Are You Pugnacious?
Even when we are opposed, we can speak truth firmly but lovingly to others. Are you pugnacious? Christ calls us to a better way. Speak firmly as you are convinced of the truth, and be meek and gentle like our Lord.
Not many use the term pugnacious today. Looking at just the word itself, if I didn’t know any better, I’d guess it referred to possessing a tenacious love for the dog breed pug (pug + tenacious = pugnacious).
Apart from my own nonsense, pugnacious is indeed a biblical term. “Pugnacious” is the NASB’s translation of plēktēs in 1 Timothy 3:3 and Titus 1:7. Other translations use the adjective “violent” (ESV, NET Bible, NKJV, NIV) or go for a noun, “a bully” (HCSB) or “striker” (KJV). When plēktēs is taken as a noun, it refers to “a person who is pugnacious and demanding.”1 Plēktēs stems from the verb plēssō, meaning “to strike with force”2 and could refer to both verbal and physical abuse.3
Whatever the translation, it is a negative character trait that must not be true of a pastor, let alone be the title for someone so described by this trait (“a bully”). In fact, as a pastor must be an example for all (1 Pet 5:3), no one should be pugnacious, especially Christians who are called to love all people and certainly one another (John 13:34–35).
So, what should we be instead?
A character trait that comes immediately after “pugnacious” in 1 Timothy 3:3 indicates what we should be instead: gentle.
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Why Won’t the Librarians Blush?
If we don’t oppose events like the tranny story hour, we cede the war by handing over the next generation. These story hours are not an innocent opportunity for nice fairy people to give back to their community. These are confused, sinful people who are after generational acceptance. They want to confuse our children into thinking what they are doing is normal.
Bring Back the Boomer Upbringing
Our modern-day culture has many of us longing for the olden days. When our grandparents grew up, if a dude in a dress attempted to read books to some minors he sought out in the library, he would be flung out by his frills before he could crack the cover. There would be all manner of men that would assume this as their duty and eagerly put themselves to the task.
And there would be no complaints about this discriminatory behavior – only cheers – because the “common sense” of that time was well-trained by the light of nature and their God-given consciences. “Have you no shame?” they would say. They knew where to aim their shame, and the utility of dishing it out. They knew that a weirdo being weird should not feel comfortable in public. A man who liked to wear fishnets was forced into closeting his behavior or, at the very least, pulling the curtains.Shame did a lot of good back then.
Today, we see people heaping shame on those who point out obvious perversions. “Bigots,” we are called. They are using shame to curb society toward evil, not good. And this is the main way that they push their “progressive,” ideas. No logical argument will advance the normalization of clown world.
How far have we regressed.The Shame of Rotorua
Remember when librarians were considered the frigid do-gooders of society? Today, they no longer know how to blush. They invite those with the kinkiest of bents into their peaceful place of books to twist the minds of innocents. They’re on a mission to kill that natural impulse of a child to shudder at a he-she trying to suppress the inescapable. Shame on them!
“Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when I punish them,” says Yahweh. (Jeremiah 6:15)Bring Back the Blush
So, how do we make cheeks respond to kink with pink again? It will not happen with more gentle permissiveness – that is what got us here. We need to cut deep with plain truths said plainly, and Lord willing, we will recover some sensitivity from the buried consciences of our city and nation.What are these truths, and how are they so plain?
Well, we all know that a man cannot be a woman, and this is seen plainly in the drag queen’s make-up dilemma. Too much, and they look like a clownish version of a woman, but any less than over-the-top, they hide nothing. Everyone knows intuitively that this is black-face for the gender confused. In the same way that black-face degrades non-whites, woman-face degrades all women. How dare they mimic feminine glory in such a debasing way. Their cheeks should be red hot when they walk amongst the real thing. It is obvious to all that they are rebelling against reality, and it is a losing struggle.
But the very young know far less how futile an attempt at transitioning is. Without any artificial influences, this will become plain to them, so they must be lied to – the earlier the better. Older trans men often keep their man parts because they know they gain nothing from cutting them off.Read More
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Same-Sex Marriage Bill Aims “to Crush Anyone Who Opposes Belief in Gay Marriage”: Senator
Bible-believing Christians say they will not cede the definition of marriage—or endanger believers’ ability to make their voice heard in the United States.
A Republican senator has said he will “absolutely oppose” a bill redefining marriage nationwide, warning that liberal activists plan to “use it as a weapon” to drive Christians out of the public square.
During Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) announced for the first time that he will vote against H.R. 8404, marketed as the “Respect for Marriage” Act, if it comes to the Senate floor.
“It removes all protections from marriage,” Lankford told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. The legislation, which the Senate could consider shortly, imposes a top-down mandate for every state to recognize any “marriage between two individuals.” That could include “time-bound marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages, or any other new marriage definition that a state chooses to adopt” — including any definition imposed by a judge or state Supreme Court, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom.
“I want to bring this bill to the floor,” said Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We’re working to get the necessary Senate Republican support to ensure it would pass.”
“The far-Left is trying to say we want to be able to push this to the next step” of the sexual revolution and “take it where it has not ever gone before,” said Lankford. “And we are going to absolutely oppose that.”
Part of that effort involves silencing religious Americans from speaking out against them. If the Senate passes H.R. 8404, “in all likelihood, this bill will then come straight at every nonprofit that believes in traditional marriage, biblical marriages — quite frankly, historic marriages across all of time,” he added. Any tax-exempt group that upholds scriptural marriage “will be challenged on their tax policy and will immediately become a target of this federal government.”
Overzealous federal bureaucrats, left-wing legal groups, and LGBTQ pressure groups are no longer saying, “We demand recognition” of same-sex marriage, said Lankford; they’re now saying, “We’re going to crush anyone that opposes our belief in gay marriage.”
That is no mere speculation. The California state Senate passed the “Youth Equality Act” in 2013 to strip some state tax exemptions from organizations accused of “discriminating” on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The law “brings our laws into line with our values,” said its sponsor, then-state Senator Ricardo Lara, who is now the California’s Insurance Commissioner. The drumbeat to place organizations that affirm biblical sexual morality beyond the pale has since continued apace, as professors have lobbied regulators to reinterpret existing standards. Obama-era IRS Commissioner Lois Lerner, who crusaded against the Christian Coalition in the 1990s, mired the Obama administration in scandal by denying nonprofit status to Christian, pro-life, and limited government applicants.
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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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