Verses to encourage home educators

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up (Deut. 6: 5-7).

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding (Proverbs 9: 11).

Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the LORD (Psalms 34: 11).

Choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Joshua 24: 15).

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed (Proverbs 13:20).

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck (Proverbs 1: 7-9).

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22: 6).

And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children (Isaiah 54: 13).

Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen (Jer. 10: 2).

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6: 4).

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate (Psalms 127: 3-5).

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth (I John 1: 4).

Verse of the month

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

2 Chronicles 7: 14

Lean on me

I’m an advocate of Christians making their voices heard in society.

Yesterday we were treated to this news: “After an outpouring of protest from homeschooling advocates and politicians, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles reversed its Feb. 28 ruling that could have reclassified most homeschooled children as truants.” The same court that had basically outlawed homeschooling came to the “realization” that it had made a mistake. If no one had leaned on them, the decision would’ve stood.

Many Christians are too timid about taking a positive role in society. The world seems so big, and so many struggles feel “wordly” and, frankly, insurmountable.

I remember reading once an interview with a TV network executive who said that every time he gets a letter from a viewer he assumes that 1,000 other people feel the same way but just didn’t bother to write letters. So in his case, one Christian writing a letter decrying an anti-Christian show would equal one thousand and one voices of concern.

In our small community last year the president of the local college decided to remove the cross from the campus chapel. He said it was an intolerant symbol. I had never cared about the icon itself, but here was a government official labeling Christianity offensive and setting a dangerous precedent that all visual reminders of Christ should be purged.

My instinct was to make my family’s voice heard, since this was our “backyard”: so I wrote letters to the newspaper and the Board of Visitors; we took the kids to a candle-light vigil on campus in the freezing rain; my wife and oldest son signed petitions; I was even interviewed by the local TV station and the daily newspaper. If it had just been us speaking out, we might not have made any difference. But thousands of other Christians did the same thing, and the combined effect sent an unmistakable message. The president put the cross back…and even lost his job over the matter.

Around that time a sweet and humble woman in my church named Raquel wrote a letter to the editor. She was troubled that no local pastors had a word to say about the controversy. This was happening in their own community and getting national attention, yet they were silent. They were focused inward, living their monastic lives, quietly complaining that the world around them was getting worse. This wasn’t even a political issue where pastors might have endangered their beloved tax exemption by speaking out. Her point seemed to be that the people in the pews had more gumption than the “professional” Christians.

I understand some Christians are uncomfortable about getting involved in messy things like the media, politics, education issues, etc. But thankfully many Christians aren’t. Without William Wilberforce the slave trade would not have been abolished in early nineteenth-century England. Without Roger Williams the concept of separating civil government from religious coercion would not have taken root in colonial America. Without John Leland there would probably be no Bill of Rights securing our freedom of religion, assembly and speech. And without thousands of ordinary Christian parents leaning on the leadership of California, homeschooling would be effectively illegal in that state.

This is God’s world, not Satan’s. And “with God all things are possible.”

(Sorry for the long post).

Anyone want to start a Christian homeschool in Malibu?

Who is the Antichrist?

According to the 1970s horror flick “The Omen,” it’s a bratty little boy named Damien. According to a bratty little boy in my third grade class, it was Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 letters in each of his 3 names: 6-6-6). According to a traveling evangelist speaking in our fundamentalist church a few years ago, it’s a slick European politician. Whoever it is, according to Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsey, he’s almost certainly in our midst right now, on the verge of great political power (of course they’ve been saying that for decades).

So how can we ever know?

Actually, when you stick to the Bible you realize the whole question is wrong. There is no THE Antichrist. Antichrist is not a single “who.”

The word antichrist is used only 5 times in the Bible:

“Little children, it is the last time [the last days of Israel]: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time” (I John 2: 18).

“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (I John 2: 22).

“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world” (I John 4: 3).

“For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist” (II John 1: 7).

So antichrist is not a single man, but a belief: the belief that Jesus is NOT God’s son, the one and only Messiah. That’s all. That makes Oprah Winfrey’s philosophy antichrist. That makes Muslims antichrist. That makes Jehovah’s witnesses and Judaists and Unitarians antichrist. “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you,” John says about the spirit of antichrist.

Lumping all Biblical references to evil into a composite future person named The Antichrist misses the point that that spirit is all around us and needs to be confronted every day in mundane settings.

Become a better ewe

Let Joel Osteen shepherd you through the gospel....



Of course, it's hard to get the message right when you're not sure what religion you belong to...

True or False?

Okay, I know this is an urban legend, but it's still a fun party trick.

In 1611 the King James Bible was completed. William Shakespeare was a favorite of King James and (the legend goes) was brought in to put the finishing poetic touches on some of the translated passages. During the process, Shakespeare wanted to leave his "signature" somewhere in the text.

So if you open your Bible to the very middle (Psalms) and find the 46th chapter and count 46 words down, you will come to the word "shake." If you count 46 words up from the bottom of the chapter you will find the word "spear."

And why 46? Because William Shakespeare was 46 years old at the time the project was completed.

So next time you inadvertently stumble into a Bible translation debate, you can relay this senseless story to confuse everyone before you make your escape.

(Hey, I should write a novel called "The Shakespeare Code").

Church Succession

Okay, Cindy brought this topic up so I thought I’d open the door on it so she—or anyone else—could comment. But I’m no expert and am not sure I have a dogmatic opinion on it. The issue is church succession: how should churches be started...and how have they been started throughout history?

Some claim that churches should reproduce new churches. In fact, they say, God’s true type of church has been propagated this way since the days of the apostles. I suppose this is called unbroken succession.

Others say God’s true type of church has always existed at any given point in history, but that the genealogy has not followed an unbroken chain of succession. That is, just before a good church faded from existence in the Alps, another one might have sprung up in Wales to keep the flame alive. I guess this is called church perpetuity.

Still others say that the New Testament church got off track and basically went out of existence for several centuries when the Romans melded it with the pagan state religion; but thankfully the Reformers tinkered with the Catholic model a little bit and--voila!—God’s church was resurrected from the dead. This is the Protestant view.

So does it matter? Does it matter how churches are started or who leads them? Some people start home churches from scratch. This can occur out of pride, or desperation, or even necessity (I’m thinking of underground home churches in China). Others think a church needs to be “planted” by a mother church. And the present reality is most churches are actually started by seminaries or mission boards that may be only nominally affiliated with any church.

As to the historical angle, here is Charles Spurgeon’s opinion:

"We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.”

Ziza

It may sound like a saucy Brazilian woman, but it’s actually a new Christian website. Hard to explain it, but it’s one of the handful that I click on frequently to see what’s new. Its subtitle is “Christian News and Views.” It’s like a Christian Drudge Report, except you can post your own headlines with links to news articles or good blog posts.

Some of the links are informative or newsworthy. Some are just entertaining: like the boater who called the police because a church baptism service was blocking the boat ramp (and the authorities sided with the church). It’s a nice break from the predictable news selections you get on the mainstream media sites. Here's the link (also found over on the right).

Actually I'm not sure if it's Ziza or ZIZA...but whatever. At least I spelled it right.