Thought on Bible and Culture
As noted in The Gospel of 2 Samuel, God gave King David an amazing promise, your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:16)
Did that really happen? Is that kingdom still in place? If so, who is the successor King from David’s line that rules today? Continue reading “The Gospel of 1 Kings”
Cocaine? Heroin? Which drug is the most powerful with the most people addicted? Which does the most harm?
Neither according to two compelling articles by Morgan Bennett in Public Discourse, the online publication of the Witherspoon Institute. The New Narcotic makes the case that 40 million regular users of online pornography, compared to about 2 million each for cocaine and heroin (less than 1 million hardcore addicts), pornography addicts are 10 times more than the traditional choices. A companion article, Internet Pornography & the First Amendment, describes the history of applying the first amendment to pornographic and obscene materials. Both are “must reads” for all adults, though I warn you it won’t be a pleasant experience.
But surely, viewing images on a computer screen won’t do the damage of physically injecting or consuming heroin and cocaine, will it? Continue reading “The Case Against Pornography”
The first book of Samuel ended with the failed kingdom of Saul and his suicide death on Mt. Gilboa to avoid torture by the approaching Philistines. David, the shepherd boy from Bethlehem, who many years before was anointed as king by Samuel as Saul’s successor and shortly after that killed the giant Goliath, had now consolidated his power, defeated Saul’s wannabe successors and was established as king over all Israel in Jerusalem.
It didn’t happen overnight. He was first crowned king of Judah in Hebron; seven years later crowned in Jerusalem as king over all Israel . A time of relative stability ensued. The Ark of God was brought to Jerusalem, where it awaited its home in the Temple later built by David’s son, Solomon.
2 Samuel 7 is clearly the pinnacle of David’s kingship. It is in this context that God delivered a remarkable message to David through the prophet, Nathan. After clarifying that David would not build the Temple, God gave this amazing promise to David through Nathan. Continue reading “The Gospel of 2 Samuel – The Kingdom that Never Ends”
As a child, I was led to believe that the two worst sins anyone could ever commit were smoking and drinking, the use of tobacco and alcohol.
But where in the Bible is this taught? It’s not! Tobacco and its uses is not even mentioned. Alcohol is another matter for sure, but along with many warnings about the dangers of alcohol, there are affirmations of wine as God’s gift and a source of divine blessing.
So, I’ve had to moderate my hard stance over the years. A sermon I now look back on with embarrassment was a hard line position in a small Nebraska town in the Seventies that believers should not enter the only restaurant in town because it was primarily a bar. I wonder if I should go apologize to the owners 35 years later for my attitude toward them. A more recent treatment of drinking alcohol about which I’m not embarrassed is a sermon I preached in 2012 in the Wisdom for Life series from Proverbs, Wisdom and Wine,
Have I changed my mind about alcohol and tobacco? Yes and No Continue reading “Smoking and Drinking”
It happened on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963. To my own shame, I did not know that it was less than a month after the March on Washington and the legendary “I Have a Dream” speech when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama killing four children. Ironically? No, providentially, the sermon prepared for that day was “A Love that Forgives.”
On this, another significant 50th Anniversary of a civil rights milestone, use this opportunity to be informed of this critical era in American history. I urge you to read Wringing Good Out of Evil by Eric Metaxas and While the World Watched by Timothy George.
President Obama is in a difficult position, attacked from both sides for his changing position on Syria. Should the United States intervene militarily or not? What are the positive results and unintended consequences of our action or inaction? What if we help the rebels overthrow Assad, but the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda gains control? What is the basis for intervening in Syria when many nations and dictators have committed atrocious acts, killing millions of their own people? What is America’s responsibility to hold the world to a standard of life affirming behavior? Continue reading “Children and Chemical Weapons”
I recently completed nine weeks of preaching from 1 Corinthians 5-7 Sex in a Broken World, as part of a sequential exposition of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, The Church in a Broken World. Audio sermons of the entire series are available here.
While it may have pushed the limits of acceptability to preach on sex for that long, we certainly weren’t able to cover all of the highly relevant issues about our sexual desires and acceptable expressions and limits. And even more important, we weren’t able to develop the whole range of who we are as sexual beings made in God’s image for His Glory and our joy. So, I’ll post a few more supplemental items that I hope will be helpful.
The last message in the series was Sex and the Single. And just a couple of days after that sermon, John Piper posted two episodes of his audio series, Ask Pastor John, that are relevant to this theme..
In the second of the two posts, Piper makes these two statements.
There are glories that can be shown in marriage that can’t be shown in singleness.
There are glories that can’t be shown in marriage but only in singleness. Continue reading “Sex and the Single Person”
One of the saddest and darkest days in Israel’s history was the defeat of Israel by the Philistines in the days of Eli the priest. But there is a also a kind of dark humor to the story as told in 1 Samuel 4-6; and a wonderful foretaste of the Gospel. Continue reading “The Gospel of 1 Samuel – God’s Presence with His People”
God Loves the Sinner, but Hates the Sin? That was the question in Episode 140 of Ask Pastor John, a 6 minute audio response by John Piper on 7/31/2013 This resonated with me because of a comment to my earlier post, Danica Patrick on Love and Marriage. I noted that while it is popular to speak of God’s unconditional love, that can be easily misunderstood and downplay another attribute of God, his holiness, and thus his wrath against sinners.
God’s love is unconditional to the extent that no sin is so great but that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was more than adequate to pay the penalty for it. Continue reading “God’s Love and Hatred for Sinners”
What were you doing on August 28, 1963? Okay, so you weren’t born yet. So ask your parents; or if they weren’t born yet either, ask your grandparents. Why do I ask?
After a long day, I settled into the couch to watch the Cardinals and the Reds on television. Unless my team is the featured game on ESPN, about the only time I get to see them play is when they play the Cubs or the Reds. But as much as I love to watch the St. Louis Cardinals, I wandered around a bit with my remote and landed on a PBS special about the civil rights march on Washington 50 years ago. I was riveted by the film of that day, footage of great Negro singers such as Marian Anderson and Mahalia Jackson; sympathetic white folk singers Joan Baez; Bob Dylan; Peter, Paul and Mary; Hollywood entertainers including Steve McQueen and Charlton Heston, various speeches, including a very young John Lewis who used the word “black” in place of the customary “negro,” and approximately 250,000 Americans who arrived by plane, train, and hundreds of buses to join in the Civil Rights march on Washington.
And I wondered, “What was I doing that day?” Continue reading ““I still have a dream,” August 28, 1963″
Tom Macy 