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In this thorough post, Alastair Roberts provides a thoughtful exposition of the implications of gay marriage on society, and how the discussion of that subject should be broached. While somewhat lengthy, I commend the whole of the post to you.

Here are a few quotes that stood out in particular from my reading, with notations from the various article headings.

From The Public Nature of Heterosexual Marriage

The connection of heterosexual intercourse with procreation renders the existence of a sexual relationship between heterosexual partners a matter of public significance. The public recognition and celebration of the sexual character of the relationship between a married couple needs to be regarded in this light. Apart from gossip, prurient interest, and perhaps understanding the surface dynamics of relationships in which the partners are involved, why should society have an interest in the private act of sexual union that occurs between a couple? Why should the occurrence of this private sexual union be regarded as so important to the public recognition of the relationship that public recognition can frequently be withdrawn or denied in its absence? Precisely because the most private act of heterosexual marital union is an act which has potential consequences that are inescapably public.

From The Shifting Ethos of Marriage

Unlike traditional marriage, homosexual relationships are almost entirely oriented towards the present desires and emotions of the parties within the relationships. In contrast to the place of intercourse in marriage, which involves openness to the future gift of life and to all that that entails, the sexual intercourse in homosexual relationships is invariably and necessarily sterile and detached from the future. There is a significant disconnect and indeed tension to be observed between homosexual patterns of relationship and the notion that marriage involves making potentially costly sacrifices, limiting one’s pleasure, and forging lifelong commitments that may run radically contrary to the desires of both parties in the future. Such a notion only makes sense within a relationship that is structured in a manner that primarily serves the needs of people beyond the two partners.

Gay marriage accomplishes no movement from one generation to another. The union more or less terminates on the desires, emotions, and needs of the two partners. To establish gay marriage would be to institutionalize the close personal relationship model of marriage, which would hasten the rot of traditional marriage values. In particular, it would encourage the removal or compromising of those aspects of marriage culture and law that orient the union towards the needs of children, and others beyond the marriage partners. For those who enter into marriage as something that is about little more than the satisfaction of their desires and the public recognition of an emotional bond that they have with another person, the values of traditional marriage will be regarded as constricting….

It would be naïve to think that the gay rights movement, having achieved the status of marriage, will make peace with its traditional virtues of lifelong faithfulness and exclusiveness. The idea of marriage as an institution, with values, expectations, and requirements that transcend individuals is generally contrary to the gay marriage ideal and so the institution of marriage will be attacked, even while the privileges and honour accorded to its status are being enjoyed.

From The Breaking of Natural Bonds

If only on account of the differences between male and female sexuality, gay marriage will fuel attempts to undermine the necessity of fidelity and monogamy, and to push for easier and less costly divorce. This will weaken marriage for everyone; as history has shown, removing legal any other impediments to divorce hastens the collapse of marriages. Such a shift of values is very concerning….

Homosexual marriage does not provide for the natural bond between children and their biological parents. Perhaps the most significant consequence of this development will be the gradual detachment of children from their biological parents. As the conception of sex within marriage is increasingly conformed to the norm of an essentially sterile act, private and unregulated, shorn of responsibility or consequences, and marriage and the family come to be viewed as primarily legal constructs, the bond between marital sex and the family will come under threat in various ways.

From Homosexual Marriage and Tyranny

Gay marriage has been propagated chiefly by means of litigation and political pressure. Once we appreciate the manner in which gay marriage advocates seek to deny the normativity and superiority of the natural bonds enshrined in marriage, to claim as their right the same privileges that heterosexual married couples enjoy from the hand of nature, and to replace the normativity of a blood relations understanding of family with an understanding of family as a legal construct, we should be extremely worried. One requires some fairly big guns to wage the war against nature, which is one reason – though not, as we shall see, the only one – why sexual liberation from the natural order goes hand in hand with tyranny. Gay marriage can’t render itself public in the natural way that heterosexual marriage can, and so it must use the law and the state in order to achieve this….

Once the state has determined that a sexual relationship between a same sex couple is completely equal to a sexual relationship between an opposite sex couple, and ought not merely to be tolerated, but to be celebrated and privileged to exactly the same degree, where do we draw the line regarding the degree to which political agitators and litigious minorities can impose their vision upon society? When the state gives so little attention to the immense weight of millennia of tradition throughout human cultures and the order of nature in asserting the will of a vocal group upon society, we should all fear for our freedoms. When the state has arrogated to itself the right to define marriage and the family as it pleases, apart from reference to natural forms that it must recognize and uphold, have we not arrived at a position where the state regards society purely as its own creation, and thus subject to its domination, rather than as involving inviolable bonds and forms that pre-exist it?

If, rather than the laws surrounding marriage and family being ways to protect the substantive realities of blood relationships, marriage and family increasingly come to be regarded as legal constructs, detached from such underlying reality, the state gains increasing control over children and marriage is pushed into the private realm. Once we accept the normativity of a sterile understanding of sex, and a model of family increasingly detached from blood relationship, the state gains incredible power to reorder human society. As the recognition of the bonds connecting parents with their children are weakened, we give the state an ever-growing capacity to intervene in the upbringing of our children. When sex is no longer conceived of or engaged in as responsible behaviour that is open to potential consequences that may exert their effects for a very long period of time, any consequences that do arise will tend to become the responsibility of some other party, almost invariably the state. Where marriage and sexual intercourse within it are not entered into with a commitment to or expectation that one should be expected to shoulder the responsibilities attending conception and child-rearing, children will gradually come to be treated as if they were primarily wards of the state.

Gay marriages do not produce children, yet children are essential for the implementation of the vision of those who wish to maintain the equality of homosexual unions to heterosexual marriages. Homosexuals need access to children, both as badges that demonstrate the fact that their unions are completely equal to heterosexual marriages, and also as means by which to shape the society of the future. As homosexual relationships do not produce children, they must gain access to children by other means. The strong bond of blood that exists between parents and their children is a threat to homosexuals, as it limits their access to the next generation. Consequently lengths must be undertaken to undermine and weaken this bond.

State intervention is the primary means by which gay marriage advocates have pushed their agenda. In addition to using the power of government and the law to force people to accept their unions, government and the law are used to limit the rights of agencies and individuals to discriminate against them when it comes to such things as adoption. Gay marriage advocates won’t be satisfied with the fact that many adoption agencies will be happy to place children with gay couples; they must press to ensure that no agency can operate on the belief that a heterosexual married couple can offer things to a child that a homosexual couple never could. The powers of the legal system and the police powers of the State will be marshaled against any who might act on such a conviction. Convictions that arise from deep within our engagement with the world, our personal histories, and our cultural and human traditions are incredibly hard to eradicate. The belief that it is natural for a child to have a mother and a father, and that any departure from this norm is undesirable and not to be encouraged is one such belief.

The power of a belief is directly proportional to the degree of force and intrusive social engineering required to deprogramme it, which is why the doctrines of modern egalitarianism, feminism, and gay rights have needed to throw such great weight behind a movement of oppressive political correctness. Political correctness cannot easily tolerate and respect the existence of vocal public opposition. The more contrary to commonsense and natural reason a particular view is, the more rigorously its proponents will have to suppress any opposition. Permit the opposition clear public expression of its convictions and it is rendered vulnerable and exposed. The gay marriage position involves several claims that run strongly counter to commonsense – the parity of homoerotic desire and heteroerotic desire, the equality of homosexual forms of intercourse to penile-vaginal intercourse, the disconnection of sex from reproduction, the interchangeability of men and women, the dispensability of the roles of husband, wife, father, and mother, the family as primarily a legal construct, rather than a bond of blood, etc. For this reason, political intimidation, government propaganda, militant litigation, smear campaigns, vicious attempts to discredit opposition, and attacks on academic and press freedom have been and will always be primary weapons in the armoury of gay marriage advocates. All criticism or voicing of opinion that displeases the gay lobby can be labeled as intolerant and homophobic, and anyone who dares voice public opposition can expect to be targeted and hounded out of public office, academic respectability, or have their voice silenced by the media.

Although gay rights advocates can undoubtedly point to the manner in which the power of the state has been wielded against them in the past, my point here is that there is, by the very nature of things, a close natural alliance and affinity between soft totalitarianism and a movement that denies so forcefully convictions that have underlain human societies for most of history, and which relies upon government and the law to render itself public. The same natural alliance and affinity with oppressive state power does not exists in the case of heterosexual marriage.

Government and the law are also used as means to indoctrinate the youth. People that naturally have no children will seek to wrest control over the children of others in order to shape society according to their vision. It is for this reason that homosexuals who have no children of their own have an extremely high interest and desire to shape the education of other’s people children, and to limit the rights of parents to remove them from the desired indoctrination. It should not be a surprise to us that those who stand most opposed to the traditional structures surrounding reproduction in our society will often be the parties that invest the most effort in seeking to shape and control the education of our children and almost always the ones who are most in favour of limiting the control that parents have over their children’s curricula.

It has long been recognized that a strong family is the primary basis for a free society. However, a strong family is the greatest threat to the achievement of equality for homosexual relationships. Although it trumpets itself as a movement for sexual liberation, the gay marriage movement – and the gay rights movement more generally – will, by the very nature of the agenda that it seeks to advance, be one of the most powerful driving forces towards totalitarianism. Through state education and other means governments have already gone far in the direction of weakening the natural bond between children and parents in order to strengthen its grip on public society. Gay rights advocates provide governments with a natural and invaluable ally in this struggle against the natural bonds of the family, pushing towards the position when all children are regarded as essentially wards of the state…

The movement towards gay marriage is one of the movements within our society that is most antithetical to liberty. For this reason alone it must be firmly opposed. If homosexuals are to be the friends of liberty, they must recognize and submit to the extreme limitations that their refusal to engage in traditional marriage places upon their ability to form society and shape the minds of the future, to recognize that, by their very character, recognized or not, their relationships are largely powerless in the public realm. Of course, the naturally unenfranchised character of homosexual relationships will condemn homosexuals to a marginal and alienated status when compared to married couples (those of us who are single find ourselves in a similarly disadvantaged position, probably even more disadvantaged in certain respects).

From Conclusion

Society as a whole grows out of the union between a man and a woman. On account of its significance to society, and its preservation and deepening of natural bonds, this relationship should be encouraged and protected and set apart from all other forms of sexual relationship. Homosexual marriage is a state-sponsored parody of the real thing. While homosexuals must be accorded respect and dignity to no less of a degree than married persons, as a parody of the natural order of things, homosexual marriage merits not merely our political and social resistance, but also our moral repugnance and revulsion. For this reason, we must resist it without compromise, and firmly discriminate in favour of heterosexual marital union. On this upholding of this discrimination hangs much of our freedom.

“Since Adam was a priest, and priest of the garden, spiritual leader of humanity, the fact that he needed a wife means that clerical celibacy is Satanic to the core. If there is any kind of man who needs a wife, it is a clergy-man. A man is in a profound sense of “alone” unless he is married. Of course, God calls some men to be ‘alone’ all their lives, but this is not the normal calling, nor is it the normal situation for a parish minister. Such a man is ‘alone’ unless he is married. In this life, before the last day, God will not be our spouse, and He says we should have one. It is ‘not good’ if we don’t. He may call us to live a life that is ‘not good,’ and thus to undergo suffering for Him, but for the Church to require such a life is a great evil.” – James B. Jordan, Trees and Thorns

During our study of Proverbs 1:8-19 the other night, we were considering various applications of the text in our modern context. As you read through the text below, think about how applicable it is to abortion. The shedding of blood described here is coldly calculated.

[8] Hear, my son, your father’s instruction,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching,
[9] for they are a graceful garland for your head
and pendants for your neck.
[10] My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
[11] If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
let us ambush the innocent without reason;
[12] like Sheol let us swallow them alive,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
[13] we shall find all precious goods,
we shall fill our houses with plunder;
[14] throw in your lot among us;
we will all have one purse”—
[15] my son, do not walk in the way with them;
hold back your foot from their paths,
[16] for their feet run to evil,
and they make haste to shed blood.
[17] For in vain is a net spread
in the sight of any bird,
[18] but these men lie in wait for their own blood;
they set an ambush for their own lives.
[19] Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
it takes away the life of its possessors (ESV).

“The Church is the nursery of the Kingdom, and the principles we learn in the Church are to be carried forth in the transformation of family, state, and other institutions.” – James B. Jordan.

This quotation was brought to my attention a few weeks ago by Pastor Steve Jeffrey in London, England. It is taken from an essay written by David Field in 2007, which can be found here. The perspectives that Mr. Field encourages us to maintain are an important reminder of what ought to be the disposition of faith.

“Evangelical defeatism is a failure of Biblical perspective. After all, the risen Lord Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth and has been made head over all things for the Church; he is the ruler of the kings of the earth and he is currently putting his enemies beneath his feet; he has presumably asked the Father for the nations as his inheritance and the ends of the earth as his possession – and so he will receive them. All nations will bow to Jesus and all kings will serve him and his kingdom will grow to become the largest plant in the garden with the nation-birds finding rest in its branches. His kingdom is the stone which crushed the kingdoms of men in Daniel 2 and which is growing to become a mountain-empire which fills the whole earth. He is the firstborn from among the dead and therefore it is right that in all things he has the first place. He has been highly exalted and not only will every knee bow to him but every knee should bow to him.

“Evangelical defeatism is a failure of historical perspective. After all, the statistics are out there. It took 1400 years for 1% of the world’s population to become Christians and then another 360 years for that to double to 2%. Another 170 years saw that grow from 2% to 4% and then, between 1960 and 1990 the proportion of the world’s population made up of Bible-believing Christians rose from 4% to 8%. Now, in 2007, one third of the world’s population confesses that Jesus is Lord and 11% of the world’s population are “evangelical” Christians. The evangelical church is growing twice as fast as Islam and three times as fast as the world’s population. South America is turning Protestant faster than Continental Europe did in the sixteenth century. South Koreans reckon that they can evangelize the whole of North Korea within five years once that country opens up. And then there’s the Chinese church consisting of tens of millions of Christians who have learned to pray, who have confidence in Scripture, who know about spiritual warfare, have been schooled in suffering and are qualified to rule. One day in the next century that Church – tens of millions of Christians trained to die – will be released into global mission and our prayers for the fall of Islam will be answered.”

Toy Story 3 is terrific. It has just the right amount of nods to the past two movies, while telling a fresh story with depth. I had heard that it was good and getting great reviews across the board, but really wondered if it would live up to the hype. Amazingly, it exceeded my expectations. It doesn’t take long to fall in with the familiar characters and enjoy the trademark humor, all the while wondering how it will turn out in the end. Instead of twisting aspects of what we enjoy from childhood, and turning everything upside down as in the Shrek movies, the Toy Story-Tellers cultivate that connection we have with our past by adding vintage touches of creativity and wit. Initially, I came away thinking, “This is the best of the three. This is my favorite”; only then to pause and remember how original Toy Story was when I first saw it. What a happy dilemma of attempting to choose a favorite. I suppose it isn’t so different from trying to choose a favorite toy. You really can’t. You have your reasons for enjoying them all.

“For the benefit of man, You, Father of mercies, instituted holy wedlock, and have promised Your blessing to every house in which dwells Your fear. Yes, even You sit at the fireside of them that love You, as at Your own hearth and home. Cause your peace to dwell under our roof, and bless the labor of our hands.” – Martin Luther

In his work Deep Exegesis, Peter Leithart draws comparisons to the listening of music and reading a given text. He writes, “We cannot take music in a moment, A chord gives us several notes at once, but a chord is not music, or not much music. To hear the simplest melody, we need to listen for at least a few seconds. And more complex pieces can take an hour or more to experience. Notes follow notes, measures follow measures, movements follow movements. Music is not the kind of art that allows us to ‘get to it, man.’ If we are going to listen to music at all, we have to give it time to unfold.

“Music, as I said, teaches patience, but that formulation is too intelluctualist, as if I am standing back, watching myself listen to music, and then concluding, ‘Ah, yes. I see that I am supposed to learn patience from the experience of listening to music.’ Much better to say that music trains us in patience. It trains us in moving through dissonance and tension toward resolution. It trains us in waiting for the climax, waiting for beauty to build and build. It trains us not to seize. Music trains us in good sex, sex that takes time” (52-53).

Dr. Leithart continues to make his case, describing the musicality of a text, particularly in that music and text share the quality of their meaning being unfolded over time. “Texts are musical in that they take time, and the time texts take is musical time. The time of music and the time of texts always involves reaching for the next moment. Music is always moving toward the next note, and we are always reading beyond the individual word. Each sentence compels us to move forward; each paragraph carries us along to the denouement” (53).

These realities have profound implications, particularly in relation to our hearing the biblical text. Given the instantaneous nature of our society, we must recognize the challenges that face us, as well as be aware of our tendencies. “We are often impatient with music, and we are impatient with texts. A writer lingers, and we want to grab him by the throat and say, ‘Get to the point, man!’ Evangelicals would reverently refrain from throttling an apostle, but the demand for practical Bible teaching often has this threatening subtext. ‘Don’t give me all these names, lists, genealogies, stories. Tell me what to do. Tell me about Jesus.’

“God in his infinite wisdom decided to give us the a book, a very long book, and not a portrait or an aphorism. God reveals himself in his image, Jesus, but we come to know that image by reading, and that takes time. God wants to transform us into the image of his image, and one of the key ways he does that is by leading us through the text. If we short-circuit that process by getting to the practical application, we are not going to be transformed in the ways God wants us to be transformed. ‘Get to the point’ will not do because part of the point is to lead us through the labyrinth of the text itself. There is treasure at the center of the labyrinth, but with texts, the journey is as important as the destination. ‘Get to the point, man’ is the slogan of the the liberal theologian; it is a demand for the kernel without the annoying distraction of the husky twists and turns of the text itself.

“We cannot get the meaning of a text without taking time. And as the text takes time, the meanings of earlier texts shift with the introduction of later texts. The meanings of the texts emerge through the time of reading” (55).

“According to Your mercy, You, O God, have established a covenant with us in Holy Baptism in which You have obligated Yourself to be our God and to forgive our sins for Christ’s sake. Thanks, everlasting thanks, be unto You [for] this gracious covenant. And now grant us grace to believe Your Word, and strength to persevere to the end, that we may adorn our profession in all things, through Jesus Christ. Amen.” – Martin Luther

Today marks the ascension of the Lord Jesus to His throne in Heaven where He reigns as the King of Kings. In Ephesians 4:1-16, Paul provides an interesting list of gifts given to the Church as a result of Christ’s ascension. He writes,

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. ⁷But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. ⁸Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

⁹(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? ¹⁰He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) ¹¹And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, ¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, ¹⁴so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. ¹⁵Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (ESV).

What did Jesus give? His grace. His favor. And that favor is particularly expressed through the giving of people to equip the saints and build up the church. (The gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as a result of Christ’s ascension appears to underlie this section, particularly verses 3-7.) While Jesus may have bodily ascended, He has not left His Church without help in the form of flesh and blood.

Also note, in verse 8, that Paul quotes from Psalm 68. Meditate on the entirety of that psalm in the light of Christ’s passion, resurrection, and ascension, and it will take on a whole new depth of meaning, inspiring us to sing it all the more vigorously – even this Lord’s Day in our Ascension celebration.

“In his Word and in his Supper, the crucified and resurrected Christ is truly present now, even though his disciples on earth do not yet enjoy full, complete communion in his presence. Time cannot separate disciples from their risen Lord or from Easter’s promise of resurrection for them too. The church now lives in the eternal Sabbath rest of Easter Sunday. This is why the early Christians had an eschatological perspective on liturgical time, with Sunday as the eighth, eschatological day. The church’s liturgical calendar, which grew around Easter, helps foster this Christological view of time. Instead of marking off passing years according to the secular world’s clock, the church year ever revolves around Easter, returning to Easter each Sunday and moving from Easter toward the resurrection of all flesh. The past is never lost, since the entirety of salvation history is recapitulated every Lord’s Day, and indeed every single day, for the baptized already have been buried and raised with Christ (Rom. 6:3-4).” – Arthur Just

May 1^st & 2^nd in Nashville were interesting, to say the least, and as we have experienced a historic event, the overwhelming nature of what has taken place causes one to reflect and consider.

Starting reflection: “What is the Lord teaching us?” The Bible is clear that the Lord is in control of His creation, and that He governs the weather. There isn’t a drop of rain that doesn’t fall precisely where the Lord ordains for it to go; a single strike of lightning that doesn’t perfectly hit its mark; nor a tornado that doesn’t proceed upon its destined course. (For evidence see the Book of Job). And that being true, then it is perfectly natural to wonder why the Lord ordained for such catastrophic weather to strike so precisely over the course of two days. When viewing the radar pictures of the multiple storm systems that passed over, their path was amazingly uniform. Even more, when viewing the color-coated rainfall charts, there was a strip stretching over the city from the southwest to the northeast with the city of Nashville, seemingly, as the center of the bulls-eye. It wasn’t the impersonal Mother Nature wreaking havoc, or just an extreme case of misfortune behind the weather events of last weekend. Rather, it was the Almighty God, by the word of His power, orchestrating the minutest detail to perfection. For many, Christian and non-Christian alike, this is hard to accept. Some wonder, “Doesn’t that make God a sadist?” Or, “Why would a God who is supposed to be good, allow such awful things to happen?” In answer to the first, no, God is not sadistic. And in answer to the second, I don’t know exactly why God ordained these events to take place as they did. The Scriptures give us some general principles from which to view such happenings, and applying those principles to this situation is certainly appropriate, but we are compelled to admit that we are not God and cannot begin to plumb the depths of His mind. His ways are perfect, even if they are unfathomable. Just because a fifth grader can’t make sense of an algebra book, doesn’t invalidate algebra. That basic principle applies here.

But back to the original question of what the Lord might be teaching us, and some further reflection. Clearly, there isn’t an easy answer, and it’s astounding to consider that there isn’t a singular answer because the equation has far too many variables for us to comprehend. God knows the complete equation, and every answer to every aspect of the equation, but we are limited in our powers of discernment. What might be the answer for some may not be the answer for everyone, and what might be the right answer for one may be not be the right answer for another. Or it could be that more than one answer applies, which causes an even greater number of variables to be considered. It is possible that the Lord is choosing to bring judgment upon us, reminding us of our finitude, and we ought to humble ourselves before Him. That’s one possible reason for the torrential rain and flooding, and we do well to take note of it, examine our lives, repent of our sin, and cast ourselves upon the boundless mercy of Christ. (Consider Jesus’ reference to the 18 killed when the tower in Siloam fell as recorded in Luke 13). This is often a good place to start, but neither does this mean it is the only reason. At the beginning of chapter 9 of John’s Gospel we read, As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (ESV). Why did the Lord send the rains? That the works of God might be displayed. That’s another very biblical answer, and one with a myriad of applications. As the Church, as Christians have been coming to the aid of neighbors, friends, and total strangers, the works of God have been displayed. As families have lost their homes, and possibly loved ones, and yet they still give thanks to Jesus their Savior and trust Him still, the works of God are displayed. It is to declare with Job, “The LORD gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” Others are grateful that the damage they suffered wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and this, too, is to display God’s work as thanks are given in and for all things.

There’s been a fair amount of speculation as to why Nashville hasn’t received as much national publicity about last weekend’s events as one might expect. One author suggests that it’s because there hasn’t been an abundance of looting or crime sprees, but neighbors helping one another because it is the right thing to do. I suppose selfless acts aren’t as glamorous as wicked ones, but that’s hardly surprising for an area of the country that has the Gospel of Christ so deeply ingrained in its culture. Wasn’t Jesus’ model of service patterned in the removing His outer garments, wrapping a towel around His waist, and washing His disciples’ feet (John 13)? Didn’t Jesus teach in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that the one who showed mercy was the one who loved his neighbor (Luke 10)? In such acts of service the Kingdom of God is displayed. As Jesus declared to His disciples, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” So let us consider the lack of publicity to be a compliment in disguise, and the mark of a society that, on a certain level, displays the kingdom of the living God that shall never be destroyed; the God who delivers and rescues; who works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.