Imagine a world in which Hitler's birthday is celebrated every year. Laughing children dress in SS uniforms, with little Hitler, Goering, or Goebbels masks; or maybe in dingy gray and white death camp 'pajamas'. People put out cutesy little nazi or Führer figurines saluting 'Heil Hitler'. Lights are strung up with little death-camp-victim skeletons and skulls. Swastikas and little crossed Hitler Youth knives are hung on doors or placed on the table. Stores are filled with mock razor wire and styrofoam incineration ovens that you can place in your yard in anticipation of the coming 'holiday'. To heighten the atmosphere, recordings of Jews being mercilessly tortured are played in homes and stores..
A view into the future if the Allies had lost the war? No.
Recently we went into a local Kroger and were greeted by a very macabre, life size, motion-sensored, animated, dead-thing 'butler' with a severed head that 'spoke' to you from the silver platter upon which it lay. Just that day my beautiful wife and I had been discussing the fact that the stores would already have the Halloween stuff out. Thus far, we have managed to keep our two and three year old boys more or less ignorant of the existence of Halloween. I told her I hoped we could keep them from finding out about it at all for at least another year.
I must admit that in my youth Halloween was my favorite 'holiday'. My earliest remembrance of it was somewhere around four years old when I was dressed up as Spider-Man, with one of those cheap, ubiquitous, plastic-formed masks. I kept trying to stick my tongue through the little tiny mouth hole. That may also have been the last time that I dressed as something that was not particularly scary. It seems to me that in most years I dressed as a vampire, although once – at our 'church' Halloween celebration – I remember dressing as a demon (church : demon; church : demon; Anybody seeing any kind of problem here?). I always took Halloween very seriously, looking with disdain on people who carved silly faces on their jack-o-lantern, or who dressed up as ballerinas or any similar non-scary thing. After all, this was Halloween – get with the program, right?
And I considered myself a Christian!
Well, in all fairness, all of the Christians that I personally knew also celebrated Halloween. As I said, our 'church' had actual bona fide Halloween parties each year. It wasn't even one of these so-called 'church harvest parties' or some other mealy-mouthed excuse to celebrate the un-holiday while still feeling churchy, but an actual named Halloween Party. How disgusting is that?
In a corner sat a regular member of the church, dressed as a gypsy, who 'read' your fortune in a crystal ball! A part time baptist preacher who burned a very expensive book of world religions because he didn't want to expose his children to such things (a position with which I now agree by the way), occupied a dark closet where children could come in and reach into a bowl and squish supposed human brains through their fingers! Ghosts, spirits, demons, monsters (and at least one young vampire); occultism on every side. Spooks and jack-o-lanterns and the whole schlemiel.
And the one constant that I remember about these 'church' Halloween parties from year to year was the inevitable discussion amongst varying parents and 'The Pastor' about how rigid and overbearing and legalistic it was for some Christians to fail to observe Halloween, thereby depriving their children culturally and certainly stunting their social development. So here was the pastor, the deacons, the Sunday School teachers, the parents, and all the good 'church' people teaching their children not only to observe Halloween, but that you are wronging your children if you do not.
Well, what can I say. It was, as Peter said, "..your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers." So for many years I continued to celebrate the unholiday as my favorite holiday. I thought it was fun. I thought that was what people should do. I thought that's what Christianity was.
Then God came.
When you give your life to the Prince of Life, when you really give your life completely to Him and give your heart to Him, and you get close to Him, there remains no longer any place in your life for Death. Paul said it this way, "What fellowship has light with darkness?" and "You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons."
If you call yourself a Christian, and you partake of Halloween, the Un-Holy-Day, then something is very, very wrong. You can cry 'legalism' if you want to, but celebrating death is wickedness and sin-sickness, and celebrating death when you profess to belong to the Prince of Life is horribly mixed up. If you can find enjoyment in such things you are not where you need to be with Jesus – if you are with Jesus at all. If you are not repulsed by the things you see all around you in the celebration of Halloween – tapping into the very demonic realm that has fought and is fighting to drag you and your spouse and your children and your closest friends and loved ones screaming into hell – then you need to ask yourself very seriously if your are His at all. I cannot say emphatically that you are not – Paul was admonishing Christians after all not to drink the cup of demons – but that if you are comfortable with this stuff you really need to go back to the beginning and examine yourself carefully to ask if you are really saved.
Death is our enemy! Hell is our enemy! Satan is our enemy! Demonic spirits are our enemies!
Oh People! People! Open your eyes and see the unmitigated, inexpressible hatred leering back at you through evil eyes in this wicked celebration! Smell the putrid stench of decay rising up around you and clinging to your hair and clothes and skin! Hear the tortured screams of every deceived man and woman that has ever ended up exactly where they thought they would never go, eternally cut off, eternally hopeless, eternally dying and decaying in an unending death forever! This is the hope and desire of the lords of Halloween for you and all whom you love!
If you think comparing Halloween with Nazi Germany is a bit much, or maybe even over the top, then consider: Adolph Hitler and his followers were only men, mere flesh and blood, also themselves deceived by demons and now writhing in their own agonized hopelessness. But the real power behind that horror – the power that is waiting and desiring to show what they can really do, to unleash far greater horrors than that upon the earth – that is what you are celebrating on Halloween.
If you think the idea of celebrating the Holocaust is an unthinkable or unspeakable idea, how then can you celebrate the kingdom that makes Hitler look like a mere school-boy?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Pastor vs Elders
There is no such thing as 'The Pastor' in the New Testament.
There is one office of unpaid men of God operating in plurality in each ekklesia. These men are alternately called Elders, Overseers, Shepherds, or Teachers.
'Pastor' occurs only one time in the NT, in Eph 4:11. The Greek word there is poimen (poy•MANE). Poimen is used a total of 19 times in the NT, but every single other usage is translated as 'shepherd'. 'Shepherd' is one of four NT ways to refer to the elders of the ekklesia: 'elder', 'shepherd', 'overseer', and 'teacher'. (The word 'overseer' is the literal translation wherever you see the word 'bishop'. Since everybody knows that 'bishops' are unbibilical clerics who wear fantastic costumes and funny hats, like the Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride, 'overseer' is clearly the better term for this position.)
You can see these clearly linked together in Acts 20:17-28, Titus 1:5-7, and 1Peter 5:1-5.
In Eph 4:11 the Greek links 'shepherd' & 'teacher' together: "..some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some 'shepherds and teachers' ". (With that in mind you can better better see Paul's line of thinking in I Timothy 2:12 - 3:7: "And I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man..(however)..if a man desires the position of an overseer, he desires a good work."
In Acts 20:17-35, Paul plainly teaches that the elders of the ekklesia are to work to support themselves, not to be a special class supported by the ekklesia.
Acts 14:15, Acts 20:17, Phil 1:1, and Titus 1:5 clearly indicate that there are to be a plurality of elders in every ekklesia.
There is one office of unpaid men of God operating in plurality in each ekklesia. These men are alternately called Elders, Overseers, Shepherds, or Teachers.
'Pastor' occurs only one time in the NT, in Eph 4:11. The Greek word there is poimen (poy•MANE). Poimen is used a total of 19 times in the NT, but every single other usage is translated as 'shepherd'. 'Shepherd' is one of four NT ways to refer to the elders of the ekklesia: 'elder', 'shepherd', 'overseer', and 'teacher'. (The word 'overseer' is the literal translation wherever you see the word 'bishop'. Since everybody knows that 'bishops' are unbibilical clerics who wear fantastic costumes and funny hats, like the Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride, 'overseer' is clearly the better term for this position.)
You can see these clearly linked together in Acts 20:17-28, Titus 1:5-7, and 1Peter 5:1-5.
In Eph 4:11 the Greek links 'shepherd' & 'teacher' together: "..some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some 'shepherds and teachers' ". (With that in mind you can better better see Paul's line of thinking in I Timothy 2:12 - 3:7: "And I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man..(however)..if a man desires the position of an overseer, he desires a good work."
In Acts 20:17-35, Paul plainly teaches that the elders of the ekklesia are to work to support themselves, not to be a special class supported by the ekklesia.
Acts 14:15, Acts 20:17, Phil 1:1, and Titus 1:5 clearly indicate that there are to be a plurality of elders in every ekklesia.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Keep Your Children at Home
The other day I heard just a bit of Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife speaking on Focus on the Family about the tragic death of their little five-year-old adopted daughter who was run over in their own driveway back in 2008. His wife told the amusing and poignant story of how – before her fifth birthday – the little girl had come to her and asked if it was true that God has a Big Big House.
"...and does He have lots and lots of room?"
" ...and does He have really good food?"
To each question her mother answered, "Yes He does," and then surprised the little one by adding, "But you know what? He also has a big big yard where we can play football."
"How'd you know?" asked the puzzled child, wondering how her mother could have anticipated the next line in the song.
I could hardly retell that anecdote to my wife without breaking up – kids and God...kids and tragedy...both just get to me. It's a wonderful story.
The part that really got my goat though, is that the mother stated that the little girl must have heard the song in school.
In school? Heavens to Elizabeth!
Now I myself am not really a Steven Curtis Chapman fan. I honestly can't even think of the name of the one song of his that I know I have heard. I know very little about his family, and I don't even know his wife's name. I do feel pretty confident in stating that his wife did not have the child in school because she had to hold down a job out of financial necessity. Obviously, the child was placed in school because they believed that was the best thing to do for the child.
People, people, people...!
Most children are not 'ready' for school until at least eight to ten years old. Some won't be ready even then. But even if they are ready from a standpoint neurological development, the best place for the vast majority of children is always with their own mothers and fathers at home.
The best place for children of even eight to ten years old is at home in their own place!
And a four year old? A four year old? Oh people, people! Children need their mother and father! Eight year olds and older need their parents, and how much more a four year old?
Everything in the Bible that you supposedly believe clearly indicates that God has given this child to you for you to raise! If you send them to a school – public or private – that's who's doing the raising, not you! That is who's getting your valuable and very short lived opportunity! That is who is teaching God-knows-what to your child while you are supposed to be raising godly seed – even if it a supposedly Christian school! You're still wasting your opportunity! You're still forfeiting your chance and the calling that you've been given!
Worst of all, you're giving up your opportunity and calling, to someone who only cares about your child because they're paid to, and most of that 'raising' is actually the 'mob-rule' of the school-children...
People! God's people! Don't be fooled by the god of this world any longer! Trust your God! Trust your Bible! Take your children back! Bring them home where they belong! Teach them yourself! God has blessed you and gifted you and anointed you and appointed you to do it! Don't give your precious stewardship to others who don't even care beyond the paycheck what happens to your child!
If you can read and understand this post then you can teach them at home yourself.
Don't let the schools have your child for even a minute!
"...and does He have lots and lots of room?"
" ...and does He have really good food?"
To each question her mother answered, "Yes He does," and then surprised the little one by adding, "But you know what? He also has a big big yard where we can play football."
"How'd you know?" asked the puzzled child, wondering how her mother could have anticipated the next line in the song.
I could hardly retell that anecdote to my wife without breaking up – kids and God...kids and tragedy...both just get to me. It's a wonderful story.
The part that really got my goat though, is that the mother stated that the little girl must have heard the song in school.
In school? Heavens to Elizabeth!
Now I myself am not really a Steven Curtis Chapman fan. I honestly can't even think of the name of the one song of his that I know I have heard. I know very little about his family, and I don't even know his wife's name. I do feel pretty confident in stating that his wife did not have the child in school because she had to hold down a job out of financial necessity. Obviously, the child was placed in school because they believed that was the best thing to do for the child.
People, people, people...!
Most children are not 'ready' for school until at least eight to ten years old. Some won't be ready even then. But even if they are ready from a standpoint neurological development, the best place for the vast majority of children is always with their own mothers and fathers at home.
The best place for children of even eight to ten years old is at home in their own place!
And a four year old? A four year old? Oh people, people! Children need their mother and father! Eight year olds and older need their parents, and how much more a four year old?
Everything in the Bible that you supposedly believe clearly indicates that God has given this child to you for you to raise! If you send them to a school – public or private – that's who's doing the raising, not you! That is who's getting your valuable and very short lived opportunity! That is who is teaching God-knows-what to your child while you are supposed to be raising godly seed – even if it a supposedly Christian school! You're still wasting your opportunity! You're still forfeiting your chance and the calling that you've been given!
Worst of all, you're giving up your opportunity and calling, to someone who only cares about your child because they're paid to, and most of that 'raising' is actually the 'mob-rule' of the school-children...
People! God's people! Don't be fooled by the god of this world any longer! Trust your God! Trust your Bible! Take your children back! Bring them home where they belong! Teach them yourself! God has blessed you and gifted you and anointed you and appointed you to do it! Don't give your precious stewardship to others who don't even care beyond the paycheck what happens to your child!
If you can read and understand this post then you can teach them at home yourself.
Don't let the schools have your child for even a minute!
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