Planned Parenthood, Death and Statistics

Statistics can mislead. However, Planned Parenthood (PP) has demonstrated that it can use numbers to create an entire fantasy world, claiming that “abortion makes up only 3 percent of its total services” (World, May 7, 2011, 5).

How did PP determine the “3 percent?” According to World, Abby Johnson, a former PP clinic director, recently wrote that:

• …the claim is a gimmick. The group, she claims, skews its abortion numbers by “unbundling family planning services so that each patient shows anywhere from five to 20 visits per appointment.”

What does this mean in terms of numbers?

• Planned Parenthood provided abortions to 97.6 percent of its 340,276 pregnant clients in 2009…For every adoption referral in 2009, Planned Parenthood performed slightly more than 340 abortions.

What a discrepancy – 3% against 97.6%! Actually, it’s not a discrepancy; it’s a deception, but we shouldn’t be surprised. I worked with the New York City Department of Probation for 15 years and soon learned that just about all of our probationers were “innocent.” When people have done something wrong and fear the consequences, truth is the first thing to go. Can we expect anything better from PP?

Christian MIssions

Christian Missions aren’t disappearing; they’re just changing. Brad A. Greenburg writes:

• Scott Moreau, a missions professor at Wheaton College, estimates that two decades ago half of his graduate students believed building churches abroad was their top priority. “Today, it might be 10%... Fighting trafficking, orphanage work, HIV-AIDS, poverty – that is probably 50%.” (Wall Street Journal, 7/2/10).

Why the change? Have we just discovered poverty? Perhaps there are many reasons for the shift, but a big one has to be the change in philosophy. Many have now adopted the statement attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Always preach the Gospel, and use words only when necessary.”

However, with this type of preaching – deeds without words – the hearers might fail to get the message. Greenberg refers to a study conducted by Calvin College, 2006, which found that there was,

• “Little or no difference” in spiritual response between two groups of Hondurans—one which had its houses rebuilt by missionaries who did not proselytize and the other by local NGOs.

This should not be a surprise. The Bible informs us that the Gospel doesn’t come by osmosis but by preaching. In an intriguing passage, the Apostle Paul explained that we are a sweet savor of Christ to the surrounding world:

• But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the KNOWLEDGE OF HIM. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life… we do not peddle the WORD OF GOD for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God. (2 Cor. 2:14-17).

According to Paul, this isn’t a “fragrance” that exudes naturally from deeds alone or the pores of our physical bodies. It is a supernatural fragrance that accompanies the proclamation of the Word. There are many nice people – perhaps better people than most Christians – who are doing many ostensibly good deeds. They, however, do not emit the fragrance of Christ, which is also an utter stench to those who resist the Gospel.

I’ve experienced it many times. There is something supernatural and exhilarating that takes place when we share the Good News with receptive others. May our Lord cause us to never forget this!

Ephesians and Colossians: Genuinely Pauline?

Bart Ehrman denies that either of these letters had been authored by Paul. Regarding the Book to the Ephesians, Ehrman writes:

• The writing style is not Paul’s. Paul usually writes in short, pointed sentences; sentences in Ephesians are long and complex. In Greek, the opening statement of thanksgiving (1:3-14)—all twelve verses—is one sentence. (Forged, 110)

However, even Ehrman admits that these considerations aren’t very determinative. Our writing styles vary quite a bit according to our audience, time and situation. If I’m writing to my wife, I’ll adopt one style; to a prospective employer, another style. Ehrman therefore admits that,

• …the main reason for thinking that Paul didn’t write Ephesians is that what the author says in places does not jibe with what Paul himself says in his own letters [Romans, Corinthians, Galatians…]…Here [Eph. 2:1-10], as in Paul’s authentic letters, we learn that believers were separated from God because of sin, but have been made right with God exclusively through his grace, not as the result of “works.” But here, oddly, Paul includes himself as someone who, before coming to Christ, was carried away by passions of our flesh, doing the will of the flesh and senses” [2:3]. This doesn’t sound like the Paul of the undisputed letters who says that he had been “blameless” with respect to the “righteousness of the law” (Phil. 3:4).

Ehrman claims that we encounter a different and “blameless” Paul in the genuine epistles as opposed to the rank sinner “Paul” of Ephesians. Let’s just take a look at Romans – a book Ehrman regards as genuine. Here too, we encounter the sinner Paul:

• We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. (Romans 7:14-15)

Consequently, there is no contradiction between Ephesians and Romans, and there is no reason to suspect that a forger wrote Ephesians. Ehrman continues:

• …even though he is talking about the relationship of Jew and Gentile in this [Ephesians] letter, the author does not speak about salvation apart from the “works of the law” [Rom. 3:28], as Paul does. He speaks, instead, of salvation apart from doing “good deeds.”

It seems that Ehrman has regressed to quibbling over mere distinctions in terminology. Although Ehrman fails to specify to which verse in Ephesians he refers, it seems evident that it’s this one:

• For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by WORKS [“ergon”], so that no one can boast. (Ephes. 2:8-9)

However, “ergon” is the very word that Paul uses in his “genuine” epistles. I’ll just cite several verses from Romans: 2:6-7, 15; 3:27-28; 4:2, 6; 9:11, 32; 11:6; 13:3, 12; 14:20; 15:18.

Regarding “works” (“good deeds”) as opposed to “works of the law,” Ehrman adds, “That [“works”] simply was not the issue Paul addressed.” However, “works [“ergon”] of the law” vs. “good deeds” (also “ergon”), this isn’t a meaningful distinction. Paul argues in all his letters that we’re saved by grace, without “works of the law” or “good deeds.” In the NT, both terms are used almost synonymously. And even if there is a distinction in terminology between the seven epistles Ehrman regards as genuine and the six that he doesn’t, does this mean that the six are forgeries? There are serious problems in Ehrman’s reasoning:

1. While he points out distinctions between his two groupings of Paul’s epistles, he makes little attempt to weight these against the commonalities. (Actually, he doesn’t attempt to draw out any common patterns among the six “forgeries,” since, according to him, they were composed by different forgers.)

2. He has failed to set forth any criteria to judge whether a letter has been authored by a forger. For instance, how many distinctions must he find relative to commonalities in order to deem a letter a “forgery?”

3. Even if the distinctions far outweigh the commonalities, there may be other factors to account for the findings. We need not conclude that a forger had been at work.

4. Sometimes he argues that the commonalities reflect the attempt of the forger to make a convincing forgery. Sometimes he argues the opposite – the commonalities reflect the fact that the writings in question must have the same author. Ehrman can’t have it both ways. This type of inconsistent reasoning suggests that he hasn’t thought through the implications of the criteria he is using to separate forgery from the authentic.

Ehrman continues with linguistic distinctions:

• Moreover, this author indicates that believers have already been “saved” [Eph. 2:8-9] by the grace of God. As it turns out, the very “saved’ in Paul’s authentic letters is always used to refer to the future. Salvation is not something people already have; it’s what they will have. (110-111)

Although Ehrman is correct about the usage of “saved,” this certainly doesn’t represent theological contradiction but merely a different choice of words. Indeed, Ephesians uses “saved” in the past tense and Romans, for example, doesn’t. However, this distinction doesn’t demonstrate contradiction and fails to argue for two separate authors. Instead, Romans opts for the word “justified” in the past tense to convey the identical meaning – that we have already been saved:

• For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. (Romans 3:28)

• Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1; 3:20; 4:2; 8:30)

Ehrman charge that “Salvation is not something people already have; it’s what they will have,” in regards to Paul’s “authentic” epistles, is evidentially unsupportable. Romans also describes salvation in the past tense, but with a different term – “justified.”

Besides, even though “saved” in Ephesians indicates that salvation is a done-deal, as in Romans, there are verses that also indicate that salvation is a process. While Ephesians states that already He “has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ” (1:3), it also states that the Christian must continue to “put off the old self” (4:22) and “put on the new self” (4:24), knowing that those of the “old self” have no “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ” (5:5) – the very message of Romans, indicating the salvation is both a done-deal and also a process.

Ehrman further argues that, while in Paul’s “authentic letters” – Romans, for example – the resurrection is future, in Ephesians, it has already taken place:

• Paul was extremely insistent …that the resurrection of the believers was a future event, not something that had already happened…[but] Ephesians says: “even when we were dead through our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ…and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places” (2:5-6). Here, believers have experienced a spiritual resurrection and are enjoying a heavenly existence in the here and now. This is precisely the view that Paul argued against… (111)

Once again, Ehrman is outrunning the evidence. Paul never once – anywhere – argued against a present-life spiritual resurrection as described in Ephesians. Instead, he argued that, even now, we partake of the glories of Christ:

• And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also GLORIFIED. (Romans 8:30).

There does not seem to be any substantial difference between the message of Ephesians and Romans – certainly not enough to argue in favor of another author. Besides, if there had been found a greater degree of verbal agreement between these two letters, Ehrman might then have o argued, “See, the forger is so intent on passing Ephesians off as genuine, that he uses the very same language as Romans uses.” Therefore, Paul is darned if he does and darned if he doesn’t. There are no consistent controls, standards, or limits upon his gelatinous argumentation.

It’s so easy to generate “contradictions,” especially when the subject is other-worldly. For instance, the Bible claims that no one has ever seen God nor can see Him (1 Tim 6:16). Jesus was seen. Therefore Jesus can’t be God. However, this conclusion ignores the many nuances. Although Jesus is fully God (Hebrews 1:3), His glory had been shrouded (Matthew 17:2; John 17:24).

Likewise any state law is “contradicted” by others. Although murder is a crime, there are many nuances (qualifications, not contradictions) – self-defense, warfare… Ehrman, however, turns a deaf ear to the nuances. For him, they are no more than an impediment to setting forth his alleged discrepancies. Consequently, using his methodology, we can even argue in favor of multiple authors within a single epistle. Without scholarly controls, the data can be manipulated in any direction, and this is just what Ehrman does. Of course, Colossians is also a forgery. Why?

• On the surface it looks like Paul’s work, but not when you dig deeply into it. Colossians has a lot of words and phrases that are found in Ephesians as well, so much so that a number of scholars think that whoever forged Ephesians used Colossians as one of his sources for how Paul wrote. (112)

If the commonalities between these two books argue in favor of a forgery, why shouldn’t the commonalities among the “genuine” Pauline also argue in favor of forgery? According to him, commonality proves authenticity, but it also proves forgery! Heads I win; tails you loose! Ridiculous perhaps, but if he’s laughing all the way to the bank, he might not be too concerned about that.

The Books of 1 & 2 Thessalonians, according to Bart Ehrman

While Ehrman acknowledges that Paul was the author of 1 Thessalonians, he claims that the second letter is a later forgery. Why?

• Paul himself thought the end was coming in his lifetime. Nowhere is this more clear than in one of the letters we are sure he wrote, 1 Thessalonians…”the dead in Christ will rise first; then WE who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air” (4:17). (106)

Ehrman insists that Paul claimed that he would be among “we who are alive.” He then correctly points out that the author of 2 Thessalonians “argues that the end is not, in fact, coming right away” (107). Does this reflect a contradiction in eschatology reflecting different authors?

There is no reason to believe that the “we who are alive” proves that Paul thought he’d be alive at Christ’s return. Instead, it can be interpreted as “we [Christians] who are alive,” possibly excluding himself. The following two verses would support this conclusion:

• Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (1 Thes. 5:1-2)

Here, Paul confesses that he can’t provide any dates. If this is the case, then Paul wouldn’t have been able to claim that he’d be alive at Christ’s return. Therefore, the “contradiction” disappears along with Ehrman’s case that 2 Thessalonians had to have been written by another. He then offers another “argument” against a Pauline 2 Thessalonians:

• At the end of the letter, the author insists that he is Paul and gives a kind of proof: “I Paul write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write” (3:17). This means that “Paul” had been dictating his letter to a scribe who had written it down, until the end, when Paul signed off with his own hand. Readers of the letter could see the change of handwriting and recognize Paul’s, authenticating this letter as really his…What is peculiar is that the author claims that this is his invariant practice. But it is not how most of the undisputed letters of Paul end. (107-108)

Even if Ehrman is correct that this is not “how most of the undisputed letters of Paul end,” it’s irrelevant to the question of the authorship of 2 Thessalonians. Besides, Ehrman has no way of knowing whether the original Pauline letters didn’t contain his signature. We do not have the originals and it is almost certain that when they were copied and distributed, no one would have tried to copy/forge Paul’s signature. This would have undermined Paul’s very rationale for signing his name – to prove that these letters were genuine! If the church could have forged his signature, then the signature wouldn’t have meant much in terms of evidence. If the church could forge, why not also a forger? Therefore, if the church tried to copy Paul’s signature, it would have been counterproductive.

If anything, “Paul’s” signature would present an additional problem for a would-be forger. There might have been people still alive who could identify Paul’s signature, thereby exposing the forgery. Besides, the forger would have no way of knowing whether or not some of Paul’s originals containing his signature still remained, which could also have been used to disqualify the forgery. Nor would this much-later-on would-be forger have any idea what Paul’s signature even looked like if the elders of the church also didn’t know.

Ehrman fails to mention the fact that 2 Thessalonians received early 2nd century attestation from Ignatius (110 AD), Polycarp (110-150 AD) and Justin Martyr (150 AD). It was also named as authentic by Irenaeus, Cyril, Eusebius, Jerome, and Augustine and cited by Clement, Tertullian, and Origen. As with the other 12 Pauline letters, the early church never raised a hint of controversy regarding the Pauline authorship of 2 Thessalonians. We are left to wonder why Ehrman does.

Paul’s Pastoral Epistles: Forgeries?

Bart Ehrman insists that “Paul’s” Pastoral Epistles – 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus – are forgeries: “All three letters were written by the same person, and that person was not Paul.” (Forgery, 97).

How can Ehrman be so sure of this, especially in light of the fact that the early church had been unanimous in their ascription of these letters to Paul? Ehrman writes:

• The vocabulary and the writing style are very different from those of the other Pauline letters…there are 848 different words used in the pastoral letters. Of that number 306—over one-third of them!—do not occur in any other of the Pauline letters…(98)

However, Ehrman then admits:

• At the same time, probably not too much stock should be placed in mere numbers. Everyone, after all, uses different words on different occasions, and most of us have a richer stock of vocabulary than shows up in any given letter or set of letters we write.

Ehrman then brings out his big guns. In the genuine Pauline Epistles,

• Faith refers to the trust a person has in Christ to bring about salvation through his death. In other words, the term describes a relationship with another; faith is trust “in” Christ. The author of the Pastorals also uses the term “faith.” But here it is not about a relationship with Christ; faith now means the body of teaching that makes up the Christian religion. That is “the faith.”

He cites Titus 1:13: “Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith.” Although Ehrman is correct that faith here refers to a “body of teaching,” his point is simply erroneous. “Faith” refers to a “body of teaching” about Christ and trust in Him. They aren’t exclusive; it’s not an either-or! Besides, “faith” also pertains to a “body of teaching” in the other Pauline writings:

• But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through BELIEF IN THE TRUTH. (2 Thes. 2:13)

However, I shouldn’t appeal to the above verse, since it doesn’t come from one of the seven letters that Ehrman regards as genuinely Pauline – letters that he claims preach a trust in Christ without any content about Christ. Ehrman’s position is so ludicrous that it hardly warrants a response. Paul wrote extensively about the “good news” and the “good news” implies that it contains content – teachings about Christ:

• "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:8-9)

This represents a “body of teaching” – the very thing that Ehrman denies about Paul. Romans continues:

• How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone PREACHING [“a body of teaching”] to them?..."How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:14-15)

Without the preaching of the “good news,” there can be no trusting in Christ! By trying to separate trusting in Christ from the “good news” about Him, Ehrman is making an unbiblical distinction in whatever book he chooses as an example.

Besides, the Pastorals place the same emphasis on faith in Christ as “a body of teaching” as do the other Pauline Epistles:

• These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith. 5The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. (1 Tim. 1:4-5)

• The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. (1 Tim. 1:14; also 3:13; 5:11-12)

Clearly, faith content is also important in the Pastorals. Nevertheless, Ehrman’s insists that the Pastorals embody a different theology:

• Even more significant, some ideas and concepts in the pastoral letters stand at odds with what you find in the letters that Paul certainly wrote. For example, we have seen that Paul was highly concerned with arguing that performing the “works of the law” could not contribute to one’s right standing before God. It was not the Jewish law that could bring salvation, but the death and resurrection of Jesus. When Paul talks about “works,” that is what he means: doing the things that the Jewish law requires…In the Pastorals, however, the Jewish law is no longer even as issue, and the author speaks of works as “good works,” that is , doing good deeds for other people. (99)

Once again, this distinction is entirely erroneous. The Pastorals are clearly concerned about teaching that the law can’t save:

• …who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of ANYTHING we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. (2 Tim. 1:9)

• ….he saved us, not because of RIGHTEOUS THINGS we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. (Titus 3:5)

Furthermore, the non-Pastoral Epistles also have the same respect for “good works” or the works of the law as do the Pastorals.

• Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law. (Romans 3:31)

However, Paul acknowledges that these works can’t save us. Ehrman then makes the bizarre claim that the Pastorals teach salvation through child-bearing:

• For women, at least, we are told in 1 Timothy 2 that they will “be saved” by bearing children. (100)

Ehrman is so desperate to make his case that he completely overlooks the fact that no one suggests that this epistle is teaching salvation-by-child-bearing. Instead, it is much more in line with the context that the mother’s life will be protected through the ordeal of birthing.

Ehrman also alleges that while the Pastorals affirm marriage, the non-Pastorals don’t. In support of his wild allegation, he cites 1 Corinthians 7 in which “Paul is insistent that people who are single should try to remain single.” To establish his alleged contradiction, he then alludes to 1 Tim. 3:2, which reads:

• Now the overseer [elder] must be above reproach, THE HUSBAND OF BUT ONE WIFE, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach…

However, Paul isn’t insisting that an elder must be married! Instead, he can’t be a womanizer (or perhaps a polygamist?)! All of moral qualifications we find in the Pastorals define what it means to be “above reproach.” Surely, singleness doesn’t violate being “above reproach.” However, Ehrman insists that singleness is a moral problem in the Pastorals. We would then have to ask, “At what age does singleness become a sin?” Of course, this is ridiculous.

Ehrman then suggests that while the genuine Pauline letters expect Jesus to return immediately, the Pastorals anticipate a much later return. “Paul thinks that he himself will be alive when Jesus returns from heaven” (100):

• We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that WE WHO ARE STILL ALIVE, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, WE WHO ARE STILL ALIVE and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. (1 Thes. 4:14-17)

However, there is no reason to believe that Paul includes himself in the “WE” phrases. Instead, he is referring to “we believers,” whoever they might be. The next two verses make this clear:

• Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (1 Thes. 5:1-2)

Here, Paul is clearly admitting that he doesn’t know the “times and dates.” Christ could return at any time. Therefore, there’s no assurance that Paul and his contemporaries would still be alive.

Ehrman then tries to argue that while the Pastorals envision a church hierarchy, the other Pauline letters don’t. However, this distinction is easily explainable by two factors. First of all, Paul had been writing to two pastor/elders – Timothy and Titus. Therefore, it is unsurprising that church structure and order should be themes of these letters. Secondly, these letters were written later than the others, perhaps at a time when church structure had become more of a concern.

There is no reason to believe that the Pastoral epistles are not Pauline, especially in the light of the fact that the entire early church ascribes them to Paul. Instead, there is much reason to question Ehrman’s position that differences – however questionable they might be – prove different authors.

Grace without Justice

While the multi-cultural agenda embraces one aspect of the Gospel, grace; it rejects the other, righteousness and judgment. This often takes the form of some type of universalism. Either everyone is saved—or at least everyone who wants to be saved is saved—or there are many routes to salvation. One observer – a personal associate – explained this tendency this way:

• There are a number of contemporary cultural factors that are conducive to the acceptance of universalism. Western culture has become increasingly liberal in its tolerance and desire to be non-judgmental of every idea, person, and religion...The pluralism of multi-culturalism demands that we accept every opinion as having equal truth-value. The world-view that some have called “post-modernism” encourages a subjective orientation that is inclusively accepting and unwilling to identify anything as true or false, right or wrong. Such humanistic thinking promotes an irresponsibility that refuses to believe that people should be held accountable and responsible for their choices, identifying persons as “victims” when they have to face the consequences of their choices. Add to this the unitive emphasis that advocates the globalism of a one-world government, economy, and religion, and it is not difficult to see the cultural drift toward universalistic thought.

In any event, God’s particularism, judgmentalism, and exclusivism—it’s exclusively about faith in Jesus—have become unacceptable. Although one might guess that a narrowed preoccupation with mercy alone would produce a positive and comforting faith, it doesn’t. The denominations that have embraced this imbalanced “gospel” are shrinking fast, and those of their number who remain in them seem—surprisingly—to be somewhat cold to the reality of God’s grace. In an odd sort of contrast, those who believe in a God who will indeed judge the world are the very ones who are excited by and appreciative of God’s grace, while those who embrace grace without judgment seem to be untouched by the grace they claim to have. It seems that it is those who perceive that they truly merit judgment – ex-addicts and ex-criminals for example – who seem to really embrace grace! How can this be explained?

The two Gospel polarities—grace and righteousness/justice—correspond to our inner life. We experience guilt, shame and a resulting sense of threat (and even a knowledge that we deserve punishment), and the Gospel affirms this reality. However, the Gospel doesn’t leave us there, but beckons us to a garden of comfort where all is forgiven and all is cleansed—a place where we are relieved of our burden and grateful for God’s gracious gift to us.

I think that we sacrifice something very important—something central to the Gospel itself—when we soft-pedal God’s judgment of sin. It seems to me that if we minimize this part of God’s revelation, we minimize the rest. After all, how is it possible for us to fully appreciate God’s mercy unless we fully accept and understand his justice and impending judgment? Perhaps our love and delight in the Cross depends upon our awareness that we deserve the Cross? Perhaps, deep inside, we know that we can’t take grace seriously if we refuse to take judgment seriously.

Or, to look at this another way, perhaps the Spirit is grieved when we only embrace the truths of God that suit us? Jeremiah talks about the blessedness of knowing God, not just a selected aspect of Him:

• This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

If knowing God is worth boasting about beyond anything else, we lose out when we distort God’s self-disclosure by gladly accepting His kindness, while rejecting His justice and righteousness. He greatly values our knowing the truth about Himself. Jesus was emphatic that:

• …true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth" (John 4:23-24).

Worshiping and loving God in truth are not optional. What happens when we “pick and choose” from the Word, taking only those parts that we like? Are we really getting the rich, true, full picture of Him that He wants us to have? Or, to use marriage as another analogy, can we just take the parts of our mate that we like, or is she a package-deal? So how would God feel if we seemingly carve Him into pieces, rejecting the unappetizing parts? Does this represent loving God or are we creating a Frankenstein monster of our own crafting? Is God likely to bless such an arrogant endeavor?

This is what we do when we perform radical surgery on God’s gift of Himself—His self-disclosure in the Word—picking and choosing what fits our specifications rather than submitting to His entire Person, as it is revealed in Scripture. It’s an all or nothing deal. To take only part of what God reveals about Himself in Scripture is to reject Him outright.

For years, I searched for God—or at least that’s what I thought I was doing. However, I was “searching” for a God who would conform to my specifications – a God created in my own image, who would necessarily heighten my sense of self. Consequently, one of my requirements was that God had to affirm my Jewishness, and therefore I could have nothing to do with the Jewish “traitor,” Jesus Christ. My search wasn’t actually a search but a demand that God conform to my worldview. As a result, in all my “searching,” I found nothing.

In stark contrast to all the arrogant demands of my quest for God, Jesus taught that we must humble ourselves to receive Him as a little child (Matthew 18:2-4). I was blind to the fact that I was trying to approach Him as a very demanding CEO. I failed to see that, instead, He is the CEO over all creation, truth, morality and love, and that every good thing that I possessed came from Him.

I can no more take the grace of God without the rest of His teachings than I can take life without its hardships. Mercy requires punishment. If we love our children, we will punish them. Likewise, a real grace refuses to indulge the destructive desires of the other. It refuses to say, “If heroin makes you feel like a man, then go for it!” Nor will grace declare all ways equal, not if grace and truth co-exist! If I try to separate them, it would be like separating hydrogen from oxygen, expecting that I will still be drinking water.

In the long run, I tend to think that God will be more merciful than I suspect. However, in the meantime, I do not have the luxury to bypass or dismiss His sayings that many consider to be offensive and judgmental. Scripture will not allow us to put any of its teachings aside (Deut. 4:2; 12:42; Rev. 22:18-19). Jesus said that not even the smallest mark could be removed from the law (Matthew 5:17-19). Can we do otherwise? He also stated:

• "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matthew 7:21-23)

If Jesus is our Savior, we have to allow Him to have His say and authority over our lives. When we choose grace and reject His warnings about judgment, we are telling Him that we want to retain control. After a while, He might just allow us to do that.

Depression and Marriage

The prevalence of depression seems to be paralleling the growth of modernity. One review of several studies found that:

• The incidence of depression has risen every year since the early 20th century…The reported prevalence of depressive disorders varies throughout the world. The lowest rates are reported in Asian and Southeast Asian countries. Percentages represent the lifetime chance that a person will experience a depressive episode that lasts a year or more. For example, Taiwan reports less than 2%, and Korea 3%. Western countries typically report higher rates, such as Canada 7%, New Zealand 11%, and France 16%. The United States has a rate of 6%. (3/3/11) http://www.mentalhealthchannel.net/depression/incidence-prevalence.shtml

The findings seem to be somewhat consistent:

• “Depression…for those born after 1950 is as much as twenty times higher than the incidence rate for those born before 1910.” (Buie, “Me decades Generation depression,” APA Monitor, Feb. 91)

Meredith Foster, a writer with the Columbia University student newspaper, cited another interesting study pinpointing the prevalence of depression among college students:

• According to a 2008 survey of 80,121 students by the American College Health Association, 78.7 percent of students felt very sad during the past school year, 43 percent felt so depressed they could barely function, and 9 percent seriously considered suicide.

However, there seems to be much diversity among the explanations for this serious and ballooning phenomenon. Some researchers cite stress and competition. However, these have always been part of the college experience. Others cite our growing consciousness of the problems of the world. However, this explanation seems to be quite far-removed. Besides, this too seems to have always been part of the human condition. We therefore have to seek the explanation among causal factors that have been growing alongside of the depression.

Often times, the answers are very close to home, but our philosophical lens might be preventing us from seeing them. In her review of Unprotected by a psychiatrist at the student health service at UCLA, Miriam Grossman, Mona Charen writes,

• What does Dr. Grossman believe that is so dangerous to admit? Well, start with ordinary sex. She believes that casual, promiscuous sex is tough on many women. They are hard-wired to bond with those they have sex with (the hormone oxytocin is implicated), and she sees countless female students reporting stress, eating disorders and even depression for reasons they cannot understand. After all, the world sells them on the notion that sex is pure recreation, that the "hook-up" culture is natural and even empowering to women, and that love and sex are two completely different things. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2007/01/05/unprotected

Such remarks will not pass a test of political correctness, but there is much to suggest their merit. In another study published in 2005,

• Sexual behavior patterns came before depression, not after them. Girls with multiple sex partners were about 11 times more likely than virgins to report elevated depression symptoms (World, 6/4/11, 40)

The fact that sexual behavior preceded the reported depression suggests sex as the cause and not the effect, as some have alleged

In contrast to uncommitted sex, the positive findings in favor of traditional marriage are impressive. According to LifeSiteNews.com, 1/31/11:

• Two medical students at Cardiff University studying existing data on the relationship of marriage to health have concluded that “stable, long term, exclusive relationships” lead to “more healthy lifestyles and better emotional and physical health,” and have a marked effect on longevity.

• Authors David Gallacher and John Gallacher cite a Cambridge study of “one billion person years across seven European countries that found that married persons had age adjusted mortality rates that were 10-15% lower than the population as a whole,” and that this statistic alone makes stable marriage “probably worth the effort.”

• The authors found that “physical and mental health benefits seem to accrue over time,” citing a 30-year longitudinal study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry which found that “the duration of a relationship was associated with better mental health scores, while the difference in mortality rates in favour of marriage, increases with age”

• “Exclusive and supportive relationships confer substantial mental and physical health benefits that grow over time.” (. The study, titled “Are relationships good for your health?” was published in the British Medical Journal on January 28, 2011.)

This conclusion is further justified when we look at the fate of children outside of the traditional marriage. In The Case for Marriage, Gallagher and Waite claim:

• “A preschooler living with one biological parent and one step-parent was forty times more likely to be sexually abused than one living with two natural parents.” (159).

Perhaps, there is more to marriage that meets the eye, and less to uncommitted sex. Perhaps, God knew what He was doing when He joined a man to a woman:

• For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)