Author Archives: MzEllen

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Tim Keller on Evangelism Best Practices...

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R.C.Sproul - What is the Rapture?

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On the "crime" of circumcision:

This is a bearing on another conversation I'm listening in on about infant baptism...this paragraph:

Along with many other religious people, they regard children as members of a community that precedes individual decisions and outlasts them — a community created by a covenant, not a choice. Circumcision is the outward sign of this spiritual reality.

Denny Burk adds:

Modern liberalism is upside down. On the one hand, it supports the right of a woman to kill her unborn child in utero for whatever reason or no reason at all. On the other hand, it opposes a parent’s prerogative to have their baby undergo a safe procedure that incorporates them into a community of faith. Does that make sense to you? Me either.

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Women as "Kingdom Warriors, Too..."

If Adam must think, decide, protect, and provide for the woman, she actually becomes a burden on him – not much help when you think about it. The kind of help the man needs demands full deployment of her strength, her gifts, and the best she has to offer. His life will change for the better because of what she contributes to his life. Together they will daily prove in countless and surprising ways that two are better than one. (pg 114-115).

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What Does Your Church’s Statement of Faith Protect?

 As we discussed the statement Saturday, the conversation turned to the importance of the statement of faith in protecting various aspects of the church and its ministry.  As I’ve noodled on that conversation, it seems to me that a local church’s statement of faith should protect five important things...

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"We Are at a Turning Point" by Judge Andrew Napolitano

Hence, we have laws that force us to be charitable to those whom the government designates as worthy of our charity, that limit the amount of salt that restaurants can put into our food, that permit the government to watch us on street corners and subways and in the lobbies of buildings, that let the president fight wars of opportunity, that permit the Federal Reserve to print money with no value and inflate prices and destroy savings, that allow the government to listen to us on our cellphones and use those phones to follow us wherever we go, and, according to CIA Director David Petraeus, that let the government anticipate our movements inside our homes.

once again, trying to make sense of my life through blogging (just kidding - but getting through books is more interesting when I get my thoughts in writing...and sometimes life just irritates me into writing about it.)

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[rating=5]I think this is one I'll go through here (spiritual discipline, perhaps?)

As I was reading this book, the first part seemed like it is full of "white guilt" - expanding the sin of racism to all white people in the USA by virtue of the color of their skin.

After that, Piper explores individual sins on both sides of the issue - "both" because the reality is (at this point, anyway) the big divide seems greatest between African-Americans and Americans of European descent.  There is plenty of sin to go around.

When Piper gets into the meat of the topic - WHY it is a sin and why it matters, this is an excellent book.  I also broadened to topic to include "favoritism" (not just the race kind) and it became more excellent.

by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation, (Rev. 5:9)

From chapter 6 on, the book is steeped in the Gospel.  We are all created in the image of God - to practice favoritism in any way strikes at the image.

I'm giving this 4 stars (also working on a star system... 😉

 

 

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[rating=3]"Crossing Oceans" by Gina Holmes was predictable, with some curves that sat nicely with me.  Sad, yet satisfying ending.

The main character, Jenny, is dying of cancer.  Taking her daughter to her childhood home to wrap up loose ends, more than a few surprises are thrown her way.

Confronting past sins, while avoiding new; trying to make old wrongs right; confronting fears along the way and making peace with enemies.

Like a lot of fiction, this is 'brain candy' - and very tasty.  Don't expect meat and you'll be happy with the snack.

 

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The article is here.

My General Opinion:

If a Christian marriage is supposed to mirror Christ and the church, Molher's teaching is a full on assault on gospel-defined love in marriage (the UNdeserved favor of mercy and the ILL-deserved favor that is grace.)  Molher has warped  the testimony that IS the image of Christian love having replaced it with a loathsome treadmill of legalistic, regular performance and reward.

A Covenant Blessing?  Or "Regularly Earned Privilege?"

The privilege of marital intimacy, in Mohler’s teaching, comes from performance, not covenant, which means it’s no longer a covenant blessing – an expected part of a Christian marriage.  It is now a reward.

This goes beyond sexual intimacy as a right that can be lost – it is now a privilege that must be earned.

The argument goes - "so, you would force a wife to have sex, no matter how her husband behaves?"

There is a huge difference between starting out with a covenant blessing, and forfeiting that blessing by behavior that is covenant-breaking...and having to earn marital intimacy to start with.

This is the direct opposite of the gospel; this is full pelagianism in the sexual arena – a man must fully, and regularly earn his reward.  Gone is the image of “one flesh” and in its place we find a life lived under constant performance judgment, reward, or retaliation.

If a Christian marriage reflects Christ and the church, this teaching tells us that we enter into a covenant relationship with our Lord, and then we have to earn Enghetti.

When a “privilege” must be “regularly” earned, it explicitly communicates the premise that the starting point is…nothing.  Mohler is not teaching that Enghetti can be lost…he’s teaching that the husband’s default is the desert…and he must “regularly” earn the oasis of the marriage bed.

So...What if He Stumbles...?

If her husband does not “obey the word” – a wife will not win him “without a word by her conduct” by violating  1 Peter 3:1

A wife’s openness to her husband inspires his love toward her, bringing more closeness between them, allowing him to give more of himself to her.  Marital intimacy should not be a system of “carrot and stick” to allow him to earn access to the marriage bed!

1 Cor. 7:3 says “ The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband.”  The KJV says, “due benevolence” – marital intimacy is “benevolence,” not an earned privilege.

I would submit that if a wife only gives of herself when all is well, or worse, only when he as performed to her expectation, that's not "due benevolence".

If she only "wants" sex when she wants it, when he has earned it...on her terms, that tags her with Mohler's description of him: "the accomplishment of sexual fulfillment."

It is when she gives of herself for HIM - to HIM, for HIS sake - not because he has earned it, but because she loves him, that's love.  When she gives to him, not because his behavior has earned it, but because her heart wants it, that's covenant love.

Final Thoughts:

Mohler writes:

Rather than taking satisfaction in his wife, he looks at dirty pictures in order to be rewarded with sexual arousal that comes without responsibility, expectation, or demand

Rather than making the battle against pornography a team effort, it becomes a battle of the sexes instead.

SHE gets to decide if he has earned sex.  SHE gets to decide if he has earned marital intimacy. SHE gets to decide of his behavior is good enough to give of herself.

All he can do is stay on the treadmill and hope that he measures up to her standards, whatever those standards might be.

If we bring “man and wife” back to “Christ and the church…” It doesn’t get any worse than this.

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The "slutwalk" is a series of rallies that started when a police constable in Toronto suggested that one way for women to stay safe is to avoid dressing like sluts.

The feminist firestorm was quite impressive.  The beat of the drum began..."we can dress any way we want to."

 

From Wiki

There have been a number of responses to the SlutWalk phenomenon, not all of them positive. For example, Australian commentator Andrew Bolt observed that guidance on how to dress in any given context is simply risk management, and such advice need not exclude opposition to victim-blaming.[20]Rod Liddle agrees, saying "...I have a perfect right to leave my windows open when I nip to the shops for some fags, without being burgled. It doesn’t lessen the guilt of the burglar that I’ve left my window open, or even remotely suggest that I was deserving of being burgled. Just that it was more likely to happen."

But Jessica Valenti says: "The idea that women’s clothing has some bearing on whether they will be raped is a dangerous myth feminists have tried to debunk for decades."

Mary Kassian responds with Five Problems:

1. It absolves girls of risk-management responsibility:

Using an example from her own hometown, Kassian reinforces the idea that looking like a victim often results in being a victim.

One aspect that was missed in both articles is the statistic (I'm also reading "Rid of My Disgrace") that many women who are sexually assaulted know their attackers.

On one hand, if the attacker is a person who is seen every day, it doesn't matter how a woman dresses.  If the attacker is about power and violence, that will come out, no matter who modestly the woman dresses.

On the other hand, if the attack is what we call "date rape" - if you dress like an invitation, you might get an RSVP.

2. It equates sex with power:

Here's the thing - in the world, sex IS power.  In a world where sexual harassment is defined by how a woman perceives the situation, not by how the man intended it, sex is power.

In a Christian book, where sexual assault is so broadly defined that a man who asked twice for sexual intimacy from his wife, after being refused one is guilty of "assault" - sex IS power.

Is it right?  No, but it IS.

In dressing like sluts (it's the term they want to use) these women who participate are stating that they can openly display their sexuality in any public forum they wish, while men have to deal with it in silence, they are claiming the power.

3. It teaches girls it's cool to be crass

This is the paragraph where Kassian decries the crassness of the word "slut" - I'm not sure I disagree, but there are way worse words out there.  The word has a valid meaning and it's part of our language.

The protesters want to "reclaim" the word.  Considering what the definition is, I'm not sure why all that many people would want to reclaim it.

4. It casts men as oppressors

Get rid of male privilege and you'll get rid of the problem. (...) Female to male domestic violence is statistically just as prevalent as male to female.

Kassian is correct here.  The problem is not male privilege. it's violence.

5.  It encourages sexual permissiveness

Again, correct.  but I think that she gets it a little sideways.

Okay, let me get this straight. SlutWalk thinks that we live in a culture that's too permissive with regards to men forcing women to have sex. But it also thinks that it's healthy for women to be sexually permissive.

She's treating it as a false dichotomy- I don't think it is.

I don't agree with the world's permissive sexual standard, but I see past Kassian's portrayal.

Permissive sex is okay according to the world.  Being FORCED is not.

The final paragraph is spot on.

Sexual violence is a horrific sin. But SlutWalk isn't helping matters any. Sadly, I think it's just shooting women in the foot. It's creating a mindset and culture that exacerbates the very problem it says it wants to solve.

 

 

 

 

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I just purchased the book, and already I've got concerns.

Sexual assault is a serious crime, it wrecks people.  It needs to be addressed, it needs to be stopped.  Women who have been sexually assaulted need to be ministered to with the utmost of love and care.

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when the definition of "sexual assault" is so broadened to the point where anything qualifies, the term becomes meaningless.

Those people who have been sexually assaulted - it undermines the seriousness of what they truly have been subjected to.

I have a friend who was "gang-raped" when she was 12 years old.  She had a child as a result.  She is affected to this day.  That qualifies and it is REAL.

When I was a pre-teen, I was "pantsed" by a neighbor boy.  We were in a field (I think pulling weeds in a bean field or something of the sort) and he was messing around and grabbed my shorts and yanked them down around my ankles, underwear and all.  Under this broad definition, that qualifies.

Please, don't undermine the reality of my friend's pain, but telling me that a childhood prank was "sexual assault."

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Two important ones; both of them are integral to the "who" of who I am.

"Complementarian or Egalitarian?"

Search this blog for "gender" issues, I am a firm Complementarian - this is a deal breaker.  I am convinced from Scripture that the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church.  That Christ is the role model for a husband's love, and the church is the role model for a wife's submission.

"Reformed?  Or what?"

Not a deal breaker, but darn close.  I want a home of peace, and I cannot be at peace with somebody who is constantly at war with my beliefs.