bring disastrous results. In the end, the proverbial “leap of faith” it takes to believe in God, (or not,) may be merely the quantitative size of a mustard seed, but what you actually put your faith in can make all the difference in the world.
The thing to remember is “the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.” There are some interesting dot-to-cot pictures being made for our eyes to see, some very fascinating observations people have made about life the universe and everything that exists within in, even the intricacies of it all, speculations about what or who holds it all together and how it all began.
The ultimate questions is, which one do YOU believe in, for "faith, the size of a mustard seed, can move mountains after all. In fact, you can take a quantum leap.
"And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
More on Warren- What is 'Doctrine'?
This verse in particular makes me think of Rick Warren and his “ministry:”
2 Timothy 4: 1-5 “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned into fables.”
A pastor is to preach the Word…. And doctrine is important.
This is what Warren Says about doctrine in an article in Preaching Magazine and article titled: Purpose-Driven Preaching: An Interview with Rick Warren http://www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=3419
by Michael Duduit
Warren speaking: “Now, what is the purpose of the Bible? Well, it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work."
But people misread that verse most of the time. The purpose of the Bible is not for doctrine, not for reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Those are all "for this" in the Greek. ‘For this … for this … for this … in order that.’ The purpose is in order that. So doctrine in itself is not the purpose of the Bible. Reproof in itself is not the purpose – correction or training is not the purpose. The bottom line is to change lives: "That the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work." So every message must be preaching for life change."
If the bible is not for doctrine, not for all those things that Warren says it is not.. then what is it for?
If Warren is right, why would Paul tell Timothy to watch is life and doctrine closely?
If doctrine is not taught by the scriptures, then where does it come from?
The Pope? Private interpretation of the scriptures? Joseph Smith... and his?
Ellen G. White? Watchtower Society? Where? TBN?
and I want to know exactly which "people misread that verse." I believe it means to infer "Anyone" who doesn’t subscribe to Rick’s interpretation and who might ACTUALLY believe that indeed the Bible is for doctrine and reproof and correction and instruction in righteousness.
I would even say that in a very SUBTIL way Warren mishandles the word of God to say that it does not say what it says. Such tactics are highly reminiscent of exactly what Satan did in the garden with Eve if you ask me.
Sidenote here about that same article…
Warren says, "In my two-day seminar on preaching, I just keep coming back to, ‘Now let's see how Jesus did it. Now, look how Jesus did it.’ You take the greatest sermon in the world — which is the Sermon on the Mount — and He starts off, ‘Let me tell you eight ways to be happy.’ Happy are you if you do this … You are happy if you do this. Then He talks about anger: don't get angry. He talks about divorce: don't divorce. He talks about worry — let me give you four reasons why not to worry: it’s unreasonable; it’s unnatural. He talks about all of these practical things and then He says, ‘Now, if you put this into practice you are a wise man. If you don't, you are a fool and you’re building a house on a rock.(<--does that seem like an odd statement?!? It does if you know what the scriptures say about building your house on a rock.)
Is building your house on a rock a bad thing or a good thing?
Warren refers to building your house on a rock as a negative thing when actually, it is a positive thing in the scripture because the wind and torrents cannot knock down a house that is built upon a rock.
Warren’s deception is subtil, or is it subtle? Either way it is cunning and crafty.
As for doctrine.. listen to Paul and Peter. Watch your life and doctrine closely.
2 Timothy 4: 1-5 “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned into fables.”
A pastor is to preach the Word…. And doctrine is important.
This is what Warren Says about doctrine in an article in Preaching Magazine and article titled: Purpose-Driven Preaching: An Interview with Rick Warren http://www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=3419
by Michael Duduit
Warren speaking: “Now, what is the purpose of the Bible? Well, it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work."
But people misread that verse most of the time. The purpose of the Bible is not for doctrine, not for reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. Those are all "for this" in the Greek. ‘For this … for this … for this … in order that.’ The purpose is in order that. So doctrine in itself is not the purpose of the Bible. Reproof in itself is not the purpose – correction or training is not the purpose. The bottom line is to change lives: "That the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work." So every message must be preaching for life change."
If the bible is not for doctrine, not for all those things that Warren says it is not.. then what is it for?
If Warren is right, why would Paul tell Timothy to watch is life and doctrine closely?
If doctrine is not taught by the scriptures, then where does it come from?
The Pope? Private interpretation of the scriptures? Joseph Smith... and his?
Ellen G. White? Watchtower Society? Where? TBN?
and I want to know exactly which "people misread that verse." I believe it means to infer "Anyone" who doesn’t subscribe to Rick’s interpretation and who might ACTUALLY believe that indeed the Bible is for doctrine and reproof and correction and instruction in righteousness.
I would even say that in a very SUBTIL way Warren mishandles the word of God to say that it does not say what it says. Such tactics are highly reminiscent of exactly what Satan did in the garden with Eve if you ask me.
Sidenote here about that same article…
Warren says, "In my two-day seminar on preaching, I just keep coming back to, ‘Now let's see how Jesus did it. Now, look how Jesus did it.’ You take the greatest sermon in the world — which is the Sermon on the Mount — and He starts off, ‘Let me tell you eight ways to be happy.’ Happy are you if you do this … You are happy if you do this. Then He talks about anger: don't get angry. He talks about divorce: don't divorce. He talks about worry — let me give you four reasons why not to worry: it’s unreasonable; it’s unnatural. He talks about all of these practical things and then He says, ‘Now, if you put this into practice you are a wise man. If you don't, you are a fool and you’re building a house on a rock.(<--does that seem like an odd statement?!? It does if you know what the scriptures say about building your house on a rock.)
Is building your house on a rock a bad thing or a good thing?
Warren refers to building your house on a rock as a negative thing when actually, it is a positive thing in the scripture because the wind and torrents cannot knock down a house that is built upon a rock.
Warren’s deception is subtil, or is it subtle? Either way it is cunning and crafty.
As for doctrine.. listen to Paul and Peter. Watch your life and doctrine closely.
The Love of Money
Those in love with the power of money cannot resist the temptation to “do more with less” of it. In a way, this is greed and you know you are greedy when you refuse to do anything with money that does not promise you a greater return.
The opposite of greed is generosity.
Those who are generous are willing to pay the worker his due, and give to the poor and needy expecting nothing in return. These are they who learn to bank their treasures in heaven and come to better understand God’s economic system, to trust in, rely upon and believe completely in the power of Almighty God. These are often they who learn that they can rest in the arms of their God and Savior, and that the value of gold or silver, Dollar, Drachma, Mark, Peso, Euro, or mammon by any other name is nothing stable. In fact they learn that you cannot serve both God and mammon, no matter what the man on the Christian radio says.
The Christian radio advertisement informs me that me that gold is the only thing to keep my family safe through the coming economic meltdown. The message: buy gold now. Funny, Jesus said something about buying gold from him.
Strange voices lurk, even in what is called Christianity… apparently seeking whom they may devour. As a Christian, one must guard their heart from the deceitfulness of riches. But it's a battle. Our thinking is conditioned.
We will quickly hire the absolutely lowest possible bidder for a job that needs to be done, forgetting that other people need to feed their families too. We will walk into a bank and pay exuberant usury fees, or even charge such fees to others, thinking nothing of it, forgetting that God forbid usury and never intended us to deal with each other like that. We will even often flaunt the price tags, (both high and low,) to show what a lot or a little bit of money can buy. But, God's economy just doesn’t work or even add up the way man’s does.
No. In God’s economy, people are valued, not because of what they can and cannot do, but because they exist. In God’s economy you bring nothing to the table, and then he prepares a banquet before you. He even takes two small fish, if you happen to have them, and feeds thousands who have nothing with them. A flask of oil keeps pouring out when none should be left inside.. that’s God’s economy.
In mans economy, everyone must bring something to share with everyone else. If you have nothing, you get nothing, because after all you get what you deserve.In man’s, you are only of value as long as you have a purpose to serve others in the community, as long as tou areorth something... as long as you have...
You guessed it, money.
His blood bought us with a price, a price that was not paid with cash, a price that could never be paid in full any other way. I could never pay, not with money, not with works of righteousness, not even my own blood, but I can trust in God.
"In God We Trust."
No wonder the inscibed it on the American coin. It's a friendly reminder of where our hope is
The opposite of greed is generosity.
Those who are generous are willing to pay the worker his due, and give to the poor and needy expecting nothing in return. These are they who learn to bank their treasures in heaven and come to better understand God’s economic system, to trust in, rely upon and believe completely in the power of Almighty God. These are often they who learn that they can rest in the arms of their God and Savior, and that the value of gold or silver, Dollar, Drachma, Mark, Peso, Euro, or mammon by any other name is nothing stable. In fact they learn that you cannot serve both God and mammon, no matter what the man on the Christian radio says.
The Christian radio advertisement informs me that me that gold is the only thing to keep my family safe through the coming economic meltdown. The message: buy gold now. Funny, Jesus said something about buying gold from him.
The preacher on the big Christian TV network tells me that if I am broke it is not God's will for my life. God wants me to prosper. Not only that, but if I have debt on my credit card, that I am unable to pay--- then it is a good thing I turned the TV to this program today. One preacher said, "'Some of you are wrestling with debt that you cannot pay off. God told me this morning to tell you to … sow a seed on the credit card that you want God to pay off…. Get Jesus on that credit card! Make a pledge on that credit card!'" (See TBN's Promise: Send Money and See Riches... Los Angeles Times, September 20th 2004;William Lobel Times Staff Writer)
Strange voices lurk, even in what is called Christianity… apparently seeking whom they may devour. As a Christian, one must guard their heart from the deceitfulness of riches. But it's a battle. Our thinking is conditioned.
We will quickly hire the absolutely lowest possible bidder for a job that needs to be done, forgetting that other people need to feed their families too. We will walk into a bank and pay exuberant usury fees, or even charge such fees to others, thinking nothing of it, forgetting that God forbid usury and never intended us to deal with each other like that. We will even often flaunt the price tags, (both high and low,) to show what a lot or a little bit of money can buy. But, God's economy just doesn’t work or even add up the way man’s does.
No. In God’s economy, people are valued, not because of what they can and cannot do, but because they exist. In God’s economy you bring nothing to the table, and then he prepares a banquet before you. He even takes two small fish, if you happen to have them, and feeds thousands who have nothing with them. A flask of oil keeps pouring out when none should be left inside.. that’s God’s economy.
In mans economy, everyone must bring something to share with everyone else. If you have nothing, you get nothing, because after all you get what you deserve.In man’s, you are only of value as long as you have a purpose to serve others in the community, as long as tou areorth something... as long as you have...
You guessed it, money.
His blood bought us with a price, a price that was not paid with cash, a price that could never be paid in full any other way. I could never pay, not with money, not with works of righteousness, not even my own blood, but I can trust in God.
"In God We Trust."
No wonder the inscibed it on the American coin. It's a friendly reminder of where our hope is
The Value of Money
Money is power and with the power of money, a person has the power to great things. They can build buildings, churches, hospitals, schools and even programs to feed the hungry. Money can “do” a lot of very good and noble things, but there is one thing it cannot do. It cannot save someone, nor can all the works money can buy and do. Money is shelter, but not a savior.
It astonishing how money rules the minds of people. It is as if we human beings are so quick to forget God. Even Christians, who are human too, can be swayed in mind to forget that God is the owner of cattle on a thousand hills, maker of all, even the sustainer of all. It's notable how quick we are to bow to something if money is involved and why is this? They say, it's not the money, but the love of money... and that it is love of money, that is the root of all evil.
It's not inappropriate to have money or nice things, but it is inappropriate to have a “love affair” with worldly gain, after all, God wants our undivided affection. He wants us to know on whom we depend, and in whom or what we do ultimately trust. You can be certain... it is not money. It's God.
God? He is not some sort of egotistical maniac, but he is who he is... God; and he knows that the only way we will be safe from harm is to realize our need and take refuge in Him.
Money? It is not going to buy you life when the life you have now is spent. When you are dying, it will not preserve your soul.
The word says, “Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor. (Eccl. 7:12)
It astonishing how money rules the minds of people. It is as if we human beings are so quick to forget God. Even Christians, who are human too, can be swayed in mind to forget that God is the owner of cattle on a thousand hills, maker of all, even the sustainer of all. It's notable how quick we are to bow to something if money is involved and why is this? They say, it's not the money, but the love of money... and that it is love of money, that is the root of all evil.
It's not inappropriate to have money or nice things, but it is inappropriate to have a “love affair” with worldly gain, after all, God wants our undivided affection. He wants us to know on whom we depend, and in whom or what we do ultimately trust. You can be certain... it is not money. It's God.
God? He is not some sort of egotistical maniac, but he is who he is... God; and he knows that the only way we will be safe from harm is to realize our need and take refuge in Him.
Money? It is not going to buy you life when the life you have now is spent. When you are dying, it will not preserve your soul.
The word says, “Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor. (Eccl. 7:12)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Warning about Warren
Warning about Warren
I have been reading articles written by Rick Warren for some time now and I am always taken aback not so much by what he says about God and Jesus Christ, his son, but by what he doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say,” Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” or “Without belief in God’s only way of salvation, Jesus, you will have no hope and ultimately end up in hell where you do not really want to be." He does not say, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” No, Warren has a completely different message to the world. His message is, “God loves you,” and “God made you for a purpose.”
While he does not say these these Warren does say quite a lot. Upon close inspection I am taken aback at his double-speak, his self-promotion and the way he speaks badly about those who are the beloved of God.
This first came to my attention October 2003 when someone told me that they were reading Warren’s books. I knew nothing of Warren at the time, but in learning more here and there I finally stumbled across his Peace Plan sermon of November 2003. Listening to this sermon get me interested in know who this man was and what he stood for.
It was not long before I was convinced the man who looked like a sheep was something else beneath the surface, and it all began as I listened to him tell his congregation he was now convinced he was wrong for the last twenty five years about the greatest thing a person could do with their lives. He was no longer convinced the greatest thing a person could do was lead another person to faith in Jesus Christ. No, this pastor who had believed that silly, wrong notion for the last twenty five years was wrong all that time, but now he had the right perspective. He now believed the greatest thing someone could ever do was build a church.
And what do you suppose is the foundation of those churches? If a person is not a Christian it is no longer JEsus Christ... but as you can discover from reading his books and materials the foundation of faith in JEsus Christ is no longer a necessity....if you change your mind like he did and get the story straight, after all these years. The foundation of those churches is something anyone, not just Christians can believe it. The foundation, the very thing you put your faith in, is not Jesus, nor the atonement for your sin, but rather "purpose."
It seems that through this shepherd the eople are being lead purposely away from the truth and unto a lie.
There are lots of bible verses about deception and being decieved :
Matthew 24:4-5, 11, 24(Mark 13:5-6; Luke 21:8) “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many…And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many…For there shall arise false Christ’s, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
Romans 16:17-18 “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”
I Corinthians 6:9-10 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
II Corinthians 4:2 “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
II Corinthians 11:3 “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
II Corinthians 11:13 “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:14, 22 “That ye henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive…”
Ephesians 5:6-7 “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.”
Colossians 2:4 “And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.”
Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
II Thessalonians 2:3, 9-11 “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…Even him(son of perdition)whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”
I Timothy 2:14 “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
II Timothy 3:13 “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”
James 1:22, 26-27 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves…If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
II Peter 2:13-14 “And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:”
I John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
I John 3:7 “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
II John 7 “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”
Revelation 18:23 “And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee(Babylon); and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”
I have been reading articles written by Rick Warren for some time now and I am always taken aback not so much by what he says about God and Jesus Christ, his son, but by what he doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say,” Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved,” or “Without belief in God’s only way of salvation, Jesus, you will have no hope and ultimately end up in hell where you do not really want to be." He does not say, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” No, Warren has a completely different message to the world. His message is, “God loves you,” and “God made you for a purpose.”
While he does not say these these Warren does say quite a lot. Upon close inspection I am taken aback at his double-speak, his self-promotion and the way he speaks badly about those who are the beloved of God.
This first came to my attention October 2003 when someone told me that they were reading Warren’s books. I knew nothing of Warren at the time, but in learning more here and there I finally stumbled across his Peace Plan sermon of November 2003. Listening to this sermon get me interested in know who this man was and what he stood for.
It was not long before I was convinced the man who looked like a sheep was something else beneath the surface, and it all began as I listened to him tell his congregation he was now convinced he was wrong for the last twenty five years about the greatest thing a person could do with their lives. He was no longer convinced the greatest thing a person could do was lead another person to faith in Jesus Christ. No, this pastor who had believed that silly, wrong notion for the last twenty five years was wrong all that time, but now he had the right perspective. He now believed the greatest thing someone could ever do was build a church.
And what do you suppose is the foundation of those churches? If a person is not a Christian it is no longer JEsus Christ... but as you can discover from reading his books and materials the foundation of faith in JEsus Christ is no longer a necessity....if you change your mind like he did and get the story straight, after all these years. The foundation of those churches is something anyone, not just Christians can believe it. The foundation, the very thing you put your faith in, is not Jesus, nor the atonement for your sin, but rather "purpose."
It seems that through this shepherd the eople are being lead purposely away from the truth and unto a lie.
There are lots of bible verses about deception and being decieved :
Matthew 24:4-5, 11, 24(Mark 13:5-6; Luke 21:8) “And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many…And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many…For there shall arise false Christ’s, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”
Romans 16:17-18 “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”
I Corinthians 6:9-10 “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
II Corinthians 4:2 “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”
II Corinthians 11:3 “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtility, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
II Corinthians 11:13 “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:14, 22 “That ye henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive…”
Ephesians 5:6-7 “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.”
Colossians 2:4 “And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.”
Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of man, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
II Thessalonians 2:3, 9-11 “Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…Even him(son of perdition)whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:”
I Timothy 2:14 “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
II Timothy 3:13 “But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.”
James 1:22, 26-27 “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves…If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
II Peter 2:13-14 “And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:”
I John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
I John 3:7 “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
II John 7 “For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.”
Revelation 18:23 “And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee(Babylon); and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.”
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
In God We Trust
In God We Trust (ALL OTHERS PAY CASH )
Is your economy falling apart? Are you confused about investments or not sure your you will be able to go another day unless you do something drastic? It is time to do something drastic. Trust God!
You know, someone, somewhere, sometime in history, decided to put the words "In God we trust" on American currency. How interesting that on the very money that passes through the hands of the people of our nation everyday, such powerful words remain and they give testimony,"In God We Trust."
Perhaps those words printed on our money will someday stand also as a testimony against man. Ask yourself now, if you are so inclined, just exactly, "What or who do put your trust in?... s it in God or in cash?" Remember that Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Is it possible that people who serve God, also serve money in the process? You might think so, but Jesus said you could not do both, it has to be one or the other. God or money, God stuff or man stuff... What do you trust and who do you serve?
“In God we trust” is a noteworthy motto, but more than that it is a way of life. It’s a new kind of economy, unlike any other that there is on earth, and it's freely available to all. It's a sure thing too, used, handled, dispensed and invested in by Christians for centuries. It's a way of life that is somewhat foreign to our basic nature.
Is your economy falling apart? Are you confused about investments or not sure your you will be able to go another day unless you do something drastic? It is time to do something drastic. Trust God!
You know, someone, somewhere, sometime in history, decided to put the words "In God we trust" on American currency. How interesting that on the very money that passes through the hands of the people of our nation everyday, such powerful words remain and they give testimony,"In God We Trust."
Perhaps those words printed on our money will someday stand also as a testimony against man. Ask yourself now, if you are so inclined, just exactly, "What or who do put your trust in?... s it in God or in cash?" Remember that Jesus said, "No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Is it possible that people who serve God, also serve money in the process? You might think so, but Jesus said you could not do both, it has to be one or the other. God or money, God stuff or man stuff... What do you trust and who do you serve?
“In God we trust” is a noteworthy motto, but more than that it is a way of life. It’s a new kind of economy, unlike any other that there is on earth, and it's freely available to all. It's a sure thing too, used, handled, dispensed and invested in by Christians for centuries. It's a way of life that is somewhat foreign to our basic nature.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Lessons Learned
April 29, 2005-
This was written as what is now commonly known as Parent Partnership Programs were sweeping the nation, gathering up homeschoolers and would-be homeschoolers left and right. into the public school system. Many families were swept directly into public school without even knowing that they were no longer homeschooling under the home-based education law that so many homeschooling families worked so hard to get on the books.
Lessons Learned
Wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense:
but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
................................................................................................ ECCLESIASTES 7:12
A gift has arrived! Local school districts now extend new alternative school programs as an outreach to the home schooling community. It's not regular school of course, it's "alternative school," an alternative to the traditional public school classroom, but it still public school and it's coming to a school district near you.
Homeschoolers should look carefully at this gift, because at first glance these programs look a lot like what has traditionally been thought of as "homeschooling." They may look like homeschooling, feel like homeschooling and may even be called a "homeschool" program, but anyway you look at it, it is not homeschooling. The sad part is that these cleverly crafted programs seem to have a lot to offer. They come with a price however. Their cost: freedom, and taxation.
In a letter dated April 2005, I was personally invited via a letter in my mailbox, addressed to me, asking me to consider their kind offerings. Their literature offered me, an average homeschooler, “additional support,” and even “ a reprieve,” from the daily routine of homeschooling. "
Complete with the testimony from other homeschooling families, they offered the recipient of their letter elective classes, a meeting place for classes, financial aid, a sense of belonging to a community, and even their own professional expertise in goal planning. It was obvious to me that the offer believed itself to be the homeschooler’s dream come true. To receive such gracious benefits all I had to do was go to the local school and enroll today.
Funny, I never knew the public school was in support of homeschooling. In fact, history shows they are not. They have been supporting the homeschool community for five years? Really? That's funny. I have never known the public school to like it when parents remove thier kids from the roster at the local school. I had heard about these programs though and I knew they were not homeschool. But could I be wrong? Was it possible the students in the program are still "home schooled"?
I immediately called the PPP school office and specifically asked if students in the Parent Partnership Program they offered were homeschoolers or if they were public school students. The secretary who answered the phone said, “They are public school students.”
People in these programs, people who write these letters to homeschooling families must understand, these public school programs are not homeschool. Furthermore, people who value, not only homeschooling, but the public education system should have a sense of responsibility regarding the money spent by our government on education.
Homeschoolers need to remember that the freedom to homeschool was not something simply given to them by the friendly school district who believed it really was the best thing to do for children. It's time to count the real cost of these strange public school programs. Maybe it's even time to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It looks a lot like a horse to me, a Trojan Horse. A long time ago, after a great war between the Greeks and the Trojans had finally ended, a great lesson was learned, a lesson we all could learn from.
The war was over. The Trojans had been victorious. The Greeks, defeated at last, had taken every last one of their marbles and gone home.
At last all was well in Troy. That is, until one day, just outside the city gates, the still happily celebrating Trojans noticed a very large beautifully crafted wooden horse. They could tell by it's decorations that it had been made by the Greeks, for it was beautifully ornate, larger than life, and it was truly a sight to see! Some people in the city thought it must have been left as a gift, an offering of peace. After all, it was a horse, and as a horse, it was, no doubt, perfectly suited for Troy, which was known as the City of Horses.
Other people of the city were suspicious. They could not help wondering why the enormous, although beautiful horse was there. They wondered why the Greeks would leave a gift behind, after all, they had lost the battle. They were suspicious, however they were nice people, and because they were nice people, and because the horse appeared to be so magnificent, all the suspicion slowly dwindled away into a teeny tiny doubt, and then even that disappeared as they became enamored with the beauty of the magnificent horse.
Enamored with the horse’s appearance, infatuated with its possible monetary value, some of the more prominent people of Troy who decided that they felt good about the horse, even thought it was the way the God had blessed them for their victory in war, tied ropes around the huge wooden beast and pulled it through the gates of the city. There they could really marvel at it's beauty. They talked about how great the horse was and how wonderful the Greeks were to have left it for them and then night fell and the gates were locked and they all went to sleep, happy that they had been given a gift of such great value.
Unfortunately for Troy, sometime in the night something strange happened to the horse. Enemy troops emerged from the inside of the horse and Greek troops overtook the city. In the morning there was nothing but a city was left in ruins and all the inhabitants of Troy were destroyed.
Fact or fiction, history or myth, it doesn't really matter, the lesson is the same today as it was 1500 years ago. It's a lesson in the nature of deception. The “gift horse” was a lot more insidious than what it appeared to be. To believe that the public school has created a wonderful gift for the homeschooling community is ludicrous, akin to believing the defeated Greek warriors left a gift.
In case you do not know, it was not long ago that state run schools and private schools were the only options for people with school aged children to comply with the compulsory education laws mandated by the state. Private schools were expensive and public schools were battlegrounds, full of anti-God and anti-family philosophies propagated by men such as Charles Darwin, Benjamin Bloom, Paul Brandwin and Chester Pierce. With educational excellence waxing cold and madmen usurping parental authority as they crowned themselves the custodians of the next generation, parents did not sit idly by and do nothing. Some sat on school boards, others started PTA and some rendered unto Caesar what was due Caesar, they paid their taxes, took their own children out of the government school and proceeded to teach them themselves, at home.
That is when all out “War” ensued. There was courtroom battle after courtroom battle and the battle raged all the more as people choose to stand firm in their convictions to educate their own children at home. Parent after parent, family after family went to court and took a stand against the public school system. It was years of legal combat, but after thousands of court cases demonstrating earnestly that homeschool was a viable option for a child's education, laws were made and the war was over.
In 1993, by the grace of a power greater than “we,” the right for parents to actually keep their children in the home and teach them to read and write without the interference of the state was won. The Home based Education law was established and homeschooling became a viable option, an option set into law. Legally defined in black and white, in all 50 states, home-based education became known as "homeschooling."
All of the assertions of the NEA and friends were relegated to silence. Homeschooling, proven to have merit made a new option, one where parents could raise and educate their children without the direct involvement or interference of the state. It was a defeat for the NEA and other entities who wanted more than anything to have greater influence in classrooms, even to the point that they would happily prevent parents, especially Christian Parents, from rocking their own cradles.
It's interesting that in an effort to recapture the funding loss due to the mass exodus of “independent educators” who took their children out of government schools through this movement of homeschooling, school officials all over America have taken up the business venture of 'creating special partnership programs that target "homeschoolers." You would think that perhaps they would instead focus on kids in the classroom, making the existing schools better. Instead, they find creative ways to spend the national deficit.
The amount of capital given to a school district to operate depends on the numbers in enrollment. When parents do not enroll their children in the local school, these numbers go down and so does the funding. When more students enroll in school the numbers go up and so does the funding. The solution then might be to have a higher enrollment. The problem is, it takes a while to grow a kid, besides that a lot of kids who used to be enrolled are now homeschooling.
By offering a partnership program, the district can receive full funding for the student, but they end up with a surplus because the students in the alternative program do not have to be in school like all the other students. They only have to be on school premises, for so many hours per week, and the funding for them is the same as every other student. Staffing is less too because the teaching is done at home by the parent. The school saves on space and teachers and gets all the money for a student! Well, they get almost all the money because, after all, this is a partnership. A set portion of the districts amount per student is delegated for use by the parent. Parents get money that they can spend on books, materials, classes and curriculum used for the education of the student enrolled in the public school PPP.
Yours and my tax dollars hard at work. And while a public school student in a regular classroom has no freedom to input what teachers they spend the year with and brings home a list asking parents to buy crayons, pencils, paper and a tissue box for classroom use for the poor starving school district, the Partnered Parent is having the school pay for whatever they'd like including ballet class and piano lessons.
These PPP's so graciously offered by the schools are beautiful aren't they? It will be whatever you want it to be- just dream up any class you want … tell the district exactly what you desire and “poof” it magically appears. Never mind that over time you sense that the program is changing. Never mind that it appears slightly unstable as new directives from the state fall into place that were not there in the beginning. Never mind that you suddenly feel as if you are under some odd restraint. Never mind that it's a partnership and your yoke is showing. Remember how beautiful the public school system and all it's philosophies really are. After all, it's everything you ever wanted, you and your tax dollars are working! Nevermind that it's all done in the name of the entire public school system.
History tells of duplicitous horses and Greek bearing gifts.
If the home school community is anything like the city of Troy, then it is only a matter of time before everyone will see the true nature of the beast. Meanwhile, the program is appealing, the monetary reimbursement is alluring, and the camaraderie of the many trusted freinds involved in the program is appealing. There is even a beautiful, newly remodeled building to call your "home away from home." How interesting that the same entity that ferociously fought parents in every state across the nation now wants provide quality opportunities and resources to enhance “learning goals” for the potential home-schooled student!
A horse? Look at it this way... it's a manageable horse, one that you can train yourself to do anything you want it to do. It will help you carry your burden, you know, give those home schooling parents a reprieve from the daily routine of schooling their own children in their homes around the kitchen tables, that is, only if they will let it in.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NOTES:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Bloom, mentioned in the article above is the author of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, a 1964 work considered to be a "landmark" in education and a textbook used in teacher education courses, In it he says, "a large part of what we call 'good teaching' is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs...A child is not truly using his higher order thinking skills until he no longer believes in absolutes of right and wrong."
Bloom is a psychologist, and humanist and is perhaps best known for developing Outcome-Based Education and Mastery Learning. He is renowned for promoting the notion that there are no right or wrong answers and is quoted as saying, “The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students”
(How is it that schools are a place not to simply learn?)
Chester M. Pierce is Emeritus Harvard professor and an M.D. a psychiatrist. He's published over 180 books over the years and was founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, was national Chairperson of the Child Development Associate Consortium, a Commander in the US Navy and has been senior consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Air Force; advisor to the Children's Television Network (Sesame Street, Electric Company); and advisor to the US Arctic Research Commission.
It is this same man who, at the 1973 Childhood International Education Seminar, openly declared that five-year-old children, when they first go to school, go there “mentally ill.” He is often quoted (from transcripts of the event) as having said, “Every child in America entering school at the age of 5 is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well — by creating the international child of the future.”
(Where I come from, parents send their 5 year old kids to American school expecting they will come back home still respecting authority in the classroom, in the neighborhood and community and even in the home. They hope that kids in school will learn to read and write and maybe even learn some history, embrace the ideal of freedom and understand what it stands for. What comes back home from school is many times vastly different than most parents would expect, and we can only wonder if it's because of influential words from men like Pierce and what is carried forth into educational arenas, by their teachings.)
This was written as what is now commonly known as Parent Partnership Programs were sweeping the nation, gathering up homeschoolers and would-be homeschoolers left and right. into the public school system. Many families were swept directly into public school without even knowing that they were no longer homeschooling under the home-based education law that so many homeschooling families worked so hard to get on the books.
Lessons Learned
Wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense:
but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.
................................................................................................ ECCLESIASTES 7:12
A gift has arrived! Local school districts now extend new alternative school programs as an outreach to the home schooling community. It's not regular school of course, it's "alternative school," an alternative to the traditional public school classroom, but it still public school and it's coming to a school district near you.
Homeschoolers should look carefully at this gift, because at first glance these programs look a lot like what has traditionally been thought of as "homeschooling." They may look like homeschooling, feel like homeschooling and may even be called a "homeschool" program, but anyway you look at it, it is not homeschooling. The sad part is that these cleverly crafted programs seem to have a lot to offer. They come with a price however. Their cost: freedom, and taxation.
In a letter dated April 2005, I was personally invited via a letter in my mailbox, addressed to me, asking me to consider their kind offerings. Their literature offered me, an average homeschooler, “additional support,” and even “ a reprieve,” from the daily routine of homeschooling. "
Complete with the testimony from other homeschooling families, they offered the recipient of their letter elective classes, a meeting place for classes, financial aid, a sense of belonging to a community, and even their own professional expertise in goal planning. It was obvious to me that the offer believed itself to be the homeschooler’s dream come true. To receive such gracious benefits all I had to do was go to the local school and enroll today.
Funny, I never knew the public school was in support of homeschooling. In fact, history shows they are not. They have been supporting the homeschool community for five years? Really? That's funny. I have never known the public school to like it when parents remove thier kids from the roster at the local school. I had heard about these programs though and I knew they were not homeschool. But could I be wrong? Was it possible the students in the program are still "home schooled"?
I immediately called the PPP school office and specifically asked if students in the Parent Partnership Program they offered were homeschoolers or if they were public school students. The secretary who answered the phone said, “They are public school students.”
People in these programs, people who write these letters to homeschooling families must understand, these public school programs are not homeschool. Furthermore, people who value, not only homeschooling, but the public education system should have a sense of responsibility regarding the money spent by our government on education.
Homeschoolers need to remember that the freedom to homeschool was not something simply given to them by the friendly school district who believed it really was the best thing to do for children. It's time to count the real cost of these strange public school programs. Maybe it's even time to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It looks a lot like a horse to me, a Trojan Horse. A long time ago, after a great war between the Greeks and the Trojans had finally ended, a great lesson was learned, a lesson we all could learn from.
The war was over. The Trojans had been victorious. The Greeks, defeated at last, had taken every last one of their marbles and gone home.
At last all was well in Troy. That is, until one day, just outside the city gates, the still happily celebrating Trojans noticed a very large beautifully crafted wooden horse. They could tell by it's decorations that it had been made by the Greeks, for it was beautifully ornate, larger than life, and it was truly a sight to see! Some people in the city thought it must have been left as a gift, an offering of peace. After all, it was a horse, and as a horse, it was, no doubt, perfectly suited for Troy, which was known as the City of Horses.
Other people of the city were suspicious. They could not help wondering why the enormous, although beautiful horse was there. They wondered why the Greeks would leave a gift behind, after all, they had lost the battle. They were suspicious, however they were nice people, and because they were nice people, and because the horse appeared to be so magnificent, all the suspicion slowly dwindled away into a teeny tiny doubt, and then even that disappeared as they became enamored with the beauty of the magnificent horse.
Enamored with the horse’s appearance, infatuated with its possible monetary value, some of the more prominent people of Troy who decided that they felt good about the horse, even thought it was the way the God had blessed them for their victory in war, tied ropes around the huge wooden beast and pulled it through the gates of the city. There they could really marvel at it's beauty. They talked about how great the horse was and how wonderful the Greeks were to have left it for them and then night fell and the gates were locked and they all went to sleep, happy that they had been given a gift of such great value.
Unfortunately for Troy, sometime in the night something strange happened to the horse. Enemy troops emerged from the inside of the horse and Greek troops overtook the city. In the morning there was nothing but a city was left in ruins and all the inhabitants of Troy were destroyed.
Fact or fiction, history or myth, it doesn't really matter, the lesson is the same today as it was 1500 years ago. It's a lesson in the nature of deception. The “gift horse” was a lot more insidious than what it appeared to be. To believe that the public school has created a wonderful gift for the homeschooling community is ludicrous, akin to believing the defeated Greek warriors left a gift.
In case you do not know, it was not long ago that state run schools and private schools were the only options for people with school aged children to comply with the compulsory education laws mandated by the state. Private schools were expensive and public schools were battlegrounds, full of anti-God and anti-family philosophies propagated by men such as Charles Darwin, Benjamin Bloom, Paul Brandwin and Chester Pierce. With educational excellence waxing cold and madmen usurping parental authority as they crowned themselves the custodians of the next generation, parents did not sit idly by and do nothing. Some sat on school boards, others started PTA and some rendered unto Caesar what was due Caesar, they paid their taxes, took their own children out of the government school and proceeded to teach them themselves, at home.
That is when all out “War” ensued. There was courtroom battle after courtroom battle and the battle raged all the more as people choose to stand firm in their convictions to educate their own children at home. Parent after parent, family after family went to court and took a stand against the public school system. It was years of legal combat, but after thousands of court cases demonstrating earnestly that homeschool was a viable option for a child's education, laws were made and the war was over.
In 1993, by the grace of a power greater than “we,” the right for parents to actually keep their children in the home and teach them to read and write without the interference of the state was won. The Home based Education law was established and homeschooling became a viable option, an option set into law. Legally defined in black and white, in all 50 states, home-based education became known as "homeschooling."
All of the assertions of the NEA and friends were relegated to silence. Homeschooling, proven to have merit made a new option, one where parents could raise and educate their children without the direct involvement or interference of the state. It was a defeat for the NEA and other entities who wanted more than anything to have greater influence in classrooms, even to the point that they would happily prevent parents, especially Christian Parents, from rocking their own cradles.
It's interesting that in an effort to recapture the funding loss due to the mass exodus of “independent educators” who took their children out of government schools through this movement of homeschooling, school officials all over America have taken up the business venture of 'creating special partnership programs that target "homeschoolers." You would think that perhaps they would instead focus on kids in the classroom, making the existing schools better. Instead, they find creative ways to spend the national deficit.
The amount of capital given to a school district to operate depends on the numbers in enrollment. When parents do not enroll their children in the local school, these numbers go down and so does the funding. When more students enroll in school the numbers go up and so does the funding. The solution then might be to have a higher enrollment. The problem is, it takes a while to grow a kid, besides that a lot of kids who used to be enrolled are now homeschooling.
By offering a partnership program, the district can receive full funding for the student, but they end up with a surplus because the students in the alternative program do not have to be in school like all the other students. They only have to be on school premises, for so many hours per week, and the funding for them is the same as every other student. Staffing is less too because the teaching is done at home by the parent. The school saves on space and teachers and gets all the money for a student! Well, they get almost all the money because, after all, this is a partnership. A set portion of the districts amount per student is delegated for use by the parent. Parents get money that they can spend on books, materials, classes and curriculum used for the education of the student enrolled in the public school PPP.
Yours and my tax dollars hard at work. And while a public school student in a regular classroom has no freedom to input what teachers they spend the year with and brings home a list asking parents to buy crayons, pencils, paper and a tissue box for classroom use for the poor starving school district, the Partnered Parent is having the school pay for whatever they'd like including ballet class and piano lessons.
These PPP's so graciously offered by the schools are beautiful aren't they? It will be whatever you want it to be- just dream up any class you want … tell the district exactly what you desire and “poof” it magically appears. Never mind that over time you sense that the program is changing. Never mind that it appears slightly unstable as new directives from the state fall into place that were not there in the beginning. Never mind that you suddenly feel as if you are under some odd restraint. Never mind that it's a partnership and your yoke is showing. Remember how beautiful the public school system and all it's philosophies really are. After all, it's everything you ever wanted, you and your tax dollars are working! Nevermind that it's all done in the name of the entire public school system.
History tells of duplicitous horses and Greek bearing gifts.
If the home school community is anything like the city of Troy, then it is only a matter of time before everyone will see the true nature of the beast. Meanwhile, the program is appealing, the monetary reimbursement is alluring, and the camaraderie of the many trusted freinds involved in the program is appealing. There is even a beautiful, newly remodeled building to call your "home away from home." How interesting that the same entity that ferociously fought parents in every state across the nation now wants provide quality opportunities and resources to enhance “learning goals” for the potential home-schooled student!
A horse? Look at it this way... it's a manageable horse, one that you can train yourself to do anything you want it to do. It will help you carry your burden, you know, give those home schooling parents a reprieve from the daily routine of schooling their own children in their homes around the kitchen tables, that is, only if they will let it in.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
NOTES:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Benjamin Bloom, mentioned in the article above is the author of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals, a 1964 work considered to be a "landmark" in education and a textbook used in teacher education courses, In it he says, "a large part of what we call 'good teaching' is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs...A child is not truly using his higher order thinking skills until he no longer believes in absolutes of right and wrong."
Bloom is a psychologist, and humanist and is perhaps best known for developing Outcome-Based Education and Mastery Learning. He is renowned for promoting the notion that there are no right or wrong answers and is quoted as saying, “The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students”
(How is it that schools are a place not to simply learn?)
Chester M. Pierce is Emeritus Harvard professor and an M.D. a psychiatrist. He's published over 180 books over the years and was founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, was national Chairperson of the Child Development Associate Consortium, a Commander in the US Navy and has been senior consultant to the Surgeon General of the US Air Force; advisor to the Children's Television Network (Sesame Street, Electric Company); and advisor to the US Arctic Research Commission.
It is this same man who, at the 1973 Childhood International Education Seminar, openly declared that five-year-old children, when they first go to school, go there “mentally ill.” He is often quoted (from transcripts of the event) as having said, “Every child in America entering school at the age of 5 is mentally ill because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well — by creating the international child of the future.”
(Where I come from, parents send their 5 year old kids to American school expecting they will come back home still respecting authority in the classroom, in the neighborhood and community and even in the home. They hope that kids in school will learn to read and write and maybe even learn some history, embrace the ideal of freedom and understand what it stands for. What comes back home from school is many times vastly different than most parents would expect, and we can only wonder if it's because of influential words from men like Pierce and what is carried forth into educational arenas, by their teachings.)
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