Where is Kodak these days? Remember that company? It used to have its name on most of the cameras and film that you saw around. Kodak was an empire, an institution. Now where is it?
And how about Blockbuster Video? Seen any of those stores around lately? They used to be on every corner.
Laura Ashley clothing? Napster music service?
Transitioning from one stage of life to another is never easy.
Aging is part of that, certainly, but it’s not the entire thing. For example, in a high unemployment society, aging may make me irrelevant to the work force. That will likely happen without my consent, and probably when I least expect or want it to happen. Tough luck. I’m now irrelevant in that role, and I had better learn to deal.
It also helps if I am willing to make myself relevant to the world around me in some other role.
“Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
I’d like to give some thought this morning to the phrase “rulers of this age” that appears twice in the passage above. It might be a little more interesting than it looks.
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“Is it unloving to confront somebody about his sin?”
As in so many situations Christians encounter in this life, motive is more important to the Lord than the actions it produces. Some people just can’t get their heads around that. We generally call these people legalists. They value actions and outcomes more than the heart and mindset that produces them.
The Lord just … doesn’t.
I said I would. Here it is.
There’s little point in referencing a controversial thesis, let alone siding with its author, if you decline to address significant arguments raised against it. Helen Andrews’ “The Great Feminization”, has generated considerable online debate. Her thesis is essentially “Women Equals Woke”. Our DEI woes on the job, she says, are all due to increasing numbers of women in the workforce.
Now, blaming everything that’s gone wrong on women sounds sexist, nasty and mean, even when it’s a woman doing it. But that’s not really where Andrews was going. Her critics disagree, and we’ll look at some of their objections today.
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Bible students online differ concerning the extent to which Samson was truly heroic or any kind of role model for believers. The four chapters that chronicle his life and death portray him as impulsive, turbulent and temperamental, driven by his whims and easily pushed off course by events around him. Rarely do we see evidence of serious devotion to the Lord, or the fruit of such a relationship in his life, though there’s absolutely no question the Lord used him, and used him in a major way. Like Jehu centuries later, Samson was a wrecking ball when Israel needed one.
The New Testament portrays Samson as a man who in at least one instance exercised remarkable faith. Even then, in typical Samson style, his faith basically amounted to the conviction that God would make an exception to his own rules by special request …
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
Editor’s Note: This post was our first together, presented over a decade ago. I thought it makes an interesting re-read in view of both the things that have changed since, and the things that have not.
Alex Awad is a professing Christian who leads a Bible school in the town of Bethlehem and wrote 2008’s Palestinian Memories: The Story of a Palestinian Mother and her People.
Tom: Mr. Awad believes the Old Testament promises to Israel are strictly conditional on Israel’s faithfulness and obedience and consequently that “Israel as a nation annulled its privilege as God’s chosen nation.”
I was baptized young.
Not so young that I did not know what I was doing. After all, I believe in believer baptism only … just like the scriptures tell us.
I was around ten, I think. I asked for it to happen. No one pushed me. And at that time, I had a ten-year-old’s faith, and a ten-year-old’s understanding. Nothing wrong with that … it’s just not where I am today.
Discussions about masculine vs. feminine tendencies in any area of life produce polarized reactions these days. One pole insists there are no meaningful differences between the sexes, an assertion falsified by scripture, and one the Christian cannot accept. The other pole declares itself a diehard member of Team Men or Team Women, breaks out the heavy artillery and goes to war, a strategy unlikely to lead to the perpetuation of our species. Between the poles, the careful Bible student tries to observe and comment about potential spiritual danger zones for each sex in a fair, balanced and reasoned way.
We are not the same, and neither are our temptations and struggles to live out Christ in a fallen world. That’s where I’m going to try to go today: right down the middle. On this subject at least, I think that’s where the Lord would prefer us to be.
A lengthy illustration will probably serve me best here. If you doze off, I sympathize. I’ll probably still tell the whole thing though.
I have no doubt mentioned several times in this space that I currently work with a bunch of women. To be specific, I work under a bunch of women. My direct supervisor is a woman twenty years younger than I am. Her occasional replacement is a woman five years younger than me. They both report to a woman a few years older, and she reports to another woman roughly the same age. Layers and layers of women in a quasi-traditional hierarchical structure, with me and a couple of other part-time guys on the bottom and an executive male or two way, way up top, whom I almost never see and certainly never interact with.
How do I like that? You didn’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway: I love it.
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“Does a Christian marriage have to be romantic?”
Men and women born much prior to the ‘Summer of Love’ — like, say, those who managed to live through a World War, the Great Depression or any of the plagues and famines of prior centuries — would probably find this question hilarious. Even today, in cultures where the social or financial advantages of being married outweigh any potential negatives, a deficiency of romance in a marriage rarely amounts to a stopper.
However, we live in an era in which a young person’s view of marriage is often wildly unrealistic. Feminist media propaganda shapes the expectations of most young women — and many men.
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Cognitive dissonance exists because it’s possible for otherwise-intelligent men and women
to hold two points of view at the same time that mutually exclude at their
core. ‘X’ and
I ran into this in a conversation with two women at work many years ago about the Liberal Prime Minister they had just helped elect. As I listed government policy after government policy with which I knew they both had serious issues, they nodded in agreement like twin bobbleheads of the sisters from Full House. These were indeed bad policies, and they were driving our country into the ground. We were all on the same page about that.
“So … why?” I finally asked.
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The story of Samson is full of miraculous events. The narrative has a big, mythical quality to it: the robust young hero smiting his enemies in impossible numbers. A child reading it may find himself caught up in the action and missing the subtext. I certainly did. Nevertheless, like so many other Old Testament characters, this “hero” has feet of clay; he cannot seem to get out of his own way. His failures and temptations are all too human.
Never mind. God can use that too. We can take some encouragement from that fact at least.
In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.
In an article appropriately entitled “Premarital Sex: Is It A Sin Or Not?” Charles Toy of TheChristianLeft.org rather predictably contends it’s … not:
“There is no passage of the Bible that references premarital sex as a sin against God. The association between sin and premarital sex is a new Christian idea. The only possible reference to premarital sex being a sin in the Bible is in the New Testament. This premise although, is generally dismissed by theologians because the Greek word πορνεία, or sexual immorality is commonly incorrectly translated into the English word fornication.”
Tom: In our earlier discussion, we discovered we agree that Mr. Toy is wrong about the association between sin and premarital sex being a “new Christian idea”. It actually goes back to Genesis. So his first point is inaccurate.