Editorials & Opinions

Wisdom the Principal Thing

Take a glance around the room where you’re sitting. What do you see? If you’re in your home, you see what you’re accustomed to seeing. If you’re somewhere else, you see whatever the owner of that space has filled the room with. Do you see anything else? Look hard. Anything? Don’t be afraid to say “no” this is not a trick question. However, if you look with Biblical eyes, you will see something much greater — you will see the incalculable abundance God has hidden in this world. If you allow the Bible to change your view of creation, you will realize how you may be living far below your God-given potential; and you will discover one of Christianity’s most paralyzing defects.

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Why Christians Loose

Many Christians are still locked into the conviction that the Bible speaks to a very narrow slice of life. Of course, all Christians believe that the Bible has some very specific things to say about prayer, Bible reading, worship, and evangelism. But many Christians are not convinced that the Bible has some very definite things to say about civil government, the judicial system, economics, indebtedness, the punishment of criminals, foreign affairs, care for the poor, journalism, science, medicine, business, education, taxation, inflation, property, terrorism, war, peace negotiations, military defense, ethical issues like abortion and homosexuality, environmental concerns, inheritance, investments, building safety, banking, child discipline, pollution, marriage, contracts, and many other worldview issues.

All Christians must remove their blinders and widen their scope of ministry to include the world. This will mean the development and implementation of a comprehensive biblical worldview. Put simply, a worldview is the way you and I look at things. How did we get here? How did the world get here? How does it run? Who or what runs it? What laws govern us and the world? What role if any do we have in the government of the world? What does God think of the world? How does He want it to run? Who has He put in charge of the world? What are His plans for the world? Basically, the Christian’s worldview should be the same as God’s worldview, the creature thinking the thoughts of the Creator.1 Is God’s view of the world comprehensive? Is He concerned about every nook and cranny of creation? Did He give His life for the “world”? Is He Lord of “all things”? To all of these questions we would answer “Yes!” Then, why should Christians limit their scope of the world? Why should Christians have a lower view of the world than God does? Why should humanists have a higher view of the world than we do? George Grant writes:

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Legislating Morality

An ethical person ought to do more than he’s required to do
and less than he’s allowed to do.


You can’t mandate morality.

Call it what you want — morality, ethics, or character can’t be codified. Laws, rules, and regulations are always lowest common denominators. Attempts to legislate moral behavior simply create a cottage industry aimed at finding loopholes or avoiding detection.

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The Bible, You and Money

The Bible does not minimize the importance of economics. The Garden of Eden makes mention of gold and precious stones:

“The gold of that land is good.” Genesis 2:11-12.

Jesus used money as a teaching device in many of His parables. John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church, Panorama City, California, said that

16 out of 38 of Christ’s parables deal with money; more is said in the New Testament about money than heaven and hell combined; five times more is said about money than prayer; and while there are 500 plus verses on both prayer and faith, there are over 2,000 verses dealing with money and possessions.[1]

One of the criteria for leadership in the church is based on how a man uses money (1 Tim. 3:3). This includes management of his own household (v. 4). As Christians we have no biblical warrant to avoid the topic of money, investments, savings, and inheritance. A case could be made that an elder who does not have money to manage is not a good candidate for the office. And what applies to church government should apply as well to civil government. One of the reasons our economy is in a mess is that most of the men and women holding office have never owned a business. Economics is a biblical word rich with meaning.

The word economy comes from oeconomia, a combination of two Greek words, oikos (house) plus nomos (law, rule). The root meaning of the word, is the frugal or economic management or government of a family or the concerns of a household. The study of economics (household management) now includes larger units than the household: the business firm and its complex relationships with suppliers, customers, and other firms with which it competes; and even the conglomerate mass of such relationships within entire nations, and even between nations.[2]

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“Pill Cures Alcoholism and Addiction!” Really?

The BBC recently reported: France abuzz over alcoholic ‘cure’. French cardiologist Oliver Ameisen says that baclofen, a muscle relaxer, can cure alcohol and cocaine addictions.

Take a pill to cure your addiction. It sounds too good to be true.

How much sense does it make?

Is addiction simply a craving for a substance or thing? If that is the case, the pill will cure it. Unfortunately, addiction is not just a craving. It is a complex malady of the mind, body and spirit. To treat the physical craving only, is to ignore the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of addiction and dysfunctional living.

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Re-wrting AA History and Proven Recovery Principles

Circling the Wagons to Drive Off Documented History, Unwanted Divine Aid, And Proven Recovery Ideas

The longer dissertations, government grants, academic gatherings, and religious writings attempt to describe Alcoholics Anonymous History the more they seem to swerve away from God’s power and love and from real recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous.

To be sure, candidates, government agencies, academia, and religious commentators have their place in examining the overwhelming problem of drug addiction and alcoholism. But, when they try to exclude Alcoholics Anonymous, the Twelve Steps, God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible from their writings, they do little to advance the rewarding and effective grunt work involved in working with the despairing drunk and addict who still suffers.

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Is “Special Needs” Biblically Sound?

The more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the notion of “special needs” isn’t biblically sound.

My friend Tim pastors a church in Denver, and he talks a lot about the “Y’all Come In” mentality. In that view, if the church opens the door and puts down a welcome mat, that’s enough.

Except that it’s not enough.

At Tim’s church they send people to homeless shelters and by-the-week motels. They sit with people one-on-one, talk with them, assure them they’re valued and needed.

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The Redefinition of Marriage: An Exercise in Moral and Cultural Suicide

In 1993, Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D- N.Y.) published “Defining Deviancy Down .” Moynihan started from Emile Durkheim’s proposition that there is a limit to the amount of deviant behavior any community can “‘afford to recognize’ and that, accordingly, we have been re-defining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard. This redefining has evoked fierce resistance from defenders of ‘old’ standards, and accounts for much of the present ‘cultural war. . .

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Alcoholics Anonymous Recovery: Twelve Steps to What!

Folks who study the Big Book, take the Twelve Steps, and carefully consider the Alcoholics Anonymous program of recovery as it is laid out in the book “Alcoholics Anonymous” should really have no problem defining the recovery program, its specified course of action, and the intended objective of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

So we will begin by looking at what the Founders and the Big Book have said about the Twelve Step program of recovery and the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Bill Wilson put these important comments in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and here is how they are still expressed today:

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