The Scriptures, Christotelic
Jesus had no problem talking for some time, from passage to passage, starting in Genesis, about Himself. In these passages He illustrated that ALL of the Scripture was about Him. If Jesus believed that was true, and if He in fact expressed that it is so, then we are under compulsion to read the Bible in that light. The Scriptures, beginning in Genesis, are Christotelic—intentionally aimed at revealing Christ!
When the forlorn disciples met up with Jesus following His resurrection, it made the short trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus much more pleasant. Before revealing who He was and that indeed the Christ was alive from the dead, Jesus talked with them as a fellow pilgrim in life—but one who had extensive knowledge about the Scriptures. We find this story in Luke 24.
He rebukes them, but more as a human like them who is confounded that these men do not see the truth about the death of Christ three days earlier. He is rebuking them for not reading the Scriptures with understanding, and for being men with weak faith: “Oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
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Remember Sybil
Our cultural moment tells us to affirm, affirm, affirm; when in reality we are destroying human bodies because the medical professionals have told us that this is the right treatment for this type of problem. Soon we will have our Sybil moment. Sybil was a fraud and eventually the egg on the face of society was exposed. According to a 2011 NPR article, “Shirley Mason was the psychiatric patient whose life was portrayed in the 1973 book Sybil. The book and subsequent film caused an enormous spike in reported cases of multiple personality disorder. Mason later admitted she had faked her multiple personalities.”
Orlando just had its Pride Weekend, complete with a fair-like atmosphere downtown, thousands and thousand of sexual tourists, a rainbow themed parade, and an evening of fireworks. The parade’s Grand Master was an 11 year-old boy who believes he is a girl. He was featured on the front page of the Orlando Sentinel and was being praised for knowing his true self and living his best life. He’s eleven. We ought to remember Sybil.
Remember Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)? The 1980 diagnostic manual called DSM-III defined MPD for the first time, but the psychiatric professionals in 1994 changed the diagnosis (in the DSM-IV) to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). According to Psychology Today the change was “to reflect a better understanding of the condition—namely, that it is characterized by fragmentation or splintering of identity, rather than by proliferation or growth of separate personalities.” (PT, 9.21). Splintering rather than separate.
In other words MPD was not real, although it was really experienced. The professionals realized that the condition was not truly different personalities, rather one identity (person) that was a “fragmented” or “splintered” identity. The professionals then amended their definition, diagnostic criteria, and the name of the disorder.
The psychological community knew about these symptoms as early as the late 1700s, but it was extremely rare. In 1973, the book Sybil was published and cases began to skyrocket. Daytime Television began featuring persons with MPD and the amount of personas and complexities increased. Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael, and even Larry King interviewed persons with the disorder. The more exposure the disorder got, the more popular it became. Eventually the Soap Operas were on board as well: All My Children; One Life to Live; Guiding Light, and others all featured characters with MPD.
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Personal Thoughts as June 2022 Closes: A Lamentation
To begin with the month of June was marked by a month-long celebration of two deadly sins, according to God’s divine revelation: pride and sexual immorality. For one, rainbow flags were flown everywhere—especially at the White House. They were also flown with the American flag at many of our embassies in far off places. Such flags celebrate and flaunt diverse sexual acts and relationships God has clearly communicated to be evil. The most evident one relates to homosexual acts and relationships.
June 2022 closes and ends today. Weather-wise, it was a mixture of exceptionally high temperatures accompanied by milder temperatures. Precipitation-wise, it was normal. At least, these facts relate to where I live. Climate-wise, this is just a short recap.
Definition-wise, climate primarily refers specifically to weather conditions. It’s the science of Meteorology. However, there is a third definition given that communicates climate also refers to “the prevailing attitudes, standards, or environmental conditions of a group, period, or place.” It’s the condition of a culture. These thoughts relate to the latter definition.
June 2022 was sadly and lamentably a month clearly revealing this nation’s, this society’s low ebb in moral integrity and steep decline in righteousness. Such a decline, of course, relates to a spiritual climate defined as “a headlong fall or rush.” In this regard it was as precipitous as rainfall.
To begin with the month of June was marked by a month-long celebration of two deadly sins, according to God’s divine revelation: pride and sexual immorality. For one, rainbow flags were flown everywhere—especially at the White House. They were also flown with the American flag at many of our embassies in far off places. Such flags celebrate and flaunt diverse sexual acts and relationships God has clearly communicated to be evil. The most evident one relates to homosexual acts and relationships. God created and gave the rainbow as a covenant reminder of his past condemnation of his earthly creation due to horrendous sin and rebellion and promise to never again use water to destroy the entire earth. It is ironic and blasphemous to use it to celebrate sinfulness. All month long, the media forced us to be witnesses to such open and unabashed flaunting of a sinful nature and practices he named as “shameful, indecent, abominable, detestable, unnatural.” To be proud of a sinful sexual orientation or acts has to be unimaginable to say the least. Just think, no one boasts of pride in a natural sexual orientation or acts. One’s primary identity is not based on one physical or emotional area of life.
Some might prefer to remember June 2022 with its 24th day in which the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, wherein abortion policies were returned to the states. Yes, that was a historic day and a positive ruling. However, the outpouring of protests against the decision hyped by the media over a lengthy period of time has diminished to some degree the joy expressed believing more babies would be allowed to be born and to live. The culture of death is ironically very alive and well. Isn’t that a strange paradox? In fact, one state even seeks to legalize infanticide up to so many days following birth. It’s disheartening to see so many in favor of killing the most innocent and vulnerable among us. The methods of destroying the unborn, the about-to-be born, the partially-born, and the just-born match, if not exceed, methods the Nazis used in the mass murder of millions. How can anyone approve of poisoning, burning, cracking open the skull and sucking out the brain, or the dismemberment of these tiny, precious souls? Additionally, some churches and pro-life organizations have been attacked and vandalized.
June of 2022 revealed something about us as a nation and a society. It revealed we have as a culture returned to the paganism of the ancient empires of Greece and Rome. In fact, we may have exceeded them in sacrificing innocent human beings and flaunting sexual immoralities. Yes, this latter is plural because it doesn’t relate only or solely to deviant lifestyles and practices, but also to heterosexual immoralities.
For Christians, these are indications of grave rebellions against a holy, just and righteous God. There are, nonetheless, others including Jews, Muslims, other religions, and even non-religious people who sense we have seriously lost our way.
Was June 2022 sadly and lamentably a month clearly revealing this nation’s, this society’s low ebb in moral integrity and steep decline in righteousness? If there is agreement to this perception—even if partially—perhaps there is something we could do to July to manifest our great sadness and lament. Let’s make July 2022 the opposite of a month of Pride by making it a month of Humility. Let’s call it such and let’s practice it as such by confessing our sorrow and lament for the condition of our nation and society. Godlessness and indecency have taken over our culture.
The Jewish prophet, Jeremiah, was called “the weeping prophet.” He wrote a book called Lamentations. We can reiterate Jeremiah’s words:
This I recall to my mind; therefore, have I hope. It is of Jehovah’slovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassionsfail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness. . . Let ussearch and try our ways and turn again to Jehovah. Let us lift up our heartwith our hands unto God in the heavens. Lamentations 3: 21-23, 40-41
As we bid farewell to June 2022, let’s respond to July’s opening door with its emphasis on Independence by complementing it with an emphasis on Dependence, that is, dependence on a gracious God to forgive and spare us and inter-dependence on one another to stand for humble godliness and decency. It will take prayers and vocal speaking the truth in love to make a difference—not anger or hate.
America deserves men and women who care for her soul and who promote genuine justice and righteousness. The vehicle to those blessings for all is a spirit of humility.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa..
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Our Infertility and God’s Foreknowledge
Because of Jesus, we know our future by looking at his past. And it is full of hope. We have an eternal hope that our future beyond suffering is a future without suffering. That is the one piece of information God has made sure we know.
There are over one billion websites on the internet, yet some days it can feel as though they contain none of the information we want to know. Approximately four million new book titles are released each year, yet too often they tell us everything we don’t want to know. At least 350,000 new tweets are published every minute, and for what? Even with all this information at our fingertips, we still long for more—especially in times of suffering.
It was June sixth, 2015. My wife and I quietly walked to our gray Honda Accord, parked at Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. We had just received news of our infertility, and there was not much to say. We hugged. We cried. We drove home in silence. But the deep ache in our hearts created a longing for answers, and it didn’t take long for us to wonder: What’s next for us? What will our future look like? Will we ever be Mom and Dad?
That day, there was not one website, book, or tweet that could answer our questions. In fact, it seemed we were able to find out everything we didn’t want to know and learn everything we couldn’t care less about in response to our desperate search for answers. This is the power of suffering. The most difficult parts of our lives cultivate an appetite for the least available information—the future.
There is not one website that can tell you if your husband’s cancer treatment will be successful. There is no book that can warn you if your pregnancy will end in another miscarriage. There is no podcast you can listen to or YouTube video you can watch that will reassure you your parents’ marriage will make it. Ultimately, the most pressing questions of our future remain unanswered.
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