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nursing continuing education providers
Nursing Continuing Education Providers EDU Tip To learn more about online nursing continuing education, Sara Reed recommends Nursing Online Degree. See http://www. In North America, several Continuing Education organizations and university departments provide accredited CE courses in Nursing-related subjects. Let’s have a glimpse of some of these course providers and their courses. The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago [...]
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nursing continuing education
Nursing Continuing Education EDU Tip Although a good education in many of the professional fields can provide a solid understanding of the industry no matter if it be financial, medical, industrial, or scientific. Ongoing competence in any of these fields however requires an ongoing process of continuing education. Jack and Jill went up the hill to [...]
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nursing continuing education for the 21st century
Nursing Continuing Education For the 21st Century EDU Tip As the world continues to get more complex, careers are becoming more specialized and require continuing education credits to remain in good standing. This is especially true in the medical fields although many professions and professional organizations also demand their members to continue to develop the [...]
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Blasphemy and Freedom
By Joel McDurmon
Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain (Ex. 20:4-6).
You’ve probably heard the question, “What’s in a name?” Remember that it comes from that famous dialogue between Romeo and Juliet? The maiden from the window above says,
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.
…which was her surname. Romeo mumbles to himself, listens on; Juliet continues:
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s a Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.[1]
In Juliet’s view, names are, or should be, so meaningless that they can simply be switched whenever convenient. The problem is, society just doesn’t work that way. In fact, her own woe, you may recall, derived from the fact that her and her lover came from feuding families, and those families having detested each other for generations, could not even stand the name of the other for all that it entailed. She argues that the substance of the thing, or of the person, and not the label, should determine why we value them. But when long use establishes a certain character with a certain appellative, then to overturn that relationship will cause a great social shift. Sometimes, perhaps, that shift needs to take place, other times it necessarily should not. And nowhere is that relationship between character and name more important that at the very foundation of society—religion.
The concept of “God’s name” so closely pertains to His Being and Nature that any affront to any of God’s attributes is subsumed under the very mention of His name. Calvin writes of the Third Commandment, “It is silly and childish to restrict this to the name Jehovah, as if God’s majesty were confined to letters or syllables.… God’s name is profaned whenever any detraction is made from His supreme wisdom, infinite power, justice, clemency, and rectitude.”[2] The reference to God’s name invokes all that God is and stands for.
We have similar references in the New Testament: of Jesus Paul says, there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12). God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Phil. 2:9-10).
So the idea of the majesty of God as represented by God’s name confronts mankind at every turn of life. And so, the commandment against taking God’s name “in vain” fairly warns us against all forms of action, or neglect, concerning the very nature of the God we serve. It means that the Biblical doctrine of God (Who is He?, What is His nature?, What has He done in history?) must inform every act and every decision we make. If the foundations of society rest upon anything less than that God, when we act in the name of God Almighty (for example, the presidential oath including “So help me God”), we have violated the Third Commandment. Conversely, when society begins to denigrate, curse, or swear at the name or mention of God, then we have an even worse situation in which society has attacked God Himself, and has sought to replace Him with something else as the foundation.
Consider for a moment the language of the Commandment. What does it mean to “take” in this passage? We can understand the word in the sense of “carry” or “bear.” Think in this sense of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant, or of the Israelites pitching their tents beneath respective standards which bore their identities as children of YHWH. Think of the label “Christian, ” first given in Antioch (Acts 11:26), and which we bear today. How do we “carry” that label? How do we present that label to the world, and what justice do we do it? Do we bear it in any degree of vanity or emptiness? Implicit in this Third Commandment is a condemnation of hypocrisy—of wearing a label we don’t measure up to in substance. And in not measuring up, we prove ourselves hypocrites, and we dishonor, we can even say blaspheme, the name of the God whose name we bear.
We have such a low view of taking the Lord’s name in vain today. This results from the overall decline of the religion and the influence of the church in society. Today the idea of cursing seems to have much less to do with God’s name than with more mundane forms of vulgarity. This always happens when religion wanes in society. The Oxford scholar Christopher Hill, a renowned expert on the Puritan era, notes the phenomenon long after the end of that age of piety. Speaking of the power of swearing and oaths he writes, �
They survive in industrialized and protestant countries, but as shadows of their former selves, and often the users are unaware of the original significance of swear-words which they employ every day. Blasphemy is no longer a fine art. The live swear-words in such societies are those which offend against something which has much more social reality than God—respectability. Sex and the lavatory have replaced deity, saints and devil as the source of live expletives to-day, because their use breaks a taboo that is still worth breaking.[3]
This has always been my experience. I personally don’t remember a time when cursing didn’t refer to bodily acts, and I was always taught, of course, that these certain words are the curse words, these words are “bad” words and you don’t say them. And while all of that may be true, there was always this great disconnect between the idea of taking God’s name in vain, and what I understood as cursing. That list of bad words, of course, included instances in which the word “God” or the name “Jesus Christ” served as expletives—as we hear all over the radio and TV today—but this only caused me greater confusion. Were these instances the actual sin of taking God’s name in vain? If so, why were the other words bad? Later in life when I actually thought about these questions, and grew a little more biblically literate, I decided that the distinction didn’t matter, because St. Paul went well beyond merely the Lord’s name and said, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying” (Eph. 4:9). “No corrupt communication, ” pretty much covers it all. But this was a sort of happy state of ignorance for me, since I still really didn’t understand what it meant not to take the Lord’s name in vain.
So what was this “original significance” that Hill mentions above? He gives us a hint of it with an introductory quotation from that same chapter. The following appears in an anonymous tract written in 1614:
The safety of the King himself, … every man’s estate in particular, and the state of the realm in general, doth depend upon the truth and sincerity of men’s oaths.… The law and civil policy of England, being chiefly founded upon religion and the fear of God, doth use the religious ceremony of an oath, not only in legal proceedings but in other transactions and affairs of most importance in the commonwealth; esteeming oaths as not only the best touchstone of trust in matters of controversy, but as the safest knot of civil society, and the firmest band to tie all men to the performance of their several duties.[4]
Proper, honest, godly oath-taking, forms the mortar of healthy society. At the bottom of all, is the foundation of allegiance to God; and the commandment does not forbid swearing period, but swearing in vain. Bearing God’s name in truth—not in vain, but in truth—is the bedrock of religion and therefore of social health. In fact, the very word “religion” means “to bind” in the sense of binding allegiance. Such language fills the Bible: the whole concept of being God’s servant relates to this idea. Paul was a servant of Jesus Christ (Rom 1:1). I hear St. Patrick singing his hymn, “I bind unto my self today, the strong name of the Trinity.” With it all I hear a Scripture passage that Christians hardly ever quote: Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name (Deut. 6:13)!
How often do we as believers exhort each other actually to swear? Swearing, we’ve been taught, is a “no-no” across the board. And yet God commanded the Israelites to do so—to swear by His name. The point is that at the bottom of every way of life, of every religion and every society, stands an ultimate oath. You have to serve somebody. Somebody is your god and you have sworn allegiance to him (or her) already whether you know it or not. You cannot escape worship, authority, or oaths. If you zip-your-lips, and lock the door and swallow the key, and refuse to take any oath whatsoever, you just took one. The question is not “oath or no oath.” The question is Whose name did you take it under? Here we must follow the example of God Himself, “For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, He swore by himself” (Heb. 6:13). No wonder He commands us to swear by that name, too.
Not to swear allegiance to God, is to profane His name, and put yours in place of it. The misuse or abuse of God’s name is an initiatory act of rebellion. In society, it represents revolt and revolution. “All swearing is religious, and false swearing represents a subversive drive in society.”[5] This fact manifested recently in a debate between atheists and Christians at Cape Town University on the subject of blasphemy. The atheist professor who agreed to debate backed out two hours before the event started, leaving Peter Hammond of Frontline Ministries alone to lecture from a Christian viewpoint and then field questions. One atheist young lady expressed the myopia of humanistic reasoning in trying to denigrate religion while exalting man: “To call me stupid would be hate speech and be illegal; however, to call Jesus stupid is not illegal and is a religious issue not a legal one.” Another added that hate speech “should of course be illegal, ” yet Blasphemy given free reign “because unlike hate speech against homosexuals, no one is going to get hurt.”[6] The first argument, of course, begs the question, assuming up front what it intends to conclude: that religious issues don’t count as legal issues, therefore blasphemy is not “hate speech.” Christians, rather, should argue that blasphemy is the most fundamental and most serious and subversive form of hate speech, and should carry requisite legal sanctions. The second argument simply ignores the facts, that�
every year over 200, 000 Christians are murdered worldwide for their Faith. Over 400 million Christians in 64 countries live under governments which do not allow religious freedom. Every year government sponsored hate speech in these countries leads to mob violence against Christians, the burning of churches, often with the congregation inside it, the beheading of Christians, even of young teenage girls, the stoning to death of Christians, crucifixions, mutilations, enslavements, etc.[7]
Logical and factual blunders aside, both arguments display the implicit attack on religious faith that humanism entails. When man sets a higher legal standard for speech against man than he does for speech against God, He explicitly rejects God as King and sets himself in the place of God. Legalized blasphemy represents treason to God and country. George Washington, spying the revolution of atheists, radicals, and deists in France, devoted a portion of his “farewell address” to warn our nation of the consequences of such blasphemy. In this passage—often quoted merely for its positive reference to religion—notice the emphasis on reputation (name), and oath:
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?[8]
Atheists and humanists begin with man and wish to derive “hate speech” from that standard. This devolves into a state where individuals, culture, law, and art can curse and mock all religion, virtue, sexuality, and all transcendent standards, and seek legal protection for such acts. Thus, homosexuality for example, which incarnates a gross perversion of the sex act—indeed the ultimate mockery of it—seeks legal protection from even criticism. To even decry homosexuality as a perversion is to practice “hate speech” in such a worldview, and in some so-called liberal democracies that boast of so-called “free speech, ” a preacher who even reads the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual perversion publicly can find himself in jail. Mankind cannot escape “blasphemy” laws: the question is of who determines what constitutes blasphemy. Meanwhile, to highlight a degenerate society’s social hypocrisy, the standard interpersonal curses themselves pertain to sexuality: listen to any rap radio station and you will drown in a deluge of racial slurs interspersed with epithets of maternal incest, while any given foul-mouth on the street finds his readiest curse in willing a forcible sex act upon his annoyer: “f--- you.” Humanism wishes legally to protect its perversions while in practice admitting them to be perverse, employing them as curses.
When society displays such characteristics, it reveals the depth of its rebellion against the Creator. The proper way to protect name, reputation, and human rights in general, is not to profane God and exalt man, but just the opposite. Unless men first revere God and honor an ultimate allegiance to the divine origin of mankind, and protect these beliefs by legal consequence, they shall denigrate everything glorious that man can be, and then protect their perversions and obscenity by recourse to legal force.
And so, as with many others of the Ten Commandments, the Third presents us with something that sounds elementary and almost trivial on the surface, but in reality reaches to the most profound depths of human experience. Based on something that we take for granted every day—a name—God shakes us to the very core of our identity. “What’s in a name?” If you’re talking about God, the answer is “everything.”
Endnotes1 Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet, ” II.ii.33–49.
2 Quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law, 116.
3 Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (New York: Schocken Books, 1967 1964]) 419.
4 Hill, 382.
5 R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 110.
6 Reported by Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University, ” rontline Fellowship News, 2009 Ed. 2, 7.
7 Peter Hammond, “Blasphemy Debate at University, ” Frontline Fellowship News, 7.
8 Partially quoted in R. J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Religion, 112.
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The Christian America Debate Continues
By Gary DeMar
Every society is founded on some ultimate principle. It might be the absolutism of a single ruler, the majority-rule concept of a pure democracy where the “voice of the people is considered to be the voice of God” (vox populi, vox dei), or an oligarchy where a self-appointed group of experts claim sovereignty and control. A system of values (laws) flows from this fundamental operating principle even among regimes as diverse as Nazism, Communism, Fascism, and Socialism. Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez make the claim that their sociaalistic system of rule is the best form government. Adolf Hitler made the same argument for his brand of National Socialism as did Lenin and Stalin for Communism. No government ever argues that its system is evil and bad for the people.
At a 1992 Republican governor’s conference, former governor of Mississippi Kirk Fordice (1934–2004) stated that “America is a Christian nation.”[1] As you can imagine, many objected to the factual basis of the claim and its social, cultural, and political implications. Does a nation that rests on certain religious tenets affect the belief and value systems of those who do not identify themselves with the Christian faith? The governor’s controversial remarks landed him on CNN where he repeated the claim:
Christianity is the predominant religion in America. We all know that’s an incontrovertible fact. The media always refer to the Jewish state of Israel. They talk about the Muslim country of Saudi Arabia, of Iran, of Iraq. We all talk about the Hindu nation of India. America is not a nothing country. It’s a Christian Country.[2]
Mike Gallagher offered this analogy: “If a neighborhood had 82 percent of the population that was Italian or a town had 82 percent of the population that was Polish, we’d call those communities Italian or Polish towns. So why do liberals have such a knee-jerk reaction when anybody dares to suggest that with 82 percent of the population being Christian—we are, in fact, a Christian nation?”[3]In fact, America has ethnic enclaves called “China Town” and “Little Italy” because these areas are made up mostly of Chinese and Italians.
The debate over whether America was or is a Christian nation has not gone away. In 2006, then Senator Barack Obama stated, “Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.”[4] Stated this way, America has always been made up of people who have held diverse religious opinions. But there is no doubt that the earliest settlers to these shores were Protestant Christians. Joachim Gans, an English metallurgist and Jew, was recruited by Sir Walter Raleigh to join an expedition to explore the Virginia territory. Solomon Franco, a Sephardic Jew from Holland, is believed to have settled in the city of Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1649. A map of New York, dated 1695, shows the location of a Jewish synagogue on Beaver Street. The first major Jewish settlement was in Newport, Rhode Island. George Washington wrote a letter of commendation to the congregation on August 21, 1790 in which he stated the following:
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.[5]
Of course, there were also unbelievers and probably even some Hindus and Buddhists in early America. America is the most religiously diverse nation in the world. In 2009, President Obama made these comments while in Turkey where more than 99 percent of the population is Muslim:
“Although . . . we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”[6]�
Turkey does consider itself a Muslim nation because nearly everyone is Muslim and its value system is based on the principles found in the Koran. Here’s the question that goes to the heart of the Christian nation debate: What is the origin of the “ideals” and “set of values” that the citizens of the United States are bound to acknowledge and ultimately to obey?
A lack of historical knowledge of the role the Christian religion played in the founding of America is rampant. Rob Thomas, front man for the band Matchbox 20, goes beyond the usual claim that our nation’s founders were deists by arguing that they were mostly atheists:
I believe that America is a great nation of even greater people. I also believe that anyone who says that this is a “Christian nation” has RHS, or revisionist history syndrome, and doesn’t realize that most of our founding fathers were either atheist or at least could see, even in the 1700s, that all through Europe at the time, religion was the cause of so much persecution that they needed to put into their brand new constitution a SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE so that the ideals of a group of people could never be forced onto the whole.[7]
Even Thomas Paine, who is not really a founding father, was not an atheist even though he was described this way by Theodore Roosevelt. Yes, there were religious battles in Europe, but this did not stop the earliest of our founders from basing their colonial charters and state constitutions on Christian principles. Neither did it stop our constitutional founders from calling on the people to pray and acknowledge their sins in times of national distress. Of course, neither the phrase nor the principle of “separation of church and state” is found in our Constitution. Thomas, in defending homosexuality, makes the curious argument that he is opposed to the concept that “the ideals of a group of people” should “never be forced onto the whole.” But isn’t this exactly what the homosexual movement is doing? Even when Proposition 8 was upheld by a majority of voters in California, a very small minority of the population (homosexuals) intimidated those who supported it and ran to the courts to get it overturned.
Morality cannot ultimately be determined by the individual, the people, or judges. There must be some outside moral standard that can be appealed to. That’s what the Christian nation argument is all about.
Endnotes[1]�U.S. News & World Report (November 30, 1992), 21.
[2] “Mississippi Governor Criticized for ‘Christian Nation’ Remark, ” Dallas/Fort Worth Heritage (January 1993), 14. Quoted in John W. Whitehead, Religious Apartheid: The Separation of Religion from American Public Life (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1994), 149.
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0, 2933, 125217, 00.html
[4]�http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmC3IevZiik (2007)
[5] George Washington, “George Washington's Response to Moses Seixas” (August 21, 1790).
[6] Quoted in Lynn Sweet, “Obama and President Gul of Turkey Press Conference. Obama’s Islamic outreach, ” Chicago Sun Times (April 6, 2009).
[7] Rob Thomas, “The Big Gay Chip on My Shoulder, ” The Huffington Post (May 27, 2009).
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Dr. Seuss Had No Children of His Own
By Eric Rauch
Theodor Geisel will forever be remembered for the contributions that he made to children’s literature. Writing more than 60 books for children over a 60-year career, it might be said that Geisel thought more like a child during his adult life, than he did during his childhood. His simple stories, with their deliberate rhyming patterns and colorful illustrations, continue to captivate child after child, year after year. But the most ironic thing about Theodor Geisel — known to all as Dr. Seuss — is the fact that he never had any children of his own. The world’s most renowned author and artist of children’s stories, whose books seem to magically appear in homes once children are present, never had the joy of reading his books to his own children or grandchildren. Dr. Seuss wrote his books for others, not for himself.
In today’s politically charged, politically correct, media-saturated environment of us vs. them, it is rare to hear of individuals doing something just because it is the right thing to do. When we do hear of such behavior, we wonder to ourselves what the “real” motivation is. This skepticism has filtered down to even the mundane, day-to-day things of life, so much so that we become suspicious when a neighbor mows our grass or takes our trash out for us. We have become a nation of individuals, where each man is an island unto himself, taking every act of kindness by someone else as an affront to his own capabilities. If I was to tell you that Dr. Seuss began writing children’s books in earnest because he was concerned about decreasing literacy among children, you would probably roll your eyes and say to yourself, “Yeah, right. He did it for the money.” We have become so self-centered, that we cannot even fathom why people would do things that don’t offer direct benefits to them. Dr. Seuss did need to provide for himself and his family, that much is true, but he could just as easily have paid the bills with political cartoons. In fact, writing children’s books did not come easily to him, so there is nothing disingenuous in saying that he was motivated by more than a paycheck.
The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 19:25-37) is a textbook example of doing what is needed rather than what is beneficial. The church is called to this task on a daily basis, and the fact that society is so cynical about those who would do good deeds is confirmation of the fact that the church is not doing what is has been called to do. We have become much like the citizens of Rome in the days before its destruction by Alaric the Visigoth in 410 AD.
Alaric, the Gothic king, threw open the flap and stepped outside. The imperial envoys approached his tent, now pitched within the shadows of Rome’s walls. One of the envoys cleared his throat, assumed a dignified stance, and spoke on behalf of the senate. “We are now prepared to make peace; but we are not afraid to fight. If we cannot come to fair and honorable terms, then by all means sound your trumpets; for we are many and in great anguish.” Upon hearing this well-delivered oration, the barbarian bellowed out a great laugh. He knew the inhabitants on the other side were slowly starving to death because of his stranglehold on the city.
“The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed, ” pronounced Alaric. Alaric then listed his demands: all the city’s gold, all the silver, all the precious furniture, and all the slaves with German blood in their veins.
“If such, O king, are your demands, ” sputtered the other envoy, what do you intend to leave us?”
“Your lives, ” said Alaric.[1]
Like Rome, we have gotten to the point where we take our lives for granted. We fail to see that even our very lives are a gift from God. We focus more on the gold, silver, and precious furniture, doing everything we can to keep what we already have while seeking to acquire more. Our only goal is “personal peace and affluence, ” just as Francis Schaeffer said it would be.
The majority of the Silent Majority were those who had only two bankrupt values — personal peace and affluence. Personal peace means just to be let alone, not to be troubled by the troubles of other people, whether across the world or across the city. Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity — a life made up of things and more things — a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance.[2]
It took alarming rates of childhood illiteracy to cause Theodor Geisel to take up his pen and begin writing books for children that would encourage them to read. Dr. Suess would probably never have existed as an author if the literacy rates after World War 2 had not been a concern. The personal peace and affluence bubble of the late 20th century has officially popped. America is learning the hard lesson that man cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24).
But where is the church? Where is the only God-ordained organization that is commanded to give cold cups of water, hot meals, and clothing to those in need (Matt. 25:34-40)? The church has also taken to pursuing personal peace and affluence and, like the rest of the country, is too busy working to maintain a way of life than it is working to enrich and save lives. We have it backwards. We have become so focused on ourselves that we cannot even begin to see the need around us.
So what do we do about it? Like Theodor Geisel, we need to stop. We need to stop and take a breath. And as we breath, we need to look. Look around you; ministry opportunities are all around. The church was never called to an inactive ministry, but one of action. Very seldom does Hollywood have much to offer in the way of helpful advice, but then again, actor Jim Caviezel is not your typical Hollywood insider. In a review of The Stoning of Soraya M.—a new movie set to release tomorrow—in the July 4 issue of WORLD magazine, we read this:
For his part, Caviezel says that as a Christian, he believes he has a special impetus to get involved in movies like Soraya because believers have been given a mandate to speak out against injustice regardless of who it might offend. "In the West we say, 'Oh, it's Shariah law and who are we to impose our religious values on them?' I think that's an evil deception. Those people are human beings, they have the imprint of God in them, so what does that tell us we should do? What does the Good Samaritan story tell us we should do? Chant some politically correct line so as not to upset anybody? I don't think that's the model Christ gives us."[3]
Caviezel’s words cut right to the heart. He is correct to call it our “mandate” because that’s exactly what it is. Caviezel is an actor; that is his gift, his calling. Like Theodor Geisel, he has chosen to use his calling as a way to extend his talents far beyond simply putting food on the table. Doing the work of the church does not mean selling everything you have and taking a vow of poverty. The work of the church begins in the pulpit, where the Word of God should be taught and explained, and then continues into the streets, where the taught Word gets applied to everyday life. Pastors will not save us, just as politicians won’t save us. Pastors and politicians are regular men and just like we do, they struggle with sin themselves. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is the most recent example of this, but he surely won’t be the last.
When the church begins to realize that God is in control, the Alarics of the world become far less threatening. “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28). The church has one Head — Jesus Christ — and we are to follow Him and do what he commands. We are to fear God, not men. Again, Caviezel hits the point dead center: “Here in the United States, men have no rights if a woman wants to abort their child. And too many in the church are afraid of having stones thrown at them if they speak out against that.”[3] And, I would quickly add, any other injustice that you see going around you. The government wields the sword to bring justice to pass, but the church should be actively promoting justice and calling attention to injustice wherever it is found. And if that means doing something that is difficult — as writing children’s books was for Theodor Geisel — or even something that doesn’t directly benefit you — Geisel had no children of his own — then so be it. We are called by a higher authority to a life of service, not one of personal peace and affluence.�
Endnotes[1]� Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as quoted in Arthur W. Hunt III, The Vanishing Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 53-54.
[2]� Francis Schaeffer, “A Christian Manifesto, ” The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer, Volume 5: A Christian View of the West (Westchester, IL: Crossway, 1982), 459.
[3]� Megan Basham, “Movie with a message, ” WORLD Magazine, July 4, 2009, 23.
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the lowdown on online nursing continuing education
The Lowdown On Online Nursing Continuing Education EDU Tip Online nursing continuing education programs offer these nurses a chance to earn an advanced degree. Courses are arranged much like traditional classroom courses except all the work is done at home instead of a classroom. In many careers there comes a point where a person cannot advance without [...]
Source: continuingeducationo.com
Let Your 'Yes' and 'No' Speak Truth
By Eric Rauch
Jesus' statement in His Sermon on the Mount to let your yes be yes and your no be no (Matthew 5:33-37) is picked up by two other New Testament authors. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes: "But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no" (2 Cor. 1:18). And in his short epistle, James writes: "But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment" (James 5:12). With the brief background supplied by previous articles (here and here), we can now begin to get a better sense of what Jesus, Paul, and James are saying about "yes and no."
Last week, Joel discussed the real meaning of the Third Commandment. It was the fear of breaking this commandment that led to the Jewish tradition of not speaking God's name—fear of blaspheming His Name. Modern Christianity has somewhat adopted this superstition by turning the Third Commandment into a prohibition against using God's name as a swear word. While this is certainly part of it, we must realize that the Third Commandment is not only referring to words that proceed out of our mouth. We can also "take God's name in vain" without ever speaking a single word; in fact, this is probably more often the case. When we "take" God's name, we are taking an oath of allegiance to love Him with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. When we violate this oath of allegiance, we are "taking God's name in vain."
Knowing that His audience had turned the law of God into a list of dos and don'ts, Jesus cuts to the real issue in the Sermon on the Mount. Throughout His monologue, Jesus contrasts the tradition of the first-century legalists (using the phrase "You've heard it said...") with the actual intention of the law (using the phrase "But I say to you..."). When He gets to the part about "not making false vows" (Mt. 5:33-37), He directly attacks their tradition of using heaven, earth, or Jerusalem as the authoritative object of their faithfulness to do what they agreed to do. In other words, the Jews had gotten in the habit—out of their fear of misusing God's name and violating the Third Commandment—of making vows in the name of heaven, earth, Jerusalem, etc. Similar to modern children saying "I swear I will not tell this secret on my mother's grave, " the Jews had developed a tradition that appeared to not violate the Third Commandment, yet still gave their vow some credibility. But Jesus exposes their tradition for the folly that it was by making the point that heaven, earth, and Jerusalem all belong to God anyway.
The primary point of Jesus' teaching is actually two-fold. He first draws attention to the fact that by swearing on these other objects, his hearers were essentially admitting that their own words were worthless. If the tradition of swearing on these objects was prevalent enough to be included in His sermon, it must mean that a general sense of suspicion was present among that society. In an attempt to have some semblance of honesty in a dishonest culture, they began swearing on the "higher" things that they held in common.
The second aspect of Jesus' teaching however is the more important one. After condemning their "heaven, earth, and Jerusalem" oaths in verses 34 and 35, He moves into the personal space of each of his listeners (and us as readers). "Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; anything beyond these is of evil" (vv. 36-37). The issue of authority looms large here. Jesus isn't about to leave the door open for his hearers to come up with a different object to swear upon. Bringing it to the individual level, Jesus makes the point that we do not even own ourselves, which means that we don't even possess the authority to swear on our own lives. God not only owns heaven, earth, and Jerusalem; He owns us too. It is for this reason that the only option we have is to let our "yes be yes, " and our "no be no;" we have no authority to say anything otherwise. James makes this point clear when he writes:
Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another? Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. (James 4:11-17)
Notice that James connects boasting with evil, just as Jesus connected anything beyond yes and no as being evil in His sermon. At first glance, it may seem that Paul—in the 2 Corinthians passage—is violating this principle by tying what he said to the faithfulness of God, but he is actually affirming it. When the passage is read in its context, it is clear that Paul is speaking about the words that God gave him to write and speak. What Paul is really saying is that he is delivering the message that God gave to him, not words and meanings of his own creation. In other words, Paul is saying God's words are faithful because God Himself is faithful. In reality, Paul is making a clear distinction from his own words and the Words of God.
And in this confidence I intended to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit—to pass by way of you to Macedonia, to come again from Macedonia to you, and be helped by you on my way to Judea. Therefore, when I was planning this, did I do it lightly? Or the things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be Yes, Yes, and No, No? But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silvanus, and Timothy—was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes. (2 Cor. 1:15-19)
Christians should be known as people of their word, just as God is of His. We should never have to resort to dragging God into our promises to other men. We have no authority to do this in the first place; and in the second, if we feel compelled to do this, it is a judgment against us that we are not faithful and true. May God be pleased to make us faithful to His Word, which will, in turn, make us faithful to our own.
Source: www.feedcat.net
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