Recently, someone wrote to me complaining of a “recent and dangerous trend” of attacks on intellectuals coming from “those on the right.” The writer’s ostensible purpose was to shield intellectuals from “attacks.” His real purpose was to shield them from criticism.
Nothing could be more dangerous than shielding today’s intellectual, particularly the secular university professor, from criticism. It is precisely because they are so coddled and shielded (read: tenured) that they have become modern day Pharisees.
Jesus was not nice to the Pharisees. In fact, He had this to say to them:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Matthew 23: 27-28
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I was watching television one afternoon and was surprised to see how often the commercials aired are about beauty, perfecting beauty, or how to become beautiful. I counted a dozen commercials over the course of a one hour television program. It is quite shocking to see how much junk is pushed our way in such a short period of time. Unfortunately, what I noticed is that every commercial was about outward beauty never once was inward beauty mentioned. It’s common to hear “what’s on the outside doesn’t count it’s what’s on the inside that is important”. Those people have it right.
The young women all over the world are more pressured to look beautiful, to be flawlessly perfect and if you’re not the typical 5”10, 110 pounds, blond hair, than you have a mission cut out for yourself to achieve. But my question to society that believes that a woman’s beauty is in her looks is this . . . What does she become when her beauty fades? If all she did was strive for outward beauty who will she be when it’s gone? Continued »
In a perfect world, when it comes to the Word of God there would be only black & white, right and wrong, truth or lie, every believer would be able to tell the difference. Unfortunately we live in a fallen world and due to the amount of publicity given to the all inclusive churches and the current crop of feel good pastors, God’s Truth gets twisted a bit. This leaves non-believers as well as confused new Christians who don’t have a solid foundation for their belief, in a quandary.
As believers we must try to put aside our human nature of wanting to know everything now and focus on what we do know. The Bible is filled with wonderful glimpses into the future and gives us a solid framework to build upon the Rock, but not get bogged down in trivial stuff. Continued »
How do you spend your free time? Where do you spend your treasures? How much of it is dedicated to helping others and obeying the word of God. Watching how you spend your time and energy can reap marvelous rewards both for the present and the future.
I was thinking about this today when we stopped for lunch at the local Chick-fil-a restaurant. The owner of this particular establishment is a young man named Justin Beard. We have had the opportunity to talk with Justin on a number of occasions and know him to be a fine upstanding young man dedicated to Christ and to his family and the community he lives in. Continued »