A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. ‘I’ve gone for 30 years now,’ he wrote, ‘and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the priests are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.’
This started a real controversy in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ column. Much to the delight of the editor, it went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher: ‘I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals.
But I do know this… They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!’
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When you are DOWN to nothing….God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!
Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!
Since abortion was legalized in 1973, there have been over 40 million abortions in the U.S. alone. Abortion is legal, just as slavery was legal in the 1800s. But, is it moral? What does the Bible say on the subject?
Nowhere in the Bible does it say “Thou shalt not abort your children.” Neither will you find specific words forbidding suicide, infanticide (killing newborn children) or same-sex marriages. Yet, the Bible clearly teaches us that these things are wrong. A small, but noisy group of people (who are very active on the Internet) wish to have you believe that the Bible condones abortion. Although it doesn’t take a Biblical scholar to conclude that the Bible forbids abortion, it may help you to see the facts laid out. Simply put, the Bible forbids killing innocent persons. If an unborn child is a person, abortion is prohibited by the Bible. Let’s look at the evidence :-
The Bible condemns the shedding of innocent life.
Few people would argue this point. The Bible clearly prohibits taking the life of an innocent person. It follows that if the developing baby is a “qualified” member of the human race, all of these scriptures apply:
Genesis 9:6 – Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.
Exodus 20:13 – You shall not murder.
Deuteronomy 27:25a – Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.
Proverbs 6:16-19 – There are six things which the LORD hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood…
See also Exodus 23:7 and Deuteronomy 19:11-12
A child is a “person” whether born or unborn.
As late as the 16th century in our own culture, “child” was the word used for both the born and unborn baby. Late in the game, we have developed a new word, “fetus”, to describe a developing baby (even this word is defined in some dictionaries as an “unborn human being” ). Today, we often reserve the word “child” for a person already born.
In the Bible, our worth as a human being or our “personhood” does not depend on how far along on life’s journey we have come. Instead, we are beings who are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Each person is valuable because God created him or her that way. It doesn’t matter whether a person is still in his mother’s womb, a newborn, a toddler, an adolescent, or a senior citizen.
There are some in our society who want to find a developmental stage where they can justify that the fetus is only a collection of organs, not really a person. Carl Sagan put that fetal stage at perhaps 6 months, when the cerebral cortex is in place. Only then, he feels, should we confer “personhood” on a fetus.4 Such ideas are clearly subjective. It would seem that these discussions of personhood only arose from a need to justify the act of abortion. Certainly, they are not expressed in the Bible.
Quite to the contrary, the Bible story shows that “personhood”, or reaching one’s full potential, comes from knowing God. A person develops and is preserved through his communion with a personal God who reveals Himself to us in love. The Bible consistently links our “personhood” to the time we are formed (conception), or even before in God’s “mind”.
According to the Bible, God knew you before you were born.
Psalm 139:13-16. For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
Luke 1:15. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.
Jeremiah. 1:5. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
Before we are even formed in the womb, God knows us. He knows how each day of our lives on earth will unfold. His love and care go with us throughout life.
Early church leaders recognized the Bible’s prohibition of abortion.
One of the reasons that the Bible does not contain specific references to abortion is because the prohibition was completely covered in “Thou shall not murder”. Israelites well understood this to mean killing by sword, by strangulation, by poison, by abortion, and by all other means. Later, as the church began to spread to the Gentile cultures that did not share the Israelite traditions, specific prohibitions were written. Church leaders and others consistently forbade the practice of abortion based upon their understanding of the Bible.
How should Christians respond?
It is one thing when Godless, secular people try to dehumanize the unborn to support their view of abortion on demand. It is quite another matter when these same people attempt to distort scripture and church history to fit their agenda.
There is not a legitimate “pro-choice” position that can be derived from the Bible. To support this position, it would be necessary to use text out of context, ignore the Bible’s attitude toward the young and innocent, and be ignorant of the history and tradition of the church.
God calls each of us to defend the innocent. Christians should elect leaders who share the Biblical view of abortion, support groups working to make abortion unacceptable in our country, and donate their time and money to pregnancy care centers. Every Christian should know the facts and their Christian heritage, and be ready to defend what the Bible really does say about abortion. And we should pray that God will change the hearts of those promoting the genocide of our nation.
Here are the two ways to share Christmas with Christians in India.
Christians in India face great hardships for following Christ. Pastors are beaten or arrested, and families are mistreated. And yet they bear these costs gladly to wear Christ’s name. It’s not too late to help Christian families in India this holiday season.
This Christmas, we are reaching out to children of persecuted families and to local evangelists in India. Thousands of Christmas Care Packs (for children) and Village Outreach Packs (for local evangelists) have already been sponsored, and there is still time for you to participate in this Christmas outreach to our persecuted brothers and sisters in India.
Christmas Care Packs
Christmas Care Packs contain practical items, such as clothing and sandals, as well as books and Bible stories in their local language, school supplies, crayons and some candy. All the gifts are presented in a school backpack. Imagine the joy on the face of these children as they realize a Christian family in the United States has sponsored a Christmas gift just for them!
Our goal is to deliver 10,000 Christmas Care Packs (customized for different climates) to children living in areas of persecution. The packs will be filled with practical items as well as books and Bible stories in Indian languages to encourage kids in their faith.
Village Outreach Packs are specifically designed to assist local evangelists in reaching their communities for Christ. These packs include a small library of gospel materials for them to use in their ministry.
Each Village Outreach Pack provides a small library of gospel materials for a church leader or evangelist. These Village Outreach Packs will go especially to pastors and evangelists from minority groups outside of large cities. VOM’s goal is to provide 3,000 packs that will help recipients learn to preach sermons, teach others and study the Bible more effectively.
We were created in God’s image. As a result, we have the same capacity to extend kindness that God has. Are you wondering how to start being kind in this Christmas season? The above links will surely help you. God bless you.
[Thanksgiving and Prayer] We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. — 2 Thessalonians 1:3
