It’s a question I’ve been asked many times over the last few decades of ministry, and it’s one I’ve given a pat answer to without ever looking very deeply into the issue myself. That might seem haphazard, but in truth it was never anything I believed was very important. After all, it was nothing I ever planned to participate in, and even if someone did it was hardly something that seemed particularly vile or unspiritual. What am I talking about? Body art. The delicate art of marking one’s skin, usually with pigment inks but sometimes through branding or cutting.
As misunderstood as the book of Daniel is, few books of the Bible offers believers as much detail of -- or as much encouragement from -- end times prophesy. In Christian living, which is often befouled by the worlds hatred, encouragement is in dire need. Though we may understand cognitively that God will triumph, the heart’s understanding often wanes in the face of persecution. Daniel: The Key to Prophetic Revelation, by John Walvoord, makes sense of the crucial and often confusing points of Daniel. The book takes into consideration the “symbolic features” of Daniel’s work, while maintaining that much of it can be interpreted literally.
We started this series with a question: Should Christian’s, or their organizations, assist false (or even hostile) religions when such religions are unjustly treated under American law? One argument against assisting other faiths comes from the former head of the Southern Baptist’s International Mission Board (IMB), “I want no part in supporting a false religion, even if it is in the name of religious freedom.” Yesterday we learned that all American’s, regardless of their religious faith, deserve the same protections under the law. Today we will examine the Bible’s answer to the question we asked at the outset.
So far we have witnessed the beginning of human sin through Adam and Eve, the breaking of sin’s power through the Messiah but we are not yet done with sin. While our relationship with God is partially restored and are guaranteed eternal life for nothing more than trusting Jesus, sin still influences us every day. Sin may be broken, but it still works in us even after we trust Jesus. When will sin end? The answer to that question has two parts, when will we be done with sin and when will sin be destroyed? That’s the topic of today’s post.
One of the common criticisms of the nations of Israel is that the people did “what was right in their own eyes” instead of following the law (Judges 17.6, Judges 21.25, etc.). We are seeing the same indulgence in self-centered morality in America today. Endless demonstrations, violent outbreaks and even state governors refusing to enforce federal law. It is this later disruption to American law that is focus today, and the accusation that Sanctuary Cities are not only illegal but dangerous to the rule of law, something that cannot be justified in any society despite the arguments made by proponents.
In the city of Richland, Washington is a small business owner named Barronelle Stutzman. She is 72 years old and has spent her entire career as a floral artist, designing special works of art for events of varying types. Over the years she has employed other artists and assistants, some of whom were homosexual, and in every case she has treated her employees and clients with the respect they deserve. Barronelle is a person who loves people in a way that she hopes honors her savior Jesus. So why is she being sued by the state of Washington and former client, Robert Ingersol?
If you haven’t read yesterday’s post yet, you will want to do that before reading any further here. Today we’re examining what “religious freedom” means for people of the Muslim faith in America. Obviously all American’s receive the same protections from government contained in the Constitution, including Muslim American’s. They also receive the same religious freedoms – and limitations to that freedom – as every other American which, oddly, works against them more than it does most religions. This is due to their faith being bound to an equally sacred civic law.
Yesterday we left off with the story of original sin and glimpsed at how it, multiplied over one person’s life, has tragic consequences worthy of the worst imaginable punishment. God could have ended humanity then and there, but one thing the serpent told Eve was true, “you shall not surely die.” At least not then and there. God handed out curses all the way around, to Adam, to Eve, the serpent, and even the earth but he wasn’t done with them yet, not any of them. For all but the serpent would have their chance at redemption, something eluded to cryptically by God.
Jesus said to those who came to arrest him on the night he was betrayed by Judas, “This is your hour, and that of the power of darkness!” Dark deeds are usually done in darkness, as was the case last Friday night when around the world those devoted to witchcraft cast a binding spell on the president of the United States. When I heard of their plan earlier in the day I couldn't help but think, “Oh it’s on, witches!” At midnight, a friend of mine and I prayed together for God’s intervention and protection of the Commander in Chief.
After receiving a lot of affirmative, and some not-so-complementary, email about last week’s articles I felt this follow-up was necessary. I maintain that the Southern Baptist Convention’s legal and missions arms did the right thing in helping Muslim neighbors navigate religious freedom laws to get a mosque built, but there are examples of Christian’s crossing a line from helping one’s enemies to actually supporting a false faith. The most recent example of going too far comes from a Christian university in the heart of the very conservative state of Texas, that decided to open a prayer room for its Muslim students.
Should religious organizations support religious freedom? On the surface this question sounds like a no-brainer, of course they should. It is a foundational American value, and one of the first rights our Christian founding fathers built into the Constitution. But what if the religion being supported is opposed – often violently so – to Christianity? That is a question being evaluated by Southern Baptists and two of their organizations at present. The International Mission Board (IMB) and Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) are part of a larger consortium that are helping to remove unfair zoning requirements regarding the construction of mosque in Bernard, New Jersey.
We’ve mentioned before how important it is to take sin seriously, while at the same time not feeling guilty for a forgiven past. That’s a tall order, so Think-Biblically.com decided to take a couple days to examine both those parts to our understanding of sin. Today we take part one: taking sin seriously. There is no better way to show the gravity of sin than to examine a real-life scenario, and there is no better real life scenario than the first sin found in Genesis 3. From this first failure of humanity we learn that sin changes everything.