When Will They Ever Learn?

Oooops. Wrong Again!

The success of forecasting climate projections is clearly a dismal science.  Myron Ebell and Steven J. Milloy, writing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, list down the leading failed and useless climate predictions uttered by the world's best and most informed prognosticators.  

In their summary, the authors write:

Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today.  None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true.  [Emphasis, ours.] 

What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.  More than merely spotlighting the failed predictions, this collection shows that the makers of failed apocalyptic predictions often are individuals holding respected positions in government and science.  While such predictions have been and continue to be enthusiastically reported by a media eager for sensational headlines, the failures are typically not revisited.

 The article goes on to cut and paste from a long list of failed projections and warnings. 

Fools and Horses Run The Chinese Government

Xi Jinping’s Quotes Replace the Ten Commandments in Churches

Implementing its ultimate goal of becoming the sole deity revered in China, the CCP continues to smother the Christian doctrine, replaces it with the party line.

by Tang Feng
Winter:  A Magazine on Religious Liberty and Human Rights in China

A MAGAZINE ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA


The Ten Commandments are the basis of Christian moral code, an essential part of believers’ life throughout the world. But in atheist China, they have become an eyesore for the country’s dictator, and are eliminated from places of worship.

Even though a state-run Three-Self church in a county of Luoyang city in the central province of Henan has replaced the Ten Commandments with President Xi Jinping’s quotes after repeated demands, it didn’t escape reprimands from the government. “The Party must be obeyed in every respect. You have to do whatever the Party tells you to do. If you contradict, your church will be shut down immediately,” United Front Work Department officials lectured the congregation at the end of June.

Ten Commandments were torn down from a church wall.

According to a believer who asked to remain anonymous, against the will of believers, the Ten Commandments have been removed from nearly every Three-Self church and meeting venue in the county and replaced with quotations from Xi Jinping.

Daily Meditation

Examining the Clues

Ligonier Ministries

John’s vision in Revelation gives us some clues about what heaven is like. Heaven is charged with the absence of things that are conspicuously present in our earthly environment. What is absent? Some of the missing things include tears, death, sorrow, and pain: “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev. 21:4, NIV).

Certain types of people will also be absent. No unbelievers, abominable and sexually immoral people, murderers, sorcerers, idolaters, or liars will live in that place. This indicates that heaven will be a place where sin is totally absent.

The New Jerusalem will have neither tabernacle nor temple. These were but earthly types, shadows of what is to come. When the reality appears, the shadows depart. “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 21:22, NIV).

The new heaven will have no sun or moon. They are unnecessary because the glory of God gives it light. In heaven there is no night. Nothing can eclipse or dim the light of the refulgent glory of God. No darkness can overcome or even intrude into the splendor of the One who is the Light of the World.

Finally, there will be no curse there. The curse on the cosmic order, which produces groans from the whole creation, will be lifted. It will be banished from heaven. No death, no pain, and no struggle will curse the human enterprise.

Coram Deo

Read Revelation 21 and 22 to learn more about your heavenly home.

Passages for Further Study

Revelation 21:3–4
Revelation 21:22

Vaping Is a Cool Vice

A Whole New Market!

One of the attractions of tobacco--at least years ago--was that smoking was cool.  Probably this is not nearly so much the case.  Tobacco is no longer cool--or at least not nearly as what it once was.  

But vaping?  Well that's apparently an entirely different matter. 

The Cancer Society is calling on the Government to introduce tougher rules to stop school children getting hooked on vaping.  The call comes after a new survey shows that high school students across the country are vaping in greater numbers than ever.

The Cancer Society survey asked 320 schools, including 142 primary schools, about students vaping.   Nearly 90 percent of secondary schools responded that they were aware of students vaping, and over half described vaping as a problem.

"This is an issue that is reaching into the homes of large numbers of New Zealand families," says the study's author, Candace Bagnall.  "To have a whole new generation hooked on tobacco products would be a disaster for cancer prevention."

Although current evidence indicates that vaping is less likely than smoking to cause cancer, Bagnall says there is not enough long-term data to know the true effects of vaping.  "To say that a product is less harmful than smoking tobacco isn't saying a lot - we are talking about a product that kills half the people who use it," says Bagnall.

The survey showed that 72 percent of schools had seen an increase in students vaping in the past year, with 89 percent of secondary schools aware that students were vaping at school.  Eight percent of primary schools surveyed also reported they were aware of students vaping at school.  Last month, Auckland Grammar School principal Tim O'Connor called vaping "an epidemic". He said students were becoming "quite cavalier" with their vaping on school property.

In light of the increasing numbers of youth vaping, the Cancer Society is calling on the Government to ensure that all smoke-free areas are also vape free, and ban vape flavours that are attractive to children.   It is also pushing to reduce access to ordinary cigarettes; continue to excise tax on smoked tobacco products; limit access to e-cigarettes and smokeless tobacco; and limit the levels of nicotine in all tobacco products. 

It may well be the case that vaping may well turn out to be just as harmful and destructive as tobacco over time.  Let parents and schools beware.

A Winning Streak

The Arizona Supreme Court Strikes a Powerful Blow

Free Speech and Religious Freedom Upheld

By David French
National Review Online


Free speech and religious liberty are on a winning streak. Last month the Eighth Circuit Court of appeals ruled that Christian wedding photographers could not be compelled to use their artistic talents to help celebrate same-sex weddings. Today, the Arizona Supreme Court reached a similar holding, this time on behalf of Christian calligraphers and painters Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski. The case, brought by my friends and former colleagues at the Alliance Defending Freedom, is similar to multiple other wedding vendor cases. The plaintiffs do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation (they happily serve gay customers). They merely refuse to produce art that advances ideas they find objectionable.

Duka and Koski operate a limited liability company called “Brush & Nib Studios.” The company’s Operating Agreement declares its beliefs quite clearly — stating that it will not create “custom artwork that communicates ideas or messages . . . that contradict biblical truth, demean others, endorse racism, incite violence, or promote any marriage besides marriage between one man and one woman, such as same-sex marriage.” As with all these cases, the core question is whether the custom artwork at issue constitutes constitutionally protected speech (the court was interpreting the Arizona constitution, but applied federal free speech precedents). If so, then the state’s demand that the plaintiffs produce art for same-sex marriages constitutes a form of compelled speech, among the most egregious forms of First Amendment violation. Compelled speech violates the fundamental principle that “an individual has autonomy over his or her speech and thus may not be forced to speak a message he or she does not wish to say.”

The court held that the plaintiffs’ custom wedding calligraphy constituted “pure speech:”

Daily Meditation

Unraveling the Mystery

Ligonier Ministries

The place we will occupy in the future will be similar to places we occupy now, but there will also be differences. The heavenly place will be a place of manifest glory. Our bodies will have continuity with our present bodies. There will also be discontinuity. Our new bodies are shrouded in mystery—we see through the glass darkly. Yet we receive hints about our glorified bodies by comparisons with Jesus, as well as by His words that we will be “like the angels” (Matt. 22:30).

Paul gives further hints: After discussing various kinds of bodies we experience on this planet, and various levels of glory of created objects, he adds: “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory, it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44, NIV).

We understand corruption, dishonor, weakness, and natural bodies. Only by contrast or eminence do we contemplate an incorruptible, glorified, powerful, spiritual body. The new body will be clothed with immortality. It will receive a garment it does not presently or intrinsically possess.

Coram Deo

Spend some time in worship, thanking God for the eternal destiny He has planned for you.

Passages for Further Study

1 Corinthians 15:42–44

Measles in New Zealand

Measles: 'Check Your Immunity'

Woman Begs After Husband, 45, Gets Encephalitis

Dubby Henry
NZ Herald


A 45-year-old man who wrongly thought he was vaccinated against measles is in hospital with swelling on the brain after catching the virus.  His wife has urged people to double-check they are vaccinated after her husband contracted the highly contagious disease 10 days ago.  The woman - who asked not to be named as the situation was still sensitive - told the Herald she wanted people to know measles could hit anyone and it could be fatal.  "This virus is horrific. If it can do this to a fit 45-year-old male I can't imagine how a child or baby would cope." . . . .

The woman said she had no idea what measles encephalitis was until doctors diagnosed her husband.  She was stunned when the doctor told her there was no treatment - they could only offer him support like keeping him hydrated and managing his pain.

"[He said that] as medical professionals, this is what we're trying to stop because once we get here this is the worst of it."  Doctors told her it was clear from the severity of her husband's symptoms that he hadn't been immunised.  Her husband's condition had improved in the past day or so. . . .

Medical facilities have run low on MMR vaccines but a fresh batch of 52,000 doses has arrived in the country and is being readied for distribution.  New Zealand's director general of health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said processes were being fast-tracked to ensure extra stock was distributed as quickly as possible.  . . . 

New Zealand's measles outbreak is now believed to have surpassed that of the United States.

Devastating Coverage of the NZ Prime Minister

Ardern Both a Fake and a Flake?

Columnist John Armstrong weighs in on the NZ Labour Party scandal.  There is nothing substantially new here, but it is significant that someone of Armstrong's gravitas has lifted up the cudgel against a Labour administration. 

Some excepts:

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of the Ardern Administration?  How damaging are this week’s extraordinary revelations surrounding Labour’s disgraceful mishandling of sexual assault allegations to the prospects of the party clinging onto power following next year’s election?

Will the exposure of what has to be regarded as a deep vein of hypocrisy, insincerity and cynicism running through the very heart of the governing party turn out to be a tipping point which will end with Labour being tipped out of office?  Has this unseemly episode exposed Jacinda Ardern as both a fake and a flake?

In short, has Labour drastically reduced its chances of retaining the Government benches in Parliament by unwittingly blunting the fire-power of its most potent weapon?  Such questions might be regarded as being somewhat over the top.

To the contrary, however, the tumult of the past week has been as serious a crisis as any that have afflicted the party since the bitter ideological warfare which tore Labour apart in the late 1980s.

The latest example of Labour’s predilection for shooting itself in both feet was kicked off by Monday’s publication by The Spinoff website of the harrowing account of a 19-year-old Labour Party volunteer’s struggle to get the party’s hierarchy to take her complaint of alleged sexual assault seriously.

The impact of that article has been devastating — especially in terms of the embarrassment that has ended up being heaped on the Prime Minister.

Daily Meditation

Understanding the Future

Ligonier Ministries

When we ask questions about matters that elude our full understanding, we tend to look for models or patterns that are similar to what we do understand. We seek for clues to a new and different paradigm. The shift from earthbound thinking to conceiving of heaven is a massive paradigm shift.

To speak of our mysterious future is to search for analogies that will give us a hint about what to expect. We cannot say what heaven is, but the Bible does give us hints as to what it is like. We try to imagine the unknown in the light of what is known. John tells us: “It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2).

We do not know for sure to whom the “He” and the “Him” refer. Do they refer to God the Father or to Christ? God the Father is the subject of the preceding verses, but what follows seems to indicate Christ.

The difficulty of the reference is mollified when we realize that to be Christ-like is to be God-like. The firstfruits image of Christ in His resurrection indicates that, ultimately, we shall be like Christ. As Christ rose with a glorified body, we too will enjoy glorified bodies at the final resurrection.

Coram Deo

Pause a few moments to think about your eternal future in heaven.

Passages for Further Study

1 John 3:2
Psalm 17:15
1 Corinthians 15:51

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

The Slaves of Jonathan Edwards


Douglas Wilson
Blog & Mablog

Introduction

Some people might want to raise the question why I have chosen to write on slavery as much as I have. The reason is actually a pretty simple one: I wrote the other day about the functional authority of Scripture, and the issue of slavery gives us a wonderful opportunity to see just how committed to Scripture we actually are. Unfortunately, in too many cases, the answer comes back, “not very.”

Heroes and Monuments

We live in a toppling time. As the corrosion of critical theory has made its way through our history texts and city parks, the demands for removing so-called hurtful images and reminders have grown increasingly urgent. Whether we are talking about Columbus, or Robert E. Lee, or some other miscreant, the snowflakes have done a good job organizing their blizzard. As the expression goes, you should visit the Washington monument while you still can.

And of course, given that this is the moment that has seized the unbelievers, and given that great evangelical principle of “monkey see, monkey do,” the cries to revisit our heroes have also gone aloft in Christian circles. Whenever the zeitgeist gets a going, you can count on evangelicals to show up with their relevance kites.

And so it is that the issue has now come to the legacy of Jonathan Edwards. He was a monumental theologian, a revivalist, a foundational figure in North American evangelicalism, and . . . a slave owner.

The Slaves of Edwards

We don’t have a ton of information about the slaves of Jonathan Edwards, but we do know a few things about his ownership of a handful of slaves, as well as his attitude toward some other issues related to race and slavery, such as the slave trade.

It's All Over, Rover

Mud Stinks, And Now It's Sticking To The People At The Top

Duncan Garner
Stuff

[The NZ Press are now hunting as a pack.  PM Ardern is now a lame duck.  Her party leadership group is also made up of lame ducks.  They have conspired to mislead the press.  There is no forgiveness for such a mortal sin--at least that's what the Press thinks and that's all that matters. Ed.]

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is refusing to say exactly who within the Labour Party assured her there was no sexual assault complaint.  As unlikely as it seems, Grant Robertson could probably sink the prime minister with what he knows about this sordid Labour Party sex scandal.  But to sink her is to sink him.

Now I know Robertson's coveted the top job on a few occasions, but he ain't about to be the loose lips that sink Labour's only ship that can sail through rough shark-infested waters.  She's the luxury cruise liner in a fleet of bunny-hopping bumper boats.  Although on this voyage, Captain Jacinda has hit the rocks, mayday mayday mayday. What was that?

That's lazy arrogance, actually. When you say #metoo, but really mean #usaswell.  It's simply too hard to accept that Jacinda Ardern didn't know the alleged assault was of a sexual nature. Her staff knew. Her party knew. Parliament knew. The media knew.  On body language alone this week they screamed: Help!

They looked under genuine pressure, didn't they? Jacinda, meet NZ's press gallery: they hunt as a pack of underpaid, unloved mongrels who judge life on scalps taken.  Yet this time you've gifted them a beauty, a textbook way how not to do something, and how not to cover it up.  Maybe the gallery is not as rabid as when Paddy "Herb" Gower and I chased Chris Carter around Parliament, only to end up in a near dust-up in aisle 4 seat B of an Air NZ plane to Wellington.

But gallery reporters feed on each other. If one person says Ardern is weak, the next pushes the gates out further: flakey, fruitloop, freezes on the big stage. They now see Ardern as fallible, not overly special and, crucially, she's vulnerable.   It's simply too hard to accept she didn't know it was an assault of a sexual nature.

Her staff knew.

Daily Meditation

Responding to God’s Call

Ligonier Ministries

We live in daily submission to a host of authorities who circumscribe our freedom: from parents to traffic police officers to dog catchers. All authorities are to be respected and, as the Bible declares, honored. But only one authority has the intrinsic right to bind the conscience. God alone imposes absolute obligation, and He does it by the power of His holy voice.

He calls the world into existence by divine imperative, by holy fiat. He calls the dead and rotting Lazarus to life again. He calls people who were no people “My people.” He calls us out of darkness and into light. He effectually calls us to redemption. He calls us to service.

Our vocation is so named because of its Latin root vocatio, “a calling.” The term vocational choice is a contradiction in terms to the Christian. To be sure, we do choose it and can, in fact, choose to disobey it. But prior to the choice and hovering with absolute power over it is the divine summons, the imposition to duty from which we dare not flee.

It was vocation that drove Jonah on his flight to Tarshish and caused his terrified shipmates to dump him in the sea to still the vengeful tempest. It was vocation that elicited the anguished cry from Paul, “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). It was vocation that put a heinous cup of bitterness in the hands of Jesus.

The call of God is not always to a glamorous vocation, and its fruit in this world is often bittersweet. Yet God calls us according to our gifts and talents, and directs us to paths of the most useful service to His kingdom. How impoverished we would be if Jonah had made it to Tarshish, if Paul had refused to preach, if Jeremiah really had turned in his prophet’s card, or if Jesus had politely declined the cup.

Coram Deo

Think about it … what will be the tab of spiritual losses if you do not respond to God’s call?

Passages for Further Study

2 Corinthians 10:15–16
Romans 15:20
Philippians 1:17

Deadly Risks

The World Before Vaccines is a World We Can’t Afford to Forget

Measles is now resurgent in the United States and many other countries. Historical amnesia is partly to blame.

By Richard Conniff
National Geographic
Aug 16, 2019

Like most American children of my generation, I lined up with my classmates in the mid-1950s to get the first vaccine for polio, then causing 15,000 cases of paralysis and 1,900 deaths a year in the United States, mostly in children. Likewise, we lined up for the vaccine against smallpox, then still causing millions of deaths worldwide each year. I’ve continued to update my immunizations ever since, including a few exotic ones for National Geographic assignments abroad, among them vaccines for anthrax, rabies, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid, and yellow fever.

Having grown up in the shadow of polio (my uncle was on crutches for life), and having made first-hand acquaintance with measles (I was part of the pre-vaccine peak year of 1958, along with 763,093 other young Americans), I’ve happily rolled up my sleeve for any vaccine recommended by my doctor and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with extra input for foreign travel from the CDC Yellow Book. I am deeply grateful to vaccines for keeping me alive and well, and also for helping me return from field trips as healthy as when I set out.

One result of this willingness, however, is that I suffer, like most people, from a notorious Catch-22: Vaccines save us from diseases, then cause us to forget the diseases from which they save us. Once the threat appears to be gone from our lives, we become lax. Or worse, we make up other things to worry about. Thus, some well-meaning parents avoid vaccinating their children out of misplaced fear that the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps, and rubella) causes autism. Never mind that independent scientific studies have repeatedly demonstrated that no such link exists, most recently in a study of 657,000 children in Denmark.

Clinging to an Incredible Story

What If Jacinda is not Lying?

By Christie
Te BFD

Over at Kiwiblog, David Farrar has written a succinct account about what it would take to believe that Jacinda Ardern did not know about the alleged sexual assault carried out by a member of her most trusted staff, and the list really does make it hard to believe that Jacinda knew nothing about the accusations before reading about them in The Spinoff on Monday.

This is what you need to believe, to accept that she is telling the truth.

• That no-one at any stage before this week informed her that a member of her staff had been accused of rape or sexual assault
  
• That her Chief of Staff who knew, never told her
  
• That her office director, who knew over eight months ago, never told her
  
• That her Chief Press Secretary, who knew, never told her
  
• That her closest friend and colleague, Grant Robertson, who knew three months ago, never told her
  
• That she took advice on an e-mail sent two months ago accusing the staffer of sexual assault, but never actually read the e-mail
  
• That she didn’t read a single newspaper item or listen a single radio or TV broadcast or read a single story online over the last five weeks which mentioned the allegations included sexual assault
  
• That the daily print out of political newspaper clippings to her, somehow omitted all the ones which mentioned the sexual assault allegations.
  
• That she never once asked a member of her staff what exactly were the allegations against the person who worked for her, after he stopped coming to work five weeks ago
  
• That when she said she told the Labour Party Council a month ago they are not the appropriate body to investigate a sexual assault, she was using that hypothetically and had no idea that was one of the complaints
  
• That when Mike Hosking asked her on the 6th of August about “this bloke who may or may not have sexual assaulted someone” she didn’t hear the question properly
  
• That despite the fact some of the complainants had gone to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition with allegations about a member of her own staff, she never sought details from anyone at anytime about those allegations – she just relied on a verbal assurance from the party president

She really didn’t know?

She clings to the story that she really, really, really didn’t know… and that, when she asked if the complaints were sexual in nature, she was told that they were not.

Daily Meditation

Doing Your Duty

Ligonier Ministries

The human ear is a strange appendage. Ears come in all sizes and shapes; they are the delight of the cartoonist, who can capture caricatures easily by exaggerating their angles. The appendix and the coccyx have been dubbed “vestigial appendices” by those convinced of their relatively useless functional value. No one has ever called the ear “vestigial,” as its value is not so much cosmetic but functional. Jesus put it succinctly: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

We are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable responsibilities, among which are love, obedience, and the pursuit of vocation. These may be summed up with one four-letter word that has become a modern-day obscenity: duty. Duty involves answering a summons, responding to an obligation, and heeding a call.

Our ears are assaulted daily by a cacophony of sounds making it difficult at times to distinguish between a bona fide call and senseless noise. We get phone calls, fire calls, wake-up calls, cat calls, crank calls, house calls, bad calls (by referees), and late calls for dinner. We get calls from our bosses, our teachers, and Uncle Sam; calls to departure gates, sales calls, and nature calls.

Only one call carries the force of absolute and ultimate obligation. I may ignore my phone calls and defy even the call of Uncle Sam, fleeing to Canada while nursing a hope for future amnesty. The call of God may also be ignored or disobeyed, but never with impunity. I may marry Betty or Sally and live in Chicago or Tuscaloosa. I may build a small house or a big house, or even live in an apartment. I can drive a Cadillac or a Honda—it’s a free country. With respect to vocation, however, it is not a free universe. One absolute, nonnegotiable requirement of my life is that I be true to my vocation. This is my duty.

Coram Deo

Are you responding to the call of God? Are you being true to the vocation to which you are called?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 3:7–8
Hebrews 4:7

Mind and Cosmos

"Unpleasantries"

Philosopher Thomas Nagel has written a telling little book.  The title says it all: Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False.  Nagel's point is that universal brute chance being responsible for the existence of everything becomes more and more unbelievable and incredible as our knowledge of the universe expands. 

Writes Nagel:

. . . for a long time I have found the materialist account of how we and our fellow organisms came to exist had to believe, including the standard version of how the evolutionary process works.  The more details we learn about the chemical basis of life and the intricacy of the genetic code, the more unbelievable the standard historical account becomes.  This is just the opinion of a layman who reads widely in the literature that explains contemporary science to the nonspecialist. 

Perhaps that literature presents the situation with a simplicity and confidence that does not reflect the most sophisticated scientific thought in these areas.  But it seems to me that, as it is usually presented, the current orthodoxy about the cosmic order is the produce of governing assumptions that are unsupported, and that it flies in the face of common sense.  [Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012),  p.5.]

Nagel goes on to state what he believes is lacking in the current argument as put forward by the materialist neo-Darwinians.

Evils Being Nurtured Within the Democratic Party in the US

On Abortion, Democrats Are Living In A Fantasy Land


Democrats’ embrace of extreme abortion ideology is producing some strange policy proposals increasingly divorced from reality.

John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist


If you think Democrats have become untethered from reality on climate change and the Green New Deal, which most of the 2020 frontrunners now seem to endorse, it’s nothing compared to the unreality they’ve embraced about abortion.

During an interview last week, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said that “life begins at breath,” apparently endorsing the extreme view that abortion should be legal up until the moment a baby takes its first breath upon birth.

Setting aside, for now, the abject falseness of Buttigieg’s claim—it’s a long established scientific fact that life begins at fertilization—this is the ascendant view of abortion on the left. Far from “safe, legal, and rare,” Democrats now tout abortion as a positive good , which means it should not only be free from almost any restrictions, but also paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

This devotion to abortion makes for some strange policy outcomes, some of which are beginning to crop up in the Democratic primary. These tell us quite a lot about where the American left in general, and the Democratic Party in particular, is headed.

Daily Meditation

Embracing the World

Ligonier Ministries

Martin Luther declared that a new Christian must withdraw from the world for a season, but upon reaching spiritual maturity he must embrace the world as the theater of redemptive activity. His message was, “Away with the cowards who flee from the real world and cloak their cowardice with piety.”

Perhaps the greatest need for our day is the need to market Jesus Christ. The church must become expert in marketing, not in the slick Madison Avenue style but in an aggressive, yet dignified way. The marketplace is where we belong. It is where needy people are found. It is not enough for the church to hang a welcome sign on her door. We dare not wait for the world to come to us.

God never intended the Christian community to be a ghetto. The church is not a reservation. Yet the pervasive style of modern evangelicalism is that of a reservation or a ghetto. We can argue that it is the secularist agenda to put us there and keep us there. But such arguments won’t do. We are there because it is safe and comfortable to be there.

The secularist hates the light and is quite willing to offer us a bushel for it. Shame on us when we buy custom-made bushels and willingly place them over our candles. To hide the light or to restrict it to a reservation is to do violence to the gospel and to grieve the Holy Ghost. 

Coram Deo

Are you hiding your light under a custom-made bushel? Reflect on the closing statement in today’s reading: “To hide the light or to restrict it to a reservation is to do violence to the gospel and to grieve the Holy Ghost.”

Passages for Further Study

Matthew 5:14–16