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Thorough Biblical Argument and the Emasculation of the Male Head

February 26, 2020 / 6 Comments on Thorough Biblical Argument and the Emasculation of the Male Head

I don’t know how serious the coronavirus is. I hear both super serious and I also hear that it’s being exaggerated as a conspiracy. I don’t want to get it or anyone else to get it. It can kill. We know. There is so much emphasis on it right now, including with the most radical national quarantine I’ve seen in my lifetime. It is portrayed as so horrible, that it seems justified. To stop from spreading the disease, some are forced to stay for a long time in uncomfortable situations. They don’t have a choice. The government has the authority to tell people to stay in their room for weeks without leaving. I don’t hear anyone complaining that the authorities are being mean or extreme or untrustworthy because of their severe requirements.

The male headship of scripture, which is the male headship, functions under the authority of scripture, which means also that it functions with authority from God. God designed male headship in all human institutions. The male head can and should act with authority. What I see today is that if someone differs with the male head in whatever position he may be, the one differing doesn’t need biblical authority. He just challenges and just because he has a challenge, it is a legitimate, worthy challenge to be treated with a kind of gentle, docile respect, perhaps even a giddy smile.

I am a male head in several different capacities: husband, father, pastor, and teacher. I operate with scriptural authority, and that means essentially two things to me. First, God gives me various positions of authority. God put me in these positions. As long as I’m not requiring something unscriptural in those positions of authority from God, what I’m requiring should be done, just because I have authority. Second, even though I have authority, I focus on what scripture says. I don’t major on non-scriptural areas. In those I attempt to give liberty. I give attention to what the Bible says and prioritize scriptural belief and practice.

You could say that I have two layers of authority in my positions of authority. Someone under my authority should do what I say, just because I say it. Yet, I’m not telling people to do non-scriptural things. I’m telling them to do scriptural teaching. It goes even further than that though.

I explain scripture to those under me. I study scripture. I don’t take it out of context. I understand the meaning of the words and the syntax of the passages to which I refer or on which I rely. I’m saying that I’m careful with scripture. I don’t just quote the passage. I expound it. I want the adherents to know why they are doing what they are doing, so that they will believe it’s coming from God.

Here’s what I see happen today. I work at explaining scriptural authority. I have authority already. I could just tell people. I don’t stop there though. I quote the Bible and explain it. What happens? Today I see apathy, attitude, anger, contentiousness, and even defiance. Why? I have heard a number of reasons.

Not necessarily in any order, but I hear that I didn’t say it nice enough. I wasn’t nice. The niceness is a kind of femininity. Style is elevated above authority. Something like “gentleness” can be used as an instrument of insubordination. Everything said is true, but it doesn’t have to be done because the style was sinful according to the hearer. It wasn’t said nicely, so it was abusive. Command voice cannot be used. Another idea I’ve heard here is that authority must be earned, and it’s earned through a soft approach that allows for rejection. The authority shifts from the one in authority to the one under authority.

It’s good to be nice. It’s commendable to treat people in a nice way, to be as nice as they want. It is not a requirement for the hearer to comply. The authority says. Add to that, the authority brings a scriptural explanation.

Also, requirements brought by authority apparently violate boundaries that restrain or inhibit freedom. The one under authority wants freedom emphasized. He requires free will. Ironic, I know. Requirement means coercion. The one in authority must respect a boundary placed by the one under his authority. The hearer needs to be able to choose to do it or he doesn’t have to do it. You might be in authority, but you can’t force him to do it. He doesn’t want to do it, so he doesn’t have to. His acquiescence must be earned. This is where millennials today ghost authority. They don’t want a setting where they’ll be told what to do. This emasculates male headship, where the authority must accommodate and accede.

No boundary dictates to authority, or else it isn’t authority. Authority isn’t earned. It is given by God. Sure, others might listen better if the style of communication is preferred by the hearer. However, that style doesn’t change the authority one bit. Then if someone explains scripture, that doubles the authority. This response to authority is just rebellion against God at the peril of the hearers. The boundary is a capricious one. It is fiction, an ethereal boundary that doesn’t even really exist, like a pink pony.

A further kind of emasculation of male headship is when the one under his authority “disagrees.” Disagreement has some kind of magical property to it in the realm of authority. The one in authority will just have to agree to disagree — in other words, be nice again, when the person not only doesn’t have authority, but he doesn’t have a scriptural explanation. He hasn’t even worked at it.

A corollary to the previous paragraph is calling upon the existence of scriptural disagreement. “Not everyone agrees.” You can find someone who will disagree with about anything, but disagreement is not authority. This fits in with the boundaries argument. Someone wants a safe space to develop his own arguments, but he isn’t developing his own arguments. It’s not safe, because it’s a place of ugly, destructive corruption. But authority is required to wait and wait and wait….and wait….until he comes up with his argument. Until then, he does what he wants. This requires the male head to be a sissy. Not only must he wait, but he must wait with a smile. Verrryy patiently. Send flowers while waiting. Sit still and wait, letting cobwebs form while his authority is being defied. See who is in authority? Not the male head.

It is worse than all of what I’ve described. Today if the male head wants to, well, head, then he’s hurting mental health. The one under authority hears the footsteps of the authority that he defies and feels scared. He might be confronted. He has some heart palpitations. Let’s just call it PTSD. Clinical psychiatrists, most with their own serious problems, call it PTSD. The imposition of authority is a form of abuse in the emasculated society I’m detailing.

Someone in authority, the male head, should be obeyed, and with a good attitude. Someone then who gives thorough biblical argument should be obeyed, and with joy. He’s put that effort in. He should get a thanks. This is manhood. It should be respected, but it is an endangered species. People want male headship to disappear, and as a part of the apostasy in which we live, it could.

Righteousness Preserved through the Ears: I Have Made a Covenant with Mine Ears

February 24, 2020 / 2 Comments on Righteousness Preserved through the Ears: I Have Made a Covenant with Mine Ears

In Job 1:8, God tells Satan about His servant Job, “[T]here is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.” In Job 31, Job offers several explanations for how he fulfilled that commendation of God to Satan. It was no accident or coincidence. Right out of the box in verse 1 he explains with the now famous statement:

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?

In a practical way, Job kept from sin starting with either not looking or by the discontinuation of looking. He doesn’t say, I made a covenant with my will. In other words, he didn’t permit looking with the emphasis of working on his willpower. No, he cut sin off at the looking stage. This is crucial for a man. Obviously for men, there is something to look at out there that isn’t any good.

I’ve looked at bad pictures. I’ve seen nude women in pictures. It seems that there was a temptation for Job to look too. I remember the first time I saw this. It was in jr. high. I wasn’t going out of my way to see anything. The father of a friend of mine was a carpet layer and he was hired to lay carpet at a vacation home on a lake in Wisconsin, when I lived there. We went to help him and also for fishing and other lake activities. While moving furniture and other items in that house to make way for carpet, I picked up a stack of magazines and one fell open and there was my first vision of a naked woman. It is a picture that is impossible then to remove from the mind for a man. I can’t say that I remember it now, but I remember the incident in a very strong way.

Today pornography is worse and easier to be seen than ever. It doesn’t even have to be porn in a technical sense, if one considers this year’s Super Bowl halftime show and still the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It truly is “every man’s battle.” Every. Job kept himself from the sexual sin at the vision stage, a step that also leads to further and worse sinning. Accidental seeing isn’t a sin. Choosing to see it and then continuing to see it is a sin, because of what one can read in Colossians 3:5:

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

All of these, which are short of fornication, are also sin: uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness. Someone can commit these sins by just seeing something with his eyes.

Even in Job 31:1, scripture doesn’t expressly forbid looking at a naked person. The Bible is obviously against it, because it is against nakedness itself in Genesis 3. It is against uncovering nakedness in Leviticus 18 and 20. Canaan was cursed because of a wrong relationship to nakedness in Genesis 9:21-25. The lust of the eyes is of the world, not of God (1 John 2:16). Job stopped his lust by not looking. One should assume from Job 31:1, that someone will not retain his practical righteousness when he permits himself to look.

Job’s covenant with his eyes was not to look, and this was his explained means of retaining his righteousness. The eyes are not the only gate through which travels sensual, lustful, fleshly, worldly content to an adverse affect against righteousness, especially in a day of advanced audio technology, availability, and the greatest “influencers” being those of popular music. Half the top ten in instagram followers are musicians.

Job said the way to righteousness was through the elimination of something not required to eliminate. In the New Testament in varied instances, the Apostle Paul commands, “Flee fornication” or “flee idolatry.” Paul commanded, “Abstain from fornication,” but even further, “Flee fornication.” “Flee fornication” is a command. It is a sin, therefore, not to flee fornication. However, how does someone flee it? He flees it in part by not looking on the maid (Job 31:1), or like means to live righteous. In like manner, he retains righteous living, as Job did, by making a covenant not just with his eyes, but today making a covenant with his ears and not listening or not hearing something that is sensual, fleshly, and worldly.

Today men look upon a maid and listen to a maid. Could listening do anything? In Proverbs 5:3, Solomon writes:

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.

Furthermore, in Proverbs 7:21, Solomon continues on the same theme:

With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him.

Kinds of communication are sensual and lead to sexual sin. Proverbs describes it as dropping as a honeycomb, smoother than oil, and fair speech. These are not just words, but styles of communication. Everyone knows this. Popular music doesn’t just tempt toward sexual sin, but also alcohol, rebellion against authority, foul speech, and many other sins that relate to worldly and fleshly lust.

Job explained how he stayed righteous. He said it was making a covenant with his eyes. Believers today need to make a covenant with their ears regarding popular music. It is a pitfall that is the downfall and destruction for the present and the future of someone who should be living a righteous life.

Versions of Christianity

February 19, 2020 / 10 Comments on Versions of Christianity

If you tire of statements with “the greatest problem in Christianity,” I understand. There can’t be a dozen greatests. No. But some level of great, close to the greatest and maybe the greatest threat to true Christianity today is the existence of various versions of Christianity. When I evangelize, after preaching to many different assorted people, often I turn to someone with me and ask if he thinks that “Christian” is really one.

You may ask, “Well, if they believe in Jesus Christ, then they are saved, right?” Wrong. Many variations exist of both “believe” and “Jesus Christ.” Only one edition is true, but many exist. A modern “Christian” requirement is to accept just any version someone expresses, but my take for the fellow evangelist is quite regularly, “no,” “I don’t know,” “maybe,” or “I don’t think so.” Most people who call themselves Christians, aren’t.

When I’m writing here, I’ve been saying for thirty years, and it’s only gotten worse. What motivates me to write it now are three factors: (1) the question of whether people are really Christians, whom I love dearly — I’d like to see them in heaven, (2) recent attempts to find churches for various people and even myself when I’m traveling, and then more in my face this very moment, (3) looking at the two men across from me at the airport gate with their Christian gear on. Both are male mid to late fifties, both with Christian tattoos and black Christian tee-shirts. There is something cultural here now, I know.

Both men talk with a strain of faux earnest street jargon and a sugary high authenticity cadence, if you know what I mean, dude. One tattoo is a sun burst decorative lion that takes up the whole outer right calf. That, I suppose, is “the Lion of the Tribe of Judah” pigmented onto hairy leg skin. One black t-shirt has the decorative Andy Warhol styled ink print of Roman Catholic Jesus’ head with the oversized crown of thorns, framed by two lines with the words “Reckless Love” in urban grafitti font. The name Jesus in all caps comes on a back with candy striped circus poster font. Both wore high top Vans™ and baggy skate boarder shorts. I heard one say, “It was like, like God was talking to me.”

The dictionary defines “reckless,” “without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action.” Jesus didn’t suffer on the cross without thinking or caring about the consequences. And that little analysis is just. like. me., confining their creative, free expression into my little box unlike the size of God. God is BIG, like their expressions. Furthermore, “reckless” is a play on words! Some plays on words shouldn’t be used. They often still are today, but they shouldn’t be.

The kind of suffering Jesus endured on the cross might be considered reckless it was so extreme. However, “reckless” activity is always associated with something like one might see on the cover of a Harlequin romance with half a man’s shirt ripped off. Teenagers need lecturing for being reckless. A reckless behavior would be jumping off a cliff with the expectation that an angel would swoop under and deliver you. That’s what Jesus didn’t do. WJDD.

Not a single explicit verse of scripture could repudiate what I just described. Many applied scriptures, however, do prohibit such representation of God, Jesus, or sacred things. Almost all the Bible requires application. Not a single explicit verse of scripture prohibits wearing a Ronald McDonald outfit with orange wig while preaching on Sunday morning. Many verses of scripture, if applied, prohibit wearing such clown costume for such occasion. Christian designers and marketers shouldn’t be thinking of a way to get Jesus’ name into the Jack Daniels logo.

Everyone understands associations today. What do you associate with a red baseball hat with two lines of white block print? Something about Jesus wouldn’t work in the messaging there, no matter what someone thinks of Donald Trump. Everyone today understands the ramifications of “black face.” It is as simple as kindergarten exercise in matching with the line drawn from the hammer in one column to the hammer in the second. The hammer doesn’t match with the blue balloon, and everyone knows it.

Two dangerous simultaneous contradicting propositions coincide: just one Christianity exists and yet you can’t criticize one that isn’t. A kind of consensus exists that it would be reckless to do so, and today it isn’t just reckless, it is criminal. It is hate speech. This kind of unwillingness to judge, a paralysis, even disallowance, of discernment, characterizes an era of genderless bathrooms. The whole world sits at a four way stop, unwilling to go. Compliance is necessary for important issues like the material of straws and propriety of pronouns.

I say unwillingness to judge, rather than inability. People judge. Memes right now run wild judging the folks in Wuhan for wearing masks but then also eating bats and rats for their magical properties. The emperor with no clothes still works as a metaphor. Labeling not Christianity as Christianity leaves people with a false sense of security. They are the very ones that will brag about their version of Christianity at the Great White Throne before Jesus says, depart from me. It would be better for them to know about it now. Jesus won’t say, I’m going to have to agree to disagree.

What are the varied versions of Christianity? How many versions are there? The acceptance of disagreeable doctrine is so rampant today within the broad parameters of what it means to be a Christian, that it has become commonplace to have at least four views of about everything. There are actually far more than four, but attempts are made to reduce the number of views to representative ones and the views are argued in a way to indicate that any one of the four won’t exclude someone from Christianity. Perhaps a four view book on exclusivity could be written for the purposes of including every exclusivist.

Christians themselves know there are multiple versions of the Bible. A chief argument for Moslems with Christianity is that only one version of the Koran exists, evidence that their religion lacks corruption. That’s a laugher — one version of Islam! We Christians have many! We coexist. Christians could argue back and probably should to be honest, multiple versions of the Bible go along with multiple versions of Christianity. Christians are proud of their diversity of doctrine. “We don’t stress over the details!” However, it’s not just details anymore. There are vast chasms of difference between acceptable versions. This only promotes further assent to doctrinal divergence, which reproduces apostasy like possums.

A one Christianity can’t exist in the compulsion of many. I understand the pressure to capitulate. Let’s not and say we did, is very powerful. Someone gets to have his own version. Anyone who confronts that version as false thwarts “freedom.” Human choice is sovereign. This has spawned a variation on grace and sanctification where Jesus will cover for all the behavior outside the lines. Jesus gives that freedom. I can be me, and wherever that clashes with Jesus, He’s already atoned on the cross. This results in less judgment, and that feeling of freedom from judgment is a new version of love. Everyone is nice to everyone no matter what the lifestyle, except for one that judges someone else for doing something wrong. This leaves the only unacceptable version of Christianity to be actual Christianity.

Insanity: The Children Dictating “Boundaries” to the Parents

February 17, 2020 / 1 Comment on Insanity: The Children Dictating “Boundaries” to the Parents

This video illustrates the essence of what I’m writing:

Henry Cloud is a PhD clinical psychiatrist, what we sometimes call a “shrink,” as is John Townsend. In 1992 the two co-wrote a book, Boundaries, in which they mix Christian counseling with secular psychiatry, a dangerous synergism (a critical Christian review by Christian Discernment is found here, 48 page pdf). Cloud and Townsend tell us that “church is not a totally safe place and it does not consist of totally safe people.” Cloud and Townsend are not safe people and their book isn’t a safe book. However, many millennials especially are taking them to heart.

“Safe” is a psychobabble. Of course, the whole world isn’t completely safe, but the standard for safeness is the Bible, and especially not the book, Boundaries. Who wouldn’t disagree with the general concept of boundaries? I teach them. A principle of boundaries forms the basis of the biblical practice of separation, so there’s always going to be something to agree with Cloud and Townsend. An ironic necessary boundary should be to keep a boundary between secular psychiatry and the Bible. The following is the essence of the teaching of the Boundary teaching:

Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. If I know where my yard begins and ends, I am free to do with it what I like. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. However, if I do not “own” my life, my choices and options become very limited.

As this relates to millennials and younger, I’m reading or hearing from many that the children dictate to the parents the boundaries in a relationship, very much like the above video. They are arbitrary boundaries, not akin to biblical separation. If those children set up capricious limitations, self-set and unilateral, on their own terms, for their parents, apparently those are good, no questions asked. Any questioning or challenging is a violation of this self-serving standard, literally a kind of criminal behavior to them in their endeavor for mental health. However, freedom isn’t freedom to sin.

Parents should intervene in the case of unscriptural behavior. Children should be required to give scriptural answers. True freedom isn’t an allowance or some kind of trump card for whatever behavior, unquestioned. This is a cult-like symptom on the level of Scientology or the like. It is contrary to true freedom in Christ, and is actually a kind of deceived bondage, in which someone never feels the necessary pain of confrontation over sin. Someone isn’t free if he walls himself off from every challenge. People who are unwilling to subject themselves to challenge and from God-ordained spheres of sovereignty, like parents and the church, are not truly free.

No one has liberty or freedom to disobey scripture. Every unscriptural behavior deserves questioning and challenging. Putting up a fence against confrontation, especially from parents is disobedient, ungodly, rebellious behavior. Those children who put up these humanly devised boundaries keep themselves in an artificial, deceitful world of their own making, where they are the sovereigns of their own life, actually don’t want impositions against their own lust. The boundary is lust. A parent should penetrate that boundary for the deliverance of the child. In addition to that, the Apostle Paul speaks of this in Romans 12, where he says that those who do not fit into the body, a historic one of true and authoritative doctrine and practice, think more highly of themselves than they ought to think.

Children do own their choices. They are accountable to them. That does not mean that they own their lives. Their lives are under a hiearchy designed by God, laid out in many different places in the New Testament. These same children pay taxes, for instance. Why not put up boundaries there? They submit to an employer to make money — no boundaries there. They use credit cards. They are also responsible to God and they won’t get away with dishonoring their parents and church authority.

Looking for Teachers for Our School

February 17, 2020 / Leave a comment

Our church operates a traditional school and we need lower elementary grade teachers. All our teachers love teaching in the school. We need some because of family commitments and circumstances. If you read here and might be able to come to teach in our school in California, or you know someone who could teach, let us know or let them know about this post. Comment on this post. I won’t publish the comment, but I’ll read it. You could serve the Lord in California if that is something your church agreed for you and was willing to send you out here in fellowship with our church.

Jessie Penn-Lewis & Evan Roberts: Applications From Their Lives and Doctrines, II (part 21 of 22)

February 14, 2020 / Leave a comment

The content of this post is now available in the study of:

1.) Evan Roberts

2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905

3.) Jessie Penn-Lewis

on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.

Reasons I Think I Should Throw In The Towel

February 12, 2020 / 13 Comments on Reasons I Think I Should Throw In The Towel

I have reasons I think I should throw in the towel. The bar is stuck on my chest and I don’t have a spotter. I want to quit. I’m looking for the nearest exit, hoping the curtains will close. Some of my readers might view this as good news. I should have given up long ago, and the world will be a better place. Their collective voice in my head is one of the reasons. Perhaps I can help someone like you, who like me, shouldn’t be doing this anymore, but you can’t come up with good enough reasons to wave the white flag of surrender.

I don’t deserve to be doing this.

I’m a sinner. I sin all the time. I think about things I’ve done wrong and I am racked with guilt. Then I feel like a hypocrite. No one as bad as me should do what I do, let alone call himself a Christian. Many people through the years have also treated me like I shouldn’t be doing this and it seems proud to argue with them. I should just accede to their assessment. So many people couldn’t all be wrong.

Then I think of almost every servant of God in the Bible. None of them deserved to do this either. Some of them did worse than I have done. If I stop because I don’t deserve it, then I cast doubt on anyone doing the work of the Lord, especially the Apostle Paul, who said he was the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15) and did not do what he would and did do what he would not (Rom 7:18-23).

So many people hate me.

I know for a fact that I am a hated man by many people and to varied degrees. Some who hate me are significant. People who have been close to me hate me. Family members hate me. Former church members hate me. Former friends hate me. Theologians hate me. I’m often treated with hate. I’ve read hate notes to me. I’ve received hateful phone calls. I’ve had people tell me that many people hate me.

Some of those who hate me tell me that I bring it on myself. It seems convincing to me, that I bring the hatred on myself. A prominent fundamentalist told someone that there’s something wrong about me. That makes me question myself. I think there’s something wrong about me too. I fail. I do things that make people hate me. People tell me that people hate me because of things I do. It’s my fault that they hate me. I can give a longer list, because I’ve heard something in my lifetime in the way of pages, explaining justifiable hatred of me.

I see looks on people’s faces. I had a man tell me a few years ago that I was the worst pastor he’s ever seen. I can hear a hearty “amen” from many readers. Almost every person who has ever left our church has blamed me for various reasons that could turn into a small booklet at least. Whenever they go somewhere else, it is often reported to me that they took gigantic leaps in Christian growth when they got away from me. Unfortunately, I have had other pastors say that’s what everyone says everywhere.

When I think about being hated, I want to quit, but then I think about people in the Bible, and not a single servant of God wasn’t hated. Jesus was hated. It seems to be a requirement, to be hated. Jesus said in Luke 6:22-23, rejoice and leap for joy when men shall hate you. Yes, leap for joy. He didn’t say, if you are hated, but when you are hated. Jesus said this tell-tale and informative statement about being hated in John 15:18: “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”

It seems that Noah was hated by about everyone on planet earth as he built the ark. God’s chosen people hated Jeremiah before they cast him into a pit. Nearly all of Joseph’s brothers hated him. They wanted him dead. I’m surprised sometimes I’m still alive, because I think people want me dead. Then John had to write (1 John 3:13): “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” Those in John’s audience were wondering about being hated. He said, “Marvel not,” literally, cease wondering.

I hate being hated. I think I could easily be liked if I tried to be liked. Being liked and doing my job seem to clash. I’m sure many readers disagree with that about me. They’re sure that, no, I’m hated because of being me. I’m open to the idea that it’s all my fault that I’m hated. I’ve had people try to help me not be so hated. I have. They’ve shared some psychology. They’ve given tips. And after listening to everything they say, I’m sure I would be disobedient to God to do the things they suggest (or stop doing things) necessary so that I won’t be hated.

I see far more failure than I do success.

I’ve heard the explanation about how that the best baseball players in the world fail almost 70% of the time. Yes, successful hitters connect around 30% of the time. I know about Abraham Lincoln, who failed and failed and failed and failed, and then he became president. I know that story. I’ve told it. I’ve had so much failure, way more failure, exponentially more failure, than I have success. And when I’ve failed, I’ve been exposed for it. People have reminded me that I’m a failure.

Almost every mistake I make gets pointed out. For as scary as people have said I am because of my voice, visage, and persona, it doesn’t stop people from telling me what I’m doing wrong. I had a homeless man tell me that I looked stern. I’ve been told I’m too strict and that I coddle people too much. I’ve been told that I’m too emotional and that I’m too dry. Because I haven’t seen that many professions of faith, I’ve had people tell me that I don’t know what I’m doing.

After we first started our church, a veteran church planter stopped in on a Sunday morning at the most discouraged point in my first year. I knew I was bitter at the time. He sat in the second row, right in front of me, with a yellow legal pad, and took pages and pages of notes as I preached to a miniscule group in the multipurpose room slash library of a public elementary school. He made dramatic turns of each 8 1/2 x 14 page. Afterwards, he reamed me out up one side and down the other. I felt like Fred Flintstone after Wilma was done with him.

We rarely see anyone saved at our church. We grew very, very slow and I always had the opinion that we might implode and crash and die any week. I just tried not to think about it.

My wife doesn’t lie. She thinks not lying means telling the truth. I mean, I asked. If I didn’t want to know, I shouldn’t have asked. So she told me and tells me. Unvarnished comes to mind.

I’m poor. I don’t have social security. I have to do a lot of manual labor myself because I can’t afford to hire someone to do it. Sometimes I think that I spend enough time with the building that I must be in charge of a building, not a church. People tell me all the time how I fail. I hear all the time all things could be better. We baptized a couple about a month ago in what seemed like frozen water, because the heater and pump on the baptistry didn’t work.

I get some hits. I close my eyes when I swing and the ball bounces off the bat and manages to elude an infielder. My successes remind me of some of the football teams on which I played, small but slow. What I have managed to do is form a biblical view of success that gives me great satisfaction and fulfillment, and I know I’m not lying to myself.

In the parable of the soils, good ground is twenty five percent. Noah brought eight people with him on the ark after over 100 years of preaching. I know that you already know these examples. Paul said that “neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth” (1 Cor 3:7). Planting and watering aren’t seeing results, but that’s what we do. We plant and water. Paul compared himself to a galley slave, which meant he was just responsible for pulling his oar (1 Cor 4:1-2). He was also a house slave, who was a steward of his master’s property, and all that was required of him was that he was found faithful.

Paul later wrote in the same epistle of 1 Corinthians 15, that his labor was not in vain in the Lord (15:58). Most of what’s on this earth is vain (Ecclesiastes). Labor in the Lord is not vain. I get considerable joy out of just doing what God told me what to do. That dovetails with being hated above, because a lot of what God requires, people hate. I’ve seen that again and again, which is why most people don’t want to do it. For me, the love of God must outweigh the pleasure of being liked by people.

I may not pastor the rest of my life. If I wasn’t pastoring our church, it would be in good hands. That reminds me of Mattthew 7, where Jesus said you’ll be known by your fruits. The fruits in that context are your followers as a leader. I’ve got solid church members, who would carry on if I were gone. I don’t think it’s because of me, it’s because Jesus promised to be with us and the gates of Hell would not prevail against us.

If I don’t pastor, I’ll evangelize, even be an evangelist, which I think is a missionary. I would go somewhere else to evangelize like my wife and I did in 1987 when we came to California. I think I should throw in the towel. I’ve thought that for awhile, but I can’t do it. They’re not good reasons for doing so. I would hate quitting more than I want to quit. They are reasons, but I’ve got better ones, legitimate ones not to throw in the towel. There could be good reasons for me to stop being a pastor and turn our church over to a qualified individual. That wouldn’t mean quitting the ministry. It would mean going on to greater ministry for me either foreign or domestic. I would love that. That might happen sooner than you think.

Commands Christians Break Who Listen to Pop/Rock Music

February 5, 2020 / 18 Comments on Commands Christians Break Who Listen to Pop/Rock Music

A discussion on music breaks down into at least two general categories: what you use personally and what you use in church. Some professing Christians say you can both use personally and worship with any music you want. Others believe that you can listen to anything personally, but are limited in the worship of a church. Then there are those who say both are limited. I take the latter position, but I’m going to deal only with the first part in this post, what you use personally.

To be sure of what I’m writing, I need to define pop/rock music. “Pop” means “popular,” and maybe some good music is popular, so I said pop/rock to be clear. For sake of definition, I’m putting pop/rock as a bigger umbrella over all sorts of music with the rock beat, which includes rock, rap, heavy metal, grunge, adult contemporary, and country. Some may wonder why jazz, blues, bluegrass or such kind did not make this list. They could make the list, but I want to start for the sake of this post with the first list. Some music is worse than other. As a whole what I’m describing is the world’s music. It has particular characteristics to it that accompany the spirit of the age.

I hear some pretty conservative evangelical Christian podcasts that use pop/rock for their theme, their ledes, or their transitions. It sounds incongruous to what they say or teach on their programs. This occurs more often than ever too. It’s rare that anyone questions musical style anymore. It is a small percentage of professing Christianity now. I know that a lot of professing Christians who collect and habitually listen to pop/rock, even to the extent of being big fans of many different secular bands, singers, or players.

To reject forms or styles of music is to believe that kinds or types of music are immoral. They are ungodly. Listening to, singing, or playing them is wrong. For this post, I’m not giving an in depth answer on why a musical style can be sinful. The most basic reason is that music has meaning like language and it can communicate something sinful, just like language can. It really is worse than that.

Someone could use a foul word. That’s wrong. However, the use of corrupt communication doesn’t delude and ruin like pop/rock music does. I contend that bad music hurts people worse than false doctrine. I can hear someone asking, why doesn’t the Bible warn us about it then? Scripture does warn about the essence of ungodly music, which is lust. Lust is the means by which someone is dragged into sin and music is the means, method, or instrumentation of it.

Scripture is filled with verses prohibiting and warning against lust. The lust of pop/rock is the problem. The lust of what the Bible speaks manifests itself in many various ways that require discernment to identify and then avoid. Through the years, I’ve seen dozens of professing Christians dragged away from God by their music. Their life becomes more and more profane and ungodly or unholy and they don’t even know it. They can’t see it. This is also fed or influenced by others who listen to the wrong music, and then both give approval to the other. It immerses them in the world to the extent that their lives become less about God and more about the world and themselves and then various and numerous sins. Always more and other types of sinning expand and multiply in their lives.

Among millennials today, the music results in rebellion against their parents. Anything that gets in the way of lust is a problem, which is why 2 Peter 2:10 talks about those walking after their own lust speaking evil of dignities. Authorities like churches, pastors, and parents regulate music to defeat lust, provoking the devotees to pop/rock. The music feeds lust and lust feeds the music. The two feed off each other in an insatiating manner, driving someone deeper and deeper into lust. Sin arises from lust (James 1:13-17).

First, 1 Peter 2:11 commands, “abstain from fleshly lusts.” Listening to pop/rock in any of its forms disobeys this command in 1 Peter 2:11. Then it says that disobeying that command wars against your soul. Listening to pop/rock music wars against the soul, that is, it does great damage to your soul. That’s not all.

Second, Romans 13:14 commands, “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Listening to pop/rock makes provision for the flesh, which is a nuance of difference from not abstaining from fleshly lust. God says “make not provision,” and this professing Christian says to God, “No, I’m going to make provision anyway.”

Third, Romans 12:2 commands, “be not conformed to this world.” Pop/rock music conforms to this world, which is the spirit of the age, and conforms its listener to the world. Pop/rock is worldly. Then, by loving the pop/rock, this is how someone loves the world, violating another related and a fourth command in 1 John 2:15, “Love not the world.” The listener to pop/rock loves the world. The same verse goes on to say that the love of the Father is not in him. You cannot love pop/rock music and love the Father. No man can serve two masters.

All of these commands are related, but slightly different, is a fifth command in 2 Timothy 2:22, “Flee also youthful lusts.” Listening to pop/rock music is not fleeing youthful lusts, but following after youthful lusts. In John 8:44, Jesus said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” Rather than obey God about lusts, this person follows after the devil, which is what someone does when he does those lusts.

A sixth command comes in Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

“Think on these things” is the command. In particular, think on “whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely . . . if there be any virtue.” I’m not talking about words, but righteous, pure, lovely, and virtuous music. Thinking about pop/rock is disobeying the command to think on these things. When someone is not thinking about those things Paul commanded to think on, he is defying that command. Many more ramifications come from not thinking those things. This relates to Romans 12:2, which would be to disobey a seventh command: “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This professing Christian listening to pop/rock isn’t being transformed by listening, because his mind is not being renewed. Those two commands, think on these things, and in essence, renew your mind, are violated with listening to pop/rock.

What happens when these above commands are disobeyed? In Mark 4:19, Jesus describes it well, when He says, “And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” Lust chokes the word. I’ve presented the Word of God many times to individuals deluged in and deluded by pop/rock, and they can’t pull themselves away from their regular selfish activities. Christianity requires sacrifice, but they want their lust even more titillated by music than it already is.

Pop/rock violates much other scripture, but it disobeys these seven commands. This disobedience is sin in itself, but it is sin that will lead to further and greater sin. Literature attests that most women who fornicate, almost one hundred percent of them, have been affected by music that led to the fornication. It is no wonder so much fornication exists today.

Immodest dress and lust go together. I didn’t see the halftime show of this year’s (2020) Super Bowl, but I saw clips in news features. Skin tight and seductive garments on women go with the pop/rock music that is played. They move their body parts to that music in a sexual manner. I’ve seen this kind of evil progression occur many times in my life, including recently with someone I know. They begin secretly listening to pop/rock music, become rebellious, and shortly thereafter they flaunt their bodies in immodest clothing.

Obeying the seven commands means ceasing from the listening to pop/rock music. If you’re listening to it or playing it, stop it now. As John commanded in 1 John 2:1, “Sin not.”

In 1 Corinthians 7 the Apostle Paul Nukes the Wokeness of Professing Christian Millennials, Including Those Who Ghost their Parents

February 4, 2020 / 2 Comments on In 1 Corinthians 7 the Apostle Paul Nukes the Wokeness of Professing Christian Millennials, Including Those Who Ghost their Parents

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Part Seven Part Eight

What if a Christian lives in a social condition in an institutional way that doesn’t please him? The Apostle Paul deals with this in 1 Corinthians 6 and mainly 7. Slavery was rampant at that time in the first century. Paul speaks to many institutional situations: marriage, singleness, circumcision or not, unbelieving spouse, slave or free, widow, and a daughter and her father. Each of them represent unwanted personal situations and the instruction of the Apostle is the same: don’t attempt institutional social change for personal reasons, even slavery.

You may not want to be married. You may not like being single. You may feel a pain from your identification with the incorrect ethnic group, either a Jew (circumcised) or Gentile (uncircumcision). You may not like your marriage or find it uncomfortable or unpreferred, because your spouse is an unbeliever. You may feel the mistreatment of slavery to many varied degrees of difficulty and affliction. A man has proposed to marry you, you want to marry him, and you don’t like it that your father says ‘no’ to that. Obviously if the father says to his daughter, you are not moving out on your own, when she wants to move out, married or unmarried, it would be an identical situation. All of these social conditions or institutions acquiesce to pleasing God for Christians.

As a Christian, the social conditions or societal institutions are not about yourself. You are bought with a price and you glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God’s (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). You can glorify God as a married person, as a single, as an uncircumcised person or as a circumcised person, married to a believer or an unbeliever, as a slave or free, and as an older daughter still living under the roof of your parents. None of these social conditions stop a believer from glorifying God. However, an obsession with changing a social condition, because it isn’t convenient, it involves some suffering, it is dissatisfying, it isn’t fun, or it doesn’t allow for the “freedom” that a professing Christian wants is not a reason to end the social condition. The reason must be glorifying the Lord.

Almighty God through the Apostle Paul says if you’re single and can’t stop fornication, then marry. If singleness is not going to be about the glory of God, because of the temptation to sexual sin, then your social condition, if possible, should be changed to marriage. Since that is such a vital part of marriage, husband and wife should not defraud each other, whether they feel like it or not. It isn’t commanded, but if staying single would bring greater glory to God, someone should do that.

Earlier in chapter 6 (vv. 1-12), even if a lawsuit was lawful against another church member, the Christian should depend on the church to resolve the conflict. Church members shouldn’t be suing other church members, even if it is lawful, just because they think they’ll get a better decision. Maybe they even trust the secular courts above the church, even if they shouldn’t. The glory of God, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the submission to the God-ordained authority of the church is more important than the personal interests of an individual church member.

What Paul describes as Christianity in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7 doesn’t seem like the Christianity of today. Today the glory of God subordinates itself to feelings, convenience, comfort, and personal interests, especially among millennials. There is no slavery in the United States today. There is even regulation against racial discrimination in most societal institutions and settings. Churches are not intended to fight for changes in social conditions in society. They are intended to stay in them and live the Christian life. The Apostle Paul writes (1 Cor 7:20-23):

20 Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. 21 Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. 22 For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ’s servant. 23 Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.

Serve God either as a slave or a free man. Just because you are a slave doesn’t mean you aren’t a free man. If a Christian finds himself in the Soviet Union, the goal isn’t to escape from behind the iron curtain, but to serve God behind it, or like situations.

Today Christian millennials chafe under the authority of parents and the church. They want the world’s music, dress, entertainment, and recreation without judgment. It’s not that their church and parents are telling them that they can’t live for the glory of God. They are telling them to do that. The Apostle Paul says to stay, not leave. They aren’t leaving because it helps them serve the Lord. They are leaving because it helps them serve themselves. They don’t want the imposition of God ordained authority.

Paul also writes in Galatians 4:1-2:

1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; 2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

The regular treatment of a son until the time appointed by his father is as a servant. It’s up to the father when the son becomes a son and not a servant. Paul uses this social condition as an illustration. Jesus uses it in the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal desired to buck the societal institution. He is today’s millennials.

I don’t envision the homes of Christian parents being like slavery. The children are not being treated like slaves even if that was what Paul taught in Galatians 4:1-2 or even like what we see in 1 Corinthians 7:20-23. Paul says to Christians, accept those conditions. Stay in them. They aren’t even being treated like slaves. They just have to live like a Christian has lived for most of Christian history and they don’t like it. They don’t want to just upend marriages and homes. They want to upend Christianity itself and turn it into something it isn’t. They would never accept slavery, because being a Christian isn’t that important to them. They will just flat out disobey 1 Corinthians 7.

Leaving home, getting outside of the authority of the parents, because of the inconvenience, the discomfort, and personal preferences, is more important than the glory of God for many millennials today. They upend any and every structure of authority to have their own way and even spin it into a moral, high character decision, something about freedom and grace. The priority of changing social conditions circumvents or opposes the glory of God though. Then the millennial children ghost their parents, because they want no accountability for having done it. They left because of preference, but they have a conviction about their own pleasure that requires no further interaction with those who disapprove.

1 Corinthians 7 is in the Bible and it is going to be an eye opener to almost anyone who calls himself a Christian, when he chooses to understand it and apply it. It is the truth and should not be ignored, just because of its inconvenience. It would be worth it for you to open a Bible or a window with the passage in it, so you can follow along. To give 1 Corinthians 7 a general title, I might call it, Being a Christian Is Bigger Than Any Societal or Social Condition You Find Yourself In. It is in a section on the proper use of Christian liberties from 1 Corinthians 6:1 to 11:1.

Changing societal conditions is an acceptable cause in the world. You can get credit for being a Christian and be popular too, unlike the preaching of a true gospel. That turns off the world. It’s similar to leaving the impositions of Christian family. You can’t dress this way. You can’t listen to that. You can’t go there. Those can’t be your friends. A believing wife is required by Paul to stay with her unbelieving husband and sanctify that home. That’s hard, but it brings glory to God. A believing daughter is stay with her father, if he says so, even if she wants to marry. Staying home won’t stop her from glorifying God, if that’s what life is about.

In 1 Corinthians 7 and according to God’s will, glory to God clashes with a life of attempts to change social conditions. God wants acceptance of conditions and change of you. You subordinate yourself to what God wants, because that’s what is most important to you. That’s what is most important period.