sin – Page 8

What does a seared conscience look like? America

Posted on March 18, 2019March 18, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Eight years ago, Naomi Wolf wrote an article for CNN asking the question, CNN-is porn driving men crazy?

It is hard to ignore how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways. Some powerful men have long been sexually voracious; unlike today, though, they were far more discreet and generally used much better judgment in order to cover their tracks.Of course, the heightened technological ability nowadays to expose private behavior is part of the reason for this change. But that is precisely the point: so many of the men caught up in sex-tinged scandals of late have exposed themselves – sometimes literally – through their own willing embrace of text messages, Twitter, and other indiscreet media.What is driving this weirdly disinhibited decision-making? Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men’s judgment about sex and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses? … The hypothesis among the experts was that pornography was progressively desensitizing these men sexually.

She asks a good question, especially in light of the fact that the past 8 years has seen a precipitous plunge into depravity at a speed one would not have guessed. Same-sex-marriage, trans-gender, the advent of ‘non-binary’, even many Christian pastors unveiled as plumbing the depths of all kinds of sexual sin.

Wolf offers a different possible answer to it than I would. I say it is the fallen-ness of our sinful world and the fact that satan inhabits it, provoking our own sin-nature He is actually the god of this world and operates within it through the boundaries that God sets. On the other hand, Wolf could be unknowingly exactly right when she speaks of ‘desensitizing’, because Paul spoke of some people who, “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;”

The full verse from 1 Timothy 4:1 is: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron“. The Matthew Henry commentary on this verse explains,

It is done by their hypocrisy, professing honor to Christ, and yet at the same time fighting against all his anointed offices, and corrupting or profaning all his ordinances. This respects also the hypocrisy of those who have their consciences seared with a red-hot iron, who are perfectly lost to the very first principles of virtue and moral honesty.

We get desensitized to sin. The ‘desensitization’ Wolf noticed is the seared conscience of a sin-scarred soul. Once engaging in it, unless we repent and confess immediately, presenting ourselves for a spiritual bath by the Holy Spirit, we remain unclean in that little spot, and we get used to the unclean feeling. We decide that it wasn’t really so bad, and we do it again. And again. Until we’re so strewn with scar tissue from the searing of our consciences, we become inured to the effects of sin and never even feel its pricks any more. And before long we have men exposing themselves publicly in ridiculous ways that they have convinced themselves are fun because they have lost any ability to feel shame.

God told Jeremiah to tell the Israelites:

Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush. So they will fall among the fallen; they will be brought down when they are punished,says the LORD. (Jeremiah 8:12).

God spoke that to Jeremiah for His people at the end of a long list of sins they were committing, which also included deceit, straying from the ways of God, listening to false prophets who say all is well, being greedy, and rejecting God. He punished them. Will He do less with us here in America? Surely not!

Edward Gibbon wrote the book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. He spent twenty years researching it. Through his research Gibbon realized that all great nations, Rome included, have fallen for the same reasons. Those reasons can be boiled down to just five, usually occurring in sequence-

1. The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.
2. Higher and higher taxes; the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.
3. The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral.
4. The building of great armaments when the great enemy was within; the decay of individual responsibility.
5. The decay of religion, fading into a mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people.

So is there any good news?

Though there is much to be mournful about, there is also much to be joyful about! Each day we are not raptured is a day closer to when it happens. Each day we are on earth is a day we can obey the Lord, celebrate the Lord, proclaim the Lord, and do the work of the Lord. Each day that passes is another day in which the Holy Spirit regenerates us more into His likeness. Each day that passes is a day we can thank Him for the many, many blessings we receive from Him, beginning with salvation. And each day that passes and our country and the world dies a bit more, we know that it is one day closer to when our new home will be ready to receive us. We celebrate worship, His glowing church, and His sovereignty.

Take heart, as Jesus promised Simon,

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:17).

What rock is Jesus talking of? Peter’s confession! He knew, as we do, that Jesus is the Christ, (the Rock), the Son of the living God. And nothing thwarts the Living God’s plans and decrees.

We can work hard in obedience and repentance and prayer, not to spark a seared conscience in ourselves. We can be strong and bright lights for His name. We can anticipate the day of our homecoming, whether by death or rapture.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. (John 13:4).

Keep praying, keep confessing, keep loving, even though it gets hard sometimes. Keep thinking of the lovely things. “”Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)”

And one day when we least expect, we will suddenly be clothed in new flesh, glorified and able to see Him as He is!

unspeakable glory

theology

About “Aunt Becky”: The fragility of reputation and the devastating consequences of sin

Posted on March 16, 2019March 16, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

aunt becky — Lori Loughlin as character Aunt Becky. Source

The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his own sin entangle him. (Proverbs 5:22)

Yesterday I’d written a few thoughts on the massive college admission cheating scandal uncovered in in the US. You can read that essay here.

One of the people indicted in the scandal is actress Lori Loughlin. Loughlin has been an actress for many years, appearing in television shows such as Full House and its reboot, Fuller House, (as ‘Aunt Becky’), Hallmark TV series such as When Calls the Heart and Hallmark movie series Garage Sale Mysteries, Hallmark’s Christmas films, and family movies such as Moondance Alexander.

Lori Loughlin has built her career on ‘wholesomeness’. Some actors always play the ‘tough guy’. Clint Eastwood comes to mind. Others have built a career on playing the goofy sidekick, or the strong silent type. Steve Buscemi is typecast as a smarmy weirdo, Samuel L. Jackson is typecast as hard-core fierce. Others, such as Loughlin, were blessed with the ability to pick and choose, and Loughlin consistently chose roles depicting her as “wholesome” and “heartwarming”.

The Hallmark Channel brings to mind holidays, happy endings and now, incongruously, a college admissions scam that involves one of the channel’s favored actresses. Lori Loughlin’s surprising arrest this week poses a challenge for the family-friendly brand with heartland roots. The allegation that Loughlin paid bribes to gain her daughters’ college admissions is unconnected to Hallmark, but her career and the channel have become intertwined, [as the article explains].

Though Loughlin played wholesome characters for most of her acting life, we know from both the Bible and from experience that an actor’s life is often very different than their carefully crafted camera persona. When “wholesome, family-friendly actress” meets alleged “cheating bribery fraudster” it’s a clash that wounds. The wider the gap between inner and outer man, the worse the fall.

“[Hallmark’s] a feel-good, family values-type channel, and obviously scandal is the opposite of that,” said Atlanta-based market strategist Laura Ries. “Will people get past that to love the character on screen and not the real person?” (source again).

It did not take long for Hallmark to drop Loughlin. I really like Loughlin in Garage Sale Mystery. Last week I was looking at Internet Movie Database for the release dates of the Garage Sale Mystery movies I knew were in development, and if I remember right, there were 4 of them in production or post-production. I’d give you a screen shot, but the IMDb actress page for Loughlin has been quickly changed to reflect Hallmark’s decision to fire Loughlin, and those movies have been deleted from the list.

Loughlin has also been dropped from Hallmark’s Christmas movies and Netflix’s comedy Fuller House. Loughlin reportedly will not appear in the last season of Fuller House, as of this writing. Her appearance as Abigail Stanton in When Calls the Heart has also been pulled.

All this in one week. Hallmark’s statement:

We are no longer working with Lori Loughlin and have stopped development of all productions that air on the Crown Media Family Network channels involving Lori Loughlin including Garage Sale Mysteries, an independent third party production.

When Calls The Heart statement:

The series will not air this Sunday March 17 while we are evaluating all creative options around the When Calls the Heart series. #Hearties please keep checking back to our social for all updates related to the beloved When Calls The Heart. (Statement here.)

Loughlin’s alleged corruption and involvement in fraud and bribery immediately destroys the fragile bubble she has built. She has squandered all her “reputation capital”. Hallmark, “As the country’s leading destination for quality family entertainment,” stated in their ‘About Us’, trades on wholesomeness, too, & does not want to be tainted by Loughlin’s taint. Hence, Lori is dropped like a hot potato.

Simply put, The Situation Between Lori Loughlin, Netflix & Hallmark Is A Mess.

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Lori Loughlin describes herself as a Catholic, which we know means if she believes the dogmas of Rome, she is not saved. Her inner man is not being daily sanctified to reflect the face of Jesus.

They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. (Ephesians 4:1).

The unregenerate inner man can only fake it for so long. One’s sin will always find you out.

But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. (Numbers 32:23).

Sin is hard enough to master with the aid of the Holy Spirit, it’s a daily battle. Without the Spirit, one has zero chance of reforming one’s desires for very long.

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you refuse to do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires you, but you must master it. (Genesis 4:7).

Reputation and trust are fragile things. In Christendom, when someone we look up to like a pastor or leader falls ‘below reproach,’ that trust is broken and he can never lead or shepherd again. Sin happens among Christ’s people, of course. We’ve seen the fall of Art Azurdia, (adultery), RC Sproul Jr, (adultery, and also drinking), Tom Chantry, (child assault) and Mark Driscoll, (financial malfeasance, sexist comments, bullying, more…). However, the forgiving Jesus will forgive the sin but He does not forget that the line was crossed. They forfeit their role forever.

For us Christians, it’s doubly important to daily call upon the Spirit in us to continue mortifying sin. We have to be active and focused on putting off that old man-

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, (Ephesians 4:22).

Undealt-with sin will cause a Christian to ‘fall.’ (Though we can never again be lost; John 10:28). Our fall is worse than an actress’s wasted reputation, because it’s the reputation of Jesus that we besmirch. We’re ambassadors of His name and character. We are trophies of His grace.

In the secular world, celebrities and actors whose reputations were shattered overnight include Mel Gibson, Paula Deen, Martha Stewart, Miley Cyrus. Sometimes the brotherhood of sinners will eventually forget and forgive. Sometimes not. Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s acting career never recovered from his 1920s scandal. It does not look like Roseanne will recover from her racist tweet. Matthew McConaghey’s reputation failed, started to come back, failed again.

Time will tell of Loughlin’s reputation. However, one must ask, was it worth it? The half a million she allegedly spent on her daughter’s bribe, plus the $1M she spent on bail, plus the $1M her husband spent on bail… all for naught, as apparently their daughter Olivia Jade “didn’t know how much time she was going to spend in class” because she “doesn’t really care about college, as you guys know.”

I am personally disappointed, because I like Lori Loughlin’s work. I’m sad that her sin not only crouched at the door but entered and eventually opened the door wide for all of us to see the seaminess of her heart and mind. I’m disappointed, but not surprised. Sin is what sinners do. I think of the earnest college kids and their honest parents whose way was perverted by allegedly unscrupulous people like Loughlin and the others who were indicted.

The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice. (Proverbs 17:23).

But it did not stay a secret.

Woe to those who bribe. God said that bribery engenders His wrath. (Proverbs 21:14). My prayer is that though she claims to love God (as a Catholic), this event that’s shattered her reputation and career will cause her to do some introspection and hopefully, repentantly, call upon Jesus as her savior.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 5:10).

Only Jesus ever satisfies. All else is vanity.

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The devastating consequences of jealousy

Posted on March 9, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

The Bible is replete with examples of real people living real lives. Since the Bible people are real people, AKA sinners, they sin. The Bible doesn’t shy away from showing that.

In thinking over some of the more famous cases of bad acts, the brotherly jealousy/sibling rivalry issue formed in my mind. It happened a lot.

Cain, jealous over God favoring his brother Abel’s sacrifice more than his own, he slew Abel. (Genesis 4:4, 8).

Happy little Joseph awoke one day and told his brothers an amazing dream he’d had. (Genesis 37:4-5). The brothers hated Joseph because their father favored Joseph. When Joseph told the brothers his dream, one that showed how he’d rule over them one day, the brothers were jealous of him all the more. (Genesis 37:11, Acts 7:9). Then they plotted to kill him. (But God intervened and providentially saved Joseph).

David and his brothers. We read of that whole process where prophet Samuel comes to David’s father asking him to assemble all the sons. (1 Samuel 16). He is going to anoint a new king. The sons must have felt great excitement! One by one, though, they were rejected. Only after little David was brought in from the fields, too young and small to even be considered in the original lineup, were the halted proceedings resumed. In front of the father and brothers, Saul, on behalf of God, anointed David.

After that, the brothers were in the encampment awaiting the day when someone, anyone, would come forward to slay Goliath the Philistine. Errand-boy David arrived with provisions for the brothers, but was angrily mocked and scorned instead. What had David done to merit such treatment? He’d spoken up against Goliath.

And David said to the men who stood by him, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? (1 Samuel 17:26)

His brother Eliab heard and became angry. Presumably he was embarrassed. I mean, it had been 40 days of listening to Goliath taunt them and not one Israelite had stood up to fight. Not one. Certainly not Eliab. Then comes little David and he makes a bold statement immediately.

Now Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab’s anger was kindled against David, and he said, “Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.” (1 Samuel 17:28).

The jealousy between Jacob and Esau is well documented. Esau was favored by the father, Jacob by the mother. Instead of enjoying this unique relationship, mother and son plotted to get an upper hand. Esau helped by throwing away his birthright for a bowl of soup. Then Jacob tricks father and brother into gaining the blessing. Thus began a decades-long separation due to anger and rivalry.

Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:4)

Being jealous of another is a sin. And please don’t cite “God is jealous so I can be, too”. God’s jealousy is for us, not against us. His perfection makes His jealousy righteous.

God’s jealousy is always a product of his perfect, self-sufficient love (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 50:9–15; Isaiah 40:28), which provides the opportunity for him to feel deeply jealous about the people with which he has freely covenanted. Source

How to overcome this sinful emotion?

Here is an article from Desiring God about jealousy (also quoted above). Hey, Jealousy

Here is a one-minute audio from Grace To You’s ‘Portrait of Grace’ series, Overcoming Jealousy

What Does the Bible Say about Jealousy?

encouragement, theology

Habakkuk’s pain is our pain

Posted on January 25, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…(2 Timothy 3:1-4)

As you see the people all over the world wantonly killing, sinuously infiltrating societies only to choke them off, and the rest of the ungodly continuing unrighteous ways without ceasing, the righteous cry out, ‘Oh, God, why do the wicked prosper?’

Habakkuk asked the same thing. If you want a picture of a beleaguered prophet asking, and asking, why do things have to be this way, then you have Habakkuk in 620BC.

Habakkuk expresses the attitude that many righteous people have. He is outraged at the violence and injustice in his society. He lists six different problems. His list is repetitious, but it emphasizes just how bad things were. There was sin, wickedness, destruction and violence, no justice in the courts, and the wicked outnumbered the righteous. Sort of like today, eh?

Habakkuk puts his questions to God and in His grace they are answered. Habakkuk listens, is calmed, and ends with a Hymn of faith: Habakkuk 3:17-19,

Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls—
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.
The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.

God will judge all the wicked. We praise Him for that.

God will always love all His righteous (made righteous through Christ). And we praise Him for that.

He is worthy of praise. This temporary earthly time of pain and sin will end. And then…glory.

May your feet be like deer’s feet wherever you tread this week!

praise verse

encouragement, Uncategorized

Thirty Days of Jesus Redux: Day 26, Jesus’ sinlessness

Posted on December 22, 2018 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

This section of verses that show Jesus’ life are focused on His attributes & earthly ministry. We’ve seen Him as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer. We looked at His attributes of omniscience, His authority, and now His sinlessness.

thirty daysof jesus 26

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Is Temptation a Sin?

Posted on December 18, 2018December 18, 2018 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Yesterday at my personal blog I’d posted an essay explaining Why I Will Never Watch ABC’s ‘The Good Doctor’ Again.

In the November 26th episode called “Empathy” a character who had constant thoughts and sexual desires for children was featured. He hated his own desires and sought to rid himself of them, via medicines, mutilations, and therapies. He prided himself on never having acted on his desires, because he knew they were depraved. The build-up in the show, apparently, was to develop empathy for the ‘in thoughts only’ pedophile because of the extreme lengths he went to in order for him to make sure his desires remained unfulfilled.

This is called the “virtuous pedophile.” The title is an actual title, based on a growing internet support group of people who acknowledge their depraved desires but do not act on them. Their restraint is supposed to be virtuous.

Someone commented in reply to my essay that “To be tempted to something is not a sin. I have no desire to normalize or justify pedophilia if that is what the show is doing, but if it deals with an individual tempted but resisting that temptation I’m not sure that would be wrong.”

Let’s explore that a bit here on this blog. I appreciated the nuance and grace in the comment. I thought about it for a while. In the end, I’d replied that temptation itself is not a sin, else Jesus, when he was tempted in the desert, would be sinning just for having experienced a temptation. So, I agree temptation is not a sin. What is a sin is how we respond to it. Responding to temptation is not solely the act, but also the entertainment of those thoughts. In His temptation, Jesus resisted sin by refusing even to entertain the thought and refuted satan by immediately referring to His Father’s word. More here.

That said, the show I’d reviewed was not about temptation. It was about the normalizing pedophilia by calling those who have the desires but who don’t act on them, virtuous. It was about the manipulative forcing of an empathetic reaction to someone who has admitted many desires for children in the sexual sense. The show made a great deal about how much the man was consumed by lust for children. It, apparently did not make much if his efforts to rid himself of the thoughts, only restraining himself from the action.

John MacArthur puts the issue to a concise point when he says (of homosexuality)

No matter how much you desire to be compassionate to the homosexual, your first sympathies belong to the Lord and to the exaltation of His righteousness.

So how should we respond to various desires we have in the flesh? And remember, not all desires are equal. Heterosexual desire is normal, but when it turns to lust for another woman it’s a sin. Yet, homosexual desire is always depraved, because it is expressly forbidden in scripture. As noted in the GotQuestions essay above and as I’d said in my essay,

Lust, for example, is sin even though it may never be acted upon (Matthew 5:28). Covetousness, pride, greed, and envy are all sins of the heart; even though they may not be apparent to anyone else, they are still sin (Romans 1:29; Mark 7:21-22). When we give in to the temptation to entertain such thoughts, they take root in our hearts and defile us (Matthew 15:18–19). emphasis mine

Romans 1:26 calls homosexual desire a “degrading passion.” Ergo pedophilia too. JMac again-

It is a lust that destroys the physical body, ruins relationships, and brings perpetual suffering to the soul—and its ultimate end is death (Romans 7:5).

The Good Doctor did get one thing right. In the end, the character committed suicide. Degrading passions lead to death. The Gospel is the only way to overcome degrading passions, including pedophilia. Striving to live a righteous life, denying our biblically forbidden passions and lusts, this is what is pleasing to God.

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Further resources

Is Same-Sex Attraction a Sin? Answers in Genesis

The gospel offers more than sin management; it offers present transformation of our desires and eternal joy (Philippians 2:13). God welcomes strugglers who regard His glory over their own lust, and He arms them to fight joyfully against enslaving temptation inherited from Adam.

theology

Love Thy Neighbor? That’s only half of it

Posted on December 8, 2018December 8, 2018 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

We hear the term ‘love they neighbor’ a lot. We hear it so frequently that it’s almost a motto or a mantra, bandied about. But it’s a Bible verse, which means it’s spoken from the mouth of God. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is also not the whole verse. The verse is in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The verse is known as The Greatest Commandment. The first part of the verse is to love God with all your mind, heart, and strength. The second part is to love your neighbor. Here it is in full-

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18). Emphasis added.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40). Emphasis added.

We are commended to love thy neighbor AS THYSELF. There are two parts to this concept I am addressing in this essay.

1. What does it mean to love someone as myself?

Barnes’ Notes explains

To this he added another – the duty of loving our neighbor, Leviticus 19:18. This Christ declared to be the second great commandment of the law, Matthew 22:39.

This commandment means, evidently:
1. that we should not injure our neighbor in his person, property, or character.
2. that we should not be selfish, but should seek to do him good.
3. that in a case of debt, difference, or debate, we should do what is right, regarding his interest as much as our own.
4. that we should treat his character, property, etc., as we do our own, according to what is right.
5. that, in order to benefit him, we should practice self-denial, or do as we would wish him to do to us, Matthew 7:12.

2. Secondly, what is love? Defined according to Strong’s from the Greek word Agapeo, it is,

preferring to “live through Christ” (1 Jn 4:9, 10), i.e. embracing God’s will (choosing His choices) and obeying them through His power. agapáō (“to love”) means actively doing what the Lord prefers, with Him (by His power and direction).

Sadly, I have seen this verse used as a twisted cover by an increasingly perverse culture to mean that we should love homosexuality. Of course we love the person, they are a neighbor. But the twist the culture puts onto this verse is that we should also love their sin, because, they say, “it is who they are”, as if homosexuality is a biological part of a person’s identity and nothing can be done to alter it. “Loving your neighbor” has become code for accepting all behavior, including, in this culture & time, the sin of homosexuality.

The other verse I often see twisted in this way, as a cover to accept homosexuality, is 1 Corinthians 13:4-5, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love being kind does not mean we avoid telling people the Gospel, which includes condemnation for sin. Yes, it’s awkward to tell somone they are a sinner (as we all are, and someone had told us). Conversations like that often spark anger, because the pride from which all sin stems rears up in rage. It feels unloving at the time. But this culture insists that if we share the condemnation of God for sins, including (and especially) the sin of homosexuality, we are not being kind and we’re therefore unloving.

Loving our neighbor means sharing the Good News of the Gospel. We are all sinners, and we need a savior. The savior is Jesus. He came down from heaven, lived a perfectly holy life, and sacrificed Himself on the cross so that His blood would cover the sins of the people God had elected to salvation before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1:4). If we repent, Jesus forgives us and he becomes the door through which we enter heaven. His righteousness is given to us and that is how God sees us forevermore, righteous in His Son.

Gill’s Exposition says of the loving one’s neighbor verse,

This law supposes, that men should love themselves, or otherwise they cannot love their neighbour; not in a sinful way by indulging themselves in carnal lusts and pleasures; some are lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; but in a natural way, so as to be careful of their bodies, families, and estates; and in a spiritual way, so as to be concerned for their souls, and the everlasting happiness of them: [emphasis added]

and in like manner should men love their neighbours, in things temporal do them all the good they can, and do no injury to their persons or property; and in things spiritual pray for them, instruct them, and advise as they would their own souls, or their nearest and dearest relations. And this is to be extended to every man;

The world calls it hate but it’s love. See how condemnation and compassion are simply two sides of the same coin:

How should you respond to the success of the gay agenda? Should you accept the recent trend toward tolerance? Or should you side with those who exclude homosexuals with hostility and disdain?

In reality, the Bible calls for a balance between what some people think are two opposing reactions—condemnation and compassion. Really, the two together are essential elements of biblical love, and that’s something the homosexual sinner desperately needs.

We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, through Jesus and embracing God’s will. It is not God’s will to accept homosexuality as a loving part of a person. It’s a sin. It is loving to share the news that one can be forgiven of this sin and released from bondage to satan through it. It’s the same with any besetting or occasional sin one commits. We can be forgiven if we repent. Loving a person but leaving them in their sin is only half the story- and it’s not love, it’s hate.

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Further resources

Homosexuality

What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

Thinking biblically about homosexuality

encouragement, Uncategorized

Thirty Days of Jesus Redux- Day 4

Posted on November 30, 2018November 30, 2019 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

thirty days of jesus verse 4

What is sin?

What is the definition of sin? – Got Questions

Matthew Henry on Matthew 1:18-25

Thirty Days of Jesus series

Introduction/Background
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

discernment, theology

Beth Moore has a lot to answer for in normalizing women preaching/teaching to men

Posted on October 21, 2018October 25, 2025 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

Sometimes the pot warms its water so slowly even the most discerning frog swimming in it doesn’t realize the change in temperature in his environment until it’s too late. Even though this isn’t scientifically true, “the story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of sinister threats that arise gradually rather than suddenly,” as Wikipedia explains.

It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not to be teachers or preachers of men. We women can and do teach, we minister, and we evangelize. We discuss, we help, we clarify perhaps in a private setting, but we are not to have biblical authority over men in church expository situations.

“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” (1 Timothy 2:12)

How is a women preaching to men a sinister situation? It’s sin. As RC Sproul said, sin is cosmic treason!

Ask the metaphorical Jezebel of Revelation 2:20 who was teaching things God did not say. Jesus promised to kill her and her followers. Inserting words into God’s mouth is sin.

Look at the Garden. One certain fruit was eaten against God’s command, and the entire race of humankind was polluted with sin. Ignoring what God said is sin.

What God says to do or not do matters. We don’t need 50,000 verses. One is enough. Women are not allowed to teach the Bible to men.

But Beth Moore does.

She has been doing it for 30 years.

Woe to Beth Moore.

A female generation is about 25 years. Therefore, it’s woe to the generation of women coming up in Christian circles who have for the entire time been seeing Moore’s preaching to men as normal, even with her pastor’s overt blessing, or the tacit blessing of her denomination the Southern Baptist Convention and its arm, Lifeway.

For years Moore taught Bible to a co-ed Sunday School class of 600-700 people as you read in that link above and later up to 900 people as stated in this link:

At that time, God began to do a new thing, stirring the heart of Beth to move to a new meeting place, meeting time, change the name of the class, and allow men to attend.

Is it God stirring the heart of a woman to disobey scripture and to teach men? I think not. In Revelation 2:23 it’s noted that Jesus will strike Jezebel’s children dead. These are not Jezebel’s biological children, but the spiritual daughters she is raising up in her polluted, sinful likeness.

The 1 Timothy scripture seems not to bother Moore. She has not repented of this cosmic treason. She describes her origins as a Bible teacher. Her Sunday School class began in 1985 and she was still teaching it in 2005. Her class almost from the beginning had a mixed audience.

Being a woman called to leadership within and simultaneously beyond those walls [of an SBC church] was complicated to say the least but I worked within the system. After all, I had no personal aspirations to preach nor was it my aim to teach men. If men showed up in my class, I did not throw them out. I taught. ~Beth Moore

It does not matter if you “had personal aspirations to preach” to men or not. If you do, you’re sinning. If you fail to stop it, you’re sinning.

How did this begin? Moore began teaching an aerobics class in Texas in the 80s at her church. It gravitated somehow (don’t ask me how, that’s a leap I can’t figure) to a Bible class in 1985. That soon turned to a co-ed class, then a 600-700 member coed class.

Moore eventually founded Living Proof Ministry in 1994. By 2003 her Living Proof Live conferences had gone beyond the confines of her church and beyond the Texas border. A national magazine took notice. Their opening sentence called her a minister.

“Once a victim of abuse, Beth Moore is one of America’s most popular ministers today.”

The article went on to note that men attended her Sunday School class. It was popular, so crowded with both sexes that attendees were asked to car pool because the parking lot was so jammed.

But the crowded conditions don’t seem to deter them. Not even the men, who came for a while in large numbers, were put off–until the ministry limited them by asking them to sit in the back, and if necessary, give up their seats to women. It is a women’s Bible study, after all. And though men are not restricted from attending, they aren’t encouraged, either. The selectivity has nothing to do with the location. With her pastor’s sanction, Beth teaches a co-ed Sunday school class of 600 to 700 in the same Southern Baptist church each week. But her ministry “really is to women,” she says. “My love is women in the body of Christ.” [emphasis mine]

An obedient teacher says “My love is for Christ and His word, and I asked the pastor to restrict the class to women only.” But as Beth Moore said above, “I didn’t throw them out. I taught.” She sought bigger rooms to accommodate them all.

The ‘aw, shucks, I’m really just a women’s teacher’ won’t cut it when pleading for mercy in front of the throne. Failure to obey the Word is failure to obey. She has been a usurper from the beginning.

And she keeps on teaching.

In 2010 when her fame was rising, Christianity Today did a 6-page cover story on her. The article cites the following:

Before she begins, she addresses the few men in the crowd. A Southern Baptist, Moore emphasizes that her ministry is intended for women. “The gentlemen who had such courage to come into this place tonight, into this estrogen fest if you will ever find one in your entire life: we are so blessed to have you,” Moore says. “I do not desire to have any kind of authority over you.”

It’s laughable to pronounce a blessing on the men in attendance, welcome them, preach the Bible to them, and then meekly deny any authority over them. Is her teaching from the Word authoritative over the women but not the men sitting next to them? Or do the women reject her authority to teach and they’re just coming, say, for the music? You see the illogic. If she teaches authoritatively, she teaches authoritatively to all in the hearing of it.

As far as Moore’s coyness that she does not desire to be authoritative over them, this is false. Genesis 3:16 tells us it is IN us to want to usurp male authority. It doesn’t matter if you desire to break God’s command or not, if you DO, you’re sinning. Try telling the traffic policeman that “I did not desire to speed on the highway” and see if he lets you go.

The Christianity Today story is page not found anymore. However, the link is here in the web archive split into 6 pages if you want to see the source.

Moore’s occasional weak protest, that men attend her classes and conferences on their own volition so it isn’t really her fault, doesn’t hold water. She taught men in her SS class for 20 years. By 2012, she was personally asked to substitute for pastor Louie Giglio preaching the Sunday Service at Louie Giglio’s Passion City Church, and she accepted. It was Holy Week, and she preached John 19 to a very, VERY large crowd of congregants. Some of these people, men included, lined up two hours early just to hear her.

Brian Dodd was one of those men. He attended Passion City Church that weekend and wrote a recap of her sermon. Gushing about how Moore is “a church leader” and how excited he was that he showed up hours early.

Moore affirmed on her blog that she was asked to preach at Giglio’s church and that she accepted.

Screen grabs from videos like this in 2012 harm women when they see a female on stage preaching from the Bible shoulder to shoulder with men. It’s visual egalitarianism. Photos like this are damaging. L-R, Lecrae, Moore, Chan, Giglio, Piper preaching at Passion Conference in 2012:

In addition to Moore’s actual preaching to men, a sin, she sins by failing to separate from other women who preach and call themselves pastors. She encourages women in their preaching to men.

We must separate from false teachers and heretics. Moore does not do that, and by her continued support of these people, and they of her, more confusion is added to the body of believers, particularly younger women. Women are the weaker vessel, (1 Peter 3:7), gullible to false teaching if we are unrepentant (2 Timothy 3:6), and our flesh wants to usurp the husband (Genesis 3:16). It is unwise to partner with heretics and to encourage them. By partnering with them, Moore proves her allegiance.

After decades of teaching men and preaching to men, any declarations otherwise are only lip service.

If a woman publicly preaches to men for decades, is seemingly accepted in this role, and even promoted in it, the cumulative damage to the greater body of women is great. In June 2018, the Washington Post published an incredible article about Moore. The title was,

How Beth Moore is helping to change the face of evangelical leadership

In the article she is called a ‘great preacher’,

She has her audience laughing, tearing up and clapping, much like they would listening to any great preacher.

The article’s author notes that the Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t allow female preachers, and then went on for a paragraph describing how Moore gets around it by using tweets, books, and speaking engagements as her pulpit. The article also describes how Moore is the face of global evangelism and is personally the transition linchpin for this new future:

Moore is one of the evangelical leaders today who represent the future of the global church, in which people outside Europe and the United States will be dominant. … Moore represents this transition, which is shaping even the most conservative corners of evangelicalism.

There is the danger. After so many decades of preaching and teaching, Moore has warmed the pot and the girl froglets see women preaching to men from pulpits, in churches, at conferences, or other settings, as normal. Desirable. Meanwhile, despite the Bible’s instruction to women to be gentle, meek, quiet, and industrious, tending to their homes and children, Moore has become culturally confrontational. Political. As the lengthy article about Moore last month in The Atlantic reveals,

“Privately, however, Moore has never cared much for the delicate norms of Christian femininity.”

We know. If she did, she would not preach to men. The pot is boiling now. Is this what we want for our young women? Women who are confrontational, rebellious, vocal, political, taking on the culture, preaching to men, partnering with other rebellious preacher women and ignoring her home duties?

Though she often performs domestic femininity for her audience, in her own life she has balanced motherhood with demanding professional ambitions. She traveled every other weekend while her two daughters were growing up—they told me they ate a lot of takeout. Source The Atlantic

‘Performs’ domestic femininity? Pretends. AKA, lip service. (Isaiah 29:13).

Writers like J. Lee Grady would love to see more women preach like Moore does. He writes in Ministry Today Magazine that it’s finally about time that women take the reins in the pulpit.

What is baffling about this whole experience is that there are large numbers of Christians today who don’t believe Beth Moore should be preaching to [mixed gender] audiences like the one in Orlando. In fact, some fundamentalists have launched attacks on her because she preaches authoritatively from pulpits.

We need an army of women like Beth Moore, and my prayer is that more women will seek the Lord and dig into His Word with the same passion that Moore has. I believe she is a forerunner for a new generation of both men and women who will carry a holy Pentecostal fire that cannot be restricted by gender.

The Washington Post predicts that, as well. Grady’s desire may yet come true. There was talk this summer of Moore being nominated for president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Her virtue signalling tweets, politically charged ‘Open Letters‘ on social media and timely hopping onto cultural topics such as social justice are akin to a Senator’s moves before a presidential run.

Imagine, within one generation a woman whose former claim to fame was the latest aerobics moves climbed steadily up to being seriously considered for president of the world’s largest denomination, a conservative one, at that. One generation, after 2000 years of holding fast to scripture on this issue. Sin is amazing in its power.

I began this essay chronicling Moore’s journey to normalizing women’s usurpation of men from the pulpit by saying ‘It was a given that for more than 2000 years women are not given to be teachers or preachers of men.’ It was. It WAS. Past tense.

Yet the LORD our God is still on His throne and He still maintains a hard line on the roles women and men are to operate within in His church. That is a given.

For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1Corinthians 14: 33-35).

discernment, theology

Gay demographics: what are the REAL numbers?

Posted on October 18, 2018October 18, 2018 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

This post first appeared on The End Time in June 2012

If the homosexual lobby is to be believed, every other person you bump into is gay. At work, at home, in town, in the city, in church, the more vocal activists in the lobby make it seem like people who self-identify as homosexual or lesbian are a major portion of the population.

They scream about rights, and their civic due, and not being marginalized any more like any other large minority group, such as African Americans. Black people as a major minority rose up in the 1960s to claim their civil rights, the gay lobby says, and homosexual lobby now makes the same claims. Homosexually-oriented people are elected to office, serve as community leaders, even preach from pulpits. There is a homosexual character on most sitcoms now, either as a regular character or as a recurring character. Homosexual references are made on scripted shows and on reality television shows, movies, and books. Christian colleges have gay support clubs now. We are literally saturated with the notion that homosexuality is the norm. Heck, even the animals do it, so it must be normal, right?

Not so fast.

I opened with “If the homosexual lobby is to be believed…” but what are really the statistics on numbers of self-identified gay and lesbian people in America? Can we believe those numbers? I am not talking about a girl who experimented once when she was 12, or the guy who woke up sorry and embarrassed after the drunken orgy of a frat party. I am talking the militant, life-long, “out” homosexuals who choose to live that lifestyle as mirror to heterosexuality.

No. We can’t believe the numbers. They’re a crock.

“Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are”
“One in ten. It’s the name of the group that puts on the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian film festival in Washington, D.C., each year. It’s the percent popularized by the Kinsey Report as the size of the gay male population. And it’s among the most common figures pointed to in popular culture as an estimate of how many people are gay or lesbian. But what percentage of the population is actually gay or lesbian? With the debate over same-sex marriage again an emerging fault line in American political life, the answer comes as a surprise: A lower number than you might think — and a much, much, much lower one than most Americans believe.”

So, what are the numbers? Well, Americans believe a quarter of the population is gay. The true number is about 4% and is probably probably closer to 2%. A 2011 report by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation estimated that 4 million adults identify as gay or lesbian, representing 1.7% of the population over 18. (source)

That is some very successful perception-altering on their part. So how is it that the homosexual lobby has made it seem like you can’t swing a cat in the Bible Belt without hitting a queen or a dyke? Because of this.

Bunheads.

Bunheads is (was- it didn’t last) a new ABC Family show by the producers of Gilmore Girls. I never saw the tv show Gilmore Girls but every news story I read about Bunheads identifies the show that way so I will too. Bunheads is the nickname for ballerinas, and the show that made its debut last Monday is touted as a new family oriented entertainment.

I saw the pilot and I liked it. I thought the writing was sophisticated and witty, the show was emotional without being sentimental, and I put it on the list for future watching.

So what is my concern with the show and how does it relate to the vastly overestimated homosexual numbers? Here:

At one point toward the end of the pilot episode, which is on ABC Family I remind us all, the mom-in-law character was having a heart to heart talk with her new daughter-in-law. The girl had just married the mom’s son and had moved into their home in a town called Paradise.

The scene took place in a roadhouse toward the end of the show, a show in which constant references had been made for the last 90 minutes to the smallness of this rural seaside town. It is small. There is no movie theatre. It has just about one store. (Giving directions to a newcomer- “Go to Main Street, turn left, and look for the store called Sparkles.”) The teens, when feeling frisky and up to no good, break into the library and, gulp, read. It’s so small that teenagers literally have nothing else to do but read? THAT is how small, out of the way, and retiring this little town is. Even the show synopsis calls it a “sleepy coastal town.”

So back to the scene. The new daughter-in-law asks about the dancers attending the mom-in-law’s ballet class. The teenage girls all had a story, and of one, the mom-in-law said,

“Her dad’s gay. Oh, he thinks it’s a big secret but we all know. Thing is, if he would just come out of the closet he would smile once in a while. And plus, there are a lot of very nice, single gay men in town.”

A town so small has “a lot” of gay men? The perception the homosexual lobby would have us believe, and uses family entertainment to do it, is that literally just about everyone is gay. Bombard a population with that message for thirty years and you get a new generation coming up who thinks everyone is gay. And if there are so many gays, then it must be normal. That is the strategy. Normalization through numbers.

Of course I’m not blaming the entire skewed perception on one television show, but it is representative of the insidious but casual nature that scripted tv and movies: that every closet has a gay person lurking inside it, summoning up the courage to leap “out.” We have been saturated with casual one-off lines like the one in Bunheads casually declaring that there are “a lot” even in this small town. ‘We don’t have a theater but we’ve got our gays!’

You can see the success the homosexual lobby has had in altering the perception of a nation of over 300 million souls. The homosexual lifestyle is an aberration. Some succumb and choose it. Make no mistake, though, it is a choice, not an identity. I understand the fight that homosexual people have in resisting that aberrant behavior. All people attempt to resist sin in some form or fashion. I understand also that some sins are more besetting than others. God will still judge them.

BUT, God in His loving kindness, accepts the repentance of one who seeks to shed that lifestyle and turn to Him. His mercy is greater than any sin, and He listens to prayers beseeching deliverance. Here is a moving three minute clip from a testimony John MacArthur shared of a homosexual’s repentance. (The clip says 7 minutes but the audio goes out after three minutes.) It is quite moving:

If you are involved in a homosexual lifestyle, or any lifestyle that is unacceptable to God, please repent. Ask Him to forgive your sins, and make Him Lord. His wisdom is so vast that he will lead you into a life that is purer and more peaceful than you can ever imagine.