Posted in family friendly viewing, gay, lesbian, prophecy, television

What "Family" is ABC from?! Young & Hungry review (UPDATED)

Posted on by elizabethprata

Update at bottom.

As I mentioned the other day, I’m in summer mode now. As I’m a kindergarten teacher aide in Special Education, my employment has suspended for the summer months. This is one of the things I love about my job 😉

I am old enough to remember basic television that came with reception only as good as the antenna on top of the TV and ended at midnight or 1am with the Star Spangled Banner and then a test pattern until dawn and The Today Show came on. You watched what was on when it was on and that was it.

Then in 1983 cable came to me in college in Maine and rather than study I just watched MTV endlessly on my 9-inch Sony. I already had HBO. Yay!

Anyway one of the things I enjoy in the summer is time to kick back and watch stuff. What a boon it is to be able to watch anything, anytime on streaming Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime, or Youtube or well, just about ‘station! We are truly living in amazing times.

However the quality has not kept up. When evening, TV watching time rolls around, I search and search and search and most often I find nothing to watch. Ten thousand programs available at any time and nothing on. Bruce Springsteen sang about this in 1992.

57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a trunkload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past down
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on

Sometimes it takes me a few hours to find anything to watch. By the time I find a title, go to IMDB and read reviews, try the program for a few minutes, find it’s actually disgusting, and then start all over, it’s time for bed.

I’m not averse to watching kids’ shows. I am not a huge fan of cartoons, but The Brady Bunch or Full House has in recent times passed before my eyes. So the other night I tried something on Netflix, an ABC Family show. The synopsis went like this:

Set in San Francisco, a wealthy entrepreneur Josh (Jonathan Sadowski) hires a food blogger named Gabi (Emily Osment) to be his new personal chef.

Sounds promising! A family show! Foodies! Cookery/chefery! Nice scenery! A family show!

Aw! So cute!

I watched a show and a half and then turned it off in disgust and outrage. That’s 29 minutes before I called it quits and shook my head in absolute amazement.

Within the first ten minutes the young woman had slept with her boss, who until a few minutes before had been engaged to a woman, who in turn later admitted to sleeping with someone else. The homosexual butler/aide made numerous quips about gay culture, and the double entendres from everyone were disgusting. Jokes about size of penis, and ‘once you go black you never go back’ were just two that I remember. Gay sex, pre-marital sex, adulterous sex, broken vows, lies, drunkenness, thievery, nudity, clandestinely videotaped sex, self-centeredness, selfishness, and immodesty were just a few of the “family” values being presented on this show within the first few minutes.

Episode 3 is titled Young & Lesbian where according to the summary “Josh hosts a dinner with the deciding editor of a “30 Under 30″ list hoping to impress her, only to find out she is more interested in Gabi.” The next episode after that is titled, “Young & Pregnant, Gabi worries that she might be pregnant.”

I’m not surprised, that much, that our culture reflects these values. But I am astounded at the casualness they are shown to children. This is the description for the ABC Family channel:

ABC Family is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by ABC Family Worldwide Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney–ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The channel generally offers contemporary as well as family-oriented programming aimed at a wide audience, but primarily features series and movies aimed at teenage girls and young women; its programming includes off-network syndicated reruns and original series, feature films and made-for-TV original movies, and some religious programming. The network was founded in 1977 as an extension of televangelist Pat Robertson’s Christian television ministry, and eventually evolved into The Family Channel by 1990…

WOW! How far they have fallen. It is no surprise that the world acts like the world, but it is saddening to me that our youngest and most vulnerable are being deliberately brainwashed this way. Every perversity imaginable was immediately presented from the opening moments of the show. Though the set was appealingly designed in bright, Disney colors, it belies a poison akin to the color of gangrene.

I opened this essay with a retrospective of ‘back in my day’. I related to you the facts of the broadcast matter, but the fact of the content of what was broadcast is equally applicable. Any ONE of the sins presented so immediately and casually in the first episode of “Young & Hungry” back in my day would immediately have merited censoring if the television show was aimed at children, say, The Brady Bunch. We all learned a lesson about not being a Tattle-Tale from season 2’s The Brady Bunch. Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on Sunday Nights featured true family friendly shows and movies. I remember watching Lassie, Gentle Ben, Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason, The Monkees, The Partridge Family, Gunsmoke, Andy Griffith, Carol Burnett, and more.

In one generation have the sins which Jesus called an abomination become so palatable and normal, sins for which He smote four entire cities in brimstone, as to be family fare? Yes.

Top L-R: Monkees, Bradys, Lassie.
Bottom L-R: Gentle Ben, Disney, Andy.
Middle: Sex, perversity, adultery, AKA millennial family fare

Once the truth is suppressed in unrighteousness and the Creator is denied, as per Romans 1:18-19, it does not take long for the trajectory to play itself out as the rest of Romans tells us:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Do you know the ratings for Young & Hungry are through the roof? They are heartily applauding sin. Note how the ratings began high and only got higher as the first season progressed. And the show has been picked up for season 2.

Source IMDB

In 1974 the American public expressed strong outrage that a scene in the movie Born Innocent contained a lesbian rape scene and even was used in promotional ads aired during the afternoon. Outrage was so strong that the FCC instituted “Family viewing hour“. Forty years later Family programming includes a comedic plotline about lesbian lust. The very children parents in 1974 sought to protect from such fodder are now grown ups watching, applauding and seeking more, and calling it family viewing. Oh, how we have crumbled.

Nothing of what I’m saying is any surprise and hasn’t actually been said before. Like, from Newt Minow-

May 9, 1961 that Newt Minow, then the young head of the Federal Communications Commission, gave what would be called the Wasteland Speech:

When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

His talk hit like a bomb. Mr Minow is still alive and in 2011 he gave another speech, in which he joked that his children threatened to put on his tombstone “A Vaster Wasteland” because things have only gotten much worse of course. Here is a snippet from Mr Minow’s talk in 2011—

I knew broadcasters would not be happy [in 1961]. My favorite response was from the Hollywood producer Sherwood Schwartz, who named the sinking ship in Gilligan’s Island after me. The “vast wasteland” was a metaphor for a particular time in our nation’s communications history, and to my surprise it became part of the American lexicon. It has come to identify me. My daughters threaten to engrave on my tombstone: On to a Vaster Wasteland. But those were not the two words I intended to be remembered. The two words I wanted to endure were public interest. To me that meant, as it still means, that we should constantly ask: What can communications do for our country? For the common good? For the American people?

We did some great things, to be sure. We expanded choice with public broadcasting, cable, and satellites. Sesame Street became one of the most-watched television programs in the world. Our televised presidential debates, once groundbreaking and then abandoned until 1976, became the most substantive view of our presidential campaigns. We launched the first communications satellite in 1962. On a visit to the space program, President Kennedy asked me about the satellite. I told him that it would be more important than sending a man into space. “Why?” he asked. “Because,” I said, “this satellite will send ideas into space, and ideas last longer than men.”

But our failures were equally dramatic, particularly in using television to serve our children and to improve our politics. For 50 years, we have bombarded our children with commercials disguised as programs and with endless displays of violence and sexual exploitation. We are nearly alone in the democratic world in not providing our candidates with public-service television time. Instead we make them buy it—and so money consumes and corrupts our political discourse.

Man corrupts. He is fallen and everything he touches is cursed or polluted. I feel for parents who seek opportunities to present entertaining clean shows to their children. Let me tell you, ABC Family ain’t it.

Godlessness in the Last Days

1But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. 9But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (2 Timothy 3:1-8)

And take note: those verses describe not the world, but the church.

We know these things and we trust the Lord’s word is true. Though there are predicted days of difficulty, He also made promises to the good. He will return and take us with Him. He will keep us from the hour of trial that is to come upon the whole world. He has prepared unimaginable treasures for us. He is our strength in the dark days and our source of joy amid the pollution.

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. (1 John 2:8)

—————————————–

UPDATE

My premise was that within one generation the cultural understanding and acceptance of moral/immoral behavior has been reversed. Today Al Mohler was interviewed by The Gospel Coalition on this exact topic. Here is one relevant excerpt

Albert Mohler on How to Survive a Moral Revolution

Watch the full nine-minute video to hear Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, explain how in the span of a generation an entire moral understanding was reversed, what Christian faithfulness looks like in our day, and more.

TGC: How did in the span of a generation an entire moral understanding in North America become reversed? And how did this moral revolution happen so fast?

Mohler: We’ve never experienced anything like this. . . . And the bottom line is that no part of the culture is going to be left untouched. . . . We haven’t had any moral revolution on this scale in human history. The first Christian answer is secularization. . . . This could only have happened after modernity had so shifted the worldview of most of the people in what we might would call the industrialized world. . . . That’s made all these changes inevitable.

Watch the full 9-minute interview at the link above.

Posted in bible, encouragement, love

See what love the Father has for us!

Posted on by elizabethprata

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (1 John 3:1)

The words ‘what kind’ in the Greek indicate an otherworldly or supernatural love. It is a kind of love that the Holy Trinity has for His children but one that we do not understand fully…because it comes from another place than from men, or on earth. It’s astounding to think of this love! It is so deep and so perfect. It’s abstract because it comes from the fountain of the Father’s heart but it is real because He demonstrates it-

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Warren Wiersbe explains that in the 1 John 3:1 verse and onward, John gives us three reasons for a holy life.

God the Father Loves Us (1 John 3:1–3)

God’s love for us is unique. First John 3:1 may be translated, “Behold, what peculiar, out-of-this-world kind of love the Father has bestowed on us.” While we were His enemies God loved us and sent His Son to die for us!

The whole wonderful plan of salvation begins with the love of God.

Many translators add a phrase to 1 John 3:1: “That we should be called the sons of God, and we are.” “Sons of God” is not simply a high-sounding name that we bear; it is a reality! We are God’s children! We do not expect the world to understand this thrilling relationship, because it does not even understand God. Only a person who knows God through Christ can fully appreciate what it means to be called a child of God.

First John 3:1 tells us what we are and 1 John 3:2 tells us what we shall be. The reference here, of course, is to the time of Christ’s coming for His church. This was mentioned in 1 John 2:28 as an incentive for holy living, and now it is repeated.

God’s love for us does not stop with the new birth. It continues throughout our lives and takes us right up to the return of Jesus Christ! When our Lord appears, all true believers will see Him and will become like Him (Phil. 3:20–21). This means, of course, that they will have new, glorified bodies, suited to heaven.

But the apostle does not stop here! He has told us what we are and what we shall be. Now, in 1 John 3:3, he tells us what we should be. In view of the return of Jesus Christ, we should keep our lives clean.

All this is to remind us of the Father’s love. Because the Father loved us and sent His Son to die for us, we are children of God. Because God loves us, He wants us to live with Him one day. Salvation, from start to finish, is an expression of the love of God. We are saved by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8–9; Titus 2:11–15), but the provision for our salvation was originated in the love of God. And since we have experienced the love of the Father, we have no desire to live in sin.

(Source: Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 2, p. 504). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)

This heavenly love is given to us that we are children of God. This God, this holy and loving and just and perfect Father, revealed Himself to us in His word. His word is where we learn more about Him, His love, His plan for us.

His word is edifying and instructive and all sufficient. (2 Timothy 3:16). It pierces, transforms, convicts. I read Dr Albert Mohler’s comment yesterday when he put up this link to Dr John Piper’s video regarding the importance of reading the Bible:

Albert Mohler ‏@albertmohler 20h20 hours ago

My heart was really moved by this new video from @JohnPiper — “God Wrote a Book.” Please see it and share it. http://ow.ly/O366H

I did view it and I did share it. I encourage you to watch, it is 5 minutes.

The love the Father has for us brings peace and gratitude. It is a refreshing and wonderful feeling, knowing by His grace I am a child of God. What further joys await when I am lifted to His holy habitation to see Him as He is. That is where the 1 John 3 verse goes, it says in vv. 2-3,

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Pure. Brothers and Sisters, we will see Him as He is. Read John 17 if you want to fall on your face in gratitude in being a recipient of this great love the Father and the Son have for each other and which  Jesus opened that circle to include us within it. We are secure in the bosom of the holy and loving Trinity, and someday, we shall see Him as He is.

GOD WROTE A BOOK by Dr John Piper
https://player.vimeo.com/video/130148742

Posted in bible study, life, summer

Switching to summer mode

Posted on by elizabethprata

I am a 54-year-old kindergarten special education teacher’s aide. School with the kids let out a week ago, and teachers and staff finished Friday. That means this is the first official summer day for me, being the first week-day I am not headed to school for a 7:15am starting bell.

I don’t like to write a lot about myself, but occasionally I believe it’s warranted. People need to get a context of who I am and what I am about so they can assess credibility. There are many Christian bloggers who aren’t members of a local congregation, or who don’t believe in real life ministries, don’t perform a service, don’t submit to oversight of pastors or elders, or who don’t read the Bible. I am not one of those.

The Lord made it clear to me that I am not to be married. It is also clear that He gave me a delight in and a talent for teaching children. I was formerly a certified teacher but stopped some years ago to do other things like travel and become editor of a weekly newspaper. When I moved from Maine to Georgia, I returned to education once again but as a vastly different person. This time I came to education as a single, born-again, elder woman whom the Lord wants to use for His glory both at school and out of school. He designed my life so that I can be fulfilled in working with children in a not-too-stressful job, use it as a ministry both to kids and colleagues, but also to have lots of time off to write blog essays, based on the available time He has blessed me with.

So when the school vacations and summer rolls around, I am aware that I have a duty to redeem the time He has afforded me and to use the talents He has given me as a spiritual retreat and opportunity to dig into His word in a way I would not if I had a more stressful job, or a husband & family.

So I do. I’m filled with gratitude at the life He has given me and want all the more to glorify His name in all I think, say, and do.

However I am fleshly and given large quantities of time I can easily sink into laziness and simply end up watching endless episodes of “Sea Patrol” and reading easy novels in between naps.

In order to stay diligent and productive, I make a schedule. This is my day.

When I awake I am pretty refreshed and I after making coffee I sit down and begin study immediately. I pray through my prayer list. I then study.

I begin with reading the Bible. I recently finished 1 Corinthians so I sought advice from my teaching-pastor as to next steps. The past two summers he has given me a project to do and these have proved helpful in giving me summer structure. He suggested I read Galatians-Ephesians-Philippians-Colossians. He suggested I compare and contrast, and also look for the similarities in each books’ use of presenting the indicative before the imperatives.

I love my Logos 6 software so I plugged in the four books into the software and generated a reading plan that would take 50 days to complete.

I am blessed with having lots of study aids, which I’ll get to in a minute, but I believe that the best approach is two-fold: first prayer, then study the actual Bible. I read it directly.

After I read the designated chapters and have prayed in thanks, then I move to some study aids. Whatever the Spirit has pricked in me is what I go forward with next. Was I interested in looking at a map or atlas to see where Galatia is? Is there an archaeological dig with recent discoveries I can learn from? Did I get hung up on a word and need to do a Greek or Hebrew word study? Was there an animal or plant mentioned I’d like to follow upon? Is there a doctrine I would benefit by comparing to others in the NT? Is there a person mentioned I can learn more about by studying their biography? What does the Commentary say?

After the discipline of reading with prayerful attention, then I let loose my mind and see where the Spirit will take me. In the past, this combination has worked well for me. I believe this is one of the ways, with me anyway, He knits together a wider perspective and a greater understanding. I first put in the work to read His word, and it’s not always easy, then He takes a seed and blows it and I follow. He directs my steps. Almost always, after reading the Bible I will look at my MacArthur commentary and usually the Matthew Henry Commentary to flesh out ideas.

Quite often this is when I receive an idea for a blog essay. Not always, but usually something from my morning reading will spark me into a direction, or will dock with another idea I’d had previously and I’ll follow up on it and write. I put the idea down in draft and then I make breakfast and get dressed.

I don’t like to hang around in my PJs all day. I think it’s important to be dressed early just as if I was headed for work, albeit a few hours later 😉

I’ll write. This takes me hours. For the better part of the next four or five hours I’ll write a blog essay on and off, combined with study, cleaning up the kitchen, looking at Twitter or other people’s blogs and listening to sermons or other Christian-oriented audio while I putter.

For the record, I can heartily recommend the following Bible teachers as trustworthy expositors:

John MacArthur
Phil Johnson
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
S. Lewis Johnson

and also
Alistair Begg, Sinclair Ferguson, Adrian Rogers. I also enjoy Voddie Baucham and RC Sproul but not on the eschatological texts.

Yes here’s the ubiquitous study photo. Bible, commentary, notebook, theological book
I’m currently reading, coffee, laptop with Logos 6,
and tissues because studying the Word is so moving

In the afternoon I slow down and around 3:30 or 4:00, about the time I’d be coming home from school, I’ll switch to personal stuff. Then and only then do I watch Netflix or Hulu. I might read a novel. I listen to sermons while I craft at the kitchen table. I play with my photographs in post-processing software, I’ll cook, go outside and take photos in the softening light. I answer emails.

Mixed in with these usual days are real-life discipling opportunities I do with people once per week, and church twice per week. It’s important to stay connected with a local congregation. Virtual ministry doesn’t substitute for real life ministry. I also go out once per week to get groceries. I try not to use the car much because summer is a time I can save on fuel consumption as one of the only discretionary utility bills I have control over. The less I browse and shop the less I crave and covet, so I restrict my shopping to groceries and try to stay away from Amazon, too, lol, though I LOVE to buy books. Pay for a teacher aide in Georgia is not too high but the Lord provides me with all I need to survive and thrive. I value time more than money. I really do have everything I need here in this little apartment that during the summer I call The Hermitage.

So that’s it. I am a writer/blogger who studies the Word and I really am a member of a Baptist church and I really do serve in real life ministries, as well as all the stuff I do online.

I thank each and every one of you. So many of you have written to me to encourage me or provide oversight or offer sympathy or ask great questions. I love you my brethren, and I’m grateful not just for the time here to write and study but I’m humbled by and grateful to you, real people who bless me with your comments and questions. You keep me continually realizing that our faith constitutes a kingdom of people from all over the world! Because of you I don’t get myopic or depressed at the state of things. I’m encouraged by you and energized by you, the thriving Kingdom of people whom Jesus loves and the Spirit indwells and God in His timing will glorify. Just imagine the Day when we all meet each other in the air!

Let me not forget to mention Study Aid #1: Bert

Study Aid #2: Luke. He’s saying, “Hey it’s my turn!”

Not to be outdone, Murray is on scene below, Study Aid #3

Posted in Uncategorized

Repost from the archives, June 2009- A Christian’s fallout shelter

Posted on by elizabethprata

Man has always sought peace and security. In ancient times the safest place to live was in a walled fortress castle or town. Then Henry perfected use of the trebuchet and that was that.

Man tried to use natural geo-forms to protect themselves, the most extreme being the residents of San Marino. Situated in the Apennine Mountains, it is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy. They were never defeated, but they never went anywhere, either. They are best known for making tiny postage stamps and being really good with a bow and arrow.

Then man made nuclear weapons, and thought that deterrence would be the peaceful way to security. Or the secure way to peace. The 1960s were rife with nuclear drills and fallout shelters. This was the time in which I grew up. The Soviet threat was real and kids understood that the specter of nuclear war as a present reality. We just expected that someone, somewhere, was going to nuke someone. Fallout shelters were De rigueur. A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. They made it seem that living in a fallout shelter was a picnic wrapped in a camping trip. Pop culture promoted this thought (Fallout handbooks saying “How You Can Survive a Nuclear War”). The Twilight Zone weighed in with a rare dose of reality with The Shelter. Watch it, the 25 minutes is worthwhile.

The Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t help the mindset, either. Then the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Republics split apart and nuclear was was passe.

Now after twenty years, there is another missile threat, this time, from North Korea. And for the first time ever, even from the bad old fifties and sixties, the headlines touting imminent nuclear bombings are appearing, and plentifully too.

  • N Korea defends nuclear programme
  • War book reveals how Britain planned to cope with nuclear attack
  • Serbs send nuclear fuel to Russia, citing security
  • Upheaval in Iran Doesn’t Change Nuclear Calculus
  • Iran Nuclear Nightmare
  • Al Qaeda & Pakistan’s Nukes: Apocalypse Soon?

Even the staid London Telegraph published a weird comic strip called Operation Blackjack, with no context, rhyme or reason, depicting nuclear conflagration and a new world order. With all the new talk of nuclear war, peace, and security, there is an attendant rise in interest in the topic of fallout shelters. The chart on Google trends shows a 20-fold increase in the topic in 2006 over 2005 and 2006, and that interest has maintained in 2009.

People have always and vainly tried to protect themselves from the elements, from war, from aggressive neighbors. It has never worked, and living in a fallout shelter won’t work either.

“While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3

You know what will work? Jesus. There is safety in Jesus. Not in never having to deal with a tragedy or never having your personal safety compromised. Both are likely to happen to you in living a life here on sinful earth. But living under the arms of Jesus means eternal security. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 91

“The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the LORD shall be safe.”Proverbs 29:25

“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For Yah, the Lord, is my strength and song; He also has become my salvation.’ ” Isaiah 12:2

There are so many more scriptures where God gives us His blessed assurance that whatever fallout we may be experiencing in our lives, He is with us through emotional, physical, nuclear, psychological, any fallout whatsoever. He is with us and gives us His strength and safety in His promises. As for me, I’ll take the Savior’s safety any day, over concrete bunker and stocked up peas and stale bottled water. You can have that safety as well! Perfect peace, that no matter what comes, and it is coming, you can feel free from fear and lay in the cleft of the rock under His care. Here’s how.

Posted in discernment, jesus, spiritual gifts, tongues

Be children in mischief, adults in righteousness

Posted on by elizabethprata

Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. (1 Corinthians 14:20)

Childlishly enthused with his new toy,
Opie killed the mama bird, leaving 3 orphans

Here, Paul is admonishing the Corinthians for over-valuing tongues (glossolalia). The church was entranced by the ‘show’ of tongues and interpretation of tongues.They had become unduly entranced by this next ‘shiny new thing’ (kind of like a mega-pastor with a fog machine or a boy with a new slingshot).

Pulpit Commentary says-

The Christian should always be childlike (Matthew 11:25; Matthew 19:4), but never childish (1 Corinthians 13:11; Ephesians 4:14).

Good advice. To often in this day and age, pastors leave one fad to leap on the next so as to appear relevant. Surfing from Jabez Rugs to Daniel Fasts, Courageous Resolutions to Love Dares, Promise Keepers to Beth Moore bracelets, Be Still to Labyrinths, Seeker Sensitive to Emergent, tongues to healings, it often leaves out the most important: JESUS. Pastor Phil Johnson speaks harshly about the Flaws of a Fad Driven Church. A Charismatic fascination with tongues had swerved the Corinthian Church from its underpinnings and caused all sorts of divisive issues.

Going further, Gill’s Exposition says,

The apostle here has chiefly reference to the gift of speaking with tongues, these Corinthians were so desirous of; which when they had it, was only to talk like children; and for them to prefer it to other gifts, which were more useful and beneficial, discovered their judgment to be but the judgment of children; and if they desired this, and made use of it for ostentation, it showed a childish vanity, from which the apostle here dissuades.

Matthew Henry says –

Children are apt to be struck with novelty and strange appearances. They are taken with an outward show, without enquiring into the true nature and worth of things. Do not you act like them, and prefer noise and show to worth and substance; show a greater ripeness of judgment, and act a more manly part; be like children in nothing but an innocent and inoffensive disposition. A double rebuke is couched in this passage, both of their pride upon account of their gifts, and their arrogance and haughtiness towards each other, and the contests and quarrels proceeding from them.

Note, Christians should be harmless and inoffensive as children, void of all guile and malice; but should have wisdom and knowledge that are ripe and mature. They should not be unskilful in the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13), though they should be unskilful in all the arts of mischief.

In today’s cluttered world, there are many things that compete for attention. In the Church it is the same. Fads, things that seem good or even biblical, are simply stumbling blocks. It’s hard to understand how a Spiritual Gift could be one of those stumbling blocks, but this simply proves that satan can make hay out of anything. He made a piece of fruit Eve saw every day look so good that Eve was drooling over it and with her husband caused the downfall of man! Disobedience can come anywhere at anytime.

The childish mischief is complicated but the solution is simple. Jesus. Stay in your word, stay praying, stay streamlined in your quiet time. Strip away the clutter, lay aside every weight, focus on the Holy One.

Posted in encouragement

When Simeon is not Simeon

Posted on by elizabethprata

Last night I was reading Acts 15. The Jerusalem Council is meeting. Why? At issue, how people are saved. The Judaizers had been going around telling people “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 15:1b). This has upset many and there was no small amount of dissension. (Acts 15:2)

This is a critical issue, because getting the answer wrong damns men’s souls. So Barnabas and Paul were sent up to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James and others. Peter spoke first, then James. James said,

Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name (Acts 15:14)

Simeon? The same Simeon who prophesied in the temple when the Babe arrived with Mary and Joseph? I like that scene, I ponder it a lot. Simeon and Anna in the temple that Luke told us about (Luke 2)… Wouldn’t it be sweet to think that Simeon had waited for the Consolation of Israel, was blessed with a glimpse of the God in Flesh, and then continued to proclaim for a bit afterwards.

But no, alas, it is not that Simeon from Luke 2 mentioned in the verse from Acts.

Gill’s Exposition says,

Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles,…. James begins with taking notice of Peter’s speech, and agrees to it, and confirms it; for by Simeon is not meant, as some have thought, the Simeon that took Christ in his arms, Luke 2:25 who had been dead long ago; but Simon Peter, who had spoken before. Simon and Simeon are one and the same name; the former is only a contraction of the latter in the Syriac language; Simeon was his pure Hebrew name, and James speaking to an assembly of Hebrews, uses it.

I still love those small moments, of import but a one-shot nonetheless, where the Spirit reveals something like Simeon, this intriguing man in the temple of whom the Spirit speaks most tenderly but of which we know little. Or do we? Calvin says:

As to his condition in life we are not informed: he may have been a person of humble rank and of no reputation. Though Simeon had no distinction of public office, he was adorned with eminent gifts, — with piety, with a blameless life, with faith and prophecy. … Luke bestows on him the commendation of being just and devout; and adds, that he had the gift of prophecy: for the Holy Spirit was upon him. Devotion and Righteousness related to the two tables of the law, and are the two parts of which an upright life consists. It was a proof of his being a devout man, that he waited for the consolation of Israel: for no true worship of God can exist without the hope of salvation, which depends on the faith of his promises, and particularly on the restoration promised through Christ. …

Now, since an expectation of this sort is commended in Simeon as an uncommon attainment, we may conclude, that there were few in that age, who actually cherished in their hearts the hope of redemption. All had on their lips the name of the Messiah, and of prosperity under the reign of David: but hardly any one was to be found, who patiently endured present afflictions, relying on the consolatory assurance, that the redemption of the Church was at hand. As the eminence of Simeon’s piety was manifested by its supporting his mind in the hope of the promised salvation, so those who wish to prove themselves the children of God, will breathe out unceasing prayers for the promised redemption. For we, “have need of patience” (Hebrews 10:36) till the last coming of Christ.

… Simeon appears to denote expressly the bodily appearance of Christ, as if he had said, that he now has the Son of God present in the flesh, on whom the eyes of his mind had been previously fixed.

Leave it to Calvin to deduce and elicit so much from that small moment in scripture. There was a lot more, too, of course. Though I enjoy the Spirit’s sprinkling of these good and faithful people thru the Bible who pop up and then disappear from scripture, (Pilate’s Wife, anyone?) and I always want to know more, He has given us just enough in order to be edified, hasn’t He.

Prayer:

Lord, help me take the example of Simeon, always fixing the eyes of my mind on You in hopes of the promise of future consolation of seeing You in the flesh at the rapture. Lord, help me take the example of Simeon/Simon/Peter, always contending for purity of faith so men’s souls will hear the Gospel truly.

Posted in comfort, death, Father, hell, john b. prata, rejection

"My failure to provide for my children is intentional" & My father’s ashes

Posted on by elizabethprata

I received an email stating that “sometime next week,” they were going to spread my father’s ashes. If I wanted to go, my aunt, my dad’s new wife, and my brother were probably going to be there.

I sent back a reply, saying I had no plans to attend, but out of curiosity since my dad owned two residences, was the ash-spreading going to be in FL or RI? I got a reply, “RI, off Beavertail.”

Beavertail is a lovely promontory with a lighthouse overlooking the Bay and was a favorite place my father liked to go. The family would take Sunday drives and would often end up there, the salty wind whipping, the whitecaps on the bay foaming, picnics on the hill, searching for periwinkles in the tidal pool.

http://www.Jamestown-ri.info

It makes sense that they’d want to spread his ashes there. It will make for a poignant send off, and all three of those people who will probably be there will in all likelihood feel saddened and melancholy and perhaps smile wistfully at some memories. None of them are saved by grace of Jesus so none of them know the truth.

I do.

My father never repented of his sins and right now is in hell, paying for them. It is where he will be forever. There is nothing one can say at any kind of a trumped up ceremony, ashes flying in the wind over the sea. I will not be present when his ashes are scattered, but I will be present when his ashes are re-gathered and he stands before the judgment seat.

And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. (Revelation 20:13)

Knowing this, it is a hard thing, but I trust my Lord and it is a just thing. There but for the grace of God go I. John Prata’s legacy is a sad one. His heart is expressed in the form below. His Trust reads thus:

The legacy of a hard and bitter man, angry and proud, is an eternal one that he will have to bear for all of eternity. It will be an agony.

It is a hard thing for a daughter, who still hoped against hope that somehow, she could make her daddy proud. That he cared. That somehow underneath it all, a dad really loved his children. That never mind the inheritance, somehow there would be a final letter, an acknowledgement, a word, saying, “It was all a mistake, I loved you after all.” How can it be, that a father can coldly ignore his children while he is alive, then go to legal lengths to prove his rejection wasn’t a mistake? Isn’t blood supposed to be thicker than water? Triumph in the end? No, blood is only as thick as the sin that runs through it.

His rejection is being turned back upon himself at this very moment. He is learning the sin of exasperating and rejecting his children. (Ephesians 6:4). He is learning the cost of rejecting Jesus. (John 3:36). And he’ll soon learn the finality of Jesus’ rejection of him. (Revelation 20:15).

My sadness over my father is going to be short, not eternal like his. When I die, my inheritance will be manifold. My Father will never leave me or abandon me. I am provided for. The emotionality of wounds on this side are softened by knowing that I have a spiritual joy to look forward to of a real Father who provides and loves and cares and does not forsake His children. My sadness now will be wiped away by my real Father then. The contrast is stark.

–The legacy of an angry and bitter father who split his family and reveled in wounding and rejecting.
–The legacy of a compassionate and holy Father who gathers His family and revels in restoring and reconciling.

–The legacy of a proud and greedy father who held on to money more than love but now has neither- forever.
–The legacy of a generous and benevolent Father who delights in giving as one of many expressions of His unconditional love.

If my father sought to permanently hurt or wound by that final pen stroke on 15 September 2009, he is sadly mistaken. My real Father promises:

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.” Isaiah 65:17

I will be so consumed with the joys of the New Heavens and New Earth and being with Jesus that my mind will have no room to be wounded over the petty pen strokes of a man who for 50 short years was named a “father” to me, a relationship that will soon not even have any meaning, (Psalm 27:10) a person whom the Lord in His grace will allow me to forget.

Yet though his life was long, his memory will be longer, eternally long.

“Are there not many here that have lived long in the world, that are not to this day born again, and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh sirs, your case in an especial manner is extremely dangerous; your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Don’t you see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God’s mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and wake thoroughly out of sleep; you cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God.” (Jonathan Edwards)

When my father woke, it was not to mercy but to wrath, it is too late for him.

No, I have the better part, the much better part. Peace with Jesus, an infinitely long communion with Him, and good and serviceable tasks to perform for Him, worship of Him, in short, enjoying Him forever. There IS a blood that is thicker than water, thicker than anything on earth or heaven. It is the blood of Jesus. This blood covers sin, sustains us as a family, keeps us in His fold.

This is much more pleasing to the Lord than the stained and angry soul that descends to the pit, with the daughter looking down and mourning that final rejection.

source
Posted in encouragement, end of all things, Father, God, jesus, love, Trinity

At the end of all things, love

Posted on by elizabethprata

Nestled in the middle of the next-to-last chapter in the first letter to the Corinthians, we find the consummation of all things.

But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. 28When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:23-28)

The Spirit in me was moved by this passage and it moved me. I cannot explain it, but you know the feeling you get when your indwelling Spirit is moved by the outdwelling inspired Spirit, and the grand picture that comes to mind cannot be expressed but only tears can approach the grandeur of the moment you’re reading about.

The scene where Jesus bows to the Father and gives the Kingdom back to Him…redeemed, purified, holy, beautiful…all that Jesus has fought for, died for, rose again for, bloodied His garments for, He now bows in Divine Love and presents it to God…it is utterly astonishing in its holy love that exceeds our capacity to understand. Yet we will be spectators to it. Even more than spectators to this coming act of Divine love and submission, we ARE the kingdom that will be presented to God. Do you ever just fall over thinking of the wonder that we worms have been elected, justified, redeemed, glorified, and will be the gift of love given back to our Father?

Sometimes I get thinking of my own self, my sanctification, my sins, my repentance, that I forget it is not about me. The inter-trinitarian love of our God-head is eternal and ongoing. The struggles of Jesus on the cross, the grief the Spirit sometimes feels in us, the anger of the Father, all this is ongoing and this is what it really is all about- God’s plan, God’s redeemed, God’s desire. This wondrous plan started before the world began. But it is recorded in the first moments of history in Genesis 1:26 so that we may know.

John MacArthur on the Corinthians verses:

This is such a powerful, powerful statement. What it says is this, when the Son has received the redemption, when the Son has received His redeemed humanity, if you will, His bride, when all enemies are destroyed and He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, sovereign of the universe, when everything is under Him, except God Himself, He will then take the Kingdom, all that the Father has given to Him, and He will give it back to the Father in a reciprocal act of divine love that God may be all in all. Here in a wonderful inter-Trinitarian way beyond our comprehension, the Father who ordained redemptive history to gather a bride for His Son, a Kingdom for His Son, when the Son receives that Kingdom which is a gift of the Father’s love, in a reciprocating act of love, the Son hands the Kingdom back to the Father. The grandeur of this crowning event can hardly be fathomed.

Sometimes we think about salvation in very personal terms. But it’s better for us to think about salvation in these vast and almost incomprehensible terms, that salvation while you’re involved in it by the grace of God, it’s really not about you, it’s about the infinite love, the limitless love of the Father for the Son and wanting to give to the Son a gift of His love which is a redeemed humanity that will love Him and adore Him and worship Him and praise Him and serve Him forever. And the Son recognizing that all the redeemed are gifts from the Father, even says, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me.” The Son when He receives them all, gives them back to the Father. Everything is restored to God that He may be all in all. The Son has come as a servant of God into the world to take back to God souls redeemed. He has conquered death, He has by His own resurrection provided a full resurrection for all who believe. And when all are gathered into His arms, as it were, He will take them all and present them to the Father and will Himself subject His own life to the Father.

Our God is three-in-one, something we know but don’t understand. One God but three Persons, each with a distinct personality and tasks but in complete harmony with one another because He is one.

What a privilege it will be when we see Jesus present the Kingdom to the Father. It is an inexpressibly beautiful moment of joy, exquisite in holiness, perfect in love. The culmination of the moment we read about in 1 Corinthians is described aptly above by MacArthur as “inter-Trinitarian love” is also described by him in Genesis 1 as the deliberations of the “divine executive council”. The goal to redeem the earth was set from time immemorial, but we are privileged to read about it in Genesis 1:26.

He says, “Let us make man in our image.” God is one god and yet He is three persons as we know. What you have here then is the council of the Trinity engaged in the purpose of creating man and now the time is right.

I have to stop at this point. I wouldn’t be faithful to the intent of Scripture if I didn’t do this. Through the years, I have tried to show you that God had a divine purpose before the world began and that that divine purpose was to take a bride, as it were, for His Son. That God the Father desired to give to His Son an expression of love in a bride that would be a redeemed humanity to be given to His Son to love and adore and praise and glorify His Son forever and ever and ever and also to serve Him. That eternal purpose of God unfolded within the executive council that is God within the Trinity. (source)

The Godhead’s love for one another within the Trinity is eternal and had been ongoing since before that moment of human consciousness was created and awakened in Genesis 1. But aren’t we blessed to be able to watch this amazing love demonstrated in the gift-giving of the Kingdom at time’s end.  We will be there. We ARE the gift.

Whenever you’re feeling small, or marginalized, or persecuted or woeful, just think of the grandeur in which we will be allowed to participate at the conclusion of the monumental plan of God, to watch our Jesus bow and say, “Father, the Kingdom is Yours.”