Issachar
October 2nd, 2007, 02:46 PM
Babies ARE a good thing, IF they are conceived for the right reasons. I am assuming you didn't mean that there are bad babies because their parents had them for the wrong reason? :) I'm pretty sure I know what you meant though.
As I read through threads like this as well as many others, I just wonder ....
I guess I don't see, as a believer, that it matters about Mrs. Clinton's 5K-for-babies idea and a million other issues. As believers, we are "separate from the world" (2 Cor. 6), "in it, but not of it" (John 17). There is not enough of us in the world to come up with a fix for every wrong and certainly not enough of us to implement anything we do come up with.
Take abortion for example. We all (I hope) agree that it is murder. A living human being is being destroyed. I believe it is one of the greatest evils man(un)kind does. It's been legal in the United States now for something like 35ish years and has been the cause of death for approximately 42 million Americans. As bad as 9/11 was and Katrina and various wars, NOTHING holds a candle to abortions death toll. We have in this country, a mighty band of believers that march against it, rally against it, fund organizations that are legal entities that oppose it, vote against it, try to vote in pols that are against it, pray for judgeships that oppose it and on and on .... yet, it remains legal and not only that, added to it in the past decade or so is "partial birth abortion". Some would say "Ya, but that was ruled illegal". Two things about that; 1.) At least one federal judge ruled that ruling unconstitutional and 2.) the new rule that supposedly bans partial birth abortion, is more hideous than the first! It wasn't banned at all, simply changed in how it is done .... now there is more butchering of the baby before it is dead than when they stabbed it in the base of the skull and killed it nearly instantly. Christian leaders such as Sekulow and Dobson should not have touted it as overturned. They know the truth of the new law.
Not only are we relatively small in number, but of us, we are divided. Here in this thread we have believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who cannot agree on something as trivial as 5K for each new born. ("trivial with respect to something like abortion/partial birth abortion) How we "see" issues has a LOT to do with our life's experience. Some of us have grown up poor, some rich, some somewhere inbetween, some were one way and now another ... some with abuse some without, some in split families, some more stable, some with no divorce but some weird form of abuse, some have grown up steeped in Republicanism and some in Democratic families, some in Christian schools and some in home schools and some in governement schools. We've all read books that have influenced us as well as countless news articles with almost as many slants one way or the other ... right, left, liberal, conservative, independent ....
What I believe (like, who cares, right?) is that we are separate from ALL of that muck and mire that the world is. It is up to us, as believers, to carry the message of salvation down into all that muck and mire, to the folks that are that muck and mire, just like we were before we were cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. By being separate from the world, we are free to move in it's midst and not be caught up in it. We can go where our Father leads us, always with the purpose of taking the gospel there. We can go into politics should He lead us there, and NOT be mired down in it. We will be in a position to reach perhaps senators or representatives with the gospel because we'll be there. We can serve on a board of directors for a corp. and not be mired down in the "politics" of the corporate world because we are separate from that "world" and can look for opportunities to share the gospel within our sphere of influence.
I have a note I wrote in the margin of my bible quite some time ago that goes something like this .... "Christians are in contention when they take sides in worldly matters". I still believe that.
Issachar
As I read through threads like this as well as many others, I just wonder ....
I guess I don't see, as a believer, that it matters about Mrs. Clinton's 5K-for-babies idea and a million other issues. As believers, we are "separate from the world" (2 Cor. 6), "in it, but not of it" (John 17). There is not enough of us in the world to come up with a fix for every wrong and certainly not enough of us to implement anything we do come up with.
Take abortion for example. We all (I hope) agree that it is murder. A living human being is being destroyed. I believe it is one of the greatest evils man(un)kind does. It's been legal in the United States now for something like 35ish years and has been the cause of death for approximately 42 million Americans. As bad as 9/11 was and Katrina and various wars, NOTHING holds a candle to abortions death toll. We have in this country, a mighty band of believers that march against it, rally against it, fund organizations that are legal entities that oppose it, vote against it, try to vote in pols that are against it, pray for judgeships that oppose it and on and on .... yet, it remains legal and not only that, added to it in the past decade or so is "partial birth abortion". Some would say "Ya, but that was ruled illegal". Two things about that; 1.) At least one federal judge ruled that ruling unconstitutional and 2.) the new rule that supposedly bans partial birth abortion, is more hideous than the first! It wasn't banned at all, simply changed in how it is done .... now there is more butchering of the baby before it is dead than when they stabbed it in the base of the skull and killed it nearly instantly. Christian leaders such as Sekulow and Dobson should not have touted it as overturned. They know the truth of the new law.
Not only are we relatively small in number, but of us, we are divided. Here in this thread we have believers, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who cannot agree on something as trivial as 5K for each new born. ("trivial with respect to something like abortion/partial birth abortion) How we "see" issues has a LOT to do with our life's experience. Some of us have grown up poor, some rich, some somewhere inbetween, some were one way and now another ... some with abuse some without, some in split families, some more stable, some with no divorce but some weird form of abuse, some have grown up steeped in Republicanism and some in Democratic families, some in Christian schools and some in home schools and some in governement schools. We've all read books that have influenced us as well as countless news articles with almost as many slants one way or the other ... right, left, liberal, conservative, independent ....
What I believe (like, who cares, right?) is that we are separate from ALL of that muck and mire that the world is. It is up to us, as believers, to carry the message of salvation down into all that muck and mire, to the folks that are that muck and mire, just like we were before we were cleansed by the blood of the Lamb. By being separate from the world, we are free to move in it's midst and not be caught up in it. We can go where our Father leads us, always with the purpose of taking the gospel there. We can go into politics should He lead us there, and NOT be mired down in it. We will be in a position to reach perhaps senators or representatives with the gospel because we'll be there. We can serve on a board of directors for a corp. and not be mired down in the "politics" of the corporate world because we are separate from that "world" and can look for opportunities to share the gospel within our sphere of influence.
I have a note I wrote in the margin of my bible quite some time ago that goes something like this .... "Christians are in contention when they take sides in worldly matters". I still believe that.
Issachar