We don't have to lose the next generation to culture. In this practical guide, John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle explore questions including: In this honest and practical guide for parents and Christian leaders, John If you want your students and children to represent Christ in a fallen world as they . This is not true here.
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- What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality - The Christian Response
- 2. The Relationship Between Your Ministry and Your Occupation | leondumoulin.nl
- Alex Crain
- God’s Guidance for Christians in Conflict
They claim that it's been changed and cannot be trusted. Federal Reserve leadership and Barack Obama have turned truth upside down. Saying so may result in being wrongly accused of "hate speech" by the modern day thought police. But the truth is, to refrain from speaking out about moral decay is actually hateful, fearful non-speech. Each of us will face God in judgment. Many today confuse the word tolerance with "acceptance" or "affirmation.
The historic meaning of tolerance is that we should live peacefully and respectfully together, though we disagree even in outspoken ways. One person aptly wrote: Christians are called to something more than mere tolerance. We are called to express the truth of the Bible clearly. We are to do so with love, having as our aim the rescue and restoration of sinners. That's what it means to love one's neighbor. An article like this may not speak to everyone effectively. And, certainly, no Christian is perfect.
One motivation that compels Christians to engage with people is that the truths of Christianity are public and universal, not private and parochial. The historical record of Christ's life, death, and resurrection exists because it's true, not because it's a propped up religious myth. This fact has to bear on every life, acknowledged or not.
Christians don't view their neighbors as mere flesh and blood, but eternal souls who will one day stand to be judged by their Creator. We know what awaits Revelation Jesus frees sinners who turn to Him in faith: In Christ, there is no more fear of judgment or punishment for the sins we've committed John 3: That's why Christianity positively declares that knowing Jesus Christ is the greatest thing in the universe.
We are rightly related to the God who made us, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God's grace. We want everyone to know this joy. It can't be found in anything else on earth, only in Christ alone. The Christian worldview not only makes sense of life, it includes the good news that God will restore all that sin has broken. You can be part of it, but not on your own terms.
Christ forgives those who admit to being sinners and who call out to Him for rescue from sin's control. By trusting Christ, you can be transformed into a person who lives in a way that pleases God. If you have the impression that Christianity is a negative, judgmental religion, I'm sorry but you've gotten the wrong idea. Bible-believing Christians are concerned for fellow human beings who struggle with homosexual desires. We seek their good.
We affirm the dignity of fellow human beings who also bear the image of God. We all need the light of truth shined into our darkness. Jesus said, "I have come as Light into the world so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness" John He said this knowing that people "love darkness rather than light" John 3: But instead of meeting God someday in condemnation, you can meet Him now in blessing.
Wrong desires can be changed so that you begin to love the things He loves. Although I have been personally guilty of numerous sins, I am forgiven because Christ died and rose again for sinners like me. The same offer of forgiveness and transformation extends to everyone reading this with a heart to understand. Admittedly, in the U. Some were merely deists. Still, the historic Christian faith was the worldview that provided the moral underpinnings of this country, and that worldview has weighty implications for matters of public life. One implication of the Christian outlook is that the improvisational morality of our times is, quite simply, a farce.
What Does the Bible Say About Homosexuality - The Christian Response
A shifting moral foundation upholds nations about, as well as the Sahara, upholds skyscrapers. It goes without saying that condoning homosexuality represents a seismic shift in the moral landscape of the United States. The implications of the rainbow agenda go far deeper than most people surmise by taking a superficial view of it.
See the article, " Five Gay Marriage Myths. It has always been so. Throughout history, societies have granted special recognition and privileges to marriage because it is the central organizing institution of human culture. Marriage regulates relationships, sexuality, human reproduction, lineage, kinship, and family structure. Redefining marriage is never simply about marriage. It leads to the redefinition of reproduction and parenthood, produces a legal revolution with vast consequences, replaces an old social order with something completely new, and forces the adoption of a new morality.
This last point is especially important. Marriage teaches morality by its very centrality to the culture. Martin Luther King, Jr. To the dismay of many, however, it has become common to hear LGBT advocates claim that they are "today's oppressed people group," as if people with same-sex attraction are the heirs of the Civil Rights movement. The Civil Rights movement was a welcome corrective to a pernicious evil — one that many professing Christians today are unfortunately still blind to, namely racism. Christianity is clearly opposed to racism but does not uphold the gay pride movement in the least.
As one African-American writer put it, " gay is not the new black. Again, we are all sinners. We all have temptations that we struggle with. Some people struggle with homosexual desire. Others struggle with different sins. Honesty and humility about this is the pathway to peace. Coercing people to celebrate a lie will only prolong the cultural conflict and make matters worse. Tampering with the definition of marriage is like tampering with the atomic structure of hydrogen. The abomination of homosexuality will never be on equal footing with God's created order of male-female marriage.
People of conscience will continue to firmly believe so. Nor can they rival the joy and fulfillment found there. Most people not just conservative Christians reject the notion of same-sex marriage when allowed to think about the matter in the privacy of a voting booth. As hard as it is for some people to accept, millions of Americans just don't believe in so-called "marriage equality" and for good reason.
Genuine concern compels us to rescue people from drowning, not open the floodgates and drench the city. Apparently, the government leaders thought that opening the floodgates was the right idea. They made a rash move to shape society with their bully pulpit. So, how does one respond to a bully? Well, I'm just a dad. And like most American dads, I don't have a clue how to remove myself from the Federal Reserve System. I realize there is a big political power behind the LGBT movement. I edit a website. I teach the Bible and lead music at a local church. I write because people are misrepresenting Christianity to justify wrongheaded ideas about human freedom.
For me, the growing moral decay all around serves as a daily reminder of Matthew Worse changes may be blowing in the wind for America's children and grandchildren. But there will come a day of reckoning. A piece like this might not avoid the typical rebuttals like "'Love the sinner, hate the sin' is just a mask for bigotry," "Hate is not a family value," or "Common sense is the first casualty of ignorance," etc.
2. The Relationship Between Your Ministry and Your Occupation | leondumoulin.nl
People have the freedom to state such nonsequiturs if they want. I defend their right to say as they please. I'm most interested in reaching those who have the heart to understand and who want to discuss what is genuinely in people's best interest. Those looking for a shouting match can count me out. In their confusion, LGBT proponents distort the God-ordained beauty of human sexuality and cannot rest until everyone applauds their behavior. Weighty chains bind their souls to empty promises of fulfillment that do not ultimately deliver. Only the short-sighted Christian cannot bring himself to pity or show kindness to a fellow human being caught in such deadly lies 2Tim.
When biblical truth resonates and takes root, people escape sin's entrapment and begin living in true freedom as God defines it in Scripture. The tendency of Christians to over-identify with their leaders is an old one. In fact, it goes back to the earliest years of the church. In the letter we know as 1 Corinthians, Paul gets right to the point after his opening address:.
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. Of course love and appreciation for Christians leaders is a fine thing. But when this love and appreciation becomes divisive or idolatrous, then we have a real problem. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul seeks to set the Corinthians right by helping them to have a right understanding of Christian leadership:. What then is Apollos? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. It seems that the Corinthians were divided especially into the group that supported Paul and the group that identified with Apollos, a more articulate preacher and one who might have had greater appeal among the more educated and wealthier Corinthians.
Yet in their devotion to a human leader, the Corinthians were missing the point. Both Paul and Apollos were equally servants of God though they may have different functions. God is the main thing. God is the Master of the servants. God is the only one who can cause the church to grow. God is the owner of the church, whether seen as a field or a building. Paul wraps up his argument in verse 21 with a simple imperative: Here is a measure for determining the health of leadership in a church: How do the members talk about the leaders?
Are they drawing up sides for and or against their leaders? Do they pit some leaders against others? Or do they see all leaders as servants of the One who really matters? I confess that, during my years as pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, I found it easy to get too entangled with the church I served. Though God had called me to the Irvine church and though he blessed my ministry there, I was not nearly as essential to the church as I might have thought. God could take care of this church just fine without me.
Though God used me at Irvine, I was not necessary to the life and health of the church. In practice, it sometimes is not easy for a pastor or other leader to seek the glory of Christ in a church, especially when we find ourselves in the midst of conflict. I know from personal experience how difficult this can be. About fifteen years ago I was in the midst of one the hardest times in my ministry at Irvine Presbyterian Church.
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From my point of view, she was not fulfilling her job description in many, many ways. From her point of view, I was being imperious and unsupportive. Though I tried everything I could think of to make things work out, they were going south faster than a goose in November. During this time, Shirley began to lobby the troops on her side. She complained about how I was mistreating her. She was clearly trying to divide the church and was doing a fine job of it.
I must confess that I was sorely tempted to join the game and beat her at it. I wanted to get people on my side. I wanted people to know the truth and defend me. The church started to become all about me,. We were going the way of the splintered Corinthian church. Everything came to a head at a meeting of our congregation. The elders of the church were recommending that we dismiss Shirley from our staff.
In the congregational debate, many people chewed me out for what they perceived to be my management flaws. These were people who believed they knew the truth because they had heard it from Shirley. The temptation to divide and conquer the church was huge for me. I owned my failures and tried to listen to what people were saying to me.
Frankly, it was excruciating. But I sensed that my job as pastor was to help the church be unified in Christ, not divided in order to defend me. Many of my supporters sensed the same. Though they could have risen to my defense, they realized that it was not the time to do so.
Wisely, they remained quiet, and so avoided a fight that could have deeply wounded our church. The congregation did, in the end, vote to dismiss Shirley. I left feeling, not vindicated, but ashamed and exhausted. Several friends gathered around to encourage me. But I still felt as if I had been taken to the congregational woodshed for a beating.
In the aftermath of that meeting, only a couple of people left our church, much to my surprise.
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In time, many of those who had scolded me actually came to apologize. But the greatest result of that whole debacle was not that I was somehow more highly regarded or more beloved or whatever. It was that our people ended up, truly, more united in Christ.
Alex Crain
But I do know that my effort, and the efforts of those who supported me, to focus on Christ and not on me helped move us toward such a positive result. Nevertheless, I still look back on this whole experience, and the congregational meeting in particular, as one of the hardest times of my ministry. It required that I subordinate myself to a degree I had never done before. It required that I trust in God rather than my abilities to persuade and organize. Seek to unify rather than divide. Let the focus be upon him, with yourself as his servant.
He and I became friends because we shared many of the same challenges as well as the same basic faith in Jesus Christ. I always liked Jeff because he was humble, earnest, and a deeply caring servant of God. They had hymns and an organ, proudly so. Nevertheless, Jeff wanted to add a few more contemporary touches to the worship services, like praise songs and a more informal time of prayer. So, one Sunday, he made these slight changes. His elders were not happy with Jeff, however.
At the next board meeting there was a big fight, with two or three of the elders denouncing Jeff in demeaning ways. In the end, however, the board voted to sustain what Jeff had done, much to the dismay of the minority that had opposed him. Two days later, while Jeff was sitting in his office at church, he received an ominous looking letter from a law firm in town.
Reading the letter, he was distressed to learn that one of his elders was suing him in civil court because of the changes he had made in worship. Another pastor friend of mine was sued by a former church leader for failing to lead the church in the right direction. Sometimes this happens in my own denomination as particular churches decide to part company with us.
In fact this was one of the problems facing the church in Corinth in the middle of the first century A. We learn from 1 Corinthians 6 that one member of the church had some sort of dispute with another member. But rather than work it out within the church, one of the believers sued the other in secular court. This sort of behavior was common among the wealthy members of Corinthian society.
Winning in court was usually more a matter of preserving honor than getting a financial settlement. And being held in honor was the highest value among the Corinthian elites. But the Apostle Paul was not pleased with what was happening in his church. When you have something against another Christian, why do you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter, instead of taking it to other Christians to decide who is right? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disagreements here on earth.
If you have legal disputes about such matters, why do you go to outside judges who are not respected by the church? I am saying this to shame you. But instead, one Christian sues another—right in front of unbelievers! To have such lawsuits at all is a real defeat for you.
Why not just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated? But instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your own Christian brothers and sisters. What is wrong with Christians suing other Christians in court? First, there should be sufficient wisdom in the church to solve conflicts. Notice that Paul assumes that disputes among Christians are the business of the church.
Moreover, for Christians to sue each other in secular court looks terrible to observing unbelievers. Thus Paul can end his denunciation of Corinthian lawsuits with a rather shocking statement: Yesterday I examined a passage from 1 Corinthians 6, which instructed Christians to avoid solving their problems in secular court. Let me quote that text again before suggesting some practical implications. In our time of history, this may be one of the most counter-cultural passages in all of Scripture. People sue each other right and left for the most trivial things. I realize that some Christians will be offended by the suggestion that we should let 1 Corinthians 6 guide our behavior when it comes to suing each other.
There may be times when a church system is so dysfunctional and the damage done to people so significant that justice can only be found in the secular courts. The tragic case of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church is one such example. Moreover, when the behavior of church officials is illegal, then justice requires legal action in criminal court. But Christian use of the courts to solve personal conflicts is nothing we should be proud of or seek to perpetuate. But Christian use of the courts is nothing we should be proud of or seek to perpetuate.
Whatever else, secular lawsuits should be the last resort among Christians. Moreover, there are times when a person should simply choose to lose rather than to sue. I think of another pastor friend of mine who was meanly and unjustly fired by his church board. I expect he could have sued and received a significant settlement.
But he chose not to press legal charges because he took 1 Corinthians 6 seriously. This was a truly Christ-like sacrifice on the part of my friend. His case illustrates the deeper point. We are to imitate the sacrificial example of Jesus Christ. As Jesus taught, we are to turn the other cheek, to walk the second mile Matthew 5: Jesus modeled self-giving sacrifice through his death on the cross.
But our Lord teaches us, both by word and by deed, how to give up our lives so that we might gain true life, eternal life, life in all of its fullness. Christians with legal expertise can often assist us in finding just solutions that will keep us from lawsuits. I have seen this very thing happen in my own ministry, where lawyers were extraordinarily helpful in terribly conflicted situations.
Competent Christian attorney can help us avoid lawsuits. Secular lawsuits must not be your first choice, or second, or third. The church, when functioning properly, is the place where true wrongs can and should be adjudicated. Only if the church fails miserably in this duty might it be necessary in some cases for you to get secular legal help.
But before you turn to the civil courts as a last resort, you need to ask the Lord whether he wants you simply to lose. I know this sounds strange. Yes, we may sacrifice our pride for a while. Yes, we may lose certain advantages, financial and otherwise. But what we gain, and what the church of Jesus Christ gains, may well be worth the cost.
When Jeff found out that he was being sued, he did not call a lawyer. Instead he did the counter-cultural thing. We need to work this out in the Lord. They called him to act as a follower of Jesus Christ. They offered to help work out reconciliation. The unhappy elder was finally willing to drop his suit. Though he and Jeff never fully agreed on what worship should be in their church, they were able to live together in Christian fellowship without recourse to lawsuits.
Often people are not as spiritually mature as Jeff. They get caught up in a worldly effort to win. But the fact that we Christians fail to do what Scripture calls us to do is no argument for not trying to obey in the first place. We should make every effort to settle our disputes within the context of Christian community. And when this fails, there will be times when God will call us simply to lose rather than to fight on in the courts. I like violins crooning the background and happy endings.
But, I must confess that I get nervous about too much romance in weddings, of all places. And since I go to lots of weddings, usually with the best seat in the house, I get nervous a lot. It was absolutely wonderful, except for the tiny little problem that the couple I married divorced in less than a year. And in sucah a fellowship conflict is inevitable. Years ago when I was an associate pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, I was coaching a team of leaders that was experiencing lots of disagreement.
One of the women on the team became exasperated and blurted out: I thought we were supposed to be a family! Soon she was going to have to make a choice about whether or not to stay involved in a genuine but messy and sometimes conflicted fellowship, or to leave and look for greener pastures where her idealistic dreams would be nurtured, at least until she really got involved with those people. One of the things I love about the Bible is its realism about all sorts of things. Read the Bible and you get a clear picture of what life is really like. But the New Testament is also realistic about what it takes to overcome conflict.
But there are also the overarching principles that will help us find our way through the confusing maze of church conflict. The most important of these principles is love. I have often read this chapter in weddings. In terms of frequency, I think it comes in second for all biblical texts next to Colossians 3: For a while it was out of style to use this text.
But now 1 Corinthians 13 has made a comeback. Sure, it talks a lot about love. But the picture of love in 1 Corinthians 13 is decidedly non-romantic. It talks about love in realistic, down-to-earth terms. There are no inspiring violins playing in the background of 1 Corinthians It talks about what love is really all about, warts and all. Of course Paul did not write 1 Corinthians 13 for weddings.
It was written because the Corinthian church was in the middle of a big brouhaha over many things. It was written specifically for Christians in conflict, the overarching theme of this blog series. The specific problem to which 1 Corinthians 13 was addressed concerned the behavior of some Corinthian Christians in the common gatherings and the attitudes attached to that behavior.
In a nutshell, some of the Corinthians got very excited about their spiritual abilities, especially the ability to speak in ecstatic, unknown languages — what we call speaking in tongues. Some of the tongues-speakers, it seems, may even have questioned whether the non-tongues-speakers were worth having around. This sunk in, and some of the non-tongues-speakers began to doubt their value to the community. These are given, Paul taught, not for the sake of the individual, but for the benefit of the community. A person who exercised some spiritual gift in the assembly, whether prophesying, healing, or speaking in tongues, did so only by the power of the Spirit and only for the common good.
After laying out some basics on the Spirit, Paul proceeded to talk about the church as a human body. His main point with this image was to help the Corinthians understand that every single member had value to the church, just as every body part is necessary if the human body is to be healthy and whole.
As Paul was wrapping up his discussion of the church as the body of Christ, he began to segue to some specific instructions on the use of spiritual gifts in the assembly. With this preface he began to compose the passage we call 1 Corinthians Here is the passage in a fairly recent and readable translation:. And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody. Love is patient and kind.
Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. In this practical guide, John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle explore questions including: What unseen undercurrents are shaping twenty-first-century youth culture?
Why do so many kids struggle with identity? How do we talk to kids about same-sex marriage and transgenderism? How can leaders steer kids away from substance abuse and other addictions? How can we ground students in the biblical story and empower them to change the world? With biblical clarity, this is the practical go-to manual to equip kids to rise above the culture.
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A practical Bible study of the book of Philippians. In this honest and practical guide for parents and Christian leaders, John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle explore questions such as: Review Culture is dynamic and changing—and that change often comes in waves that threaten to overwhelm us. Cook June 1, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video.
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Please try again later. John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle Format: Contemporary Living and Influence in the Culture Purpose: To equip Christian leaders, parents, and students with the tools to successfully navigate the culture. This means they will be able to flourish as Christians even when much of the culture seems to be against them. The book is separated into four sections. This section defines culture and gives reasons why Christians should care about culture and what happens in it.
Keeping the Moment and the Story Straight, and 3. A Vision of Success.
God’s Guidance for Christians in Conflict
A Read of the Cultural Waters. Here the authors explain some of the underlying trends in our current culture and how we should think about them. The Information Age, 5. Identity After Christianity, 6. Being Alone Together, and 7. Castrated Gelding and Perpetual Adolescence 3. In other words, a lot of this is about what people argue about on social media. The Hookup Culture, Affluence and Consumerism, How to Read the Bible, Why to Trust the Bible, The Right Kind of Pluralism, Taking the Gospel to the Culture What it does well: Culture is something we all think we know, but is incredibly difficult to explain.
Stonestreet and Kunkle navigate this obstacle commendably. In defining and explaining their view of culture they enable the reader to understand their prescriptions throughout the book. Many books of this type from similar sorts of authors are pessimistic and "sky is falling" tomes. This is not true here. Throughout the work the authors do not shy away from pointing out what they think is going wrong in the culture, but there is always an undertone of hope. In fact, the hope they have often moves from being an undertone to downright, in your face hope. It was incredibly refreshing to read a book on culture by Christians that wasn't condemning of the culture.
Instead they want to redeem and restore it. It is clear these authors are conservative both theologically and politically.