Marriage Matters More than Ever
Today, more kids grow up in single-parent homes in America than in any other country in the world. No wonder we’re flailing and falling behind in so many ways. Strong marriages build strong families and strong societies. Humans were created with a desire to love and permanently connect and procreate within the institution of marriage. We should still encourage that as a society, especially because it’s an even healthier partnership than before.
It’s no surprise that marriage matters for the well-being of children, but a new report from the Institute for Family Studies finds that it matters now more than ever before.
A study comparing intact and broken families between two generations—boomers and millennials—found that the correlation between two-parent families and life success has dramatically increased with millennials.
For example, growing up with an intact family increases millennials’ odds of graduating from college by 163 percent, compared to just 78 percent for boomers. And 77 percent of millennials from intact families achieve middle or higher income by their mid-30s—a figure that is 20 percentage points higher than for their peers from non-intact families.
Children’s financial, social, and emotional welfare is on the line when it comes to marriage, and it’s worth Americans of all political stripes taking note. Thankfully, some progressive academics are getting on board.
“Denying that marriage has major consequences for the economic and social well-being of individuals and society is dishonest and counterproductive, especially when it comes to how children are being raised,” wrote Melissa Kearney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of The Two-Parent Privilege.
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Filling Up What is Lacking in Christ’s Afflictions
Persecution does not eradicate Christianity. Instead, the more Christians suffer, the stronger the “Church” is wherever that is. On the other hand, where Christianity carries with it little, if any, resistance, the “Church” becomes weak, cold, dead, and nothing more than empty religiosity. Christianity is strong when it is turning the world upside down. It is weak when it is in power and institutionalized.
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:24-27 (NASB)
In this post let us reexamine the role of persecution and suffering in the Gospel. Also, we must agree that God is very actively awakening His people who are in the Scarlet Woman. Persecution comes to Christians who are truly obedient to their Lord. When they obey Him they do not practice empty religion, but, instead, they pursue holiness, abide in Christ, and are Spirit-led, hence their lives are Christlike and this does three things. It brings the wrath of the enemy down on them in various forms of persecution. Their suffering glorifies God and it fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
If you haven’t read Foxes Book of Martyrs, I suggest that you do. Why does the world hate the Gospel? It hates it because it is not of the world and cannot be discerned by people who are in their sins and are of the flesh. Only by the Holy Spirit working in the hearts of people can they understand spiritual things correctly. In the United States, at least right now, we can proclaim our faith and live Christian lives and not have to worry about people killing us. However, in most of the World, its okay to be religious, but it isn’t okay to be a Christian who shares their faith. Why is there a difference? Why is it that Christians in China are arrested and tortured, but in the United States, we don’t? The worst that happens to us here for being active in our faith is disdain or ridicule or being falsely accused. I contend that the reason we don’t suffer as they do in China is for two reasons. God has given us an environment in the United States where Christianity is not seen as a threat. The other reason is that we don’t actively proclaim the gospel and live godly lives, as we should. We don’t live out what we proclaim. The reason Christians in other countries are tortured and killed is that they actively proclaim the gospel no matter that they are in the midst of people who hate Christianity. Their ministries bear fruit. Those who instigate these types of attacks hope to intimidate Christians. However, that is not how God operates.
Our God is sovereign. The suffering and death of believers for the sake of the gospel is always horrible, but their lives are poured out before the Lord as an acceptable offering.
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Erring Shepherds, Ancient and Modern
The latest evidence regarding the Church of England came out on January 18th. Its bishops concluded a six-year process known as Living in Love and Faith, which sought to assess the church’s doctrine and practice regarding matters of human sexuality. They announced their refusal even to consider formally recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages next month. That’s the good news. However, they signaled two additional actions they will take. They said they would and have since issued an apology to persons in the LGBTQ community for when the church has “rejected and excluded them.” Moreover, they “will offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples.” The plan to do so involves publishing “a range of draft prayers, known as Prayers of Love and Faith, which could be used voluntarily in churches for couples who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or civil partnership.”
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” So God declares in the opening verse of Jeremiah 23. In the 2019 Book of Common Prayer, the daily office gives this text as the Old Testament lesson for the evening of January 24. The chapter goes on to give a thorough rebuke of that day’s prophets and priests—those tasked with the spiritual care of God’s people. Though directly aimed at the Israelites, this passage of Scripture encapsulates well the contemporary state of the Church of England (as well the Scottish and American episcopal churches, among others).
The latest evidence regarding the Church of England came out on January 18th. Its bishops concluded a six-year process known as Living in Love and Faith, which sought to assess the church’s doctrine and practice regarding matters of human sexuality. They announced their refusal even to consider formally recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages next month. That’s the good news. However, they signaled two additional actions they will take. They said they would and have since issued an apology to persons in the LGBTQ community for when the church has “rejected and excluded them.” Moreover, they “will offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples.” The plan to do so involves publishing “a range of draft prayers, known as Prayers of Love and Faith, which could be used voluntarily in churches for couples who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or civil partnership.”
In other words, the bishops announced the surrender of Biblical orthodoxy on matters of human sexuality. Their words amount to a near-total capitulation on every principle and practice in the debate except the technical definition of marriage and the accompanying church liturgy for it. But make no mistake, those exceptions will fall, too. For any principled, doctrinal ground on which these hold-outs stand has been torn from under them (Stephen Cottrell, Archbishop of York, assured Progressives that “This is not the end of that journey but we have reached a milestone and I hope that these prayers of love and faith can provide a way for us all to celebrate and affirm same-sex relationships.”)
The fact that this betrayal of orthodoxy comes from the bishops, the shepherds of Christ’s church in England, establishes their parallel with the men who failed God’s flock in ancient Israel. But the links do not end there, abounding throughout the rest of the text as well.
First, the book of Jeremiah diagnoses the central problem for Israel’s shepherds back then as a rejection of God’s Word. Speaking of the prophets, God asks, “For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?” (23:18). The issue today, as then, is not merely one of knowledge but of obedience. Listening in this verse means more than hearing, which the preceding term “paying attention” would cover. To listen means to do in reaction to, to submit to Scriptural authority. Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America and Chair of the GAFCON Primates Council, rightly declared of the English bishops that, “Their actions…reject the authority of Scripture.” In that rejection, these actions clearly, brazenly violate the Church of England’s own foundation principles, encapsulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles’ declaration (Article 20) that, “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.” Nor may the church confuse and confound by trying to “expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another.” Yet both routes we see taken by the Church of England on this issue. In fact, they do the second in service of the first, giving unfaithful interpretations of the Bible in order to go against its requirements.
In so doing, these bishops continue to replace Scriptural authority (and church historical practice as well) with the new orthodoxy of the sexual revolution and other pieties of the contemporary Left. Yet this approach gets the relationship between society and the Bible backwards. The Word of God does not conform to the trends of any society, whether its cultural mores, political agendas, or social fashions. Instead, in Jeremiah we read, “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (23:29). Fire cleanses and a hammer, in its breaking, also re-forms. Through the illumination of the Spirit, God’s Word cleanses our hearts of sinful dispositions and helps to mold us into the image of Christ.
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The Dead Seriousness of Careless Words
What we may need to be reminded of is that we will be held to account for our words—for all our words. There will be a reckoning not only for the words we intentionally used poorly or that we deliberately used to hurt others, but also for the words we used carelessly. We will be responsible before God for not only what was fully malicious, but also for what was merely negligent, apathetic, irresponsible, reckless, or impetuous.
A technician for an airline neglected to check the logs from previous flights and therefore failed to take action on a control problem that had recurred multiple times over the past days. His carelessness was one of the factors that led to the plane crashing on a subsequent flight.
An engineer failed to set the brakes on parked tanker cars which soon begin to roll of their own accord until, out of control, they skipped the tracks and exploded. His carelessness led to widespread death and destruction.
A truck driver became distracted by a problem with his trailer, failed to notice a stop sign, and sailed through an intersection at high speed, putting it immediately in the path of a fast-moving bus. His carelessness claimed the lives of many passengers and earned him a long sentence in prison.
Each of these people was called upon to account for his carelessness, for his neglect, and for all the devastation that came from it. And rightly so, for carelessness is no small matter. Carelessness is a moral issue that can have severe consequences.
Carelessness was on Jesus’ mind on a day when the religious authorities confronted him about his failure to keep their interpretation of the religious law. He remarked that their words were evil because their hearts were evil. “How can you speak good, when you are evil?” he asked.
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