Shameless!

(Leia este post em português.)

A friend of ours shared a link today to a Fox News report concerning some pornographic and violent images that have been appearing in the Facebook newsfeed. Several people spoke of accessing the giant social network only to be embarrassed in front of family members as these images assaulted them. I mention this as a recent example that illustrates a greater issue in world culture: shamelessness. The barrier walls that once protected the innocent from the barrage of speech and behavior not deemed “suitable for the public” are crumbling. In places, they are eroding away from lack of upkeep; in others, they are being obliterated by social wrecking balls—the popular kid, the brazen celebrity, the “enlightened” lecturer—smashed to smithereens and allowing all sorts of evil to run amok in situations we once thought safe.

This used to be the talk about TV and movies. Yes, since the beginning of onscreen entertainment, we have seen a decline of morals and appropriate speech. Profanity, obscenity, hatefulness, vindictiveness, lack of forgiveness, and flat-out lying saturate today’s entertainment. Extramarital sex is so commonplace that people act embarrassed for you if you respond negatively toward it. Seinfeld’s “not that there’s anything wrong with that” describes pretty much anything out there. I realize there is a simple solution for these forms of entertainment—don’t watch them. Unfortunately, as I said above, these barriers aren’t crumbling only in the media.

I remember a few years ago, standing waiting for my luggage in the Springfield, MO airport, listening in amazed silence as pretty much every major “cuss” word popped out of a woman’s mouth as she spoke to another woman (both adults beyond their forties). And she wasn’t mad at anyone—this was apparently her usual way of talking! The other woman didn’t even flinch at her language. Every day, both in the States and here in Brazil, we encounter examples of people who have allowed these forms of speech and behavior into social settings we once thought safe. It is appalling to see what people choose to post or link on Facebook. People are going on public (and nearly permanent) record, saying things that at one time would have embarrassed them to even think. And there isn’t an MPAA rating, however flawed, that protects people from the what one encounters in everyday settings.

Here’s what God asked and answered about His people: “Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush” (Jer 6:15; 8:12). God was talking about a different sin, but what is particularly powerful to me is the idea that these people were not only doing something “abominable,” but they were not ashamed, and couldn’t even blush about it! Completely shameless!

How is this different than we are now? We are exposed. Our collective, social Jiminy Cricket is lying battered and bruised in a back alley, if he’s not already dead. And we are so used to this, that we can’t even blush about it. It is truly—we are truly—shameless.

There was a time in human history when shamelessness was a good thing. Think for a moment about the shamelessness of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. They were completely, physically and spiritually, naked; exposed, both to each other and to God, and they were not ashamed (Gen 2:25). When did this change? The moment they disobeyed God. They immediately saw that they were exposed, and made an effort to hide this both from themselves (with clothing) and from God (by hiding) (Gen 3:6-7, 10). The truth is that now, in our present condition of sinners in a sin-cursed world, there are two situations in which we will feel no shame (or fear): when we are truly without blame, or when we foolishly fail to admit our blame. In the former, we have no shame because we have done nothing wrong. (Blameless of specific individual sins, not without sin in a general sense. The person that drives the speed limit has no need to let off the gas when they see a police officer.) In the latter, we simply don’t care. It is foolish in that we act like the fool, who doesn’t acknowledge the existence of God, therefore no one to whom he is accountable (Psa 14:1).

Here’s an interesting twist: God actually calls us to be shameless! No really, He wants us to talk unashamedly of His Gospel (Rom 1:16); to unashamedly believe in Him (Rom 10:11); to unashamedly suffer for Him (1 Pet 4:16); and to unashamedly believe and hope for Christ’s return (1 John 2:28)! Naturally, this is referring to the former type of shamelessness—the kind that comes from being blameless. And it is necessary to add that this blamelessness only comes through Jesus Christ; we are incapable of achieving it on our own. The kind of shamelessness God calls us to is not that which ignores God’s standards, but that which upholds them! His constant call to holiness, and His plan to offer it to the unholy through belief in Jesus Christ, is His way of giving us a life without shame.

Are you struck by the shamelessness of our generation? Then it is time to respond with some shameless behavior of our own! Shamelessly believe in God and Jesus Christ, shamelessly await for His return, shamelessly proclaim His message, and even shamelessly suffer persecution by those who won’t accept His message!

This is, after all, the message of Christ: that through Him, we can be transformed from shameful sinfulness to shameless obedience before God.

“And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight…” (Colossians 1:21–22)

The Complete Husband, in Portuguese

On my return to Brazil in 2006, after living for many years in the United States, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of excellent books that had been translated to Portuguese by publishers like Fiel, NUTRA, Hagnos, among others. I was saddened to find out, however, that among all the translations there was nothing in the way of books for husbands. I was familiar with two books, Stuart Scott’s “The Exemplary Husband,” and Lou Priolo’s “The Complete Husband,” but neither of these had been translated. I had no idea at the time that I would be translating books at a later date. Not long after, I met Pr. Jayro of NUTRA publishing company, and I mentioned that I would like to see these two books in Portuguese. How could I have known that he would answer (speaking of Priolo’s work), “We have the rights to publish that book”? And how could I have known that a short time later he would offer me the privilege of translating it?

In August of last year, I wrote a post (in Portuguese only) about how I was able to meet Lou Priolo during one of his visits to Brazil. I also spoke of the series of encounters since 2008—meeting Pr. Jayro “by chance” on an elevator in St. Louis, getting reacquainted with him here in Brazil and discovering his church is a little over an hour away, etc.—that had led up to that event. I had no idea that when I met Pr. Jayro in that elevator in St. Louis a few years before, that God would lead me through a series of steps that would bring me to translate the very book I wanted so much to see in Portuguese. But that’s exactly what happened.

Last week, NUTRA published “Maridos Perseguindo a Excelência” (Husbands Pursuing Excellence), “The Complete Husband” in Portuguese. If you are reading this post and are a husband that has not yet read this book (in either language), you owe it to yourself and your marriage to do so. It is a must-have for any pastor’s bookshelf. Five years ago, I lamented the fact that this book was not in Portuguese. Today, I rejoice because, thank God, this book is now available to Brazilian husbands! That He also worked it out that I could be a part of this book being published in Portuguese is icing on the cake. Let us pray that this book will be well-used, and Brazilian men are able to take advantage of the biblical truths that Lou Priolo has organized so well in his work.

Perfect Weddings. Imperfect Marriages.

(Leia este post em português.)

I love linguistics. I like the clarity it can bring to otherwise inexplicable foibles of everyday language. I really like it when it brings clarity to something completely not related to language.

Today’s post is about the words perfect and imperfect.

In everyday usage, we understand “perfect” to mean complete, whole, or  flawless; conversely, we understand “imperfect” to mean incomplete or flawed.

But in linguistics, these words explain aspects of time in certain situations. The English language doesn’t reflect these differences all that well, but I’ll attempt to explain. The perfect aspect describes an action that took place and was completed. “I ate the cake.” The imperfect aspect describes an action that was continuous, or ongoing. “I used to eat cake.” It leaves a sense of incomplete action; it conveys the idea that cake was eaten more than once; that there was a habitual action that continued indefinitely.

I thought of these aspects when I read about the most recent public example of the grim reality of modern marriage: on October 31 (2011), Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from her husband of only 72 days, Kris Humphries.

Their lavish wedding and brief marriage mirror a modern trend in western culture. The media buzz around their August wedding was all about the millions (reportedly somewhere between $10-$20 million) spent on making the “perfect” wedding. Lest you think that this is only a celebrity problem, however, consider: The Wedding Report puts the average cost of an American wedding at $21,227.00.  And the cost is rising. And experience tells us that this isn’t because of rising costs of things you need at a wedding, as much as it is the increasing number of things people want at their wedding to make it “perfect.”

Unwittingly, these couples are focusing on marriage as if it were lived out in the perfect aspect—as if the wedding, an event that happens and is completed at a particular time, were as important as the marriage, the union that should be ongoing, and only completed only at the end of a lifetime together. It only confirms the popular saying, “a wedding does not a marriage make.”

As the number of “perfect” (flawless) weddings rises, so does the number of “imperfect” (flawed) and brief marriages. Hard numbers for divorce rates and length of marriages are hard to come but many agree that, conservatively, one third of new marriages ends in divorce, many of them in five to ten years. Others state the well-known (but possibly inaccurate) statistic that half of all new marriages end in divorce. Numbers aside, our own personal experience tells us the divorce rates are high and the length of marriage is decreasing, all around us, every day.

We need desperately to get away from the “perfect” (flawless) idea in relation to marriage. You will not have the “perfect” dating relationship, you will not find the “perfect” spouse, you cannot have the “perfect” wedding day, and certainly will not have a “perfect” marriage. All these things are sold to us by a less-than-perfect world—the very world that produces “fairytale” weddings that end in disaster (anyone remember Princess Di?).

This is not to say that we cannot have blessed dating relationships, blessed spouses, blessed wedding days, and blessed marriages. The sooner we come to grips with our imperfect, sinful world, the sooner we will realize that our only hope to achieve lasting companionship, love, and intimacy in marriage is living our imperfect lives in imperfect (continuous, ongoing) marriages, while striving to bring the only perfection we know—Jesus Christ—to the center of our lives.

While society strives for “perfect” weddings and produces “imperfect” marriages, the biblical trend is to strive for perfect weddings; and to live Christ’s perfection in our imperfect marriages.

Water, Water, Everywhere…

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a rather lengthy poem about, as you can imagine, an old sailor, whose rash decision at sea cost his shipmates their lives. While he survived, he was destined to walk the Earth telling his cautionary tale. There is a famous line from the poem which describes the awful and ironic plight of his ship, caught in dead calm, whose crew has run out of—of all things—water. The mariner makes the statement:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

It is a haunting image; one that has managed to stick out in my mind all these years. Imagine being surrounded on all sides by water, and die of thirst!

One of the reasons this quote affixed itself so strongly in my mind is because a few years after I learned it, I associated it with another desperate and ironic situation: that we live in a world flooded with God’s Word—in print, online, on phones and tablets and computers, on bracelets, billboards, and bujigangas (a word in Portuguese that means “gadget” or  ”doomaflatchie,” but that alliterates better than either of those options). Early Christians who depended on rare, hand-copied editions of portions of Scripture would certainly marvel at the advances that have been made to reproduce and distribute God’s Word in such a variety of translations and editions.

Yet the fact remains that the abundance of this amazing and essential resource does not mean it is widely used. Unlike the mariner’s tale, where the problem was in the quality of the resource itself, our present day problem is in the quality of its recipients. It is “water, water, everywhere, and barely a drop is drunk.”

A good case in point of that is Brazil. Since at least 2004 (as seen in this article), Brazil has been a world leader in the production of Bibles. I became aware of this last month while flipping through a magazine in the dentist’s office. The article, from a June edition of ISTOÉ magazine, states that a new copy of the Bible is published every three seconds in Brazil.

Water, water, everywhere…

Despite this amazing factoid, Brazil continues to be the largest Roman Catholic country in the world, the largest spiritist country in the world, and a hotbed for the production of a staggering variety of homegrown religions, cults, and sects, all of which deviate from the teachings of the Bible. In the midst of this abundance, there is a general lack of reading and understanding God’s message to man.

I am reminded of God’s words to Israel in Amos 8:11-12—

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD:  And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it. 

Imagine the world without God’s Word! To desire it, search for it, and not find it!

“Oh, but thank God,” some might say, “We don’t live in a day of thirst for His Word, but in a veritable flood!” This might be true, if the abundance of the resource corresponded to an abundance of reading and understanding it.

I fear that, just as the internet era has brought a deluge of information but not a rise of wisdom, this overwhelming presence of God’s Word isn’t, in itself, going to bring about a godlier world.

Water, water, everywhere…

We need to realize that we may be swimming in copies of God’s Word, but this flood isn’t for swimming or sailing—it’s water from which we need to drink deeply. Like the ancient mariner, we must wander the Earth, telling a story. Unlike that poor man, however, our story is one of faith, hope, and love, with an amazing ending promised to those who believe.

The Intensity Dynamic

Today (August 29, 2011) I read an article that provides an interesting follow-up to last week’s post, “Feeling the Impact.” The article, “Infographic Of The Day: How The Virginia Earthquake Spread On Twitter,” demonstrates graphically the spread of tweets across the East Coast in relation to the actual shockwave of last week’s quake. Interestingly, the intensity of the tweets was not the same as the shockwave expanded. This paragraph from the article sums up their conclusions:

“It seems that somehow people further and further from the epicenter are finding the earthquake less and less interesting. The most obvious reason is this: For one, the feeling of the earthquake isn’t quite as dramatic, and the damage it’s causing isn’t as severe (if it even caused any damage at all; New York, for example, was totally unharmed). So people are tweeting less about earthquake when it feels less threatening. Let me repeat that: They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening. That sounds rather innocuous, but that single insight allows you to see the chart in a totally different way. For one, the map above actually doesn’t just show the spread of earthquake-related tweeting, but actually the emotional impact and physical damage. Human beings, processing the information about the earthquake, are basically acting as sensors, as SocialFlow elegantly puts it.”

Once again, the situation provides some interesting parallels to our Christian walk and witness. Naturally, when we are talking about God, we aren’t talking about factors like emotional impact (only) and certainly not physical damage. The parallel I want to make is with regards to the intensity of tweets in relation to the impact felt. Let me repeat the conclusion:

They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening.

I suggest that the intensity of people’s witness for Christ could be directly related to the spiritual impact and the degree of life change experienced as a result of coming into contact with God’s revelation (whether directly through His Word, or by hearing the witness of others about His Word). Or, to put it another way, our passion for communicating God to others (intensity) is directly related to the degree of life change produced by God’s Word in our lives (impact). The deeper the impact, the greater the intensity.

Passages like Matthew 13:3-9 teach us that the Word of God will have different results in different people’s lives. The difference isn’t the seed or the sower, but the quality of the soil in which the seed lands. We need to beg God to break up and soften the soil of hearts to fully receive His Word and be changed by it. We need to plead that His impact be felt deeper than just an emotional reaction, that we can be drawn near to the epicenter of earth-shaking, life-altering change revealed in His Word.

We need to be truly shaken to our core, and set firmly on our Solid Rock. Then, and only then, we will intensely proclaim to others the impact of God in our lives.

Feeling the Impact

(Leia este post em português.)

Bad news travels fast.

Practically the moment the east coast felt the impact of yesterday’s earthquake (08/23/2011), others were reading about it, and not necessarily from the news sources. Amidst the normal things people do in these situations—find cover, look for family members, panic—many found the time to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts to give the rest of the world an up-to-the-second account of what was going on.

These days, any news travels fast. From the important to the very, very mundane, millions of people have added to their routine the concept of announcing from the virtual rooftops anything and everything that is going on. It reminds me of this strip from one of my favorite comics, Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin announces his activities loudly as he walks through the house.

Sound familiar?

But going back to the earthquake…

I was in an earthquake once, back in ’95, when I was visiting friends in Costa Rica. I don’t remember what it scored on the Richter scale, but it was a substantial quake. Damage was minimal, but it was what everyone was talking about that night at church. Even when we are bombarded by the mundane all day long, when something BIG happens, we want people to know. Good or bad, we share it, and if we hear of something BIG, we pass it along. Twitter is just a digital voice to what humans have done for centuries.

So the question is: of all the things that have ever happened to you, that are happening to you, and will ever happen to you, is there anything BIGGER than the impact God has in your life? Is there anything WORSE than our sinful condition, anything GREATER than His love, anything MORE AMAZING than Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf?

If you have felt the impact of knowing and being known by the Maker of the Universe through a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, is anything else more newsworthy?

Bad news travels fast.

The Good News needs to travel faster.

No Cause for Alarm

Just when it seemed that so much hype about the Mayan calendar had died down (when the History Channel stops doing specials, it must be old news), we get a more disappointing doomsday prediction: yet another rapture date-setter on the loose. Not content with his round one predictive failure (Sept 1994), Harold Camping is back with the prediction that tomorrow, May 21, the Rapture will happen. He even gave a time: 6 p.m., but there appears to be some confusion over what time zone.

Don’t worry, I don’t plan to try to refute him in this post. I don’t see a point, really. What he and most people who over-analyze prophecy seem to forget is that when God wants us to know specifics, He tells us what the specifics are. I believe that what God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy still holds true: what He chooses to keep to Himself is for Him to know, but what He chooses to reveal is very important for us to know and obey (Deut. 29:29). Applied to the current situation, we know that Christ’s return is imminent, but the only certain thing we know about the time is that we don’t know when it will be (Matt 24:36).

So why the post? Just wanted to remind everyone of two interesting verses:

Jeremiah 28:9: ”The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known, that the LORD hath truly sent him.”

Clearly there is a context in which this was said, but the latter part is still applicable: a prophet is known to be from God when what he says actually happens. This doesn’t mean that if your fortune cookie is uncannily right about something it’s God speaking, but certainly, if someone predicts something that doesn’t happen, it isn’t God’s message, or His messenger. We don’t even need to wait until May 22 to get an idea about Camping. Just recall that what didn’t happen in 1994.

But more importantly, consider this:

Deuteronomy 18:22: “When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.”

I really like that last part: don’t be afraid of him.

It’s God saying, “Nothing to see here, folks. I didn’t tell him to say that. There’s no cause for alarm.”

[Something important to remember: the Biblical prophecies that Camping and others misinterpret are real, and are important. The message of God's wrath against sin, His love for the sinner, His Son's death, burial, resurrection, ascension into heaven and imminent return is something to take very seriously. Unfortunately, these date-setters actually distract people from the reality of Christ's return, and have the opposite effect, of leading people to lose faith in the Bible by mishandling the truth.]

We, They, and Him.

As far as we can tell, Osama Bin Laden, America’s most wanted for ten years, is dead. When I heard about it via the social network, I turned on my TV and watched as crowds gathered to cheer and chant “USA! USA!” in front of the White House. I understand the sentiment, but couldn’t help but think that the scenes were eerily reminiscent of the celebration that went on in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. I again thought of one of my favorite Kipling poems, called “We and They”:

Father and Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But-would you believe it? –They look upon We
As only a sort of They!

We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
While they who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn’t it scandalous? ) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!

We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!

We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!

All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!

I understand, in part, why people celebrate these things. An enemy is dead; a threat is removed; a victory is won. Am I talking about celebrating Bin Laden’s death or the attacks of 9/11? Oh, that depends on who you are — We or They. Patrick, that’s outrageous! Clearly, they killed innocent blood! They murdered civilians! They are infidels! I’m sorry, who are we talking about again — We or They?

In human affairs, We always think We are on the right side, and They are not. Actually, it can be further distilled to a simpler formula: I am always on the right side, and You are not. Whether it is two kids in the same family, struggling over a toy on their living room floor, or warring heads of state, investing billions of dollars (or other currency) and countless human lives in a similar struggle over a much larger, more expensive toy, if you listen, the conversation can be whittled away to its most basic element, and in both settings (and every setting in between), it boils down to two sides saying: “Mine!”

It is hard to do, but we must divorce our personal feelings from the equation, and attempt to see this from the only perspective that really matters: His. I am aware of the immediate problem with this — MY “His” and YOUR “His” may not be the same, and most certainly isn’t the same as THEIR “His.” It is important for us (We and They) to allow Him to speak for Himself:

“As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ez. 33.11).

I realize this particular reference is limited to the wicked in Israel, but I believe the Bible, both specifically and universally, speaks a characteristic quality of God, that while He is perfectly Holy, and therefore must bring His Holy wrath against all evil, He doesn’t take pleasure in doing so. It is so much His desire to see the wicked repent, that He is incredibly patient with man (2 Peter 3, especially v. 9). He doesn’t just tell us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43-45), but He practices it (John 3:16-21). (Let’s not forget the whole story of Jonah: God’s grace toward the wicked nation, the wicked nation’s repentance, and the prophet’s sorry attitude about it all.)

I realize that the following is my opinion, based on my understanding of these and other passages of Scripture, but I simply cannot imagine God cheering when Osama Bin Laden left this world without knowing His Son, Jesus Christ. His holiness was vindicated, His justice served, but I believe He would much rather have us cheering because Bin Laden bowed at the foot of the cross, repenting of his sin (not his sins against America — but his sin against God). And at the same time — still my opinion — I can’t imagine a scenario in which Bin Laden would have been received into American churches as a brother in Christ had he come to know Him. If the book of Acts happened today, only divine intervention would keep Saul alive when the “brothers” got their hands on him. The last part is all speculation, of course.

How should we view the death of a man like Osama Bin Laden? And when I say “we,” I mean believers in Jesus Christ. I can understand patriotic, unbelieving America and it’s perception that an enemy is dead. But we believers are citizens of another country, no matter what our citizenship here on Earth is. Lest someone misunderstand me to be sympathetic with men like Bin Laden, note that I am putting him soundly in the category of “wicked.” But from God’s perspective, He is not wicked for being against the American way of life. He is wicked, first of all, in the way we all are — wicked by nature: “There is none righteous, no not one” (Rm. 3:10). He is also wicked for acts that he has committed. What all those acts are is between him and his Creator, but we should have a pretty good idea  what some of those might be from a few lists God has made. From our human standpoint, what a person does makes him “good” or “bad;” from God’s perspective, it is who a person is that is “good” or “bad.”

But having established even that much — that Bin Laden was, in fact, wicked — what then? If our God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked, should we? Let us mourn the loss of yet another casualty of this war — not the human war, full of people screaming “Mine!” the loudest. I mean the war of man against his Creator God; the war that has been won by Jesus Christ, who, through His blood, offers amnesty to His enemies. His plan is that WE love THEM, and, despite our differences, WE take HIS love to THEM, so that together, in Jesus Christ, WE (WE and THEY together) can be united in HIM (Eph. 1:3-14, esp. v.10).

He’s Making a List…

(Leia este post em português.)

(No, it’s not about Santa.)

Usually we make lists to outline something important, for ourselves or for someone else. We make grocery lists to summarize what we need to buy; teachers make lists of necessary materials for their students; bosses make lists of rules to direct the task to be accomplished. In short, we make lists to summarize important stuff.

So imagine what it’s like when God makes a list. When He writes a list, it’s because He is giving us a brief overview of what He wants done (or not done). Whenever you come across a list in Scripture, you can be sure God is saying, “Hey, just to be clear, I’m going to sum it up for you.” Below are some important lists we find in the Bible that can help us evaluate our priorities and see if they square up with God’s priorities. They are organized in order of appearance in Scripture.

The Ten Commandments (Ex. 20:1-19; Deut. 5:6-21). Just because we are under grace now doesn’t mean that this list doesn’t count. Jesus came and fulfilled this law, and if anything, He raised the bar regarding our obedience to it (see Matt. 5:21-29 if you’re in doubt about this). The important thing to remember is that obedience to this law doesn’t save; rather, we are saved to obey it.

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me.
2. You shall not make any idols.
3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother.
6. Don’t kill (murder, really).
7. Don’t commit adultery.
8. Don’t steal.
9. Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor
10. Don’t covet (your neighbor’s wife, or anything else of his, for that matter).

Things God Hates (Prov. 6:16-19) For God, who is the very definition of holiness and perfection, any and all sin is abominable. But God decided to include a list in Proverbs of the ones He particularly hates. A couple of points of interest: all of them are spoken of in terms of something or someone that commits them; look at all the body parts! Also, lying must really, really bad — it made the list twice.

1. Pride (haughty eyes)
2. Lying (a lying tongue)
3. Violence against innocents (hands that shed innocent blood)
4. Premeditated evil (a heart that devises wicked plans)
5. Propensity toward sin (feet that rush to evil)
6. Lying again, this time in a legal setting (a false witness that spreads lies)
7. Discord (the person that stirs up strife among his brothers)

The Ones God Blesses (Matt. 5:3-11; Luke 6:20-22). Actually, the word “blessed” in Greek speaks of “happiness” (read more about it in my other post “Truly Happy People”). In His famous Sermon the Mount, Jesus explained that people could be truly happy if they made God’s priorities their priorities instead of experiencing the fleeting happiness of society’s priorities.

1. The one who is poor, yet godly;
2. The one who is sorrowful, but expectant of God’s comfort;
3. The one who is meek;
4. The one who is hungry and thirsty for righteousness;
5. The one who is merciful;
6. The one who is pure in heart;
7. The one who is a peacemaker;
8. The one who is persecuted and falsely accused for His sake.

The Shortest List (Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:26-28). Jesus said three important things regarding this list of commandments. In Matthew, He said, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (22:40) In Mark, He said, “There is no greater commandment than these” (12:31). In Luke, He explained to the one who asked about eternal life, “Do this and you will live” (10:28). This list is just two commandments, but they are REALLY, REALLY important ones.

1. Love God (with all your heart, soul, and understanding)
2. Love others (at first this command was to love your neighbor “as yourself”; but Jesus changed it when He told His disciples to love one another “as I have loved you;” cf. John 13:34)

The Works of the Flesh (Gal. 5:19-21). Once again, we have a list of things God doesn’t want in our lives. Notice that this is a list of “works,” yet it’s negative. This is interesting because so many people emphasize works as a means of salvation, and God is pretty clear that it isn’t (Eph. 2:8-9). Another thing is that a work is an action; a product of our will. In other words, we want to do it, so we do it. This will come into contrast with the “fruit” in the next list, since “fruit” is a natural and spontaneous product. The fruit produces good works, certainly, but the mere presence of the Spirit in our lives should produce these results. (There are some natural thematic divisions in this list, so they are grouped to emphasize this.)

Carnal relationships

1. sexual immorality
2. impurity
3. sensuality

Relationship with God

1. idolatry
2. sorcery

Relationship with others

1. enmity
2. strife
3. jealousy
4. fits of anger
5. rivalries
6. dissensions
7. divisions
8. envy

Excesses

1. drunkenness
2. orgies
3. and things like these

The Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). As we saw with the list above, Paul contrasts the “works of the flesh” with the fruit of the Spirit. These things are not only pleasing to God, but are signs of the truly regenerate person (in whom the Spirit dwells). The prolonged or constant absence of these things could well indicate that someone does not truly know Jesus Christ.

1. love
2. joy
3. peace
4. patience
5. kindness
6. goodness
7. faithfulness
8. gentleness
9. self-control

If we really meditate on these lists God has made, we will have a pretty good idea of what His priorities for our lives really are.

“Real Men” ad campaign fails to address real issues.

Before I get into this, one might wonder — as my own wife did — Why does Patrick care enough about this to blog about it? Well, the truth is, this article could have been a about any number of charities, good causes, or “let’s eradicate problem x” campaigns going on in the world. It just so happened that I was up earlier today, and caught an interview on CNN, and it struck me as a particularly good example to use in my blog.

The interview I happened to see was Piers Morgan talking to Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher about their video ad campaign, “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.” If you are not familiar with this, visit their YouTube channel to get an idea of what I’m talking about. Go ahead, watch one or two right now. I’ll be here when you get back.

Let me begin by saying I admire and respect what they are trying to accomplish. Obviously, sex trafficking is a deplorable practice, and any efforts to stop it should be applauded and encouraged. Unfortunately, I’m not sure exactly what to applaud about their campaign, because it’s not super clear what they plan to do.

Don’t take my word for it. Visit the Foundation’s main site, and you will see a link for the “Action Center,” which one would assume is “the plan.” Step #1 (as in, the first thing you can do “to end child sex slavery”; see picture on the left) is to promote the video ads. I understand that these ads are meant to raise awareness, but as you will see, the ads themselves do very little toward that end.

So here’s the formula used in the video campaign: They try to use humor to talk about something serious. They get big-name, male celebrities to do mildly funny, stereotypical “manly” stuff (ironing a grilled cheese sandwich, punching a robot, buying new socks instead of washing), and then, in a complete non sequitur, tack on “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls,” followed by a shot of someone who is a real man (man’s photo) or prefers real men (woman’s photo), while some glamorous, big-name, female celebrity tacks on one last, guilt-ridden, peer-pressure tactic, “So and so is a real man, are you?”

Problem #1 – They aren’t really funny. Most, if not all the gimmicks have been done before (I mean, grilled cheese on an ironing board goes back to “Benny and Joon,” when people were still trying to figure out if they liked Johnny Depp or not, possibly earlier); and the ones that haven’t (or at least I wasn’t familiar with) are just plain odd: “Real Men are Distrustful of Robots”? What does that even mean? This, in itself, isn’t a huge problem, but it adds to the childish feel of the whole campaign.

Problem #2 – Because of the humor above, it appears that the ads aren’t serious. It feels like Kutcher is going to jump out any moment and say to the whole world, “Ha! You’ve been punked!” I’m not suggesting they aren’t being sincere, I’m saying that’s the vibe they give off. It is really hard to take their very serious subject very seriously because it doesn’t seem like they do.

Problem #3 – Do they really expect such a transparent peer pressure tactic to work? “David Spade is a real man…are you?” Honestly, people. When you take on something like sex slavery, you aren’t dealing with people that are sitting on the fence, guilt-ridden, and ready to cave in and repent because Jessica Biel wants them to be real men. Anyone that fits that description isn’t your real problem. The seasoned offenders, the predators and pimps, etc., already think they are real men by doing what they are doing; they derive their sense of manliness through the domination and degradation of others for money. Do they really expect a guy making $150,000-$200,000 a year from sex slavery is going to be swayed by a sort-of funny commercial with big-name celebs to sell it?

Problem #4 – Here’s the big problem: These ads fail to address the root of the issue. They are aimed at the end-user, the buyer, telling them they need to be “real men” and stop doing what they are doing. Am I wrong in thinking that by the time these kids are facing a buyer, quite a number of men (and women) have failed in their responsibilities towards these kids? This is why this campaign is so crucially wrong-headed.

Take one step away from the buyer, and you have a man who shouldn’t be selling girls;

one more step and you have a girl that shouldn’t even have access to this seedy underside of society;

another step and you have a family that should have protected and guarded that child against that underworld;

take one more step and you have men and women who are bringing children into the world with no plan to take responsibility for raising and protecting them;

yet another step back will reveal a society that teaches that responsible sex is wearing protection and making sure your partner is “the right one,” but not emphasizing true responsibility or morality.

This campaign simply doesn’t address those key issues. Their action plan, as I mentioned above, starts with promoting the videos. Step two is a rather vague goal: “end child sex slavery on the internet.” But of the three steps, it’s the only useful one in that talks about reporting sites that lead to human trafficking. Step three — get this — is “buy a t-shirt.” Wha–? I’m going to stop human trafficking by buying clothing? I realize it’s a fund-raiser, but it is raising funds for a foundation whose clear goals are muddied by an unclear plan.

Again, why do I even care about this? And why should you?

I’ll bottom-line it: I care because this is yet another glaring example of how non-biblical solutions to human problems fail to address root issues. Oh, I’m not doubting that Kutcher and Moore, with their millions of fans, will raise huge amounts of money, and that they will achieve a certain amount of good from this. But I have no doubt that the fundamental issue: human immorality, or sin, will not be addressed in a way that will bring lasting change.

We need to promote biblical teaching:

That establishes solid, healthy, companionship, including both physical and emotional intimacy, within a  lifelong covenant called marriage. This teaches a healthy, godly view of sex, within the bounds God established. It leaves no ambiguity about whether there is an age at which prostitution becomes an acceptable life choice (as Ashton Kutcher clearly said to Piers Morgan).

That establishes the biblical roles of men and women, and teaches them how to be parents who recognize and own up to the full responsibility of raising and nurturing their children, which includes guarding their eyes, ears, hearts and minds from the evil that seeks to prey on them. This will also guard these children against becoming predators later themselves.

That establishes that true life change can and will only happen when one thing is true: when, through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, our hearts are transformed to know and be in fellowship with our Creator God. When this happens, and only when this happens, we will see predators abandoning their hunt, prostitutes leaving the streets, pimps giving up their trade, and all of them experiencing the restoration and healing that only the God who created our souls can offer.

I don’t expect real answers from the likes of Kutcher and Moore. Anyone that has followed their acting careers will surmise that their moral compass is as iffy as Jack Sparrow’s (today must be a Depp day). But if you’re going to try to make lasting change, I would expect even them to come up with something better than “promote the ads, block the sites, buy a t-shirt.”

I sincerely hope that this foundation grows into something more productive, but I fear this is yet another campaign that treats symptoms and ignores the real disease. The cancer is sin. Sex trafficking is just an ugly sore on the surface. No amount of funny footage will make it go away; and a t-shirt won’t cover it for long.