Seeds of Death ( Monsanto etc.)
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
The Holy Spirit and the Primitive Church
The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit
By Peter Amsterdam
In the first two articles in this series, we looked at how the Holy Spirit came upon certain individuals for specific purposes within the Old Testament and during the life of Jesus.
In the Old Testament accounts, the Spirit of God generally didn’t dwell permanently with individuals. With Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, this dramatically changed. On the day of Pentecost, God the Holy Spirit entered into the lives of individual believers, empowered them, and remained within them.
Pentecost
The Gospel of Luke explains that Jesus had told His disciples He was going to send the promise of the Father to them. In the book of Acts, Luke states that this promise was the coming of the Holy Spirit, and that they would receive power when the Spirit came upon them.
Behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.[1]
While staying with them He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “you heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” …“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”[2]
This astounding event happened ten days later on the Jewish Festival of Weeks, known to the Hebraic Jews as Shavu’ot and to the Hellenistic (or Greek) Jews as Pentecost. It’s called Pentecost because it falls on the 50th day after Passover. Shavu’ot celebrates the time of year when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple, and also commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.
Jesus’ crucifixion took place right before the Passover, and the Holy Spirit was poured out 50 days later on the day of Pentecost. Because this was one of the major Jewish festivals, Jews and converts to Judaism from all over the known world were gathered in Jerusalem.
The book of Acts relates what happened at this momentous event:
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they [the disciples] were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.[3]
As promised, God’s Spirit was poured out upon the disciples, which immediately resulted in their receiving power which ignited their mission of reaching the world with the Gospel.
Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”[4]
People from much of the Roman Empire heard the message on that day. In today’s geography, the list of countries given tells us that people from Libya, Egypt, Arabia, a number of cities in Turkey, Italy, Iran, Iraq, and the island of Crete, came together—due to either the sound of the mighty rushing of the wind or hearing the disciples speaking the various languages—and heard Peter preach about what had happened and proclaim salvation through Jesus.
Accounts of Holy Spirit Infilling
There are five other accounts of the Holy Spirit filling believers in the book of Acts. Some of these accounts are of an initial infilling and others are of a subsequent filling of those who had already received the Holy Spirit.
When Peter and John were going to the temple and they healed the lame man, a large crowd gathered and Peter preached, resulting in 5,000 converts. Peter and John were arrested, questioned, and threatened by the high priest and his father-in-law and others. Afterwards they met with other believers and told them what happened, and these believers rejoiced in prayer with them. When praying together, they were filled with the Spirit.[5]
When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.[6]
Here you see believers who are saved, and who have previously received the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Spirit again, giving them additional power to continue witnessing with boldness.
Another account of the Spirit being given to believers took place after Stephen had been martyred. The believers in Jerusalem faced strong persecution at that time, including from Saul the Pharisee, who later became Paul the apostle. Philip, one of those who was chosen to be a deacon earlier,[7] left Jerusalem at this time and went to Samaria. He preached the Gospel, cast out unclean spirits, and healed people who were paralyzed and lame. This resulted in much joy and men and women being baptized.[8]
The Jews did not consider the Samaritans to be Jewish, as they were descendants of the ten tribes of Israel who had been defeated and forcibly relocated to other lands by the Assyrians 700 years earlier. The Assyrians brought other people to populate the land, who intermarried with the remnant of Jews left in Samaria. As such, Samaritans were not considered to be pure Jews. Up until this time, the disciples had only ministered to other Jews. So when the apostles heard that Samaritans were becoming believers, they sent Peter and John to check out the situation. During that visitation, the newly saved Samaritans received the Holy Spirit.
[Peter and John] prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for He had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.[9]
In this instance, non-Jews who were saved had not yet received the Holy Spirit, but did so when the apostles laid hands on them.
The next example of the Holy Spirit being given was after Saul, the persecutor of the early church, was confronted by light from heaven. Jesus spoke to Saul, asking why he was persecuting Him. Saul lost his sight, and following Jesus’ instructions spent three days in Damascus.[10]
The Lord spoke to a disciple named Ananias, telling him to go to the house of Judas on the street called Straight, where he would find Saul. Ananias expressed concern, as he knew that Saul was persecuting Christians, but was told that Saul was a chosen instrument who would carry the name of Jesus to the Gentiles (Gentiles refers to any non-Jewish people), kings, and the children of Israel. Ananias did as he was instructed.[11]
So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”[12]
In this instance, an enemy of the Christians is converted and then filled with the Holy Spirit when a disciple lays hands upon him and prays for him.
Acts chapter 10, verses 1–16, tells of Peter having the same vision three times, in which he sees animals, reptiles, and birds, which according to the Laws of Moses are unclean and shouldn’t be eaten. He hears a voice instructing him to “kill and eat” the creatures. Peter objects, but the voice says, “What God has made clean, do not call common (unclean or unholy).”
Immediately following these visions, some men—sent by Cornelius, a God-fearing Roman centurion—arrived and asked Peter to come to Cornelius’ home. If a Jew entered the home of a non-Jew, he became ritually unclean, so it would be unlawful for Peter to go into Cornelius’ home. However, due to the vision, Peter understood that God had revealed to him that he should go, that the “unclean” were to be looked upon as clean. So he went, entered Cornelius’ home, and shared the good news that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were available to all within the household, who received the message.
While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.[13]
Cornelius and the others—all Gentiles—believed the message Peter shared with them and consequently they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this situation, Gentiles received the Spirit at the moment they believed in Jesus.
The fifth recorded instance of people receiving the Holy Spirit involves twelve disciples of John in Ephesus.
When the apostle Paul came to Ephesus, he found some disciples of John the Baptist. Paul asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit, to which they replied that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit. Paul told them about Jesus and they believed.
On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. There were about twelve men in all.[14]
The Holy Spirit for All Believers
These accounts in the book of Acts portray the Spirit arriving in a variety of situations upon different people, both Jews and Gentiles, old and young, male and female, masters and servants. Certainly within the household of Cornelius, within the group of believers Peter and John prayed with, within the 120 in the upper room, there were men and women, servants, and people of all ages, just as was predicted by the prophet Joel.
It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit.[15]
The outpouring of God’s Spirit upon ordinary people wasn’t something that was limited to the early church. Since that time, God’s Spirit has dwelt in countless believers over the centuries. In contrast with the Spirit’s presence within only a few persons in the Old Testament, since the day of Pentecost the Spirit has been, and continues to be, poured out upon all believers, as we receive the beautiful “promise of the Father.”
Notes
Unless otherwise indicated, all scriptures are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[1] Luke 24:49.
[2] Acts 1:4–5, 8.
[3] Acts 2:1–4.
[4] Act 2:5–11.
[5] Acts 4:1–31.
[6] Acts 4:31.
[7] Acts 6:5.
[8] Acts 8:5, 6, 12.
[9] Acts 8:15–17.
[10] Acts 9:1–9.
[11] Acts 9:10–16.
[12] Acts 9:17–20.
[13] Acts 10:44–48.
[14] Acts 19:1–7.
[15] Joel 2:28–29.
On Being Neighborly
By Marcus Brotherton, Art of Manliness, May 23, 2013
Between college and graduate school I took a gap year where I worked in a restaurant, snow skied every chance I got, and tried to figure out the rest of my life. During that year I lived in a big old suburban house near the lake along with five to eight other guys and sometimes one girl.
We had a lot of fun that year. Our driveway was filled with sports cars and motorcycles. We barbecued most meals and played music with the volume set to eleven. At night we climbed onto the roof and smoked cigars, dreaming of our futures. Occasionally we shot off firecrackers, just for the sake of sounding our barbaric YAWP.
One night we were shooting bottle rockets from an upstairs window when a loud knock sounded on the front door. It was our neighbor from across the street, and, boy, was he ticked. His roof was made of cedar shakes, he explained, and he was worried one of our stray bottle rockets would burn his house down. Would we—please!—knock it off.
Sure, sure, we said, and curtailed the activity for the night. We were polite enough to his face. But after he left we agreed among ourselves that our neighbor was only a worried fuddy duddy whose greatest interest in life was spoiling our good time.
Fast forward twenty years.
I have become that neighbor, in many ways. If a gang of young ruffian renters moved in across the street and fired bottle rockets toward my house, I’d certainly go over and politely ask them to knock it off.
Something changes between the days of being a guy and the days of being a man. When it comes to where he lives, an immature man tends to see his neighborhood only as a place to hang his hat. But a mature man sees his neighborhood as a place he helps create.
It’s in every man’s best interest to live in the best neighborhood he can. And by “best neighborhood,” I don’t mean a gated community filled with McMansions. I mean a neighborhood filled with belonging, identity, empathy, understanding, and a strong sense of community.
To do that, you need to become a good neighbor. But how?
A few years back I edited a book called The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door, by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon.
The idea for the book began one day in 2009 when Pathak and Runyon gathered a group of twenty leaders to brainstorm ways they could better serve their communities. Bob Frie, mayor of Arvada (one of the cities within the greater Denver area), joined them, and the group asked Frie a simple question: How can we best work together to serve our city?
The ensuing discussion revealed a laundry list of social problems similar to what many cities face: at risk-kids, areas with dilapidated housing, child hunger, drug and alcohol abuse, loneliness, elderly shut-ins with no one to look in on them. The list went on and on.
Then the mayor said something that stopped cold the discussion. “The majority of issues that our community is facing would be eliminated or drastically reduced if we could just figure out a way to become a community of great neighbors.”
Read that quote again if you need to. Its ramifications could well affect your life.
Frie explained that neighboring relationships are more effective than civic programs because they are organic and ongoing. When neighbors are in relationship with one another, for instance, the elderly shut-ins get cared for by the person next door, the at-risk kid gets mentored by a dad who lives on the block, and so on.
The group took the mayor’s words to heart. They began a city-wide initiative aimed at helping people learn these ideas and then apply them where they lived. They called their initiative simply: The Art of Neighboring. These are some of the findings from their study.
1. Being a good neighbor begins with a positive, proactive mindset. “The solutions to the problems in our neighborhoods aren’t ultimately found in the government, police, schools, or in getting more people to go to church,” Runyon and Pathak wrote in their book. “The solutions lie with us. It’s within our power to become good neighbors, to care for the people around us, and to be cared for by the people around us.”
That’s where becoming a good neighbor begins. It begins with how a man thinks. Instead of seeing the place he lives only as the place he hangs his hat, he begins to see the place he lives as a place he influences. He knows it’s up to him to make things better.
Author Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point agrees. Exploring the “broken windows” theory first articulated several decades ago, he described how even small things done or left undone in a neighborhood can spur crime rates up or down.
When litter isn’t picked up, when graffiti remains on a wall or fence, when a window is broken but not fixed—these can all communicate that a neighborhood is declining, Gladwell wrote. And when people’s outward environments appear to decline, people tend to respond socially with less care, thus the potential for increased crime.
The opposite is true as well. Just as lapses in signs of care and concern can set off an escalation in deterioration, so can positive actions create a chain reaction of improvement. Thus, a good neighbor’s mindset is focused on how he can influence his neighborhood for the better, and he seeks to address problems while they are still small, nipping them in the bud. He feels a sense of ownership, sees his neighborhood as a reflection of himself, and knows his actions affect others. He begins to be a good neighbor simply and in small ways, undertaking the responsibility of creating an environment that he—and others—will want to live in.
2. The simplest way to become a good neighbor is to smile, wave, and get to know names. I was out for a walk the other morning when I saw a guy walking toward me on the street. I gave him a head nod and said, “Good morning,” as he passed, like I do whenever I meet anyone in my neighborhood. But the young man didn’t even look at me or respond in any way.
He was carrying a backpack bearing the name of our town’s community college, so that gave me a clue to his standoffish behavior. He may have had a test that morning and been focused on what lay ahead. He may have not heard me, or been in a bad mood and simply didn’t want to respond.
But I suspect it was something simpler. I’m not sure his exact age, probably around 18 or 19, but I suspect he was simply thinking more like a child and less like a man.
In this day and age, children are correctly taught never to talk with people they don’t know. If a 44-year-old stranger said good morning to my 10-year-old daughter as she waited for the school bus, I would strongly urge her to ignore him, even to run away.
But adult-aged neighbors need to be re-taught to engage with people they don’t know, at least when it comes to those who live near to them.
The embryo of good neighboring is proactive friendliness. It means initiating a positive interaction with those you come in contact with. The simplest way to do that is to smile, wave, and learn your neighbors’ names. If someone moves in next door, take them an apple pie. If your neighbor goes out of town, offer to watch out for his place while he’s away.
3. Being a good neighbor means you treat others as you want to be treated. Some years back when my wife and I bought our first house, we became fast friends with our next door neighbors, a couple about our age. We’d eat dinner together, we’d talk over the fence, we’d mow our lawns for each other when out of town.
They were the neighbors from heaven.
Then they moved out and another couple moved in. The woman was okay, but the guy was a grade-A jerk. There’s no polite way to say that. He was surly and rude, he made noise at all hours of the night, he held wild parties and left empty beer bottles on his front lawn. Other neighbors would actually complain to us—the people who lived closest to them—asking us to do something about it.
They were the neighbors from hell.
The point is that when it comes to living in close proximity to other people, any number of relational issues can arise. No neighborhood is perfect, and it takes tact, timing, wisdom, forgiveness, boundaries, and at times courage to live alongside of other people.
Still, the best way to create a good neighborhood is to be a good neighbor yourself. As an adult, you might live in a suburban neighborhood, a rural area, or in an apartment in the city, yet wherever you live, the same principle holds true: your actions will affect others, and their actions will affect you.
This means you’re mindful of your actions. You realize you don’t live in a frat house anymore. You keep your music turned to a volume where it can’t be heard outside your walls. You pick up after your dog and keep him on a leash if your yard is unfenced. You carry your trash cans back inside the garage the same day as your trash is picked up.
When it comes to where you live, you help set the tone.
I haven’t talked to Runyan and Pathak for awhile now, so I don’t know all the positive changes that resulted from their initiative. But I do know that word began to catch on about being a good neighbor, and a number of positive stories poured back their way. The initiative has even begun to catch on in other cities and states. The authors have received letters from mayors, city managers, and police officers, describing how the initiative is paying winning dividends.
There were stories of block parties being held, of neighborhood movie nights, of single mothers being helped out with free groceries and diapers, of neighbors who came down with cancer receiving weeks of free meals.
Many of the stories reflected smaller, simple interactions. One man wrote to say that he shoveled the driveway of his neighbors when they were away on vacation. He’d never spoke to his neighbors before, but now they always smile and say hello.
About a year after the initiative began, Runyon and Pathak received an e-mail from their assistant city manager, Vicky Reir, who wrote:
Dave and Jay:
I’ve been working in the city manager’s office for thirteen years. This is the first time that I can remember going through an entire winter without receiving a single request for assistance in shoveling a driveway. No one has asked for help for themselves or an aging parent, not one call. Maybe this is a coincidence, but I wonder if this is because of the neighboring movement. I guess there’s no way to know for sure, but I thought you’d be encouraged.
“When the people who live around each other become closer in their relationships, great things happen,” Pathak and Runyon wrote. “Start now by doing the small things well, and commit to good neighboring as a lifestyle. You have been invited to begin a sacred journey, one that has the potential to change your block, your city, and possibly the world.”
Between college and graduate school I took a gap year where I worked in a restaurant, snow skied every chance I got, and tried to figure out the rest of my life. During that year I lived in a big old suburban house near the lake along with five to eight other guys and sometimes one girl.
We had a lot of fun that year. Our driveway was filled with sports cars and motorcycles. We barbecued most meals and played music with the volume set to eleven. At night we climbed onto the roof and smoked cigars, dreaming of our futures. Occasionally we shot off firecrackers, just for the sake of sounding our barbaric YAWP.
One night we were shooting bottle rockets from an upstairs window when a loud knock sounded on the front door. It was our neighbor from across the street, and, boy, was he ticked. His roof was made of cedar shakes, he explained, and he was worried one of our stray bottle rockets would burn his house down. Would we—please!—knock it off.
Sure, sure, we said, and curtailed the activity for the night. We were polite enough to his face. But after he left we agreed among ourselves that our neighbor was only a worried fuddy duddy whose greatest interest in life was spoiling our good time.
Fast forward twenty years.
I have become that neighbor, in many ways. If a gang of young ruffian renters moved in across the street and fired bottle rockets toward my house, I’d certainly go over and politely ask them to knock it off.
Something changes between the days of being a guy and the days of being a man. When it comes to where he lives, an immature man tends to see his neighborhood only as a place to hang his hat. But a mature man sees his neighborhood as a place he helps create.
It’s in every man’s best interest to live in the best neighborhood he can. And by “best neighborhood,” I don’t mean a gated community filled with McMansions. I mean a neighborhood filled with belonging, identity, empathy, understanding, and a strong sense of community.
To do that, you need to become a good neighbor. But how?
A few years back I edited a book called The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door, by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon.
The idea for the book began one day in 2009 when Pathak and Runyon gathered a group of twenty leaders to brainstorm ways they could better serve their communities. Bob Frie, mayor of Arvada (one of the cities within the greater Denver area), joined them, and the group asked Frie a simple question: How can we best work together to serve our city?
The ensuing discussion revealed a laundry list of social problems similar to what many cities face: at risk-kids, areas with dilapidated housing, child hunger, drug and alcohol abuse, loneliness, elderly shut-ins with no one to look in on them. The list went on and on.
Then the mayor said something that stopped cold the discussion. “The majority of issues that our community is facing would be eliminated or drastically reduced if we could just figure out a way to become a community of great neighbors.”
Read that quote again if you need to. Its ramifications could well affect your life.
Frie explained that neighboring relationships are more effective than civic programs because they are organic and ongoing. When neighbors are in relationship with one another, for instance, the elderly shut-ins get cared for by the person next door, the at-risk kid gets mentored by a dad who lives on the block, and so on.
The group took the mayor’s words to heart. They began a city-wide initiative aimed at helping people learn these ideas and then apply them where they lived. They called their initiative simply: The Art of Neighboring. These are some of the findings from their study.
1. Being a good neighbor begins with a positive, proactive mindset. “The solutions to the problems in our neighborhoods aren’t ultimately found in the government, police, schools, or in getting more people to go to church,” Runyon and Pathak wrote in their book. “The solutions lie with us. It’s within our power to become good neighbors, to care for the people around us, and to be cared for by the people around us.”
That’s where becoming a good neighbor begins. It begins with how a man thinks. Instead of seeing the place he lives only as the place he hangs his hat, he begins to see the place he lives as a place he influences. He knows it’s up to him to make things better.
Author Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point agrees. Exploring the “broken windows” theory first articulated several decades ago, he described how even small things done or left undone in a neighborhood can spur crime rates up or down.
When litter isn’t picked up, when graffiti remains on a wall or fence, when a window is broken but not fixed—these can all communicate that a neighborhood is declining, Gladwell wrote. And when people’s outward environments appear to decline, people tend to respond socially with less care, thus the potential for increased crime.
The opposite is true as well. Just as lapses in signs of care and concern can set off an escalation in deterioration, so can positive actions create a chain reaction of improvement. Thus, a good neighbor’s mindset is focused on how he can influence his neighborhood for the better, and he seeks to address problems while they are still small, nipping them in the bud. He feels a sense of ownership, sees his neighborhood as a reflection of himself, and knows his actions affect others. He begins to be a good neighbor simply and in small ways, undertaking the responsibility of creating an environment that he—and others—will want to live in.
2. The simplest way to become a good neighbor is to smile, wave, and get to know names. I was out for a walk the other morning when I saw a guy walking toward me on the street. I gave him a head nod and said, “Good morning,” as he passed, like I do whenever I meet anyone in my neighborhood. But the young man didn’t even look at me or respond in any way.
He was carrying a backpack bearing the name of our town’s community college, so that gave me a clue to his standoffish behavior. He may have had a test that morning and been focused on what lay ahead. He may have not heard me, or been in a bad mood and simply didn’t want to respond.
But I suspect it was something simpler. I’m not sure his exact age, probably around 18 or 19, but I suspect he was simply thinking more like a child and less like a man.
In this day and age, children are correctly taught never to talk with people they don’t know. If a 44-year-old stranger said good morning to my 10-year-old daughter as she waited for the school bus, I would strongly urge her to ignore him, even to run away.
But adult-aged neighbors need to be re-taught to engage with people they don’t know, at least when it comes to those who live near to them.
The embryo of good neighboring is proactive friendliness. It means initiating a positive interaction with those you come in contact with. The simplest way to do that is to smile, wave, and learn your neighbors’ names. If someone moves in next door, take them an apple pie. If your neighbor goes out of town, offer to watch out for his place while he’s away.
3. Being a good neighbor means you treat others as you want to be treated. Some years back when my wife and I bought our first house, we became fast friends with our next door neighbors, a couple about our age. We’d eat dinner together, we’d talk over the fence, we’d mow our lawns for each other when out of town.
They were the neighbors from heaven.
Then they moved out and another couple moved in. The woman was okay, but the guy was a grade-A jerk. There’s no polite way to say that. He was surly and rude, he made noise at all hours of the night, he held wild parties and left empty beer bottles on his front lawn. Other neighbors would actually complain to us—the people who lived closest to them—asking us to do something about it.
They were the neighbors from hell.
The point is that when it comes to living in close proximity to other people, any number of relational issues can arise. No neighborhood is perfect, and it takes tact, timing, wisdom, forgiveness, boundaries, and at times courage to live alongside of other people.
Still, the best way to create a good neighborhood is to be a good neighbor yourself. As an adult, you might live in a suburban neighborhood, a rural area, or in an apartment in the city, yet wherever you live, the same principle holds true: your actions will affect others, and their actions will affect you.
This means you’re mindful of your actions. You realize you don’t live in a frat house anymore. You keep your music turned to a volume where it can’t be heard outside your walls. You pick up after your dog and keep him on a leash if your yard is unfenced. You carry your trash cans back inside the garage the same day as your trash is picked up.
When it comes to where you live, you help set the tone.
I haven’t talked to Runyan and Pathak for awhile now, so I don’t know all the positive changes that resulted from their initiative. But I do know that word began to catch on about being a good neighbor, and a number of positive stories poured back their way. The initiative has even begun to catch on in other cities and states. The authors have received letters from mayors, city managers, and police officers, describing how the initiative is paying winning dividends.
There were stories of block parties being held, of neighborhood movie nights, of single mothers being helped out with free groceries and diapers, of neighbors who came down with cancer receiving weeks of free meals.
Many of the stories reflected smaller, simple interactions. One man wrote to say that he shoveled the driveway of his neighbors when they were away on vacation. He’d never spoke to his neighbors before, but now they always smile and say hello.
About a year after the initiative began, Runyon and Pathak received an e-mail from their assistant city manager, Vicky Reir, who wrote:
Dave and Jay:
I’ve been working in the city manager’s office for thirteen years. This is the first time that I can remember going through an entire winter without receiving a single request for assistance in shoveling a driveway. No one has asked for help for themselves or an aging parent, not one call. Maybe this is a coincidence, but I wonder if this is because of the neighboring movement. I guess there’s no way to know for sure, but I thought you’d be encouraged.
“When the people who live around each other become closer in their relationships, great things happen,” Pathak and Runyon wrote. “Start now by doing the small things well, and commit to good neighboring as a lifestyle. You have been invited to begin a sacred journey, one that has the potential to change your block, your city, and possibly the world.”
Francis' Humility and Emphasis on the Poor Strike a New Tone at the Vatican
By Rachel Donadio, NY Times, May 25, 2013
VATICAN CITY—He has criticized the “cult of money” and greed he sees driving the world financial system, reflecting his affinity for liberation theology. He has left Vatican officials struggling to keep up with his off-the-cuff remarks and impromptu forays into the crowds of tens of thousands that fill St. Peter’s Square during his audiences. He has delighted souvenir vendors near the Vatican by increasing tourist traffic.
Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, has been in office for only two months, but already he has changed the tone of the papacy, lifting morale and bringing a new sense of enthusiasm to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Vatican itself, Vatican officials and the faithful say.
“It’s very positive. There’s a change of air, a sense of energy,” said one Vatican official, speaking with traditional anonymity. “Some people would use the term honeymoon, but there’s no indication that it will let up.”
Beyond appointing eight cardinals as outside advisers, Francis has not yet begun making concrete changes or set forth an ambitious policy agenda in a Vatican hierarchy that was gripped by scandal during the papacy of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict, who resigned on Feb. 28, is now living in a monastery inside the Vatican.
But Francis’ emphasis on attention to the poor, and a style that is more akin to that of a parish priest, albeit one with one billion parishioners, is already transforming perceptions. He has chosen to live not in the papal apartments but rather in the Casa Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican, where he eats dinner in the company of lower-ranking priests and visitors.
“There are differences, but differences of style, not content,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor in chief of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, comparing Francis with Benedict.
In his speeches, “his style is simple and direct. It’s not elaborately constructed and complex,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
He has repeatedly returned to the euro crisis and the suffering it has caused in Greece and the Catholic countries of Southern Europe.
“If investments in the banks fail, ‘Oh, it’s a tragedy,’ ” he said, speaking extemporaneously for more than 40 minutes at a Pentecost vigil last weekend, after a private audience with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the architect of Europe’s austerity policies. “But if people die of hunger or don’t have food or health, nothing happens. This is our crisis today.”
In a recent speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Francis also spoke of the need for more ethics in finance.
“The financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis,” he said, adding: “We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”
Father Lombardi said that the pope had called him before that speech. “He said, ‘Pay attention, this is important. I want people to understand it’s important,’” he said.
Francis’ speeches clearly draw on the themes of liberation theology, a movement that seeks to use the teachings of the Gospel to help free people from poverty and that has been particularly strong in his native Latin America. In the 1980s, Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, led a campaign to rein in the movement, which he saw as too closely tied to some Marxist political elements.
Francis studied with an Argentine Jesuit priest who was a proponent of liberation theology, and Father Lombardi acknowledged the echoes. “But what is clear is that he was always against the strains of liberation theology that had an ideological Marxist element,” he said.
While Benedict generally delivered only carefully prepared speeches and rarely used the first person, Francis has a more conversational tone, with frequent mentions of his own personal and family history. In his Pentecost remarks last weekend, he cited biblical verses, but he also said with a smile that he sometimes dozed off while praying and recalled how he had been inspired to enter the priesthood by the simple faith of his mother and grandmother.
Francis improvises so often that Vatican communications officials have trouble keeping up with him. “We’re all learning,” Father Lombardi said.
Vatican Radio often rushes to provide transcripts, including of the homilies the pope delivers at Mass each morning in a chapel frequented by employees of Vatican City State. He arrives early and prays with the parishioners before putting on his vestments. Afterward, “he greets everyone personally,” Father Lombardi said.
The faithful love it. “I feel like I am a new Catholic since he became pope,” said Attilio Cortiga, 59, a public employee from the southern Italian region of Campania, who got up at 1 a.m. to travel to Francis’ weekly audience on Wednesday. “I came because I feel he is very close to us ordinary people. His words touch anybody’s heart.”
Vatican watchers say that Francis has been drawing above-average crowds, even for the early months of a new papacy.
“The economy has picked up again here,” said Marco Mesceni, 60, a third-generation vendor of papal memorabilia outside St. Peter’s Square. “It was so hard to sell anything under Benedict. This pope attracts huge crowds, and they all want to bring back home something with his smiling face on it.”
Francis has also been enjoying far better press than Benedict ever did. “He does not suffer from the prejudices that unfortunately Benedict immediately had against him,” said Mr. Vian, the newspaper editor. He argued that many of Benedict’s missteps, with other faiths and more progressive Catholics, and the scandals that plagued his papacy, came as much from perceptions of the pope as from reality.
The new pope has done things that might well have caused more controversy on his predecessor’s watch. On May 12, Francis celebrated a Mass at St. Peter’s to canonize two Latin Americans and 800 people who were killed in Otranto, in the southern Italian region of Puglia, in 1480 after they refused to convert to Islam at the hands of Ottoman Turkish invaders. The 800 were sainted as Christian martyrs, which does not require evidence of two miracles.
“If Benedict had done that, maybe the polemics would have mounted,” Mr. Vian said, alluding to the previous pope’s strained rapport with the Muslim world. It was, in fact, Benedict who ordered the canonization of the 800, but the announcement drew little attention—it came in the same speech when he shocked the world by saying he would retire.
The previous pope, a theologian, often warned of the “risks” facing the church, and reminded Catholics of the ways “that we’re on the wrong path,” Father Lombardi said. That was important, he said, but sometimes a change of emphasis is good. “To be told repeatedly about how God’s love and mercy can transform the hearts of people, there was a need for that,” he added.
VATICAN CITY—He has criticized the “cult of money” and greed he sees driving the world financial system, reflecting his affinity for liberation theology. He has left Vatican officials struggling to keep up with his off-the-cuff remarks and impromptu forays into the crowds of tens of thousands that fill St. Peter’s Square during his audiences. He has delighted souvenir vendors near the Vatican by increasing tourist traffic.
Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, has been in office for only two months, but already he has changed the tone of the papacy, lifting morale and bringing a new sense of enthusiasm to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Vatican itself, Vatican officials and the faithful say.
“It’s very positive. There’s a change of air, a sense of energy,” said one Vatican official, speaking with traditional anonymity. “Some people would use the term honeymoon, but there’s no indication that it will let up.”
Beyond appointing eight cardinals as outside advisers, Francis has not yet begun making concrete changes or set forth an ambitious policy agenda in a Vatican hierarchy that was gripped by scandal during the papacy of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. Benedict, who resigned on Feb. 28, is now living in a monastery inside the Vatican.
But Francis’ emphasis on attention to the poor, and a style that is more akin to that of a parish priest, albeit one with one billion parishioners, is already transforming perceptions. He has chosen to live not in the papal apartments but rather in the Casa Santa Marta residence inside the Vatican, where he eats dinner in the company of lower-ranking priests and visitors.
“There are differences, but differences of style, not content,” said Giovanni Maria Vian, editor in chief of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, comparing Francis with Benedict.
In his speeches, “his style is simple and direct. It’s not elaborately constructed and complex,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
He has repeatedly returned to the euro crisis and the suffering it has caused in Greece and the Catholic countries of Southern Europe.
“If investments in the banks fail, ‘Oh, it’s a tragedy,’ ” he said, speaking extemporaneously for more than 40 minutes at a Pentecost vigil last weekend, after a private audience with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the architect of Europe’s austerity policies. “But if people die of hunger or don’t have food or health, nothing happens. This is our crisis today.”
In a recent speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, Francis also spoke of the need for more ethics in finance.
“The financial crisis which we are experiencing makes us forget that its ultimate origin is to be found in a profound human crisis,” he said, adding: “We have created new idols. The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.”
Father Lombardi said that the pope had called him before that speech. “He said, ‘Pay attention, this is important. I want people to understand it’s important,’” he said.
Francis’ speeches clearly draw on the themes of liberation theology, a movement that seeks to use the teachings of the Gospel to help free people from poverty and that has been particularly strong in his native Latin America. In the 1980s, Benedict, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, led a campaign to rein in the movement, which he saw as too closely tied to some Marxist political elements.
Francis studied with an Argentine Jesuit priest who was a proponent of liberation theology, and Father Lombardi acknowledged the echoes. “But what is clear is that he was always against the strains of liberation theology that had an ideological Marxist element,” he said.
While Benedict generally delivered only carefully prepared speeches and rarely used the first person, Francis has a more conversational tone, with frequent mentions of his own personal and family history. In his Pentecost remarks last weekend, he cited biblical verses, but he also said with a smile that he sometimes dozed off while praying and recalled how he had been inspired to enter the priesthood by the simple faith of his mother and grandmother.
Francis improvises so often that Vatican communications officials have trouble keeping up with him. “We’re all learning,” Father Lombardi said.
Vatican Radio often rushes to provide transcripts, including of the homilies the pope delivers at Mass each morning in a chapel frequented by employees of Vatican City State. He arrives early and prays with the parishioners before putting on his vestments. Afterward, “he greets everyone personally,” Father Lombardi said.
The faithful love it. “I feel like I am a new Catholic since he became pope,” said Attilio Cortiga, 59, a public employee from the southern Italian region of Campania, who got up at 1 a.m. to travel to Francis’ weekly audience on Wednesday. “I came because I feel he is very close to us ordinary people. His words touch anybody’s heart.”
Vatican watchers say that Francis has been drawing above-average crowds, even for the early months of a new papacy.
“The economy has picked up again here,” said Marco Mesceni, 60, a third-generation vendor of papal memorabilia outside St. Peter’s Square. “It was so hard to sell anything under Benedict. This pope attracts huge crowds, and they all want to bring back home something with his smiling face on it.”
Francis has also been enjoying far better press than Benedict ever did. “He does not suffer from the prejudices that unfortunately Benedict immediately had against him,” said Mr. Vian, the newspaper editor. He argued that many of Benedict’s missteps, with other faiths and more progressive Catholics, and the scandals that plagued his papacy, came as much from perceptions of the pope as from reality.
The new pope has done things that might well have caused more controversy on his predecessor’s watch. On May 12, Francis celebrated a Mass at St. Peter’s to canonize two Latin Americans and 800 people who were killed in Otranto, in the southern Italian region of Puglia, in 1480 after they refused to convert to Islam at the hands of Ottoman Turkish invaders. The 800 were sainted as Christian martyrs, which does not require evidence of two miracles.
“If Benedict had done that, maybe the polemics would have mounted,” Mr. Vian said, alluding to the previous pope’s strained rapport with the Muslim world. It was, in fact, Benedict who ordered the canonization of the 800, but the announcement drew little attention—it came in the same speech when he shocked the world by saying he would retire.
The previous pope, a theologian, often warned of the “risks” facing the church, and reminded Catholics of the ways “that we’re on the wrong path,” Father Lombardi said. That was important, he said, but sometimes a change of emphasis is good. “To be told repeatedly about how God’s love and mercy can transform the hearts of people, there was a need for that,” he added.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
When God Is Silent
A compilation http://anchor.tfionline.com/post/when-god-silent/
Download Audio (8.3MB)
“He answered her not a word.”1
“He will be silent in his love.”2
One Christian dreamed that she saw three others at prayer. As they knelt, the Master drew near to them.
As He approached the first of the three, He bent over her in tenderness and grace, with smiles full of radiant love and spoke to her in accents of purest, sweetest music. Leaving her, He came to the next but only placed His hand upon her bowed head, and gave her one look of loving approval.
The third woman He passed almost abruptly without stopping for a word or glance. The woman in her dream said to herself, “I wonder what she has done, and why He made so much difference between them?” As she tried to account for the action of her Lord, He stood by her and said: “O woman! How wrongly hast thou interpreted Me. The first kneeling woman needs all the weight of My tenderness and care to keep her feet in My narrow way. She needs My love, thought and help every moment of the day. … The second has stronger faith and deeper love, and I can trust her to trust Me however things may go and whatever people do.
“The third, whom I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect, has faith and love of the finest quality, and her I am training by quick and drastic processes for the highest and holiest service.
“She knows Me so intimately, and trusts Me so utterly, that she is independent of words or looks or any outward intimation of My approval. She is not dismayed nor discouraged by any circumstances through which I arrange that she shall pass; she trusts Me when sense and reason and every finer instinct of the natural heart would rebel—because she knows that I am working in her for eternity, and that what I do, though she knows not the explanation now, she will understand hereafter.
“I am silent in My love because I love beyond the power of words to express, or of human hearts to understand, and also for your sakes that you may learn to love and trust Me in Spirit-taught, spontaneous response to My love, without the spur of anything outward to call it forth.”—Mrs. Charles E. Cowman3
*
You can respond to the silence of God in two ways. One response is for you to go into depression, a sense of guilt, and self-condemnation. The other response is for you to have an expectation that God is about to bring you to a deeper knowledge of Himself. These responses are as different as night and day.—Henry Blackaby
*
Perhaps it's not silence we’re encountering while we seek God, but rather a pregnant pause—a prompting to engage in personal reflection so that the deepest of answers, the most profound of responses, can be given and received.—James Emery White
*
“It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”4
Week after week, with unfaltering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched the dwindling brook; often tempted to stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air, but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank; the birds fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, “the word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Most of us would have gotten anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our songs as soon as the streamlet caroled less musically over its rocky bed; and with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced to and fro upon the withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God's blessing on it, would have started off elsewhere.
God often does extricate us, because His mercy endureth forever, but if we had only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait, patiently wait!—F. B. Meyer
*
I try to see the dry period as a time of waiting. After all, I gladly wait for loved ones when their planes are delayed, wait on hold for computer help lines, wait in line for a concert I want to attend. Waiting need not kill time; it uses time, in anticipation of something to come.
Sometimes I come to God out of sheer determination of will, which may seem inauthentic. When I do so, however, I need not put on a mask. God already knows the state of my soul. I am not telling God anything new, but I am bearing witness to my love for God by praying even when I don’t feel like it. I express my underlying faith simply by showing up.
When I am tempted to complain about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence. I reserve a few minutes a day for God, but how many times do I drown out or ignore the quiet voice that speaks to my conscience and my life? “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock,” have become familiar words from Revelation, often stretched into an evangelistic message. But Jesus addressed those words to a church full of believers. How many times have I failed to hear the soft knock on the door and thus missed God’s invitation?—Philip Yancey5
*
Quite a few people seem to have trials and battles because they don’t feel close to Jesus. They think, “I must not be close to the Lord, because I just don’t feel close to Him!”
The Bible makes it very clear that we are to walk by faith, not sight. If we start trusting or relying too much on our feelings as an indicator of how well we’re doing spiritually, we’re going to be very unstable. We would be continually tossed to and fro by every wind of feeling that happens to come along.6 We’d never know how we were going to be doing tomorrow, as that would be determined by how we feel when we get up in the morning.
Regardless of how we may happen to feel, if we love the Lord and are walking by faith and obeying His Word, then we know that our relationship with the Lord is firm. And we certainly know that His love for us is unchangeable, unwavering. He says, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” “Though the mountains should depart and the hills be removed, My kindness shall not depart from thee.” “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee!”—Maria Fontaine
Published on Anchor May 2013. Read by Irene Quiti Vera.
Music by Daniel Sozzi.
1 Matthew 15:23.
2 Zephaniah 3:17.
3 Streams in the Desert, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1965).
4 1 Kings 17:7.
5 Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006).
6 James 1:6.
Download Audio (8.3MB)
“He answered her not a word.”1
“He will be silent in his love.”2
One Christian dreamed that she saw three others at prayer. As they knelt, the Master drew near to them.
As He approached the first of the three, He bent over her in tenderness and grace, with smiles full of radiant love and spoke to her in accents of purest, sweetest music. Leaving her, He came to the next but only placed His hand upon her bowed head, and gave her one look of loving approval.
The third woman He passed almost abruptly without stopping for a word or glance. The woman in her dream said to herself, “I wonder what she has done, and why He made so much difference between them?” As she tried to account for the action of her Lord, He stood by her and said: “O woman! How wrongly hast thou interpreted Me. The first kneeling woman needs all the weight of My tenderness and care to keep her feet in My narrow way. She needs My love, thought and help every moment of the day. … The second has stronger faith and deeper love, and I can trust her to trust Me however things may go and whatever people do.
“The third, whom I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect, has faith and love of the finest quality, and her I am training by quick and drastic processes for the highest and holiest service.
“She knows Me so intimately, and trusts Me so utterly, that she is independent of words or looks or any outward intimation of My approval. She is not dismayed nor discouraged by any circumstances through which I arrange that she shall pass; she trusts Me when sense and reason and every finer instinct of the natural heart would rebel—because she knows that I am working in her for eternity, and that what I do, though she knows not the explanation now, she will understand hereafter.
“I am silent in My love because I love beyond the power of words to express, or of human hearts to understand, and also for your sakes that you may learn to love and trust Me in Spirit-taught, spontaneous response to My love, without the spur of anything outward to call it forth.”—Mrs. Charles E. Cowman3
*
You can respond to the silence of God in two ways. One response is for you to go into depression, a sense of guilt, and self-condemnation. The other response is for you to have an expectation that God is about to bring you to a deeper knowledge of Himself. These responses are as different as night and day.—Henry Blackaby
*
Perhaps it's not silence we’re encountering while we seek God, but rather a pregnant pause—a prompting to engage in personal reflection so that the deepest of answers, the most profound of responses, can be given and received.—James Emery White
*
“It came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.”4
Week after week, with unfaltering and steadfast spirit, Elijah watched the dwindling brook; often tempted to stagger through unbelief, but refusing to allow his circumstances to come between himself and God. Unbelief sees God through circumstances, as we sometimes see the sun shorn of his rays through smoky air, but faith puts God between itself and circumstances, and looks at them through Him. And so the dwindling brook became a silver thread; and the silver thread stood presently in pools at the foot of the largest boulders; and the pools shrank; the birds fled; the wild creatures of field and forest came no more to drink; the brook was dry. Only then to his patient and unwavering spirit, “the word of the Lord came, saying, Arise, get thee to Zarephath.”
Most of us would have gotten anxious and worn with planning long before that. We should have ceased our songs as soon as the streamlet caroled less musically over its rocky bed; and with harps swinging on the willows, we should have paced to and fro upon the withering grass, lost in pensive thought. And probably, long ere the brook was dry, we should have devised some plan, and asking God's blessing on it, would have started off elsewhere.
God often does extricate us, because His mercy endureth forever, but if we had only waited first to see the unfolding of His plans, we should never have found ourselves landed in such an inextricable labyrinth; and we should never have been compelled to retrace our steps with so many tears of shame. Wait, patiently wait!—F. B. Meyer
*
I try to see the dry period as a time of waiting. After all, I gladly wait for loved ones when their planes are delayed, wait on hold for computer help lines, wait in line for a concert I want to attend. Waiting need not kill time; it uses time, in anticipation of something to come.
Sometimes I come to God out of sheer determination of will, which may seem inauthentic. When I do so, however, I need not put on a mask. God already knows the state of my soul. I am not telling God anything new, but I am bearing witness to my love for God by praying even when I don’t feel like it. I express my underlying faith simply by showing up.
When I am tempted to complain about God’s lack of presence, I remind myself that God has much more reason to complain about my lack of presence. I reserve a few minutes a day for God, but how many times do I drown out or ignore the quiet voice that speaks to my conscience and my life? “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock,” have become familiar words from Revelation, often stretched into an evangelistic message. But Jesus addressed those words to a church full of believers. How many times have I failed to hear the soft knock on the door and thus missed God’s invitation?—Philip Yancey5
*
Quite a few people seem to have trials and battles because they don’t feel close to Jesus. They think, “I must not be close to the Lord, because I just don’t feel close to Him!”
The Bible makes it very clear that we are to walk by faith, not sight. If we start trusting or relying too much on our feelings as an indicator of how well we’re doing spiritually, we’re going to be very unstable. We would be continually tossed to and fro by every wind of feeling that happens to come along.6 We’d never know how we were going to be doing tomorrow, as that would be determined by how we feel when we get up in the morning.
Regardless of how we may happen to feel, if we love the Lord and are walking by faith and obeying His Word, then we know that our relationship with the Lord is firm. And we certainly know that His love for us is unchangeable, unwavering. He says, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love.” “Though the mountains should depart and the hills be removed, My kindness shall not depart from thee.” “I will never leave thee nor forsake thee!”—Maria Fontaine
Published on Anchor May 2013. Read by Irene Quiti Vera.
Music by Daniel Sozzi.
1 Matthew 15:23.
2 Zephaniah 3:17.
3 Streams in the Desert, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1965).
4 1 Kings 17:7.
5 Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006).
6 James 1:6.
Monday, May 27, 2013
ACLU Needs Legislation to Protect Its Anti-God Religion
Wake up Christians! When the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is successful in getting the Ten Commandments out of public places and the teaching of creation, the Bible, and prayer out of public schools, they did not get religion out. They just replaced the Christian religion with their religion of atheism. They are involved in this effort again, this time in Ohio, as a Fox News report explains:
A proposal by an Ohio school district to add creationism to a list of controversial topics deemed appropriate for classroom discussion has ignited a debate over the separation of church and state among parents and a civil rights group.
The Springboro Board of Education took comments on the proposal at a meeting Thursday night attended by parents, students and teachers. Some parents urged the board to abandon the plan, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio sent a letter to the board, saying the policy would violate the separation of church and state. [Read more at this link.]
I get so tired of reading the same old misrepresentations and false information from the ACLU and secular media (even from Fox News, which is less hostile towards Christianity) when it comes to the creation-evolution issue in public schools.
AiG is not a political action group, and we have never been directly involved in trying to get creation mandated in public schools. Nonetheless, we do help equip people with the correct way to think about this origins issue, and many of these people then try to influence their local school boards. The ACLU continues to intimidate educators in order to mandate that their anti-God religion of atheism be protected in the public schools. They recognize that if students were taught to think critically about the evidence against evolution, and if teachers were given the academic freedom to allow students to have a class discussion on whether creation is a viable alternative, many of these students would realize that the anti-God religion of evolution and atheism is bankrupt, and they might consider the Bible’s history instead—and the gospel based in that history.
Romans chapter 1 makes it clear that the knowledge of God is written on our hearts. God is so evident from looking at the creation that anyone who doesn’t believe is without excuse (Romans 1:20). That’s why the atheists have to work so hard to try to suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). The best way for them to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” is to brainwash people with an arbitrary definition of science and then legislate to protect their arbitrary definition—one that eliminates God and any discussion of His Word from the classroom. In this spiritual battle, they are being used to capture the hearts and minds of millions of children away from God.
The news report quoted as follows:
“Basically they would be teaching creationism to counteract the teaching of evolution,” ACLU spokesman Nick Worner said Friday. “Anytime that you promote or teach the beliefs of one religion over all other religions or beliefs in a public school classroom, that’s a problem.”
The Bible makes it clear there is no neutral position: “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matthew 12:30). We need to understand that the ACLU does want one religion taught over another—they want the religion of atheism imposed on students. And in reality, this is what is happening throughout the public education system.
In one of the biology textbooks used in the public schools, we read that “supernatural explanations of natural events are simply outside the bounds of science.” This is an arbitrary definition by those people who don’t believe in God. Thus they have defined science to eliminate God. Therefore they claim one can’t allow the God of the Bible or the teaching of creation in schools, as it is not science—but they have defined “science” to accomplish their agenda.
Christians need to wake up and realize that the ACLU has defined science as naturalism—that is their anti-God, arbitrary definition. The news report also states the following:
In the ACLU letter, Legal Director James Hardiman said the proposal appears to establish the teaching of creationism as an opposing view to evolution, pitting a religious theory against science.
Again, they are intimidating people by their own definition of the word science.The root meaning of science is knowledge. But the ACLU doesn’t want people to know that knowledge about the past (history) is very different from knowledge gained by observation (operational science). AiG helps people understand the difference by teaching an understanding of historical science (e.g., origins) compared to observational science (using the five senses to observe and repeatedly test results).
Molecules-to-man evolution is a belief—a religion—and it comes under the heading of historical science.
Reading the creation account as revealed in Genesis is also a part of practicing historical science. However, what is called natural selection and speciation (which do not confirm molecules-to-man evolution but instead confirm distinct kinds, as the Bible teaches in Genesis) is observational science. And whether people are creationists or evolutionists, we all have the same observational science—but very different historical sciences.
The bottom line is that the ACLU doesn’t want people to know this crucial difference. They arbitrarily define science as having nothing to do with the supernatural. Thus they define the terms, brainwash, and intimidate so they can “suppress the truth” of a Creator and impose their anti-God, atheistic religion on the public schools.
Watch the short, well-illustrated video at this link to understand the difference between historical and observational science.
Let’s get this message out to the media (some reporters may listen) and to parents and students. Let’s try to overcome the brainwashing of the secularists and the intimidation of the ACLU as they continue to impose their religion on the culture—including millions of children.
As a result of what we have experienced at AiG with the media over the years, we know that the secular media (even Fox News) usually doesn’t invite guests who have the experience and knowledge (such as our speakers and researchers at AiG) to correctly discuss the origins issue in regard to public schools. And when we are invited to participate, we are often given just a couple of minutes in some sort of debate format. Of course, this does not allow time for the topic to be dealt with in a manner that would logically lay out the case before the public. I often listen to news hosts (as I did in regard to this current Ohio news story) pooling their ignorance as they discuss matters outside their understanding.
Thus, the public is not educated on the evolution-creation issue as they need to be. And sadly, most pastors don’t have the background and experience to know how to correctly educate their congregations on such issues, so they are not equipped to stand publicly and defend the Christian faith against such secular onslaughts—as Christians must be doing in our increasingly secularized Western world.
Sadly, the secular media usually doesn’t want people like those of us at AiG to fully explain the problems with evolution. And if we ever do get an interview on, let’s say, Fox News, the media usually has someone opposing what we say and only lets us have a short time to say anything. Now, when evolutionists have some “discovery” to share with the media, it’s rare that a creationist group is asked to comment. It’s almost impossible to get the truth out unless someone in the secular media actually wants us to explain our position and gives us the time to do so. Many times I have spoken to a reporter who is writing an article on origins topics, and even though I take the time to explain it all, usually the information people need does not appear in the final piece. Most secularists in the media don’t want people to know the truth—by and large they just want controversy and not to let Bible-believing Christians be seen as credible. It’s a sad but realistic state of affairs.
Finally, today in America is Memorial Day. It’s a time to reflect on the sacrifice of so many in the U.S. Armed Forces who have died while in service to their country. Their defense of freedom has helped preserve America’s religious freedom, even as secularists try to undermine the First Amendment’s guarantee that no laws will prohibit the free exercise of religion.
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
The Miracle of Creation
D.Brandt Berg
Mountain-Streams
People can’t help but believe in God if they just look at creation. All they have to do is look at the creation to know Somebody had to design it, pattern it, put it together, and make it work like it does. God’s beautiful creation works so beautifully, so systematically, so perfectly, it’s obvious that all that didn’t just happen by accident. Creation, so-called Nature, is not just natural. It’s God-created. It’s supernatural. It’s miraculous!
If you don’t know whether God exists, just look at the sea, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, the valleys, the trees, the flowers—everything. They’re all virtually shouting, “There is a God! Look what He made! Look what a beautiful world He made for you to live in!”
The greatest proof of God’s existence is His creation. The Bible says that God’s “invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). The existence of our invisible God is proven by His visible creation. It’s “clearly seen” through the beautiful world He made.
Evolutionists try to explain away creation by saying that it just happened by accident and God had nothing to do with it, that it somehow just threw itself together. Dr. Robert A. Millikan, winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize for physics, had a good answer to that: Just as there had to be a watchmaker behind the synchronized perfection and order of every watch, so there had to be a Creator behind the synchronized perfection of the universe.
Yet evolutionary doctrine has become the general theme of modern science and is now referred to as the “great principle” of biology. But a principle, according to the dictionary, is a foundation truth or fact; the basis of other truths—and evolution has never been proven to be either a truth or a fact, much less the foundation or basis of other truths.
There is no proof for evolution. It has to be believed; therefore it’s a religion. Even the founding father of this false faith, Charles Darwin himself, confessed, “The belief in natural selection [evolution] must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed, nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.”
The existence of our invisible God is proven by His visible creation.
So evolution is really a religion of unbelief in God. That’s its whole purpose: to eliminate faith in God and to foster the false belief that the creation created itself; God had nothing to do with it, so there doesn’t need to be a God.
The first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible says, ªIn the beginning, God—not chaos, not some nebulous cloud of gases—created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). And a few verses later, “God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27). God formed man out of what? Previous life forms? Apes? Beasts? “And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). This is the truth of God’s Word!
Even if you don’t believe the Bible, reasonable scientists concede that if the world’s two or three million species of animal and plant life came about by evolution, we would be ten miles deep in fossils of evolutionary “missing links.” Instead, the evolutionists search the world over trying to find one! Nearly every one of those fossils that evolutionists claim to be missing links have now been debunked, and some are confessed fakes, like Piltdown Man.
Evolution has no foundation in fact whatsoever. There’s no evidence for it. No discovery has been made to prove it. As one of its foremost proponents, Margaret Mead, wrote in her introduction to her textbook on anthropology: “We as honest scientists must confess that science has yet to discover one single iota of concrete evidence to prove the evolutionary theory!”
Do you believe in God?—Look at the world; look at the beautiful trees; look at the flowers; look at the sea; look at the sky. Does God love you? You can see it and feel it in the beautiful world He made for you.
God created this wonderful world for you to live in and enjoy, and He is the only One who can give meaning to the universe and purpose to the planets and love to our hearts and peace to our minds and health to our bodies and rest to our spirits and happiness to our lives and joy to our souls.
Mountain-Streams
People can’t help but believe in God if they just look at creation. All they have to do is look at the creation to know Somebody had to design it, pattern it, put it together, and make it work like it does. God’s beautiful creation works so beautifully, so systematically, so perfectly, it’s obvious that all that didn’t just happen by accident. Creation, so-called Nature, is not just natural. It’s God-created. It’s supernatural. It’s miraculous!
If you don’t know whether God exists, just look at the sea, the sky, the clouds, the mountains, the valleys, the trees, the flowers—everything. They’re all virtually shouting, “There is a God! Look what He made! Look what a beautiful world He made for you to live in!”
The greatest proof of God’s existence is His creation. The Bible says that God’s “invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Romans 1:20). The existence of our invisible God is proven by His visible creation. It’s “clearly seen” through the beautiful world He made.
Evolutionists try to explain away creation by saying that it just happened by accident and God had nothing to do with it, that it somehow just threw itself together. Dr. Robert A. Millikan, winner of the 1923 Nobel Prize for physics, had a good answer to that: Just as there had to be a watchmaker behind the synchronized perfection and order of every watch, so there had to be a Creator behind the synchronized perfection of the universe.
Yet evolutionary doctrine has become the general theme of modern science and is now referred to as the “great principle” of biology. But a principle, according to the dictionary, is a foundation truth or fact; the basis of other truths—and evolution has never been proven to be either a truth or a fact, much less the foundation or basis of other truths.
There is no proof for evolution. It has to be believed; therefore it’s a religion. Even the founding father of this false faith, Charles Darwin himself, confessed, “The belief in natural selection [evolution] must at present be grounded entirely on general considerations. When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed, nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.”
The existence of our invisible God is proven by His visible creation.
So evolution is really a religion of unbelief in God. That’s its whole purpose: to eliminate faith in God and to foster the false belief that the creation created itself; God had nothing to do with it, so there doesn’t need to be a God.
The first verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible says, ªIn the beginning, God—not chaos, not some nebulous cloud of gases—created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). And a few verses later, “God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27). God formed man out of what? Previous life forms? Apes? Beasts? “And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). This is the truth of God’s Word!
Even if you don’t believe the Bible, reasonable scientists concede that if the world’s two or three million species of animal and plant life came about by evolution, we would be ten miles deep in fossils of evolutionary “missing links.” Instead, the evolutionists search the world over trying to find one! Nearly every one of those fossils that evolutionists claim to be missing links have now been debunked, and some are confessed fakes, like Piltdown Man.
Evolution has no foundation in fact whatsoever. There’s no evidence for it. No discovery has been made to prove it. As one of its foremost proponents, Margaret Mead, wrote in her introduction to her textbook on anthropology: “We as honest scientists must confess that science has yet to discover one single iota of concrete evidence to prove the evolutionary theory!”
Do you believe in God?—Look at the world; look at the beautiful trees; look at the flowers; look at the sea; look at the sky. Does God love you? You can see it and feel it in the beautiful world He made for you.
God created this wonderful world for you to live in and enjoy, and He is the only One who can give meaning to the universe and purpose to the planets and love to our hearts and peace to our minds and health to our bodies and rest to our spirits and happiness to our lives and joy to our souls.
