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On the Lord’s Day, Turn Apps & Email Off On Your Cell Phone
On the Lord’s Day, consider turning off apps, email, and whatever else you can on your cell phone. The first day of the week, Sunday, is not the Sabbath, but there are principles from Israel’s Sabbath that are appropriately applied to the first day of the week, the day of Christian worship, the Lord’s Day (Revelation 1:10; Acts 20:7). How does the Lord’s Day relate to your cell phone? We discussed this issue previously in the post Social Media and Electronics: Addictive Drugs for Christians?. I want to say a bit more about it now.
The Westminster Larger Catechism gives a good summary of principles that are appropriate to set the Lord’s Day apart from the other days of the week (although it improperly equates the Sabbath with the Lord’s Day, as did the Puritans). Please consider the following statements thoughtfully and prayerfully:
What is required in the fourth commandment?
The fourth commandment requireth of all men the sanctifying or keeping holy to God such set times as he hath appointed in his word, expressly one whole day in seven … [since] the resurrection of Christ … the first day of the week … (Deut. 5:12–14, Gen. 2:2–3, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Matt. 5:17–18, Isa. 56:2,4,6–7) … in the New Testament called The Lord’ s day. (Rev. 1:10)
How is … the Lord’s day to be sanctified?
The … Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, (Exod. 20:8,10) not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; (Exod. 16:25–28, Neh. 13:15–22, Jer. 17:21–22) and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy (Matt. 12:1–13) ) in the public and private exercises of God’ s worship: (Isa. 58:13, Luke 4:16, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Ps. 92, Isa. 66:23, Lev. 23:3) and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day. (Exod. 20:8,56, Luke 23:54, Exod. 16:22,25-26,29)
Why is the charge of keeping the [principles of the] sabbath more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors?
The charge of keeping the [principles of the] sabbath is more specially directed to governors of families, and other superiors, because they are bound not only to keep it themselves, but to see that it be observed by all those that are under their charge; and because they are prone ofttimes to hinder them by employments of their own. (Exod. 20:10, Josh. 24:15, Neh. 13:15,17, Jer. 17:20–22, Exod. 23:12)
What are the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment?
The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, (Ezek. 22:26) all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; (Acts 20:7,9, Ezek. 33:30–32, Amos 8:5, Mal. 1:13) all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; (Ezek. 23:38) and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations. (Jer. 17:24,27, Isa. 58:13)
What are the reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, the more to enforce it?
The reasons annexed to the fourth commandment, the more to enforce it, are taken from the equity of it, God allowing us six days of seven for our own affairs, and reserving but one for himself in these words, Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: (Exod. 20:9) from God’ s challenging a special propriety in that day, The seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: (Exod. 20:10) from the example of God, who in six days made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: and from that blessing which God put upon that day, not only in sanctifying it to be a day for his service, but in ordaining it to be a means of blessing to us in our sanctifying it; Wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath-day, and hallowed it. (Exod. 20:11)
Why is the Word Remember set in the beginning of the fourth commandment?
The word Remember is set in the beginning of the fourth commandment, (Exod. 20:8) partly, because of the great benefit of remembering it, we being thereby helped in our preparation to keep it, (Exod. 16:23, Luke 23:54,56, Mark 15:42, Neh. 13:19) and, in keeping it, better to keep all the rest of the commandments, (Ps. 92:13–14, Ezek. 20:12,19–20) and to continue a thankful remembrance of the two great benefits of creation and redemption, which contain a short abridgment of religion; (Gen. 2:2–3, Ps. 118:22,24, Acts 4:10–11, Rev. 1:10) and partly, because we are very ready to forget it, (Ezek. 22:26) for that there is less light of nature for it, (Neh. 9:14) and yet it restraineth our natural liberty in things at other times lawful; (Exod. 34:21) that it cometh but once in seven days, and many worldly businesses come between, and too often take off our minds from thinking of it, either to prepare for it, or to sanctify it; (Deut. 5:14–15, Amos 8:5) and that Satan with his instruments labours much to blot out the glory, and even the memory of it, to bring in all irreligion and impiety. (Lam. 1:7, Jer. 17:21–23, Neh. 13:15–23) (The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Scripture Proofs. (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1996), Questions 116-121)
Let’s consider how these principles relate to your cell phone. While there are many people who spend all day long trying to figure out how to keep you on your phone as long as possible, people who do not make money from such things know that our over-use of the cell phone is bad for us. For me personally, I want to make sure that I am not programming myself to constantly look at my phone whenever I have a free moment, like the average American who looks at his phone 344 times a day. I have therefore used a setting on the phone to make it so that on the Lord’s Day the vast majority of the apps on my phone and Ipad–including my Gmail e-mail app, YouTube, and browsers like Safari or Chrome, –are not accessible:
These apps–again, including Gmail, YouTube, and browsers–are not accessible in the morning before I have time to spend in God’s Word. I want to hear from the Lord before I hear from everyone else.
The only sorts of apps that are accessible on the Lord’s Day, before I am at work in the morning every day of the week, and after a certain time in the evening every day, are those like my Bible apps, Accordance and Logos, my calendar to remind me of responsibilities on the Lord’s Day, the map app for something like getting to church in case there is traffic, and such like. I don’t need to find out what the world news is by going to conservative political websites on the Lord’s Day. I don’t need to find out who just posted a new video on this or on that. Spending that time meditating on Scripture instead is far better for my spiritual health (and far better for my family and nation as well). If you need to reach me, you can call me.
It is a blessing to have these apps turned off. I am glad to do it. I would encourage you to think about doing something similar. You do not need to to exactly what I do–maybe having email turned off would prevent you from hearing from someone you would pick up for church, for example–but I would encourage you to consider the principles in the 4th Commandment and elsewhere and make the Lord’s Day distinctly different. Use God’s Day as a special opportunity to resist and fight back against all the app developers who spend big bucks and many hours doing everything they can to keep you on their app and on your device, not so that they can help you pursue or follow after holiness (Hebrews 12:14), but so that they can make merchandise of you. (They also could not care less if they turn the brains of your children into mush–worldly mush, at that–but you should, and so should keep real books in their hands, and devices out of their hands. The rod and reproof will give your child wisdom, Proverbs 29:15, but you just gain temporary quietness if you allow their brains to be sucked out through electronics.) Lay aside not only the sin which can so easily beset you, but also every weight (Hebrews 12:1) and run with patience towards your risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
–TDR
Books By David Cloud Read Aloud: Can You Help Truth Get Out?
Way of Life Literature, run by Bro David Cloud, has many excellent resources. David Cloud has also written many excellent books, as well as useful videos one can find on his website. While not infallible, of course, they are well-researched, sound in doctrine, and something I could recommend highly to almost any Christian. I am very thankful for David Cloud’s works. His books, along with those published by Bible Baptist Church Publications, helped me to become a Baptist separatist instead of a mushy evangelical after I was converted by the grace of God.
Today, sadly, many people do not read. Brother Cloud has given me permission to have at least some of his books read aloud and then made available on fora such as YouTube, Rumble, and Audible.
If you would be interested in reading aloud some David Cloud books, such as his works on Biblical preservation, Bible texts and versions:
Faith vs. The Modern Versions
For Love of the Bible
The Glorious History of the English Bible
Bible Version Question and Answer Database
or some of Cloud’s other books, such as:
Dressing for the Lord
The Future According to the Bible
History and Heritage of Fundamentalism and Fundamental Baptists
and you have a good reading voice–speaking clearly, with expression, and not one that will put people to sleep–and enough commitment to finish something once you have started it, please contact me and let me know.
Thank you.
Christians & Union Membership: Religious Objectors Opt Out?
The Bible teaches that Christians should not be part of a labor union, for reasons that include those I discussed in my post “Christians and Labor Unions: An Unequal Yoke.”
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What rights does a religious objector to union membership have in the United States? We will look at that question in this post. (Note: I am NOT a lawyer and I am NOT giving you legal advice. If you have a legal question about labor unions, please talk to a lawyer at the National Right to Work Foundation.)
Your Rights Concerning Labor Unions in a Right to Work State
If you live in a Right to Work state, it is very easy for you to avoid being part of a labor union. Big Labor has a very limited ability to attempt to coerce or compel anyone to join it or force you to give it money in Right to Work states. Whether you have a religious objection or you simply do not like unions, perhaps because of Biblical political views favoring freedom and a free market, nobody can force you to either join a union or force you to pay dues or any equivalent in order to work.
I know of someone who was residing in a state that had just passed a right to work law. This person (we will use the generic singular English pronoun “he” without necessarily specifying this person’s gender, and call him “Joe.”) had gotten a government job at a college in a state that had recently passed a Right to Work law. Without Joe’s consent, the labor union took dues out of Joe’s first paycheck. Joe was going to file a religious objection and contacted the National Right to Work Foundation. However, the lawyers at the Right to Work Foundation pointed out to Joe that his state had recently passed a Right to Work law. Consequently, the labor union had no right to compel him, or anyone else at his job, to pay dues. He did not need to file a religious objection at all, but could simply ask for his money back and explain that he did not need to pay the union because of the Right to Work law. Joe followed their advice, and after some time the union refunded him the dues that had illegally been taken from his paycheck without his consent. Not that long afterwards an email was sent to all college employees–many, many people–stating that union dues would no longer be taken automatically from everyone’s paycheck; instead, people had to affirmatively consent to having the dues–which were now voluntary–taken out. Only a minority of Joe’s coworkers (so it seems) voluntarily chose to give the union the money that they had forced everyone to pay before, but until Joe objected, the union had illegally been taking huge amounts of money from every or almost every college employee. Joe’s taking a stand for Biblical, Christian principles likely cost the pro-abortion, pro-sodomy, anti-Biblical authority union millions of dollars as they were no longer able to illegally continue to take money from everyone–something they had been doing for some time in defiance of the new laws in Joe’s state.
Your Rights Concerning Labor Unions in a Non-Right to Work State
Let us say that you live in a state that does not have a Right to Work law. What can you do? Even in such states, secular people cannot be forced to become members of a labor union or to pay full dues–they can only be forced to pay a smaller “agency fee.” What about a Christian with a religious objection? Based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and principles affirmed in the First Amendment and reaffirmed in Janus v. AFSCME, religious objectors, even in states without Right to Work protections, cannot be forced to:
1.) Join labor unions as a condition of employment.
2.) Pay union dues.
3.) Pay an equivalent to union dues to a a charity.
The legal reasoning for these facts is explained in the excellent article by Blaine Hutchinson and Bruce N. Cameron in Baylor Law Review vol. 75.2 (2023): “Jamus’s Solution for Title VII Religious Objectors.” (Again, I am not a lawyer and I am not giving you legal advice.) If your sincerely held religious beliefs prevent you from being able to join or fund a union in good conscience, you cannot be discriminated against any more than you can be discriminated against because of your skin color. “We will not hire you because of your religious beliefs that do not allow you in good conscience to join a labor union and pay it dues” and “We will not hire you because you are black” are equally illegal in all fifty of these United States.
This writer knows of someone who lives in a non-right to work state (we will call this person “John,” and refer to the person as “him,” without necessarily specifying that the person is a man, not a woman.) When John was hired at his new job at a large company, he was given a large amount of paperwork to sign as part of his onboarding. One page of the paperwork said that he was agreeing to join the union and to pay union dues. He told the Human Resources person who was doing the onboarding that he did not consent to join the union, nor to pay union dues, because he had a religious objection. The HR manager told John that he “must” join the union and must complete the union paperwork. He consequently completed the paperwork, but instead of checking the boxes to join the union wrote on the paper that he respectfully declined to join because of his religious objection. That was as far as things went, and John was left alone for a few years; he was not a union member (unlike the vast majority of his coworkers who believed the illegal lie that HR was saying that everyone “must” join the union) and dues were not being deducted from his paychecks.
However, a few years later Human Resources contacted John and said that he needed to complete new paperwork concerning the union. He was told to fill out the form about union dues; it was “mandatory” that he complete the form. He crossed out the “yes” checkbox and wrote “no” on the form next to where it said to join the union, and wrote on the form that he did not consent to join the union and did not authorize dues deductions from his paycheck.
Shortly after this, union dues were deducted from his paycheck, not only without his consent, but against John’s explicit affirmations that he did not want to join or fund the union because of his religious objection. He inquired (in writing) about this, and the union wrote that he must pay dues in order to continue to work at a union site. Human Resources also wrote that he must pay dues. The only alternatives John had were quitting or being fired and then, if someone was interested, he could be re-hired (maybe), lose all his benefits and seniority, and start from scratch at a non-union site. These actions threatening to fire John and telling him that he needed to pay dues to keep his job were illegal.
John reached out to the National Right to Work Foundation and explained his case to lawyers that, for free, help those with religious objections to union membership. (They have other lawyers that provide free legal counsel to those who do not have religious objections.) His Right to Work Foundation lawyers–who had experience in labor law all the way up to going to the Supreme Court–sent an excellent cease-and-desist letter to his employer warning them of their violations of the law. John and some of his fellow Christians also prayed to the Lord of heaven, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, about this situation. John’s Right to Work lawyers filed charges against his employer and the union with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for their illegal actions in seeking to force him to violate his religious beliefs and for deducting dues from his paycheck without his consent.
In answer to the prayers of God’s people and through the secondary agency of the skilled lawyers at the National Right to Work Foundation, John’s employer agreed to: 1.) Not fire him; 2.) Not require him to join the union; 3.) Not compel him to leave the union site for the tiny portion of non-union sites that his employer possesses; 4.) Not compel him to pay dues to the union or an equivalent to a charity. They also agreed to compensate John because of the mental distress he endured as a result of the illegal threats to fire him, as well as paying legal fees to the NRWF. John was also not compelled to sign a non-disclosure agreement about the whole situation. His lawyers told him that it was an excellent outcome. Praise the Lord!
We should thank God for and pray for the continuance of the religious liberties that we have here in the United States (1 TImothy 2:1ff.).
Once again, I am not a lawyer and am not giving you legal advice. If you are in a situation where you have a question about labor law in relation to labor unions and religious objections, you should consult a lawyer instead of believing what some guy says on the Internet who insists he is not a lawyer, is not giving legal advice, and who tells you about testimonies that you are not able to verify. Reading what law journals say on this subject could certainly also be helpful, but that is also no substitute for professional legal counsel.
Do not join a labor union because the Bible teaches that you should not do it. If someone tries to make you, if you are in the United States, you have legal rights, both in Right to Work and in non-Right to Work states. The Apostle Paul used his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 22:25ff.), and you can utilize your rights as an American citizen to serve the Lord with a pure conscience, seeking to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
Please do not speculate on how the author of this post knows that the testimonials recounted here are accurate. Comments speculating on that question will probably not be published. If they are accidentally published, they will not be answered, but will be deleted.
TDR
Messianic Israel / Jew Evangelistic T-Shirt: Shema & Isa 53
God loves Israel! He loves Israel far more than did the Apostle Paul, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, 2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. 3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4 Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5 Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. … 1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. (Romans 9:1-5; 3:1-2)
What does God say to those who harm Israel? “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8). As with the rest of mankind, Jews who do not believe the gospel will be eternally lost (Romans 11:28a), but nonetheless “as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (Romans 11:28b-11:29).
What is the greatest blessing Jehovah has ever given Israel? The Messiah, the Savior of the world, God blessed for ever, Jesus! To that end, we have designed the T-shirts pictured below, which have been added to the collection of evangelistic T-shirts and other materials I posted about some time ago. Both sides of the T-shirt reference the evangelistic pamphlet Truth From the Torah, Nevi’im, and Kethuvim (the Law, Prophets, and Writings) for Jews who Reverence the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which is online at https://faithsaves.net/Messiah/. The front has this evangelistic website as well as the text of the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4:
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָֹה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָֹה אֶחָד׃
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
While the back has the evangelistic website and Isaiah 53:8b: “For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.”
along with, on both sides, the flag of Israel. (We did not see a way to design the shirt so that the vowels and accents could be included, although we recognize the Biblical and historical case for their inspiration and preservation.)
We believe that these shirts can be blessed by the God of Israel for Jews to embrace their crucified and risen Messiah, Jesus, as well as to help Gentiles come to repentance and faith in Him. If you get to evangelize Muslims because of this shirt, Isaiah 53 is good for them also, since Muslims deny the Lord Jesus died on the cross, claiming the Gospel accounts are fabrications. But Isaiah 53, which clearly predicts His death by crucifixion and resurrection, and which we have physical, pre-Christian evidence for in the Dead Sea Scrolls, cannot be so explained away by Muslims. This T-shirt can also help you explain the powerful evidence for the Bible from prophecy for agnostics and atheists and the powerful impact of Isaiah 53 to both Jews and Muslims. Furthermore, God promises to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:1-3). Do you want to be blessed by the living God? Bless Israel!
The immediate motivation for our making these shirts was a pro-Hamas, anti-Jewish rally we saw in Los Angeles. Jew haters there held signs such as “Resistance is not terrorism,” glorifying the murder of 1,200 Jews on October 7, 2023, the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust:
They also promoted “from the river to the sea,” advocating the destruction of the Jewish state and the murder of the Jews:
The protesters were part of the anti-Israel hate group, the A. N. S. W. E. R. coalition, who argue that to say “Hamas is a terrorist organization” is a “lie.” (By the way, if you need more reasons to stop using Google as a search engine, note the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel search results that come up first if you search for “answercoalition.org Hamas terrorism”; compare those results with what you get on Duck Duck Go, where the top result [as of the time I am writing this] is the Anti-Defamation League explaining why Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization that calls for the eradication of Israel.) The protestors also reproduced lies pumped out by Hamas about civilian deaths in Gaza, while saying nothing about the fact that Hamas wants civilians in Gaza to die and Israel does not. Of course, Islam allows Muslims to lie–after all, Allah is the best of deceivers.
They were blocking the street so that we could not keep going on the bus we were on in Los Angeles. Our destination was not far away–a museum in LA. We decided to get off the bus and walk there. A few blocks away we saw an orthodox Jewish man walking in the direction of the advocates of terrorism. We told him about the protest; he thanked us, and re-routed. After we got home from the museum we designed the T-shirts. It is right to stand against terrorism and for the Jewish people. It is especially right to stand for the greatest Jew of all, the resurrected Lord, Jesus.
We saw posters like the following a few blocks away. The anti-Jewish, pro-Hamas protestors did not say anything about these people.
They also said nothing about United States citizens killed by or held hostage by Hamas. They are also not important, it seems. (Let me add that the large majority of inhabitants in Gaza and the West Bank support Hamas’ murder of Jewish civilians–the large majority “extremely support” terrorism, while in a recent survey only 7.3% of survey participants were “extremely against” such terrorism, combined with 5.4% who are “somewhat against” it, for a total of only 12.7% of the population who are against terrorism; it is certainly possible survey results reflect some bias, but the overall picture is likely to be accurate.)
What about here in the USA? When asked if they support Israel or Hamas, 95% of those over 65 support Israel. The percentages get progressively lower the younger people are. Among 18-24 year olds, only 55% support Israel, while 45% support Hamas. This is a terrible trend, and awful evidence of the anti-God garbage taught in the public school and university systems. Maybe consider getting some of these T-shirts for yourself or as presents for others. Perhaps you are afraid of Muslim violence or anti-Jewish violence if you wear one, since true Islam in America–like all true Islam–is violent and bloodthirsty, not peaceful. Perhaps if you are living in Saudi Arabia or Iran it would be unwise to wear one of these shirts; but if you live in the United States of America, and you will allow threats of Muslim violence to curtail your free speech, something is very wrong. Obviously Christians have liberty to wear or not wear a T-shirt like this, and it is perfectly fine not to wear one, but our decisions must be made out of Biblical principle and for the glory of God, not out of fear. If you say you would have protected Jews in the Holocaust, but are afraid to stand for them and against their murderers now, why should we believe you would have stood were you in Hitler’s Germany? There are Biblical principles here. God’s love for Israel is not saying God loves everything the modern state of Israel does–but God still loves Israel, and Scripture still says to bless Israel. (By the way, if you are born again, God loves you with an infinite and special love, but He still does not love everything you do–He does not love your sin, nor does He love Israel’s sin.) Be salt and light: stand up for righteousness. Do not let the wicked pro-terrorist people be the only ones who are making their voices known. Stand for the God of Israel, for the Messiah of Israel, and for the nation of Israel.
Postscriptum:
As FLAME: Facts and Logic About the Middle East points out concerning anti-Israel, pro-Hamas bias in media reports about Gaza civilian casualties:
[T]he media insist on treating Hamas’s notoriously unreliable information feed as fact. Conversely, they refuse to give precedence to proven, reliable sources of information, such as the Israeli or U.S. governments, the latter of which confirmed Al-Shifa’s use as a Hamas headquarters. Israel presents photographs of Hamas blocking exit highways, so Gazans cannot leave the war zone . . . but Hamas denies it, says NPR. Such is the inane, “he-said, she said” pablum we are fed by the media.
The media also steadfastly refuse to ask the questions demanded by the story—and by any curious reader, listener, or viewer. When reporters interview Palestinians on the street or doctors in hospitals, the viewer cries to know: “Do you ever see any Hamas guys around here? Have you seen any tunnels?” But never does the reporter ask this, let alone questions like, “Do you support Hamas? Do you think there should be a Palestine next to Israel? What do you think about the October 7th attack on Israel?” These are obvious queries that responsible, curious, fact-hungry journalists would and should normally ask their sources. But they never do. Why?
The short answer is that if they asked these questions, the stories they tell wouldn’t fit the narrative they are trying to sell—the narrative in which the Palestinians are an oppressed people, Israel is an evil, colonial aggressor, and Hamas is a product of legitimate Palestinian resistance.
To sell their perverse narrative, international media swallow the wildly inflated death-toll numbers cranked out by the Gaza Health Ministry. For this reason, the media simply repeat the daily growing casualty figures Hamas gives them.
Reuters reports, for example, that as of November 22nd, Gaza’s Hamas-run government says at least 13,300 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, including at least 5,600 children. But Luke Baker, a former Reuters bureau chief who led the organization’s coverage of Israel and the disputed territories from 2014 to 2017, said on X (formerly Twitter), “Hamas has a clear propaganda incentive to inflate civilian casualties as much as possible.”
Moreover, the media almost never give a breakdown of the casualties. They don’t say how many were Hamas terrorists or how many were human shields, killed in residences schools or hospitals where Hamas were hiding. They never tell how many were killed—not by Israeli forces, but by Hamas and other terrorist groups—because of misfired rockets, or by Hamas shooting at Palestinian civilians heeding Israeli orders to evacuate.
In addition, it’s probable that a significant number of the “children” reported killed or wounded by Hamas are youths aged 13 to 18, who were located in Hamas facilities or even took an active part in the fighting.
If you are not aware of the connection between Soviet communist propaganda and modern anti-Zionist lies about Israel as a colonialist oppressor, please read the article here.
Is Love a Feeling? The Holy Bible on the Nature of Love
Is love a feeling?
What do you think?
__ Yes, love is a feeling.
__ No, love is not a feeling.
The Correct Answer Is …
“Yes”!
The correct answer is “yes” to both the question “Is love a feeling?” and the question “Is love not a feeling?” Love involves the feelings and affections, so in that sense love is a feeling. However, love is not merely a feeling, but it involves the will and the actions.
Love Involves Self-Sacrificial and Willful Action
Many in the world assume that love is just a sappy sentimental feeling, or that love is a teenage boy having his heart flutter when a pretty girl looks at him. This is a very Biblically insufficient definition of love. How does God love?
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
God’s love does not just involve sappy sentimentalism. The Father’s love led Him to give to rebellious sinners what was most valuable to Him–His own Son. His love involved self-sacrificial action. Believers must show this same kind of self-sacrificial, acting, willing, giving love:
John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
This sort of love is required in other relationships as well:
Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Clearly, love is not just an emotional high, but it involves self-sacrifice, action, giving oneself to the loved one at tremendous cost.
Love Also Includes the Feelings or Affections
At the same time, love is not the self-sacrifice of a drone or robot that follows a computer program to blow itself up and save someone else. Love includes the feelings and affections. We do not love as robots, but as people who have affections and passions. God wants us to love Him with all that we are–that includes our minds and wills, but it also includes our affections or feelings.
God’s love for His people involves His affections in whatever sense He has passions or affections:
Hos. 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.
Hos. 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.Zeph. 3:17 The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.
Human love between spouses involves the affections or passions. In the Song of Solomon the husband and wife–who are to be patterns for marital relationships–are madly in love with each other and passions and affections are coming out all over the place.
Our love for what is of God also involves our passions or affections. Paul said: “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Romans 7:22). “Delight” is a feeling or affection. The Messiah said, as a pattern for all the godly: “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).
We could multiple examples for all other sorts of love that are dealt with in Scripture.
So is love a feeling? Yes, it is–God did not make us robots. Is love merely a feeling, or only a feeling, or primarily a feeling? No–it is much more than that, but it involves self-sacrificial action.
So in all your relationships–most importantly with God and secondarily with others–love like God does. Give yourself self-sacrificially to the Lord and to others. That is the most important thing–but don’t be a robot either. God wants you to love with all that you are, and that includes your feelings or affections.
–TDR
Remarriage After Divorce: Continual Adultery? Christ’s View
According to Jesus Christ and the New Testament, is remarriage after divorce continual adultery? Christ is clear that putting away or divorcing one’s spouse and marrying someone else when one’s spouse is still alive is a wicked sin, and the consummation of that second marriage is an act of adultery, making the people who commit that sin adulterers:
2 And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. 3 And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? 4 And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. 5 And Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. 10 And in the house his disciples asked him again of the same matter. 11 And he saith unto them, Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. 12 And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery. (Mark 10:2-12)
A (very) small minority of people in Christendom teach not only that the act of remarriage is an act of adultery, but that one is living in continual adultery with a second spouse, and, therefore, needs to abandon that second spouse and go back to his or her first husband or wife. Some Amish groups that are confused on the gospel adopt this false teaching, as do some Mennonites (who also very largely are confused on the gospel by denying eternal security and confused on the church by denying the necessity of immersion in baptism). There are very few groups that get the gospel and the church correct that adopt this false teaching on leaving one’s spouse to go back to a former husband or wife.
The Lord Jesus Christ does NOT teach that someone should go back to his former husband or wife if he or she commits the sin of remarriage. The remarriage was a sin, one that should be repented of with sorrow. However, some sins, once they are committed, do not allow one to go back to what would have been right formerly. After Israel sinned by faithlessly refusing to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 14), God punished them by swearing that they would have to dwell in the wilderness for forty years. After they decided not to go up, it was too late for them to change their mind and go into the land. Some of them tried, and God was not with them:
39 And Moses told these sayings unto all the children of Israel: and the people mourned greatly. 40 And they rose up early in the morning, and gat them up into the top of the mountain, saying, Lo, we be here, and will go up unto the place which the LORD hath promised: for we have sinned. 41 And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper. 42 Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies. 43 For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and ye shall fall by the sword: because ye are turned away from the LORD, therefore the LORD will not be with you. 44 But they presumed to go up unto the hill top: nevertheless the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and Moses, departed not out of the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites which dwelt in that hill, and smote them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah. (Numbers 14:39-45)
The same situation takes place after a remarriage. The sin of divorce should not have been committed (Malachi 2:16), and the sin of remarriage should not have been committed (Mark 10:2-12), but once these grave sins have been committed, there is no going back. It is an abomination to divorce a second time and go back to a former husband and wife, according to the Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know this?
Remarriage-Go Back To the First Spouse?
Jesus Christ Did Not Teach One Should Go Back to a Former Spouse
Because The Old Testament Taught It Is An Abomination To Do So
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 reads:
1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. 3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; 4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
As explained elsewhere on this blog by both Dr. Brandenburg and in my article “Divorce, Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Remarriage, and New Testament teaching,” Scripture is clear that going back to a former spouse after a remarriage is an abomination before Jehovah, something that God Himself hates. What is an abomination to Jehovah is not just a sin for Israel, but for all people at all times; as the Gentiles had defiled the land by abominations, so Israel must not defile the land by committing this abomination. Thus, it is clear that someone who has sinned by entering a second marriage should not sin again by leaving his current spouse to go back to a former one.
Remarriage-Go Back To the First Spouse?
Jesus Christ Did Not Teach One Should Go Back to a Former Spouse
Because The Passages In the New Testament Misused to Claim This Do Not Teach It
Luke 16:18 reads:
Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.
πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ καὶ γάμων ἑτέραν μοιχεύει· καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀπολελυμένην ἀπὸ ἀνδρὸς γαμῶν μοιχεύει.
pas ho apolyōn tēn gynaika autou kai gamōn heteran moicheuei; kai pas ho apolelymenēn apo andros gamōn moicheuei.
The verb “committeth adultery” (μοιχεύει, moicheuei) is in the Greek present tense (cf. also Mark 10:11-12; Matthew 5:31-32). People with a surface-level understanding of Greek have concluded from this fact that one who has remarried is committing continual adultery every time the act of marriage takes place. However, the verbs “putteth away” and “marrieth” are also in the present tense, yet are clearly not continual and ongoing actions. As someone with a deeper knowledge of Greek will recognize, the present tense forms in Luke 16:18 clearly fit the syntactical category of the gnomic or timeless present—continual marriage ceremonies, continual divorces, and continual adultery are not at all in view, any more than the present tense verbs in Galatians 5:3; 6:13 specify continually getting circumcised or the present tense verb in Hebrews 5:1 specifies being ordained to the priesthood over and over again. An examination of pages 523-524 of Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996) illustrates that the syntactical features requisite for identifying a gnomic present appear in this context. Luke 16:18 does not teach that those who have committed the grievous sins of divorce and remarriage should commit another abomination (Deuteronomy 24:4) by leaving their current spouses for the previous ones. Rather, in this passage the “present … [specifies] [a] class … of those who … once do the act the single doing of which is the mark of … the class … [as in] Luke 16:18” (Ernest De Witt Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek, 3rd ed. [Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1898], 56-57). The destruction of one family unit through remarriage, the physical consummation of which is an act of adultery, is bad enough; it must not be compounded with a further abomination. Please see my study Reasons Christians Should and Can Learn Greek and Hebrew for more information on both Deuteronomy 24 and Luke 16:18.
Thus, Scripture is clear that one who has committed the sin of remarriage should not go back to his or her former spouse. God teaches that it is an abomination to do so. The Lord Jesus Christ, who revealed the Old Testament by His Spirit in His prophets, taught that it is an abomination in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Christ did not contradict what He affirmed in the Old Testament in the Gospels. Remarriage while a spouse is alive is the wicked sin of adultery, but those who have committed that sin are now bound to remain with their new spouses until death do them part.
–TDR
Why I Will Not Vote for Donald Trump in 2024 as a Republican
Let me preface this post by saying that I believe whether or not one agrees with what I am saying should not cause division in a church. Donald Trump divides the country, but he should not divide churches. If you are united to Christ by faith you are my brother in Him, and if you are a faithful member of a true church you are in Christ’s body, and I have Christian love for you, whether or not you agree with what I say about politics below.
I have Always Voted Republican as a Conservative
In 2016, I voted for Donald Trump. In 2020, I voted for Donald Trump. In every presidential election since I have been able to vote, and in every other election, I have consistently voted for Republican candidates. Before the 2020 election, I wrote a blog post about why Christians should vote for Donald Trump because of religious liberty, abortion, and free speech.
In 2016 Donald Trump won 46% of the vote to squeak by in the electoral college a few days after Hillary Clinton was hit with criminal charges. Although I found his personality and character abhorrent, I voted for him in 2016 because of the Supreme Court. In 2020, I also voted for him because of the Supreme Court. I also though that, despite the many self-inflicted wounds he gave himself, with good conservative advisors he did a better job governing than I thought he would do. I was very thankful that, with the help of Mitch McConnell and a Republican-controlled Senate, he appointed three justices to the Supreme Court–appointments that led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That was very, very, very good.
Many of the media attacks on Trump were baseless. He never colluded with Russia, for example. Many other attacks were based on taking seriously what he said when, very often, even Trump himself does not pay attention to what he says (not a good idea when you are the most powerful elected figure on earth and the commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military).
My political views are extremely conservative. Based on Scripture, they support a very limited government and are very socially conservative. I believe the US Constitution is a very good document for running a government in this fallen world and wish that it were followed much more closely than it is.
Donald Trump Will Not Peacefully Cede Power
So why am I not going to vote for Donald Trump again-certainly not in the Republican primary, and also not in the general election, if he wins the primary? It is not because of his horrible character. It is not because there are good reasons to wonder if what is good for Trump is more important to him than what is good for the United States. It is not because he constantly attacks everyone and alienates larger and larger and larger groups of people and even people as loyal as his own vice president. It is not because he has now been convicted of battery and sexual crimes. These are very big problems-definitely far more than enough to make me vote for someone else in the Republican primary, but in the general election I am willing to overlook them. It is not because of some secret sympathy for the socialistic, big-government policies of the Democrat party. I am very concerned about the judges Democrats put on the Supreme Court and other courts and I see “vote for Trump because of the judges” as the single strongest argument to vote for him, if he prevails in the Republican primary (which I fervently hope he does not). I am very concerned about the way the Democrat party is willing to persecute churches, Christian business owners, and Christians in general who stand for what Scripture teaches on morality.
So what was the final straw for me? I think there is a strong likelihood that Donald Trump will not cede power peacefully if he loses an election. I believe in the American republic, not in a dictatorship by a Republican.
I did not think that Donald Trump would do what he did after losing the 2020 election. Pursuing all legal avenues to try to get the most votes you can? Fine. But his refusal-for hours-to call off the rioters on January 6 was despicable, even when it was obvious that things had turned violent. It is also perfectly obvious that the Vice President never has had the power to unilaterally overturn election results. If the Vice President of the party in power can unilaterally reject election results, we do not have a republic, but a dictatorship. It does not even need to be stated that the idea that the VP can do this is absolutely indefensible constitutionally.
Let’s say that it is far more likely that the reason Donald Trump was unwilling to admit that he lost the election by over 7,000,000 votes is that Trump can never admit he was wrong than that the theories he was spouting off in public, but which even his own lawyers would not defend in court, were true. That would be a huge problem, but maybe if he had just made stuff up to support his ego and left it at that, perhaps I would still vote for him again.
However, it is now years later, and Trump is still making the same Constitutionally fatal claims. He still claims that Mike Pence could have unilaterally overturned the 2020 election results. That means the end of the republic and the start of a tyranny. What did Trump do in his very first campaign rally? He put up a video and a song made by criminals who were justly put in prison for their crimes on January 6. He showed them violently fighting the police. He tried to put them in a good light as they were breaking and smashing and beating police officers and trying to get in to violently place him in power. He did not put up a video of the (imaginary) people who (in an alternate universe) just happened to wander into the Capitol as tourists or something and then were arrested and imprisoned unjustly. No, his video showed the rioters fighting with the police, and was glorifying the rioters as if they were righteous. Note that the video from the January 6 committee here:
And Trump’s campaign video here, where the singers are imprisoned January 6 criminals:
have some of the same footage of rioters fighting police (see 1:14-1:30 in), although Trump puts the violent criminals up for a shorter period of time. Trump embraces people who wanted Mike Pence executed for treason although he does not (at this point, at least, but you never know what he will do next) himself call for the execution of his own former Vice President for treason.
Trump said that he would accept the 2016 results–if he won. He lost in 2020 and did not accept the results. If he loses in 2024, there could be a lot of bloodshed. If he wins in 2024-something that is very, very unlikely-there is no reason to think that he would voluntarily cede power at the end of his term. He could come up with some reason-any reason-to retain power. The Vice President being able to unilaterally overturn results; the election allegedly having fraud that is worse than any third-world country; Dominion voting machines changing millions of votes; you name it. If Donald Trump can claim (even before results are in!) that the long shot conservative Republican Larry Elder lost in California to the sitting Democrat governer, Gavin Newsom, by fraud, then he can claim any election he wants was lost by fraud.
I have little confidence Trump would voluntarily cede power if he lost an election. Furthermore, anyone that was part of his cabinet in a second Trump term would have to be an almost cultic “yes” man. He would have to be a bobble head agreeing with any Trump claims. Trump claimed (in his January 6 speech) that in 2020 he “won in a landslide” but is not now in office because of “the most corrupt election in … history, maybe of the world,” far worse than “third-world countries,” and “everybody knows it.” The 2020 US election was not worse than elections such as the 1927 Liberian election where the winner gained 243,000 votes from the 15,000 registered voters, the 1964 election in Haiti where the president won 99.9% of the vote, there were no opponents, and all the ballots were pre-marked “yes,” or the elections in Equitorial Guinea between 1990-2020 where the president got 98% of the vote at a minimum, with some areas giving him over 103%. Everyone knows that the 2020 election was worse than such corrupt elections, according to Trump. Instead of having advisors like his courageous and moral Vice President, Mike Pence, Trump would have a cabinet of Kool-Aid drinkers who would actually help him to retain power after an election loss and would parrot whatever nutty claims he made.
I am not going to vote for Trump again because I do not have confidence he would cede power. Do you have confidence he would cede power if he lost?
Why It Does Not Matter That I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump
Despite the great danger that Trump would not cede power peacefully if he were reelected, it does not matter very much that I will not vote for him. Why is that?
1.) I am in California, so my vote does not matter in a presidential election. California is almost certain to give its electoral votes to the Democrat candidate, and if a Republican won the electoral votes of California, he would not need them, for he would already have won other closer states in a landslide. Were I in a swing state, I would have to think harder about not voting for Trump.
2.) However, although it would be a harder call, even if I were in a swing state I would not vote for Trump because of the threat he is to the Constitution. Even in this case, though, my vote would not matter. Why? Because Trump is unelectable. He lost a winnable election in 2020 through self-inflicted wounds, and after January 6 he was no longer a viable candidate for president. He is never going to get the 46% of the vote that he got in 2016 again-much less the higher percentage he would need to win against someone less repulsive than Hillary Clinton a few days after she was indited. Joe Biden, the Democrat Party, and the mainstream media will work very hard to make Trump the Republican candidate in 2024 because they know he is not electable. Donald Trump turned what should have been a red wave in 2022 into a red trickle, even though he was not on the ballot. People do not want someone who supports violent riots, injuries to hundreds of Capitol police officers, and the end of the republic for a dictatorship where the Vice President can unilaterally overturn results. Running on a pro-January 6 riot platform is bonkers. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would wonder if the Democrats were secretly paying off Trump to run on something like that. The electorate does not want a candidate who justifies violent attempts at revolution and whom a jury has found guilty of sexual assault. If Republicans nominate someone creepy enough, they can even lose Senate races in Alabama. (Note that Roy Moore was only credibly accused of sexual crimes–Trump has not only been accused, but been found guilty by a jury of them. Roy Moore lost deep, deep, deep Red Alabama. How badly will Trump lose?) Trump has alienated a large portion of the Republican electorate but he unites the Democrats. He alienates moderates and far, far more than half the voting population. A vote for Donald Trump in the Republican primary is a vote for a united Democrat government that controls the House and Senate–probably with large majorities–and the presidency in 2024. It is a vote for a Democrat president who will do everything he can to get Roe v. Wade back. The question is not whether Trump can get the 46% he got in 2016. The question is whether he would be able to get 40%, or 35%, or a number even lower than that. The question is whether the Democrats would win in a huge landslide that can introduce constitutional amendments or just a big landslide that can abolish the filibuster and appoint radical leftist tyrants to the Supreme Court.
So the fact that I would not vote for Donald Trump in the 2024 general election will not matter–if he is at the top of the Republican ticket, the election will not even be close.
However, in the Republican primary my vote definitely WILL matter. I will be voting to keep Trump away from the Republican nomination, so that limited, Constitutional government, religious liberty, and other incredible blessings here in the United States may continue, by God’s grace. While I think Mike Pence would be even better than Ron DeSantis, I will plan to vote for whoever appears to have the best chance at keeping Donald Trump away from winning the nomination, at least if it is still in play when I have a chance to vote in the primary, Lord willing.
As a postscript, let me say again that I believe whether or not one agrees with what I am saying should not cause division in a church. Donald Trump divides the country, but he should not divide churches. If you are united to Christ by faith you are my brother in Him, and if you are a faithful member of a true church you are in Christ’s body, and I have Christian love for you, whether or not you agree with what I say about politics in this post.
–TDR
Four Views On the Spectrum of Evangelicalism: A Book Review
I recently listened on Audible through the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, contributors Kevin Bauder, R. Albert Mohler Jr., John G. Stackhouse Jr., and Roger E. Olson, series editor Stanley N. Gundry, gen eds. Andrew David Naselli & Collin Hansen (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011). The four views presented are:
Fundamentalism: Kevin Bauder
Confessional Evangelicalism, R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Generic Evangelicalism, John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Postconservative Evangelicalism, Roger E. Olson
When I listen through a book on Audible I usually listen through twice, since it is easier to miss things when listening to a book than it is when reading one.
For most of the book, I was cheering for Kevin Bauder, for reasons which will be clear below.
Let the Wolves In!
Roger Olson’s View
Beginning with the bad people who are fine letting the wolves in: Roger Olson argues that “inerrancy cannot be regarded as necessary to being authentically evangelical. It is what theologians call adiaphora–a nonessential belief” (pg. 165). What is more, “open theists [are] not heretical” (pg. 185). Evangelicals do not need to believe in penal substitution: “there is no single evangelical theory of the atonement. While the penal substitution theory (that Christ bore the punishment for sins in the place of sinners) may be normal, it could hardly be said to be normative” (pg. 183). However, fundamentalism is “orthodoxy gone cultic” (pg. 67). Deny Christ died in your place, think God doesn’t know the future perfectly, and think the Bible is full of errors? No problem. Let a Oneness Pentecostal, anti-Trinitarian “church” in to the National Association of Evangelicals (pg. 178)? Great! Be a fundamentalist? Your are cultic.
Summary: While Christ says His sheep hear His voice, and Scripture unambiguously teaches its infallible and inerrant inspiration (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:16-21) as the Word of the God who cannot lie, and penal substitution is at the heart of the gospel, Dr. Olson thinks one can deny these things and not only be a Christian but be an evangelical. Let in the heretics and the wolves!
Let Some of the Wolves In!
John Stackhouse’s View
John G. Stackhouse, Jr. is only slightly more conservative than Dr. Olson. For Dr. Stackhouse, “open theists are, to my knowledge, genuine evangelicals” (pg. 132). No! But at least anti-Trinitarian Oneness Pentecostals who have a false god, a false gospel, and are going to hell are not evangelicals (pg. 204). Does something so obvious even deserve a “Yay”?
What about penal substitution? “substitutionary atonement is a nonnegotiable part of the Christian understanding of salvation, and evangelicals do well to keep teaching it clearly and enthusiastically” (pg. 136). One cheer for Dr. Stackhouse. But then he goes on:
But suppose somebody doesn’t teach it? Does that make him or her not an evangelical? According to the definition I have been using, such a person might well still be an evangelical. Indeed, the discussion in this section takes for granted that some (genuine) evangelicals are uneasy about substitutionary atonement, and a few even hostile to that idea. But they remain evangelicals nonetheless: still putting Christ and the cross in the center, still drawing from Scripture and testing everything by it, still concerned for sound and thorough conversion, still active in working with God in his mission, and still cooperating with evangelicals of other stripes. Evangelicals who diminish or dismiss substitutionary atonement seem to me to be in the same camp as my evangelical brothers and sisters who espouse open theism: truly evangelicals, and truly wrong about something important. (pgs. 136-137)
So the one cheer quickly is replaced by gasps for air and a shocked silence, as the heretics and the wolves come right back in again. Dr. Bauder does a good job responding to and demolishing these justifications of apostasy and false religion.
Write Thoughtful Essays Showing that the Wolves Need Critique, but
Let the World and the Flesh In and Don’t Be A Fundamentalist Separatist:
Al Mohler’s View
R. Albert Mohler, Jr. calls his view “Confessional Evangelicalism,” although he never cites any Baptist or any other confession of faith in his essay. He thinks you do actually need to believe Christ died in your place, open theism is unacceptable, and an inerrant Bible is something worth standing for (1.5 cheers for Dr. Mohler, led by very immodestly dressed Southern Baptist cheerleaders who know that God made them male and female, not trans). However, Dr. Mohler does not believe in anything close to a Biblical doctrine of ecclesiastical separation. His Southern Baptist denomination is full of leaven that is corrupting the whole lump. His ecclesiastical polity is like the Biden administration on the USA’s southern border–claiming that there are a few barriers that keep out people who are trying to creep in unawares while millions of illegals come pouring in with a nod and a wink.
Dr. Bauder makes some legitimate criticisms of Dr. Mohler, while also being much more cozy with him than John the Baptist or the Apostles would have been. Dr. Bauder says that Mohler is “doing a good work, and that work would be hindered if I were to lend credibility to the accusation that he is a fundamentalist” (pg. 97). That is Bauder’s view of the false worship, the huge number of unregenerate church members, the spiritual deadness, the doctrinal confusion, and the gross disobedience in the Southern Baptist Convention. Hurray? Dr. Bauder’s discussion is not how the first century churches would have worked with disboedient brethren (2 Thessalonians 3:6, 14).
Separate From the Wolves, but Not From Disobedient Sheep:
Kevin Bauder’s “Mainstream Fundamentalist” View
Kevin Bauder is a self-identified “historic fundamentalist.” (But what if there never was a unified “historic fundamentalism”?) He is the only one of the four contributors who actually thinks that ecclesiastical separation needs to take place. So two cheers for Dr. Bauder! Bauder argues: “the gospel is the essential ground of all genuinely Christian unity. Where the gospel is denied, no such unity exists” (pg. 23). Therefore, “Profession of the gospel is the minimum requirement for visible Christian fellowship. The gospel is the boundary of Christian fellowship” (pg. 25). Bauder does a good job showing that people must separate from those who deny the gospel, or those who fellowship with those who deny the gospel. Two more cheers for Bauder.
However, Bauder warns about what he calls “hyper-fundamentalism,” which is actually Biblically consistent separatism (and which gets no voice to defend itself in this book). He has strong words for the “hyper-fundamentalists”–stronger than the way he voices his disagreements with Mohler:
One version of fundamentalism goes well beyond the idea that I summarized earlier in this essay. It could be called hyper-fundamentalism. Hyper-fundamentalism exists in a variety of forms. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes adopt a militant stance regarding some extrabiblical or even antibiblical teaching. For example, many professing fundamentalists are committed to a theory of textual preservation and biblical translation that leaves the King James Version as the only acceptable English Bible. When individuals become militant over such nonbiblical teachings, they cross the line into hyper-fundamentalism. … [H]yper-fundamentalists understand separation in terms of guilt by association. To associate with someone who holds any error constitutes an endorsement of that error. Persons who hold error are objects of separation, and so are persons who associate with them. … [H]yper-fundamentalists sometimes turn nonessentials into tests of fundamentalism. For example, some hyper-fundamentalists assume that only Baptists should be recognized as fundamentalists. Others make the same assumption about dispensationalists, defining covenant theologians out of fundamentalism. Others elevate extrabiblical personal practices. One’s fundamentalist standing may be judged by such criteria as hair length, musical preferences, and whether one allows women to wear trousers. … Hyper-fundamentalism takes many forms, including some that I have not listed. Nevertheless, these are the forms that are most frequently encountered. When a version of fundamentalism bears one or more of these marks, it should be viewed as hyper-fundamentalist. It is worth noting that several of these marks can also be found in other versions of evangelicalism.
Hyper-fundamentalism is not fundamentalism. It is as a parasite on the fundamentalist movement. … Mainstream fundamentalists find themselves in a changing situation. One factor is that what was once the mainstream may no longer be the majority within self-identified fundamentalism. A growing proportion is composed of hyper-fundamentalists, who add something to the gospel as the boundary of minimal Christian fellowship. If the idea of fundamentalism is correct, then this error is as bad as dethroning the gospel from its position as the boundary.
Another factor is that some evangelicals have implemented aspects of the idea of fundamentalism, perhaps without realizing it. For example, both Wayne Grudem and Albert Mohler (among others) have authored essays that reverberate with fundamentalist ideas. More than that, they and other conservative evangelicals have put their ideas into action, seeking doctrinal boundaries in the Evangelical Theological Society and purging Southern Baptist institutions.
Mainstream fundamentalists are coming to the conclusion that they must distance themselves from hyper-fundamentalists, and they are displaying a new openness to conversation and even some cooperation with conservative evangelicals. Younger fundamentalists in particular are sensitive to the inconsistency of limiting fellowship to their left but not to their right. (pgs. 43-45)
By Bauder’s definition, the first century churches would have been “hyper-fundamentalist” parasites. (Note that Bauder also makes claims such as: “Some hyper-fundamentalists view education as detrimental to spiritual well-being” [pg. 44]. There is probably a guy named John somewhere in a “hyper-fundamentalist” church that thinks education is a sin, and there is also probably a lady named Mary in a neo-evangelical church who thinks the same thing, and a big burly fellow named Mat in a post-conservative church who agrees with them, but nothing further about these sorts of claims by Bauder needs further comment. So we return to something more serious.) Do you separate over more than just the gospel? Do you, for example, separate over men who refuse to work and care for their families (2 Thess 3:6-14)? You are a parasite, just as bad, if not worse, than people who do not separate at all. Do you separate over false worship (“musical styles” to Bauder), since God burned people up for offering Him strange fire (Lev 10:1ff)? You are bad–very, very bad. Let the strange fire right in to the New Testament holy of holies (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)!–even though God says He will “destroy” those who do such a wicked thing. Do you take a stand for the perfect preservation of Scripture–as did men like George S. Bishop, one of the contributors to The Fundamentals (see, e. g., George S. Bishop, The Fundamentals: “The Testimony of the Scriptures to Themselves,” vol. 2:4 [Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005], 80ff.)? You King James Only parasite! Do you seek to follow the Apostle Paul and the godly preacher Timothy, and allow “no other doctrine” in the church–not just “no other gospel,” but “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3)? Do you repudiate Dr. Bauder’s schema of levels of fellowship to seek what Scripture defines as unity: “that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10)? You are bad–very, very bad. You should be rejected, and we should join hands, instead, with evangelicals like Mohler who write essays that we “reverberate” with while they work in a Southern Baptist Convention teeming with unregenerate preachers and church members which almost never obeys Matthew 18:15-20 and practices church discipline. If you think Scripture is not kidding when it says men with long hair or women with short hair is a “shame” (1 Corinthians 11:1-16), or you do not want the women in your church to be an “abomination” (Deuteronomy 22:5) by wearing men’s clothing like pants, then you are certainly, certainly beyond the pale. Corruptions in our culture do not matter-let them into what should be Christ’s pure bride! Everyone knows that the loving thing to do is to allow half the congregation to be an abomination so that they can fit in with our worldly, hell-bound culture.
Dr. Bauder at least says one should separate over the gospel, and he does a good job proving that Scripture requires churches to do that. He has numbers of effective critiques of positions to his left. He clearly has studied history and is a thinker. But he does not present a Biblical case for consistent separatism-very possibly because consistent ecclesiastical separation is only possible when one rejects universal “church” ecclesiology for local-only or Landmark Baptist ecclesiology, and views the local assembly as the locus for organizational unity, while Bauder believes in a universal “church” and must somehow accomodate Scripture’s commands for unity in the body of Christ to that non-extant entity. As the book A Pure Church: A Biblical Theology of Ecclesiastical Separation demonstrates, churches must separate from all unrepentant and continuing disobedience, not just separate over the gospel. Dr. Bauder’s view is insufficient. Furthermore, his critique of what he labels “hyper-fundamentalism” is inconsistent. If the “hyper-fundamentalists” do things like separate too much and take stands for pure worship, are they thereby denying the gospel? If not, why does Bauder think they should be repudiated and separated from?
One other important point: some of those who would repudiate Dr. Bauder’s view as too weak are themselves to his left, not his right. For example, the King James Bible Research Council and the Dean Burgon Society, prominent King James Only advocacy organizations that would claim to be militant fundamentalists, are willing to fellowship with anti-repentance, anti-Lordship, anti-Christ (for does not “Christ” mean “the Messiah, the King, the Lord”?) advocates of heresy on the gospel as advocated by Jack Hyles, Curtis Hudson and the Sword of the Lord, and the so-called “free grace” movement of Zane Hodges. Fundamentalist schools that stand for gender-distinction and conservative worship, such as Baptist College of Ministry in Menomonee Falls, WI, are willing to fellowship with people who believe the truth on repentance and the gospel as well as with anti-repentance heretics at Hyles Anderson College and First Baptist (?) Church (?) of Hammond, Indiana like John Wilkerson. If you think Kevin Bauder’s Central Baptist Seminary is too weak, but you yourself do not separate even over the gospel, but tolerate false views of repentance or other heresies on the gospel that Paul would not have tolerated for one hour (Galatians 1:6-9, 2:5), you need to reconsider your position.
Take a stand–follow God. Allow “no other doctrine” (1 Timothy 1:3). Separate not just on the gospel, but from all unfruitful works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11). You may be excluded from the book Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism, with its more liberal contributors viewing you as “cultic” and the most conservative contributor viewing you as a “parasite” and a “hyper-fundamentalist,” but that is fine-God your adopted Father, Christ your gracious Redeemer, and the blessed Holy Spirit, who has made your body and your congregation into His holy temple, will be pleased. The needy sheep in your flock who had a faithful pastor will embrace you and thank you as they shine like the sun in the coming glorious kingdom, as you led them to faithfulness to Christ and a full reward, instead of compromise. If Christ does not return first, your church may, by God’s grace, continue to pass on the truth and to multiply other true churches for centuries, instead of falling into apostasy because of a sinful failure to consistently practice Biblical separation.
Get off the spectrum of evangelicalism entirely and follow Scripture alone for the glory of God alone in a separatist, Bible-believing and practicing Baptist church. You will be opposed now, but God will be glorified, and it will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.
–TDR
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Social Media and Electronics: Addictive Drugs for Christians?
Are social media and electronics drugs to which Christians are addicted-by the millions?
Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin, Pinterest, Tiktok–mind-numbing, time-wasting distractions, all. Then there is email–Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL (if you are really old-school), as well as texting, blogging, threads, and all sorts of other ways to use up on the Internet the days and hours God has given you to serve Him. Many people spend a lot of time making big bucks trying to figure out ways to keep you on their website longer; scrolling is designed to suck you in, suggested videos on YouTube are there both to keep you on the website longer and to influence what you are thinking about, the “ping” when you get a new text is designed to get you to check it right away. Many of the apps that are hugely popular on smartphones and devices tap into decades of neuroscience and psychology research funded by the casino and gambling industries, which are designed to be addictive. Americans check their phones approximately 344 times a day, and nearly half of them openly admit that they are addicted to their phones. Physical substances are not the only drugs that are addictive and which turn your brain into putty and your conscience into a wreck-social media and electronic devices do as well.
Can some beneficial things be found on the Internet, on social media, etc.? Yes-after all, I have a YouTube channel (and a Rumble channel in case YouTube censors me), a website, and (more than one) email address. I am thankful for the material at Way of Life Literature. I am writing (and you are reading) a blog right now. Occasionally the Internet can save time-making some purchases at home online can save time that would otherwise have to be spent going to a store. In general, however, social media is designed to get you to do the opposite of what God says:
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12)
Our use of time should be intentional–we are to “number” our days so that we can properly apply our hearts to wisdom. Our use of time must not be determined by whatever happens to ping next or whatever thumbnail YouTube has pop up to suck us into spending more of the limited time we have before we go to the grave or before the return of Christ watching a pointless video, or even a somewhat benefical video that is less valuable than an intentional, best use of time.
What can be done? Here are two suggestions.
1.) Make the Lord’s Day a social media fast.
Make it a distinctly different day. Don’t use any social media at least one day in seven. Don’t watch YouTube. Don’t go on Facebook. Don’t check email. Don’t read text messages. Don’t look at your phone, unless it is an important call and someone actually physically calls you. Make an exception for someone who you are texting to give a ride to church, or to a family who you are going to minister to and fellowship with for lunch, or something like that–but otherwise, stay completely off. Let the muscle memory atrophy of looking at the phone whenever ten seconds is available, at least one day in seven. Instead, use that time to practice the greatly-neglected duty of conscious meditation on God and His Word, a duty which is too often swallowed up by being on social media day and night:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psalm 1:2)
While the Lord’s Day is not a Christian Sabbath, the principles of the Westminster Larger Catechism for your use of time on the Lord’s Day are still valuable:
The … Lord’s day is to be sanctified by an holy resting all the day, (Exod. 20:8,10) not only from such works as are at all times sinful, but even from such worldly employments and recreations as are on other days lawful; (Exod. 16:25–28, Neh. 13:15–22, Jer. 17:21–22) and making it our delight to spend the whole time (except so much of it as is to be taken up in works of necessity and mercy (Matt. 12:1–13) ) in the public and private exercises of God’ s worship: (Isa. 58:13, Luke 4:16, Acts 20:7, 1 Cor. 16:1–2, Ps. 92, Isa. 66:23, Lev. 23:3) and, to that end, we are to prepare our hearts, and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation, to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business, that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of that day. (Exod. 20:8,56, Luke 23:54, Exod. 16:22,25-26,29) … The sins forbidden in the fourth commandment are, all omissions of the duties required, (Ezek. 22:26) all careless, negligent, and unprofitable performing of them, and being weary of them; (Acts 20:7,9, Ezek. 33:30–32, Amos 8:5, Mal. 1:13) all profaning the day by idleness, and doing that which is in itself sinful; (Ezek. 23:38) and by all needless works, words, and thoughts, about our worldly employments and recreations. (Jer. 17:24,27, Isa. 58:13) (The Westminster Larger Catechism: With Scripture Proofs, Questions 117, 119)
Consider abstaining from even a lawful use of social media on the Lord’s Day.
2.) “Number” your days (Psalm 90:12): specifically plan and limit the time you spend on social media the other six days of the week.
Maybe make it a rule that you only check your email once a day, or perhaps only once in the morning and once in the evening. If someone needs you right away, he can use the voice that God gave him to call you on the phone or use his legs to actually walk up to you and speak to you face to face. Make a rule on how often you check text messages and stick to it. Make a rule that, unless you have already spent adequate time in seeking God’s face in the reading and study of Scripture, in prayer, and in meditation, you don’t use social media at all, and when you use it you consciously decide ahead of time how long God would be glorified by your being on TikTok or Twitter instead of reading Scripture or an edifying book, and spend that amount of your life up on social media–no more, only less. If, as a family, you “don’t have time” to have family devotions, or to regularly preach the gospel to your community, or to memorize Scripture, then you certainly don’t have time, as a family, to have any social media accounts. Have someone keep you accountable to live by your “numbering” (Psalm 90:12) of your life. How many Christian homes have “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (1 Corinthians 16:15) in comparison to those who have addicted themselves to the slavery of the cell-phone? Are you loving your children by giving them a cell phone, or by resisting the societal pressure and not giving them one? Are you loving God and spiritually benefiting yourself by your phone and social media use?
Your life is a stewardship from God for which you must give an account. Don’t waste it on social media. Overuse of social media is a tremendous contributing factor to spiritual immaturity in the Lord’s churches, and among people old and young people in professedly Christian homes. Under-use of social media is a contributing factor to-well, probably, to spiritual maturity, greater intelligence, real Christian friendships, and the ability to do such increasingly rare things as concentrate on something for a long period of time. After all, neuroscience research shows that smartphones make people stupider, less social, more forgetful, more prone to addiction, sleepless and depressed, and poor at navigation. The phone may be smarter, but you are not.
What do you do to resist the mind-numbing, soul-sapping, intelligence-eliminating drugs of social media and electronics? Feel free to share your suggestions below. If you don’t have any, because you aren’t doing anything to stay off or wean yourself off from these addictions, maybe it is time to start.
–TDR
A Personal Financial Advisor to Invest with Biblical Values?
What can a Christian do when he wishes to honor the Lord with his investments? Can he use a personal financial advisor who is a Christian? I have written in the past, and highly commended, the Eventide family of mutual funds.
Their fund family includes the Eventide Gilead Fund (ETILX), Eventide Healthcare and Life Sciences Fund (ETIHX), Eventide Exponential Technologies Fund (ETIEX), Eventide Large Cap Focus Fund (ETLIX), Eventide Dividend Opportunities Fund (ETIDX), Eventide Multi-Asset Income Fund (ETIMX), Eventide Limited Term Bond Fund (ETIBX), and Eventide Core Bond Fund (ETIRX). (They also have class N, A, and C shares as well as class I shares, but I utilized the ticker symbols for the class I shares here.) When one invests with Eventide, he avoids companies that support wickedness like abortion, tobacco, cannabis, pornography, violent media, and so on. In addition, their investment philosophy goes one step further to ask important questions about integrity, business practice, and value-creation. I was very excited to find out about Eventide years ago, and still believe they are the best option for practicing Bible-based values in investing, for the reasons explained in my review of the Eventide family of funds and their second-best competitor, the Timothy Plan family of funds.
Are your investments clean, or at least as clean as the Timothy Plan–which is in many ways good, although at a lower standard of Biblical conformity than Eventide–would view it? You can get a complementary moral audit from them of what you own at a link on the page here. Why not find out? Are you afraid of what you will discover? Would you rather find out now, or at the judgment seat of Christ?
One might suppose that he could have a personal financial advisor assist him in investing in a clean, God-honoring way. Is having an actively (or passively) managed account with a personal financial advisor an option? Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Edge, and many other investment firms provide the option of a personal financial advisor who will seek to follow your investment directions for a fee. On multiple occasions, when I have discussed Biblical, Christian values with such people, they have said that they could follow our virtuous, godly directives and set up something that was acceptable. Does this work? I recently tried it. How did it go?
As is common knowledge, in the San Francisco Bay Area homes and condominiums are very expensive. I would like to be able to buy a residence close to Bethel Baptist Church that fits our ministry goals and family needs. I have prayerfully formulated a plan to get there that also dealt with other financial goals. Because Scripture affirms the value of a “multitude of counsellors” for safety and being established in one’s purposes (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 24:6), I wanted to run my plan by more than one financial advisor. I got a complementary meeting with one from Schwab, while with an organization called Personal Capital, part of Empower, I scheduled a meeting because they had promised one would get $100 for meeting with a financial advisor and getting a proposal. I was willing to hear what the Personal Capital person had to say about my investment plan, and that they would give me $100 for meeting with him made it better.
Over the course of three meetings, I explained my Christian, Bible-based values and what I viewed as acceptable for investments. The financial advisor with Personal Capital said something like that he was a devout Christian himself. He said he managed the assets for numbers of Christians and others who, for example, did not want to invest in abortion. Now that sounded good, no? Surely if one can get one’s investments personally under the care of a financial advisor who is himself a Christian, and who manages the assets of numbers of Christians, one can invest cleanly, like one can with Eventide. The financial advisor provided a variety of reasons why he thought what he would offer would outperform an investment strategy that held strictly to a number of Eventide funds. (This post is not about the performance side of the question, but I am actually skeptical of his claim that his mix of investments would outperform what I was doing with Eventide. For example, since inception on 7/8/2008, the Eventide Gilead Fund has grown at an annualized 12.99%, and class I shares since inception on 2/2/2010 have grown at 13.60%. That is a long time for them to outperform by several percentage points what the Personal Capital gentleman said I could expect what he was offering me would probably earn on average.) His company has a section on its website promoting the option of socially responsible investing, which they advertise as a way “to align [one’s] investments with [his] personal values and beliefs.” In any case, for investing in a righteous way, he is certainly a better option. Right?
Unfortunately, no–wrong. First, he said that he did not have the ability to actually determine whether individual companies were actually engaging in evil behaviors, or actively seeking to do good, the way that Eventide would do. Trying to make investments clean would just be, with him, taking a base strategy that did NOT evaluate things from the perspective of the kingdom of God, and simply attempting to improve it a bit. What he could do was take out some notorious companies such as a casino here and there. Would the personalization he offered be clean, according to the complementary moral audit mentioned earlier in this post? Highly unlikely.
Furthermore, he also wanted to diversify into foreign companies (a reasonable idea; nothing wrong with that). But for the foreign investments, he would simply have me get ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) that had no moral or Christian component whatsoever. So domestically, I could be part-owner (through ETFs or other investments) of companies that were engaged in evil, although not as notoriously. Outside of the USA, I could own companies that were chopping up little babies in the womb, selling abortion drugs, or marketing cigarettes and booze to twelve-year-olds. No filters whatsoever. Problem.
After the third meeting, when I got his actual proposal, I looked over the companies that he wanted me to invest in. I cannot share on this blog post what they were, because it is proprietary information with them. However, without even doing a complementary moral audit, I knew that many of them would fail, and that a Christian had no business owning them. It would be a tremendous step backward were I to join the Christian clients of this professedly devout Christian financial advisor. My investments would not be clean, much less focused on companies that are positively doing good. It would be a bad choice.
If blog readers assume that their investments are clean because they have a financial advisor who goes to church, reads the Bible, and even possibly is a truly born-again Christian, they should make very, very sure about it. At least with my situation, the fact that this advisor told me that he was committed to Christian doctrine and managed the money of a good number of Christians, and could personalize investments to avoid what is bad turned out not to mean a whole lot. It meant we could take a framework focused solely on gaining filthy lucre and could clean up bits and pieces of it. With Eventide, everything is built around a Biblical framework of investing. What a difference–and what a blessing! Eventide won hands-down over the professedly devout Christian financial advisor who said he could personalize investments to be suitable for Bible-believers.
Naturally, I did not sell my Eventide investments and move over to Personal Capital with Empower. Personal Capital would not have allowed me to invest in a way that glorifies and pleases the Lord.
Other reasons why I did not move over to them–such as that Empower had poor customer service when they were the 401K company for one of my jobs in Wisconsin (I was able to invest in Eventide through them, and that’s all I did), that what the financial advisor said would be their likely performance is lower than how Eventide has performed since their Gilead Fund and other funds started, that Empower / Personal Capital never even gave me the $100 for spending a lot of time with them and having several meetings, that they did not have a phone number for me to call to get help with this, but only an email, and that their customer service here in California seemed to have even more room for improvement than they did in Wisconsin, were less important, although they were not very promising. These all could have been reasons for me not to go with them. That I could not invest cleanly was necessarily a reason not to go with them, but stick with Eventide.
What about you? Do you have confidence that what you invest in pleases the Lord, and will be something you can be happy about when you stand before Christ on judgment day? Don’t assume that you do, just because you have a financial advisor who claims to be a Christian and who says he can personalize your investments.
–TDR
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