Dr. Russell Moore: A Gospel-Centered Response to the Komen Foundation and Planned Parenthood

Dr. Russell Moore struck gold in his comments Friday on the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s reversal of their decision to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. I really appreciated his viewpoint and wanted to share some of his article posted on Christianity Today here.

Some pro-life persons might wish that the Christian churches had as much influence in the public arena as Planned Parenthood, that we were able to mobilize as many callers and threaten as many boycotts. Some might see this as a sign that we need more money and respect. After all, if some Christian foundation had more financial firepower than Planned Parenthood, Komen might have stood firm…

In all of this, though, we can gain an opportunity to see what the abortion culture is all about: cash. Planned Parenthood and their allies use the thoroughly American language of freedom of choice and women’s empowerment, but what’s at stake, as seen here, are billions of dollars…

The answer for those of us who cherish the lives of women and their children, regardless of stage of development, isn’t to long to compete with Planned Parenthood in the influence that comes with massive amounts of wealth. It’s instead to see, first of all, how our own captivity to Mammon devolves us in the same way…

We don’t need a Christian foundation to compete with the merchants of death. We don’t need one more coalition with enough signatures to counter the threatened boycotts of the abortion rights peddlers. And we sure don’t need to sell bumper stickers with a line drawn through a pink ribbon.

What we need, first of all, are churches who recognize that this isn’t all that surprising. Mammon is a jealous god, and he’s armed to the teeth….

And then we need to demonstrate what it means to believe that a person’s life consists in more than the abundance of his possessions.

Let’s stop highlighting how God “blesses” the millionaire who tithes. Let’s stop trumpeting the celebrity football players and beauty queens as evidence of God’s blessing. Let’s show that God has blessed us in a Christ who never had a successful career or a balanced bank account, but who was blessed by God with life, and with children that no one can number, from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language.

Planned Parenthood has won this one. They spent a lot of money, and they’ll make a lot of money. And they’ll do so off the shredded corpses of children and the raped consciences of women. If Jesus’ kingdom were of this world, we’d be fundraising to keep up with them.

But what we have is greater than that. We have a word that tells a pregnant young woman that we believe her Down Syndrome baby is a gift, not a health care burden. And we can offer the kind of gospel that cleanses the conscience and offers what outlasts money and power: life and that to the uttermost.

Let’s work to legally protect women and children. And let’s grieve that old Mammon has won the day, again. But let’s not grieve like the pagans who have no hope. When it comes to the struggle for life, the color of victory isn’t pink like a ribbon. It’s red like a cross. [Read the full article]

“I Will Be Their God and They Shall Be My People”

I mentioned in my last post that I found that variations of the following promise are found at least 28 times in the Old Testament: “I will be their God and they shall be My people.” Often it includes a promise that God would dwell with His people, or make His dwelling place among them. Seeing this great theme of Scripture and how it intersects with the Church – God’s people today, is both thrilling and educational. We can find our place in the narrative of Scripture and see the “already/not yet” fulfillment of these promises in our own experiences.

Today I thought I would just list these promises and let us meditate on them together.

Genesis 17:7-8 “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

Exodus 6:7I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

Exodus 19:5-6 (with 20:2) “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. Theses are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel…. I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

Exodus 29:45-46I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God.”

Leviticus 26:11-12I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

Deuteronomy 4:20 “But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 14:2 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Deuteronomy 26:18 “And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments,”

Deuteronomy 29:13That he may establish you today as his people, and that he may be your God, as he promised you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

2 Samuel 7:24 “And you established for yourself your people Israel to be your people forever. And you, O LORD, became their God.”

1 Chron. 17:22 “And you made your people Israel to be your people forever, and you, O LORD, became their God.”

Jeremiah 7:23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.'”

Jeremiah 11:4 “That I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God,”

Jeremiah 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”

Jeremiah 30:22 “And you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 31:33 “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Jeremiah 32:38 “And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 11:20 “That they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 14:11 “That the house of Israel may no more go astray from me, nor defile themselves anymore with all their transgressions, but that they may be my people and I may be their God, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 34:24 “And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken.”

Ezekiel 34:30 “And they shall know that I am the LORD their God with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, declares the Lord GOD.”

Ezekiel 36:27-28 “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

Ezekiel 37:23 “They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”

Ezekiel 37:27My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Hosea 2:23 “And I will sow her for myself in the land. And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people‘; and he shall say, ‘You are my God.'”

Zechariah 8:8 “And I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”

Zechariah 13:9 “And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people‘; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.'”

2 Corinthians 6:16-17 “What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you,'”

1 Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

Revelation 21:3 “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Revelation 21:7 “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”

“God With Us:” Jesus, The Temple & The Church

Once again, I had the privilege to fill in for our pastor this past Sunday, and deliver the Sunday sermon. With it being Communion Sunday, I was asked to keep the message to around 30 minutes. So I ended up cramming a lot of content into 35 minutes. I apologize in advance for that!

The topic: the Temple and the Church, has been on my heart a lot lately, and was driven home as I recently finished reading a book on this same theme by G.K. Beale The Temple and the Church’s Mission (IVP). I begin the sermon with a romp through the numerous OT texts promising that God would be “God” for His people, and they would be His special people, and that God would make His dwelling place with them. I found this promise some 28 times in the Old Testament with three (or more) reiterations of this in the New Testament. That was the launching point for this brief look at what it means that Jesus Christ is the True Temple, and that we, His Body, are also “being built up” into a spiritual Temple. What does it mean and how should it shape how we live our lives?

I’ve included my notes for the sermon as a .pdf file here. But please download the sermon and ponder these texts with me. At around 14 minutes in, there is a minute or two cut out of the audio as the battery on the microphone died and the sound guy replaced it for me. (Sorry about that too!) Let me know what you think, I’d love some feedback.

Place: Beacon of Hope Church, St. Paul
Date: October 30, 2011
Title: “God With Us:” Jesus, The Temple & The Church
Text: Matthew 1:23 & John 1:1,14
Notes: Download PDF
Audio Link: Listen online or download (right click the link and save it to your computer)

Picture from TempleMount.org

Quotes to Note 30: Pastors as True Shepherds or Mere “Mutton Farmers”

Recently, I’ve been reading some forums that have been lamenting poor leadership in certain IFBx circles. Some have shared painful testimonies about years of harsh treatment by parents and teachers who ostensibly cared about the children’s welfare, but ultimately just rejected them (literally throwing them out, and disowning them completely) when it became clear that they weren’t keeping in step with the brand of fundamentalism these pastors and church leaders advocated.

Then I stumbled across this quote in studying for my Men’s Bible Study lesson on Mark 6:31-44 where Jesus looks on the crowds with compassion and considers that: “they were like sheep without a shepherd.” I almost started weeping when I read these words about what a true shepherd should be. Praise Jesus he is not like some of the “shepherds” I’ve known…

Most contemporary listeners are unfamiliar with the job description of a shepherd. Lena Woltering has pointed out that a shepherd “is needed only when there are no fences. He is someone who stays with his sheep at all cost, guiding, protecting, and walking with them through the fields. He’s not just a person who raises sheep.” They lead sheep to food and water and are ever mindful of the sheep’s condition (Gen. 33:13). They gather lambs that cannot keep up in their arms (Isa. 40:11). They seek out lost sheep, and when they find them, they carry them back to the fold on their sholders (Luke 15:5). They guard against predators and thieves. It is a dirty and hard job. Woltering castigates those bishops who regard themselves as “tenders of the flock” and brands them as little more than “mutton farmers.” “They build fence after fence after fence, keeping the flock within sight so they don’t have to dirty their feet plodding along the open fields.” They turn the difficult role of shepherd into a position of rank and superiority and sequester themselves from the sheep. Ezekiel’s castigation of the self-indulgent and irresponsible shepherds in his day (Ezek. 34) is no less applicable today to those who want to dominate and crush others rather than feed them. — David E. Garland, Mark, The NIV Application Commentary, pg. 258-259 [quotes from Woltering were cited in Salt of the Earth 15 (July/August, 1995), 34]

On the Day Before Judgement Day

If you haven’t heard, Harold Camping and FamilyRadio.com claim the Rapture will happen tomorrow and that Judgement Day will begin. The tribulation will last five months and on October 21, the world will end.

The sad part of all this, is that they claim the Bible teaches this and that God has revealed this to them. There has been a world-wide advertising campaign to warn people. The message has been spread via RV caravans, billboards, radio, and more.

The problem is Camping has predicted this would happen back in 1994 too, and will likely recalculate his numbers and come up with a new date once this one fails. Never mind that, his signs say “the Bible guarantees it”.

He gets to May 21 as the date of the rapture, through a far ranging use of Biblical numerology and assumptions. Since “begat” can indicate a father – son relationship or also a ancestor – descendant relationship, it is assumed it always refers to a time period rather than a direct father – son connection, unless other factors make it clear the Bible declares the two names are related as father and son. Because a day in the Bible can sometimes refer to a thousand years, it is assumed that days do refer to thousand-year time periods at important places in the scheme that results in May 21, 2011 being the date of the Rapture. Numbers can have an association or meaning, and then that meaning is applied universally. As in 23 is the number of wrath, 17 is the number of heaven, etc.

The result is a Biblical timeline of history that has a widespread corroboration with numerous numerological twists given to various time periods given in the Bible. For more on the Biblical timeline of history see this explanation. And several links on the left of the FamilyRadio.com website take a deep dive into the numerology.

The story is making headlines around the world. See the New York Times article here, and another story here. USA Today found that many of Camping’s staff don’t actually believe that May 21st is the day.

I’m saddened by the many followers who are being led astray in this. The Bible isn’t a mysterious collection of numbers to be figured out by experts. It has a plain and clear message of God’s redemptive plan for mankind. Jesus may return tomorrow, or even today. I believe that. But if He doesn’t, then Camping has revealed himself to be a false teacher and people should not follow him. I’ll probably say more about this in the future, it will be interesting to see what they say if the Rapture doesn’t happen tomorrow. I’ll leave you with a link to a video clip from FamilyRadio.com. May God help these people realize once and for all that this teaching is dangerous, and it trivializes the Bible’s message to a watching world.