Nobel scientist has new spin on 'original sin'

Nobel scientist has new spin on 'original sin'
What a relief!  Now we can rest in the “fact” that sin is due to evolution.  “Natural selection has resulted in traits such as group selfishness being coded in our genes, explains Christian de Duve, professor emeritus at New York City's Rockefeller University. “These were useful to our ancestors under the conditions in which they lived, but have become noxious to us today.”
Too bad he’s wrong.  Sin is a result of Adam’s rebellion against God, and all his offspring inherit this sin when their born.  Furthermore, Sin is a universal moral problem, not a merely, “group selfishness being coded in our genes.”
de Duve explains, “These [genomic codes] were useful to our ancestors under the conditions in which they lived, but have become noxious to us today.”
In fact, de Duve is an example of Sin working in the mind of man who “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”  de Duve is deceived by the deceitfulness of Sin.  The fruits of this is a denial of historicity of Genesis

SermonAudio.com - Giving to God

We’ve got to stop treating God as “a vending machine of blessing!” 

Sometimes a metaphor hits me between the eyes and rips open my selfish complacency, Jeremy Twombley’s  metaphor was a part of his sermon, “Giving to God,” preached from Numbers 7.

Please listen to this sermon at the link below.

SermonAudio.com - Giving to God

Habits of Sin Learned at the Morticians

John Street tells about the trips that pastoral students take to the morticians before the embalm the body.  After a person dies, the muscle memory will cause the body to do odd things.  The body will sit up.  The body will reach up and scratch the face.

Taking this illustration, Street reminds us that when we sin we are exercising our bodies unto unrighteousness, and using the illustration of the dead body, he reminds us that we build a habit of evil doing when we continue to sin unrepentingly.  As Christians, we should be exercising our bodies unto righteousness; this is a fruit of the Spirit working in us.

We are saved to be holy and like Christ!

Husbands: Learner, Lover, Leader!

Gentlemen, we need to know that we are not old dogs that can’t learn new tricks.  We are men!  As such we can also change.

This is important to know because the “stings of the curse” are that the woman seeks to manipulate and control her husband while the husband seeks to have the woman despotically “under his thumb.”  James correlates this sin dynamic, “WhaTheret causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?" (James 4:1, ESV).
Husbands are responsible to be Learners, Lovers and Leaders of their wives and being a godly man.

Learner
1 Peter 3:7, "[7 ] Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. (1 Peter 3:7 ESV)
This is an ongoing, concerted, effort.
I need to know my wife, study herjuniqueness of her gender.  I need to learn what is unique about my wife.  I need to learn and know her unique life struggles.
I need treat her as a weaker vessel; not as weak.  I need to give her respect, honor and cherish her as if she were a Ming vase instead of a Tupperware ^® container.  Romantic love is comes from giving your wife this attention.

Lover
Eph 5:25, "[25 ] Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, (Ephesians 5:25 ESV)
I am to love my wife "as Christ loved” (Eph 5:25, 1 Jn 4:19.)  I need to love her first; take the initiative and be a lover before being loved. I need to love her most , that is I need to give myself to her, love her more than myself.  Then, I need to love her unmistakably, so that she knows in word and deed that I lover her (1 Jn 3:18).
I am also to love my wife "as my own body."  If I would only love her as I (selfishly) love me, my marriage would  richer.
Loving my sweeheart like this will overcome bitterness (Col 3:19).

Leader
A godly leader will focus on the needs of others. I need to be goal oriented, setting godly goals.  I need to be an example of control in every area of life: what I read, what I eat, where I go on the internet.  I need to be a problem-solver; my wife's problems are all of my problems, but not all my problems are hers. I need to be a teacher, leading her in the Word, and we should be living out the Word.  Finally, I need to be a joy to live with; I want my family to love when I come home.

 Be a blessing to your wife, men!

My First Live Blog and How I'm Learning to Hate!

My wife and I are attending the God Country Baptist Church Marriage and Family Conference.  The spekaer if Dr. John Street from Master’s College, and he's teaching us to hate!

John launched the conference with his keynote lecture from Romans 12:9, “[9 ] Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” (Romans 12:9 ESV).

If our marriages are going to thrive, we need to abhor evil. We need to learn to hate our sin more.  There is too much compromising with sin; and, marriage is in great danger from many forces in our society.

John showed from Genesis 2 how God gave us marriage.  God rooted marriage in the creation of mankind into gender distinction.  The focus of marriage in light of creation is the relationship with one another.  Then as we grow in families each one of us has understand that our goal in life is to leave,  cleave and become on flesh.

Of course, to become one flesh is more than anything physical; to become one flesh mentally, psychologically, in how we treat our property, our possessions.  We must also understand that a husband and wife are in an unbreakable covenant (Heb, berith).

More to come.

Seduction Rather Than Persecution

This is the peculiar danger to the American church.  American Christians live in a free, comfortable, prosperous, and sensuous culture.

Our culture is full of self-indulgent pleasures and diversions of entertainment and gratification of our senses.

The Bible tells us, “[2 ] And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them [false prophets] the way of truth will be blasphemed.”(2 Peter 2:2 ESV)  He was speaking of the false prophets that would terrorize the church, but the church is admonished from indulging in their “sensuality.”

The Greek word is aselgeia, meaning “1) unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness,  wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence.”  Taking all the nuances of this word, one can see what havoc such character among the members of Christ can devour the church.

We Americans need to be on guard from the seduction of the world and guard ourselves against sensuality with a healthy dose of continence.  We need to avail ourselves of the Word and Spirit to change our lustful ways in ways of restraint and voluntary restriction from the many allures and amusements in this world, and in self-denial seek to serve one another and our neighbors.

Applied Christianity

Theirs is a movement that advocates for “missional living” as a means of applying the gospel in a way that emphasizes a way of life.

In some ways this is very admirable emphasis, except that missional living aims at being a means of evangelism.  Some years ago there was a similar movement called “lifestyle evangelism.”

The bottom line for me is that the danger of the movement is that it confuses life lived as a result of the the work of the Gospel in us, as opposed to the proclamation of the Gospel which is the mission of evangelism.

I’m reminded too of the old liberal call to apply Christianity.  J. Gresham Machen said: 

At this point Christian teaching is in full accord with the modern liberal Church; the evangelical Christian is not true to his profession if he leaves his Christianity behind him on Monday morning. On the contrary, the whole of life, including business and all of social relations, must be made obedient to the law of love. The Christian man certainly should display no lack of interest in"applied Christianity."

Only--and here emerges the enormous difference of opinion--the Christian man believes that there can be no applied Christianity unless there be "a Christianity to apply." [7] That is where the Christian man differs from the modern liberal. The liberal believes that applied Christianity is all there is of Christianity, Christianity being merely a way of life; the Christian man believes that applied Christianity is the result of an initial act of God. (J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 5, "Salvation")