The Church of Jesus Christ has largely abandoned welfare to institutions inept, incapable, or uncommissioned to this great work. It is a part of Scripture. We must think as individuals, as families, as a Church how we may improve upon our charity.
Consider:
• how the early church cared for widows,
• the Good Samaritan parable,
• Ruth and Naomi,
• New Testament letters describing inter-church welfare "distributing to the necessities of the saints,"
• the origin of the diaconate in Acts,
• and Old Testament gleaning laws.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Monday, November 18, 2013
Increasing Health or Increasing Control?
The tenth amendment says, clearly, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Come now. I read English acceptably well, and so do you. As a generalist in medicine, it also immediately occurs, if one has the health of the population in view, that living in liberty secured by a constitutionally-limited republic has health benefits itself. It is even conceivable that these health benefits exceed anything that a Washington agency could provide, even if it functioned perfectly. In other words, does this effort [to develop practice guidelines] contain a lethal, genetic flaw? Ah, but to believe that there is a flaw is to presume that one knows to what environment these guidelines were adapted. If one presumes that they were adapted to improving the health of the population, and to lowering the cost, one might be mistaken. If they are in fact evolving to increase central control over our lives, then the genes may be perfectly adapted.
Excerpt from "Practice Guidelines"
Come now. I read English acceptably well, and so do you. As a generalist in medicine, it also immediately occurs, if one has the health of the population in view, that living in liberty secured by a constitutionally-limited republic has health benefits itself. It is even conceivable that these health benefits exceed anything that a Washington agency could provide, even if it functioned perfectly. In other words, does this effort [to develop practice guidelines] contain a lethal, genetic flaw? Ah, but to believe that there is a flaw is to presume that one knows to what environment these guidelines were adapted. If one presumes that they were adapted to improving the health of the population, and to lowering the cost, one might be mistaken. If they are in fact evolving to increase central control over our lives, then the genes may be perfectly adapted.
Excerpt from "Practice Guidelines"
Monday, November 11, 2013
The Importance of Theology
All of Scripture applies to all of life. Theology is not something to be held between our ears, but something that permeates our lives. There is no area of life to which Scripture does not speak (2 Tim. 3:15-17). The Christian reformation extended to every area of life. As we have retreated from the breadth of Scripture to a theology that is only personal, we have seen the forces of evil rise to pummel God's world. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. We need to have answers for those who ask what they suppose are rhetorical questions or unanswerable questions.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Noah
The Old Testament account of Noah and the great flood has become one of the great stumbling-blocks today, not so much for unbelievers as for Christians. The story of Noah is so fantastical, so at odds with common experience, and with scientific dogma, that it has been relegated to the category of “myth.”
As is the case with other New Testament references to the Old Testament, any attempt to hold the “difficult” passages in the Old Testament as “myth” will inevitably compromise the New Testament. Whereas the pagans generally don’t know and don’t care about the historicity of Jesus Christ, Christians who play carelessly with the historicity of the Old Testament generally refuse to do so with the New Testament.
We cannot have Jesus Christ as the bearer of truth to us and have Him a deluded person. Jesus Christ accepted the authority of the Pentateuch, which contains the accounts of Noah, quoting from it.
Luke 17:26-27, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” In this passage Jesus appealed to the example of Noah, among others in the Old Testament.
Excerpts from "Lessons from Noah"
As is the case with other New Testament references to the Old Testament, any attempt to hold the “difficult” passages in the Old Testament as “myth” will inevitably compromise the New Testament. Whereas the pagans generally don’t know and don’t care about the historicity of Jesus Christ, Christians who play carelessly with the historicity of the Old Testament generally refuse to do so with the New Testament.
We cannot have Jesus Christ as the bearer of truth to us and have Him a deluded person. Jesus Christ accepted the authority of the Pentateuch, which contains the accounts of Noah, quoting from it.
Luke 17:26-27, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” In this passage Jesus appealed to the example of Noah, among others in the Old Testament.
Excerpts from "Lessons from Noah"
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