What is the Appeal of Socialism?

With all of this talk of stimulus packages, wealth distribution, and trillion dollar budgets, I often wonder, "What is the appeal of socialism?" In other words, why has country after country gone to this failed economic and political system and why is our country going more towards this route and away from being a small-government involved republic? Here is part of the answer:

"...socialism offers people what appears to be immediate gratification--the promise of free this or free that, or of security from some perceived risk or harm or deprivation. Those who make these enticing offers rarely label themselves "socialist" and, of course, never talk about the iron fist that is inevitably buried within the velvet glove. Instead, they often come across as sincere, well-meaning people (as many of them indeed are, however misguided)."

Like many things in this country, the appeal of socialist ideas all goes back to greed and the sinful, selfish heart...the sinful selfish heart that only the power of the Gospel can penetrate and change.

For the entire article (it's not long at all) go here

Daughters and Marriage

Fathers,

How active should you be in your daughters' dating and future marriage? ACTIVE.

Voddie Baucham has a new book called What He Must Be...If He Wants To Marry My Daughter.

He says, “The issue of whom our daughters will marry is far too important to be approached in this unbiblical (regarding the current state of dating) fashion. I believe fathers have a God-given responsibility to see to it that their daughters marry well and their sons become worthy husbands.”

As a father of both a son and a daughter, I think he has a good point.

Jesus and Spanking

Would Jesus spank a child? John Piper thinks so...as do I

Click here for his 6-minute explanation

Don't have time to listen? Here are a few excerpts:

"The place that I would go to help a person see that he would, when they can't imagine that he would, is Matthew 5 where he said, "Not a jot nor a tittle will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished." In other words, all the Law and the Prophets stand until they're done. And the Law says, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." That's a paraphrase. The book of Proverbs says, "If you withhold the rod, you hate your son." Jesus believed the Bible, and he would have done it."

and

"God disciplines every son whom he loves, and spanks everyone that he delights in (my paraphrase). And the point there is suffering. God brings sufferings into our lives, and the writer of the Hebrews connects it to the parenting of God of his children...God uses suffering to discipline his children. So do we."

and

"Now, you don't damage a child. You don't give him a black eye or break his arm. Children have little fat bottoms so that they can be whopped."

and

"I just think spanking is really healthy for children. It is a measured deliverance of a non-damaging act of mild pain that makes the child feel the seriousness of what he's done. It is not beating. It is not abuse. There is a clear difference. The very word "spank" exists because there is such a thing as a loving way to whop a child on his behind or his chunky thigh."

Wordle

There is a new site that I discovered, (thanks Timmy) called Wordle. According to its website, "Wordle is a toy for generating word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

I decided to post an entire sermon manuscript from a sermon that I preached at a friend's church last summer. Here it is (Click the image to see it in a larger screen)

The good news is that the sermon was on suffering and Jesus. Thankfully for me, those are the two words that were used the most.

Praying for God's Choosing

"You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place." (Acts 1:24)

The Bible is filled with instances where God "chooses." In other words, God has a secret will that is sometimes not revealed to us but other times is. It's interesting to note in the context of this verse that the Lord knew several things:

1. He knew (and knows) the hearts of all

2. He knew that Judas would betray Him and "go to his own place."

3. He knew (indeed chose) which man would take Judas' place. In this case it was Matthias.

It's also fascinating to try to reconcile the relationship of God's choosing and knowing vs. our responsibility. Indeed, both exist. It's interesting to see that the 11 apostles prayed for essentially God's will by casting lots. In essence, they had a major decision to make. They prayed about it, they sought God's will and choosing, and they acted based on the result of their prayer.

When we pray, what do we pray for? Do we pray that God's secret will be done? Do we pray that the people that he has chosen to do certain things do exactly those things? If we do pray these things then we can pray in faith that they will come about...and the fact that God has a will and a plan that is set in place is comforting, especially to those in great distress, as were the apostles. So the next time you are in distress, pray for God's choosing because His ways will never fail.

Yo Gabba Gabba

This is my son's new favorite show...Lord help us.

Bribery

On Sunday nights I am teaching a class on parenting preschoolers. I'm using several books as resources and one such book is Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp. One of the best chapters of the book is one where he talks about unbiblical methods of parenting. Here is what he says about the often suggested parenting tactic of bribery:

"Your son won’t clean his room, bribe him. Each week he keeps his room clean, buy him a new Nintendo game or give him $5. All you have to do is be creative enough to find a bribe that works...These approaches are superficial. The point of appeal in bribery is crass self-interest. Bribery latches on to evil in the child’s heart and uses it as motivation. The child is not taught to look out for the interests of others. The child learns nothing about being under authority because God is God and the parent is his agent. The child does not learn biblical reasons for integrity, responsibility, or neatness of his room. These methods will not be satisfying to a parent who understands that the heart determines behavior. Such methods do not deal biblically with the heart. They are only concerned with instances of behavior. Unfortunately, the heart is being trained, but it is not trained in biblical motives or goals. (Tripp, 60-61, emphasis mine).

Bribery is an often used and easy form of discipline. However, it is teaching your child to trust more in their selfish heart. Believe me, your child does not need any more motivation to do that. However you parent your child, you are training his heart. But what are you training his heart to do?

Links

- David Ogden - President Obama's nomination for Deputy Attorney General of the United States is a man named David Ogden, a lawyer who has defended the pornography industry, even going as far as arguing against laws against child pornography.

Al Mohler has thoughts on the issue. One thing is for sure: expect the pornography industry to grow and perhaps grow in ways that are more evil then before.

- Valentine's Day - Mark Driscoll has written a good history of Feb. 14

Bonhoeffer on Commitment

"If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we cannot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering.

But this notion has ceased to be intelligible to a Christianity which can no longer see any difference between an ordinary human life and a life committed to Christ. The cross means sharing the suffering of Christ to the last and to the fullest. Only a man thus totally committed in discipleship can experience the meaning of the cross." (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, Touchstone: 88-89)

There are two questions I ask kids when I baptize them: "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior" and "Are you willing to follow Him for the rest of your life?"

Are you?

Peter Schiff was Right

Better start buying some gold and guns:



Then:



Now:



What is truly amazing is how the greedy economists laughed at him...reminds me of the OT prophets.

Children and Cell Phones

Do your children use cell phones? Should they? Dr. Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary offers some wise advice about monitoring your child's cell phone usage:

"First of all, pre-teens and teenagers, simply, brace yourself, don’t need cellphones. I know you’re immediately responding with safety issues, etc. Nonetheless, for thousands of years pre-teens and teenagers have safely grown to adulthood without having communication devices in their pockets. Pre-teens and teenagers all over the world do it right now, and they survive.

Second, if your child does have a cellphone, this means you have a cellphone. Your responsibility is to know about every call, and the identity of every person text-messaging your son or daughter. You don’t have time to monitor this? Then you don’t have time for your child to have a cellphone.

This doesn’t mean you have to turn your house into an Inquisition hall. It simply means your child knows that you love him or her enough to check in frequently to see what’s going on in life. It also means that you communicate clearly that the child doesn’t have a personal cellphone, autonomous of your authority. It’s your cellphone, and your child is using it.

Communicating your love to your child means communicating your involvement. The gospel message is one of Fatherhood and sonship, of a Father who knows the hairs on our head (Luke 12:7), who fights for his children when they’re tested, tempted, or mistreated. Picture that kind of God to your children, even if they grumble and complain at first. So did we, and all those before us, when we were first delivered from our respective Pharaohs into a Father’s house."

Click here for the entire article

Is College for Your Child?

Seems like I'm posting a lot of Voddie Baucham lately, but he makes some really good points. His latest blog speaks of reevaluating why we send our children to college. Here is a snippet:

"'Mr. and Mrs. Christian, we here at ‘Ivy League’ University are philosophically opposed to virtually everything you stand for. We are among the most liberal, Darwinian, Secular Human, neo-Marxist, Feminist bunch on the planet. However, if you give us $250,000.00 we’ll take your daughter off your hands for the next four years and make a man our of her. Between the money you’ve spent on her prep school, private tutors, and college education, she’ll be put in a position where devoting herself to being a wife and mother would be a criminal act. Therefore, she’ll put off marriage as long as possible, have no more than one…. maybe two kids, pay someone else to raise them –since she’ll start off her career up to her eyeballs in debt—but don’t you worry… She’ll always be the most impressive person in the room when she mentions the fact that she was indoctrinated by us... So how will you be paying?'

I believe in education. In fact, I think Christians should be more, not less educated than the general public. If we really believe what we say we do, then we should be stewards of the minds God has given us, and we should be leading the way like Augustine, Edwards, Copernicus, Galileo, Faraday and others who served God and their fellow man by honing, sharpening and engaging their intellects in lofty pursuits. However, It is not necessary to spend a quarter of a million dollars for a BA in order to get it done.

A BA is virtually worthless these days (with some notable exceptions). Many fields, realizing this collapse of value, now prefer (or require) advanced degrees. And once you have an advanced degree who cares where or how you got your BA? We’ve got to stop making the Pagans rich while they make us dumb."

#4 is an especially good argument. For the entire article click here

Two Interesting Links

The following video is the clearest explanation that I've ever heard (and seen) which advocates why a republic is more desirable than a democracy. Did you know that the word democracy is never mentioned in the constitution? Video won't inbed so click here

Also, notable homeschooling advocate and Southern Baptist preacher, Voddie Baucham, has an interesting view on challenging the notion that homeschool children are "sheltered."

Suffering

Everyone suffers. Sometimes we know why we do and other times we don't know why we do. Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle recently blogged about the 15 types of biblical suffering. For a full description of each click here. Here is the list:

1. Adamic Suffering

2. Punishment Suffering

3. Consequential Suffering

4. Demonic Suffering

5. Victim Suffering

6. Collective Suffering

7. Apocalyptic Suffering

8. Disciplinary Suffering

9. Vicarious Suffering

10. Empathetic Suffering

11. Testimonial Suffering

12. Revelation Suffering

13. Doxological Suffering

14. Preventative Suffering

15. Mysterious Suffering