The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will. (2 Timothy 2:24-26)
In 1977 I was in a ministry that specialized in inner healing and deliverance. People came to us from all over the country seeking release from hearing voices, addictions, emotional trauma due to past hurts and abuses, and many other forms of spiritual bondage. At the time our ministry was considered “cutting edge” in the world of spiritual warfare. Ours was a Christian community where people could come and live with other Christians to find healing.Continue reading →
Everything about the subject of LGBT (lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/transgender) identity and sexuality is colored in some way by political correctness. PC thinking embraces all beliefs and positions (except orthodox Christianity), and seeks to validate any and all self-expression (as long as it differs from biblical morals). One of the most amazing demonstrations of PC thought is this video, in which a short Caucasian male asks students at the University of Washington how they would respond if he told them he was a 6’5″ Asian woman. The students were more committed to his right to be whatever he said he wanted to be, no matter how silly it sounded, than what was objectively true:
So much of PC thought in our culture today reminds me of the Hans Christian Andersen tale of a vain emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and showing off his luxurious clothes. He hires two weavers—two scammers—who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes made from a magic fabric that is invisible to anyone who is hopelessly stupid or unfit for his position.
Neither the emperor nor his ministers can see the fabric themselves, but they pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions. Finally the weavers report that the suit is finished. They mime dressing him, and the emperor marches in procession before his subjects.
The townsfolk, who of course cannot see the (imaginary) fabric, play along with the pretense, not wanting to appear stupid or unfit for their positions. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand what was going on, blurts out the truth for all to hear: “The emperor’s not wearing any clothes!” The townspeople try to hush him up, even though what he’s saying is the truth.
Political correctness is often about maintaining an illusion and hushing up the people who speak the truth. Those who speak out the truth, like the little boy, are shamed with the intention of silencing them. This certainly happens in the arena of sexuality and identity, where the illusion is that sex is the highest pleasure and the most important aspect of life, and everyone has a right to express their sexual feelings however they want.
In order to think rightly about political correctness, we need to know what’s really going on—what is fueling the illusion. (Which is why it’s so important to understand worldview!) Recently I was privileged to address a Christian high school chapel on this topic, and I told the students that they were born into a cultural brine that is shaping and pickling their thoughts about sexuality and identity, just like the college students on the video. They needed to know how our culture got to the place it is today so they have a chance to refuse the pickling process.
In 1989, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen wrote a manifesto for normalizing homosexuality, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s. Their very specific, very achievable goals now describe American culture. (Please note, the bolded words are Kirk and Madsen’s words, not mine):
1. Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and often as possible. This would desensitize people to the issue of homosexuality so it would become an always-present, no-big-deal aspect of American culture.
2. Portray gays as victims and not as aggressive challengers. Two main ways to achieve this: propagate the “born that way” mythology, and portray homosexuals as victims in an anti-gay society.
3. Give protectors a just cause. Fighting discrimination, or what is portrayed as discrimination, makes people feel good about themselves as they defend the underdog.
4. Make gays look good. Particularly in media such as TV and movies, make the gay characters as good-looking, charming, smart, witty and winsome as possible.
5. Make the victimizers look bad. Make the “anti-gays” look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types.
Every one of these goals has been attained, and this is the culture we now live in. In order to be aware of the PC thought that shapes how most people think, we need to be aware that the entire society has been manipulated.
What earned Probe Ministries a spot on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of hate groups is our website content about homosexuality, which agrees with the biblically orthodox position that same-gender sexual behavior, like every other violation of God’s intention for sex to be limited to the marriage bed of one man and one woman, is wrong. As my pastor says, “Truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth.” There are so many cultural lies about God’s design for sex and identity that when we proclaim God’s truth in a culture that embraces lies, we get called hateful and discriminatory.
In order to think biblically, we need to know the difference between the culture’s lies (politically correct thought) and God’s truth:
CULTURE’S LIE:Who I am is a sexual being. Whether it’s a culture or an individual, when God is left out of the equation, sex is elevated to the #1 most important spot because it’s so powerful and a source of such intense pleasure (or can be). So people define themselves by their sexuality.
GOD’S TRUTH:Who I am is God’s beloved creation. Made in the image of God, created for intimacy and fellowship with Him, my worth proven by what the Son was willing to pay for me: His very life.
CULTURE’S LIE:Sex is a need and a right for everyone to experience. Many people believe it is on the same level of necessity as food, water and sleep.
GOD’S TRUTH:Sex is so powerful it is to be contained only within marriage between one man and one woman. The mingling of bodies and souls through sex is deeply spiritual as well as physical. God’s prohibitions against sex outside of marriage are His gift to us, meant for our protection from the painful consequences of sexual sin. They are like guard rails on a treacherous mountain road, intended to keep us from going off the cliff to pain and destruction.
CULTURE’S LIE: I create my own identity depending on what I feel. Untethered from a connection to God as Creator, people live out the sad, repeated description of Israel in the book of Judges, where “all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” (Judges 17:6, for one).
GOD’S TRUTH:My identity is who my Creator says I am. All of us exist because God wanted us and hand-crafted each of us (Psalm 139). Feelings are real but they’re not reliable. Jeremiah 17:9 instructs us on why our feelings can’t be trusted: “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?”
CULTURE’S LIE:Gender is whatever we want it to be. Biological sex has been separated from gender (how one feels about maleness and femaleness). (Personally, this strikes me as illegitimate as proclaiming that the white keys on a piano are bad and the black keys are good.) Facebook currently offers 58 choices of gender.
GOD’S TRUTH:God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:27) The first words in the room when a baby is born are still, “It’s a girl!” or “It’s a boy!” Gender is still binary because God still creates male and female.
CULTURE’S LIE: I can create my own reality. For example, recently a man abandoned his wife and seven children, announcing his chosen identity of a 6-year-old girl.
Another man, deciding his identity is a female dragon, cut off his ears and nose, dyed his eyes, and inserted horns in forehead.
GOD’S TRUTH: There is objective truth and objective reality because God is real and true. We do not have the freedom to dismiss what is objectively true and real; 2 + 2 will always be 4, not 7 or 200, and gravity will always be operational on the planet. These things are real and true because a real and true God rooted His creation in His own nature.
CULTURE’S LIE: “Born this way.” This lie has so much traction because it’s repeated so often people assume it to be true.
GOD’S TRUTH:No Evidence. There is actually no scientific evidence of a gay gene or any other determiner of same-sex attraction. Identical Twins Studies: In identical twins (who share the same DNA), when one identifies as gay or lesbian, the other one only identifies as gay or lesbian about 11% of the time. If homosexuality were a genetic issue, the correspondence would be 100%.
American culture continues to pump out the illusion—the fantasy, the myth—that sexuality is the most important thing about life and about us, and that sexual identity and expression is where life is found.
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 35 years. She is a frequent speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women’s Connections), and serves on the board and as a small group leader of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women’s Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org’s Engage Blog. She is also a professional calligrapher; but most importantly, she is the wife of Probe’s Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two grown sons. Her personal website issuebohlin.com.
What is Probe?
Probe Ministries is a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ. Probe fulfills this mission through our Mind Games conferences for youth and adults, our 3-minute daily radio program, and our extensive Web site at www.probe.org.
Further information about Probe’s materials and ministry may be obtained by contacting us at:
Probe Ministries 2001 W. Plano Parkway, Suite 2000 Plano TX 75075 (972) 941-4565 info@probe.org www.probe.org
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Below are comments regarding various aspects of biblical interpretation. Italics denote phrases or quotations from Lewis S. Chafer’s Systematic Theology.
Interpretation of Holy Scripture involves two parts, both being necessary to ensure the most correct and accurate understanding of any subject at hand.Continue reading →
In these days of burgeoning confusion on the Geo-political front often impacting the theological front in which Christians struggle to make sense of current events, the need was felt to clearly state the meaning of the term “Judge Not” as mentioned in the scriptures, but which has been loosely and callously used by one and all without a clear understanding of what the Scriptures teach and mean by the term. Equally abused terms are “prejudice” and “bigotry”. These have been explained below: (Ian D’Souza)
Perhaps the area of greatest doctrinal controversy in Christendom today (circa 1970s), apart from the issue of the Verbal Plenary Inspiration of Scripture, is the teaching concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. This controversy has manifested itself in open conflict and even permanent division in a great number of churches, as charismatic and non-charismatic have come into confrontation over the use of the gifts of the Spirit. The conflict is not likely to decrease in the next few years, particularly if we continue to witness the degree of growth of the charismatic movement that we are now seeing worldwide.Continue reading →
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4).
The Bible says unregenerate people are in rebellion against God. The ultimate rejection of any person would be to deny their existence (hence the idiom “You are dead to me”). Ultimately, some people reject God to the point that they deny His existence. The denial of God is often epitomized by the (in) famous atheist Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead.” Continue reading →
“…though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8).
Christmas is that time of the year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. All of us have celebrated our birthdays at some time. It is an occasion to remember the day when we entered this world and to thank God for giving us another year to live. At this time, we always think of our birthday and never about our death-day. However, in Jesus’ case, He was born in the shadow of the Cross. He was born to die!Continue reading →
Do you remember the revolt of the scientists against the big bang theory for the origin of the universe? In 2004 a group of 33 leading scientists took out a paid advertisement in New Scientist.1 They titled it ‘Open Letter to the Scientific Community’, basically stating that the big bang theory was fundamentally flawed.
The list of names of scientists who agreed with the Statement—that is, disagreed with the theory of a big bang origin of the universe—is available here and many more added their names to that list.
These scientists only agreed on one thing. They were all united in their conviction that the big bang was a bust. Continue reading →
Fossils are just one of many different pieces of evidence used to cause confusion between evolutionary theory and biblical history. Many of the fossil finds reported by the mainstream media are touted to be millions of years old but with no explanation of how the scientists reached that conclusion. The following fossil find is no exception.
LiveScience reports that scientists in Inner Mongolia, China, discovered an amazingly well-preserved fossil female golden orb-weaver spider, named Nephila jurassica, which is supposedly 165 million years old. Golden orb-weaver spiders are big enough to catch birds and bats in their web. The silk1 they use in their web shines like gold when sunlight catches it. This particular fossil was buried in volcanic ash and much to the scientists surprise, looks “about as large as its modern relatives, with a body one inch (2.5 centimeters) wide and legs that reach up to 2.5 inches (6.3 cm) long.”2
Any operational science experiment will show that a dead creature will not last long exposed to the elements.
So, is this another example of a creature that lived ‘millions’ of years ago and yet is surprisingly similar to its modern counterpart? Absolutely. A similar example was reported in early 2010 by Wired Science.3 This particular fossil specimen, known as Eoplectreurys gertschi, was given the same age as Nephila jurassica. However, the Eoplectreurys specimen looks exactly like its living counterparts today. Paleontologist and lead author Paul Selden said to Wired Science, “The scimitar-shaped structure you notice out of the male is so distinctive. Looking at modern ones, you think, well, it’s just a dead ringer.”2
Selden, director of the Paleontological Institute at the University of Kansas, said in the LiveScience article, “It would have lived, like today’s Nephila, in its orb web of golden silk in a clearing in a forest, or more likely at the edge of a forest close to the lake. There would have been volcanoes nearby producing the ash that forms the lake sediment it is entombed within.” So, apparently it not only looks like today’s golden orb-weaving spiders, but it also would have lived like them as well. This comes as a surprise to those who believe in the evolutionary framework of history; but not to those who believe in the biblical timescale.
The typical evolutionary long-ages description of how creatures become fossilized involves a very slow and gradual process of sedimentary layers of rock and/or ash being laid down over vast eons of time. However, any operational science experiment will show that a dead creature will not last long exposed to the elements. Things left out in the open succumb to the decay process and will likely be completely gone within a year. In order to fossilize something in sedimentary layers of rock or ash, it must be buried quickly. This is especially true of fairly soft-bodied boneless creatures like spiders. They cannot be exposed to the elements for very long before their bodies completely disintegrate. This destruction can come about in several different ways: microbial decay, scavengers and precipitation, to name just a few.
How do evolutionists handle this? They add yet another fossil find to the ever-expanding category of creatures that don’t fit evolution’s storyline of change over time. However, it fits much better with a recent creation of spiders made to reproduce ‘after their kind’ and being buried during the global Flood as recorded in Genesis. It’s very likely that this spider was entombed in ash from a volcanic eruption when the fountains of the great deep burst open and the floodgates of the sky were let loose. The ash then turned to stone, forever preserving this particular spider.
A Warning Against the Warfare Worldview
Another man, deciding his identity is a female dragon, cut off his ears and nose, dyed his eyes, and inserted horns in forehead.
The Beacon 