More Walking

I was looking for what the Word says about Old and New Testament, From Dec 06

I really like John 5:45-47 " ...for Moses wrote about me...if you do not believe his writings, how can you believe my words."

Jesus doesn't pre-empt the writings of Moses. "For Moses wrote about me."

Luke 24:27 "He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

More Learning To Walk

From Dec 06, multi-generational view of God's Word.

Check it out!
Isaiah 59:21 "As for me," says the Lord, "this is my covenant with them: my Spirit who is upon you and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from YOUR mouth, nor from the mouth of YOUR DESCENDENTS, nor from the mouth of YOUR DESCENDANTS', DESCENDANTS " says the Lord, from this time and forevermore. whoopee!

I added the whoopee part.

Learning How To Walk

This is from Dec 06 as I was wrestling with New Vs Old Testament...I incorporated my whole family into helping me search out the Word. Always looking for activities to build family identity and to give purpose to the kids....

I used my new bible search software "Terry family search" version 1.0, that's where we sit together and everyone starts a different chapter of Psalms Kayla has chapter 1, Beth chapter 2, Jamie chapter 3, I start on chapter 4 and so on... all looking for any verses about how God refers to his Laws, Word etc. When anyone thought they had found one they would read it out to us and then write it down. We covered 100 chapters the first night. Kayla loves doing it. Good family worship.

Even if it's "David" saying something about God's Word I am believing that what he says is Godly inspiration through him, reflecting what God thinks about his own Word. So does God feel it's kinda ok... but wait until my son arrives, or is it good, wonderful, perfect, etc. I think that rather than asking "is it binding on us?" (It makes me feel like I'm trying to find some way around doing what my Father wants, like I'm looking for a loophole) that we should think of it as "does it apply to us? and how?".

We fired up the "search engine" tonight and blasted through Proverbs. Didn't find as much through it.

Here's my initial thoughts on why "David" gets so excited about God's laws and statutes.

a) It's through the law we have a foundation for even "knowing" what is right or what is wrong. This is huge! I think we take it for granted.

b) It is from God's Word OT that we find the foundation for all rational thinking, logic, and reason, ala Bahnsen. Only in using God's Laws and statues will we have a basis as to be guided by the Spirit or to know if someone else is being guided by the Spirit.

c) With the law came God's justice, if you do this, than this should happen, if you do that, than that should happen. As opposed to man's idea of justice like debtors prison, you stay in jail till you can pay.?!? God's justice always provided a way of restoration for the offender and compensation for the victim, neither of which happens today.

d) Israel was told that other nations would think them blessed because of their law. IE no one is above it, even the King must follow it, rather than as other nations where kings could make or change laws willy nilly and excuse themselves from them. Not until Lex Rex in England (the Law is king) thousands of years later did this become a part of modern western thought. We as modern Americans can all to easily testify on how transient things can become when 5 lawyers can overturn 200 yrs of precendence with no basis for doing it. We're under judgment I think.

e) I see that it is through Christ that all of our access to God and our right standing before him is acheived. This is what the New Testament speaks of as a better way, the good news. This is what Christ did away with.

Never mind "David", I get excited about God's perfect laws when I look at it this way !

We found ALOT in Psalms, but Psalms 119 all by itself shouts Christ's thoughts about the Law...

v1 Blessed are...who walk in the law of the Lord!...

v5 Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! then I would not be ashamed, when I look into all your commandments...

v7 I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments.

v9 How can a young man cleanse his way? by walking according to your commandments!

v10 Oh, let me not wander from your commandments!

v11 Your Word I have hidden in my heart...

v12 Blessed are you...teach me your commandments...

v15 I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.

v16 I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word.

v18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderous things in your law.

Guys, this chapter goes on like this for OVER 176 verses!!!!!! It is one of the longest chapters in the Bible and it is one long praise of God's Laws, statutes and his Word, how perfect it is, how righteous it is. Are we looking at the law with the wrong kind of glasses that we don't want to run out and embrace his laws, statutes, and precepts.

You are either with God or opposed to God. It's either God's standard or man's standard. It either his thought or our thoughts. Other than his written word, how else can we discern the mind of Christ.

v159 Consider how I love your precepts...

v162 I rejoice at your Word as one who finds great treasure.

v172 For all your commandments are righteousness.

More Muddy Water

There has been a confluence of forces that has made it dificult for many in the church to have peace with the idea of membership, or covenanting together. Lack of understanding of the Word, the great emphasis given to our modern notions as being wiser applications than how things have been done in the past, to say nothing about being clueless about what was in the past. To many of us, bread made last week is ancient history. The American idea of individuality which is the brother to autonomy, in effect you become your own god for most of life, where it's all about us and what we want. How are modern day elders to know, those to whom they are commanded to attend. They are not commanded to just minister to... whoever...

What It Means to Give Account by Douglas Wilson
Topic: Chrestomathy

"The responsibility assigned is pastoring the flock which is 'among you.' The responsibility to shepherd is limited to an identifiable flock. In Scripture, God never gives anyone undefined responsibilities. This is especially true of elders who are held strictly accountable for the work they do. Try to imagine a bookkeeper who had to give a financial accounting, but was not told how much money was involved, or to whom it belonged!" (Mother Kirk, p. 182).

Blog and Mablog

Looking At the Bible And The Law, It's Like Honey!

Stuff about the law comes up often, I break up the things of the law two ways...

First application: the understanding that the law has nothing to do with our salvation per se, that's accomplished in Christ and that's where you find the Word inserting Jesus in place of the law, God see's Jesus when looking at us rather than, have we kept the law for our righteousness. Most Christians are stuck with just this view of God's Law and try to make any scripture fit into this context. Most frustrating.

The Second application: this part was epic for me, seeing the law as of the whole of God's counsel that we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. The term "law" applies as his defintions are unchanging, look no farther then America, at how desperate we are to change the meaning of everything, to make it into our own image, of what we want rather than as God has stated. God's order for the family can be violated, but frustration, pain, and emptiness will be the result. We don't call it the "law of the family" but it is every bit a "law" as the "law of gravity" is. Ignore it at your peril. God said....what do you say?

As a modern evangelical I saw everything about the law in terms definition #1 and was clueless, no understanding as to this second way of seeing his Word law, as the whole counsel of God. Letting the Old and New Testaments paint a portrait for how all of life should be lived. My pastors hadn't been taught it, so how could they pass it on. So anytime the word law showed up I would cram it back into the cubbyhole labeled "don't worry about it, Jesus has handled it".

Let me just say the foundation that helped me see this way was the boot camp cd's from Vision Forum, Rob has them. From set 2 , The Intention of God's Law, The Objection to God's law, God's law or chaos, The Continuence of God's Law. Lots of Rushdoony stuff, the book, "Law and Liberty" was also helpful. The fantastic cd set "So Let Your Light" has also helped me to see my role as a Christian more clearly in regards to God's word. I just posted reviews of the first two cds at my blog today, which also pertains to this subject. We are to be like Jesus and do what we see the Father do and say what the Father says... But about what?, everything!
So anytime you see "law" in the word you need to see if it can be distinguished into one of the two camps, their might be other ways to see this, but this has greatly helped me.

L Windham on cd 2showed how all our lives as believers should be about repeating back what God has said, about anything, and of course to then live it out.

1John 5:2,3.. by this we know we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (Not burdensome?!?, that's what God says!)
Jesus in Matthew 4:4 starts his ministry by saying "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." all of it, every word!
Jesus in Matt 5:13-25 at the start of his ministry begins by saying you are a light and let your light shine, and as part of that thought drops the bomb that, he didn't come to destroy the law or the prophets and till heaven and earth pass away not one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled....whoever does and teaches them, he, shall be called great, in the Kingdom of God. Do we, as believers usually put these passages together in our minds, as they were put together when Jesus spoke them?

In Romans 2:18 Paul makes the point that being instructed out of the law you can know his will and to approve the things that are excellent. I struggle to know what is excellent in God's sight.

Romans 3:21-31 paints a contrast of a righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed here's Jesus to the rescue for us, removing the law as the basis for our righteousness and at verse 31 Paul says do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary we establish the law. So that we may know how to live life...so that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Eph 4:17,18 That we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. Rom 7:12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.

God says...Psalm 119, Blesssed are they...who walk in the law of the lord...I will delight myself in your statutes...I shall keep your law and shall observe it with my whole heart...I will walk at liberty for I seek your precepts (We go.. huh?!?)...for your law is my delight...the law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold coins... oh how I love your law! What do you say?

God's word, what he has said, is unchanging, it is law.

Who's Having Kids,

Ann Coulter and her observations...

..Liberals know they're losing the demographic war. Christians have lots of children and adopt lots of children; liberals abort children and encourage the gay lifestyle in anyone with a flair for color.

They can't keep up.

Population expert Nick Eberstadt recently speculated in the Washington Post that a principal reason for America's high fertility rate compared to Europe's is its religiosity. Well, that leaves liberals out...

..This is why Democrats are obsessed with giving two groups the right to vote: illegal aliens and felons. With Arellano, they get two for the price of one. To liberals, building a wall across the Mexican border is a violation of the Voting Rights Act...

the whole thing

A Biblical Perspective On Marriage

Doug Wilson had a great column today on his blog, about marriage...

Michael and Rachel
Topic: Wedding Exhortations

One time the Pharisees came to Jesus in order to test Him, and they made that attempt in a question about marriage and divorce. Is it lawful, they asked, for a man to put away his wife "for every cause"?.... Christ replied in the negative, as we know, but I would like to draw your attention to a point He made several times in His reply.

"And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:4-8).

At the beginning. From the beginning. We need to reflect on this for a few moments. God is the master storyteller, and He is the one who has given us the concept of a beginning, middle, and end. History has chapters. The front cover has been opened, and we will all one day arrive at the back cover. But what separates a novel from a series of short stories? There is a theme from beginning to end. The characters are consistently and identifiably the same characters (even including their transformations and changes and all) from beginning to end. If something is established in the first chapter we expect it to still be there in the last chapter. We therefore see that God is a novelist.

This is what Jesus is assuming in His reply to the Pharisees. When He says "at the beginning" it was this way, He is not expecting His questioners to say something like, "But that was then. This is now."...
Read more>>

See the Follow up to this posting

Worldview, Being Thankful

This week I have been thinking about....World views, cubbyholes, computer colors. Topically this email will cover advancing God's Kingdom, how it is all interconnected, the different parts of it and who it was that helped to prepare the soil of my rocky heart so it could recieve the rest of the good news.

I have a lot of Rushdoony books, compared to other authors, not compared to how many he wrote, but I think overall his influence on how I now think, is huge. What is amazing is you can read his stuff from 20-30-40yr ago and it will just nail our culture on how it is. That is a testimony, that in so many ways, he was correctly applying God's truth to the human condition. Any correct application of God's truth will stand forever, because it is only repeating back what God has already said. There is no new truth that God didn't know about It's all his truth and a reflection of who he is. Jesus Christ is the truth and the light, even if it isn't specifically spelled out in the Bible. Its foundational starting point will be found in the word. But God has made us in his image, and one of the ways he is glorified is when his children seek out and identify truth and bring it back to the foot of the cross and say "this belongs to you too, doesn't it, Jesus."

A world view is a net work of presuppositions that are not testable by natural science, in terms of which, all experience is related and interpreted...the most basic convictions make up our world view, and it is what we use to measure and test all we know and experience... Greg Bahnsen

Francis Schaeffer likened it to having cubbyholes in our minds. The cubbyholes are all connected, everything we input into our minds must find a place to fit into so our minds can make sense of it and relate it to everything else. Without a cubbyhole to put some new piece of info, you will either be unable to see it correctly, or if you see it, you might not understand it in its fullness or even we will find ourselves opposing God himself. See Paul in Acts.

If you are taught some basic math you will then have a place to work and understand and apply arithmetic and then geometry, etc, etc.
Isaiah 28:9,10 whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breast? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here a little there.

In both Matt. and Luke towards the start of Jesus' ministry it is recorded about not pouring new wine into old wineskins cause they might burst. Constantly Jesus kept saying let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Think computer colors. I think of God making creation/life in 32bit color. If you were to see it in all of its facets and dimensions. When you are lost, life looks black and white. When I got saved it seemed like life changed to 256 colors and in many ways it kind of stayed that way until recently. I can see now that no matter how much I would pour over the word, I was still, what seems like only able to see his creation/life and reality at around 256 colors, sometimes a more here or there in different areas. I had a stunted view of what Jesus had done for me on the cross. Because I was so controlled with worldly wisdom and truths that I had filled my mind with. It kept me from interpreting so much of the word correctly.

What I am finding out is as I yeild my mind to God's order and definitions for every area of life is that, then I am able to see so much wider and with deeper understanding. "Hey, is this what 16 bit color looks like?". But first I had to be willing to accept that God really does give direction over all and any area of life and that through his word Christ speaks to it. Once I accepted that, his word just seems so alive to me. Rushdoony was huge in helping me to see it. Also the idea of accepting the whole counsel of God, all of the word. I started to see I had a warped understanding Of Jesus because it was without the context of the Old Testament.

I do feel like in the last couple of years I am starting to see God's creation and his Word as it really is. As he has been wanting me to see it, but I needed some help tieing up the strong man so we could rob his house.

Like it or not, God made us to be inter-connected as people, like the Old and New Testament, which goes so against Americana. Example of inter-connected: how many others beside Achen died because of his sin with the gold. inter-connected...But that's Old Testament you say...We have the jailer in Acts 16:30,32 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved you and your household. Inter-connected. The word says... Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In Leviticus we read that ..chpt 10 Nabad and Abihu, brought strange fire and God killed them. But that's Old Testament... so we look at
Acts chpt5 and we have Ananias and Sapphira and God killed them. It is foreign to us but not at all foreign to God's word, Pop quiz: which ones right? Will we insist that it should be just us, Jesus and our Bibles. But if God has ordained that he wants his sons and daughters to be discipled, and his method for bringing his sons and daughters to maturity is for them to be instructed. The older women instructing the younger ladies and to appoint teachers, pastors, elders, etc, etc. that we might come to a more Christ like humanity. A big picture of this is from God's design for families, the inter-connectedness ,multi-generational view, that we continue to try and grasp the enormity of it all.

None of our pastor/elders get up on Sunday and just reads the scriptures and then sits down. They help us see application and more understanding. We expect that. But many will get nervous when some in the body start reading what other men of God are imparting, what they have recieved from Christ. "Shouldn't we just stick with the Bible?" As the foundational source for all truth and knowledge? Amen! But all of what Jesus did, could not be contained in all the books of the world says the Gospel. Do we treat it, other writings like it is holy writ, of course not, but other writings may reveal the application of the holy writ. If once you were blind, and now you see how much you have been missing, because of what godly men have helped you to grasp, that which had been hidden from you. You will want others to read it too.

World view Example: from "Missionary Herosim" , Joseph Neesimas raised in a land of idols, Japan. Got an abridged Bible and read it, rejected the whittled idols and started praying " oh, if you have eyes, look upon me, if you have ears listen to me". Then he purchased a New Testament and read it day and night, was on an 8 month voyage to the US. In boston, he picks up a second hand copy of Robinson Crusoe for a few pennies and while reading it makes the discovery....while reading of a fictitous character that is praying to God...that we have a God who does see and hear us!

His world view was that gods don't have eyes or real ears, even after months of studying the Bible he had to read Robinson Crusoe to learn that "he must cry to God as a present, personal friend. And so day by day, in the full belief that God was listening, he uttered this prayer: "please please, don't cast me way into miserable conditions ..." his basic world view had held him captive.
Rushdoony was part of a multi-generational family of pastors that stretched for 600 yrs, I do think the word shows you can get the generational blessing multiplying from generation to generation through obedience, and in Rushdoony it paid off big.

To my joy and blessing, and not just to me but to hundreds yea, thousands in the future of not only my children's children, but also others they will bring to the cross. I do not look to "add" to His Kingdom but to let God "multiply" his Kingdom through my obedience. Because our God is a Multiplying God, 30,60, hundred fold!

Rushdoony and others were able to correct my vision and now I see God's truth start to spill over into so many areas, in a manner that cut through the lies that were scattered through out my cubbyhole system. I am going from a disjointed, fragmented view, IE secular/sacred, individualism, egalitarianism, or that each generation should just go and do what it wants to, or that God's word really doesn't speak to (fill in the blank).

In brief, I now see how the first commandment touchs everything, how everything is either God centered or man centered, no neutral ground, how even as a Christian I can be so man centered all over the place, I probably still am but I am thankful for what God has straightened out. That it is worship, to agree with what God says. How we are constantly back in the garden all over again, how everything in life can be boiled down to, who decides? who's will? what's the standard? and from whom does it come? Back In the garden again, will we let God decide, or will we be as God and decide for ourselves that which is good and that which is evil?

It was Rushdoony who lead Doug Phillip's father to the Lord and has been a big influence on Doug. The Bible shows the pattern of remembering men, those who God uses in special ways. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, David, Solomon, We appreciate Paul, Martin Luther, Calvin, CS Lewis, etc etc....I think it might be generations before the full impact of God's hand through Rushdoony is seen.

God directs us to give honor to whom honor is due. And it is biblical to deflect praise to others away from yourself and that is why when you read those who see that they are now really alive with God's truth from Rushdoony's faithfulness to God. That it will take you aback. I am hoping to get used to having 16bit vision, (for all I know from God's perspective I might be at 780 colors and not really 16bit.) but there are other men who as I read them, I think, wow, that must be 32bit. As someone who has been gifted to teach I try to be careful to ascribe back to others what I have gleaned from them. I honor God by acknowledging those whom he has used to influence me.

Now I don't think anyone who Rushdoony has helped, worships Rushdoony, he has been dead for a few years, there are no plans to build a museum or special memorial to him, (think Billy Grahm) but his son continues what his father began and continues to publish his father's works and to compile what he hadn't gotten too, into more books, so from the grave he continues to witness to the Glory of God. But for others like me who as we look back and see how naked and bare and shallow our thinking was, and how God allowed this man to see it, and then gave him the ability to relate it back out to others. We are very grateful and hopeful that others too may be blessed.

Because of what God did through this man, and his faithfulness to the word given him, means he will have a very special place in my heart. And one more reason for me to be thankful to God.

Taking scripture down off the wall and turning it over in your hand, hmm, how do we apply this?

I have recently brought up George Barna's name. (see here) It was his polling group that found out that one type of fruit of the modern evangelicalism in Amercia has been the erosion or walking away of 80% plus of our youth by the college yrs. This came out about 4 yrs or so ago. At 49yrs of age I had already seen this happen in one church where we had attended for about 12 yrs and was thinking that I was seeing it happen again at my last church. This finding rocked the modern church and the search was on for what to do. Within about 1 or 2 yrs afterwards, Barna had another book out showing....

...more often than not, what a person decides about truth, sin, forgiveness, and eternal consequences during the pre-teen years is the same perspective that person carries to the grave..... Pg55 George Barna "Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions"

...."Our studies show that the faith principles and practices that a child absorbs by age thirteen boldly shapes their spirituality for the duration of their life," the researcher stated....

His book...."Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions" I'm paraphrasing here, anyone who wants to borrow the book can read it, tried to drive home that we must inculcate into our kids a more encompassing world view, that all church and Sunday school were doing was leaving young kids with a faith that was disconnected from most of life and they were easy to pick off by college professors or the kids adopted their parents world view which was add Jesus where you want to, for example let me give 2 quotes from Barna's recent study...

"...Many of the same people who claim that their faith is very important to them and that they are absolutely committed to Christianity also say that they face no spiritual challenges in life. Many other adults are only vaguely aware of such challenges, and do not put much energy into addressing them..."

"...Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen - Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith - helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture..."

It's not that parents want to leave their kids unprepared, although there are some that are too self-absorbed, but that I think most parents cannot see just what it is they should be doing differently. Because they are doing what everyone else is doing in the church and what is the church, on the whole, teaching differently...

I think many though are held captive to the same world view that was inculcated into me through public school, movies and tv. That we are individuals, an egalitiarian view of man and women, a secular/sacred distinction, an acceptance of what labels our society or culture has placed on top of God's creation rather than only accepting a biblical definition.

Now for 27 plus years I have had a steady diet of a lot of teaching and hearing a lot of phrases like this, I'm sure you will recognize them too....." let's stay focused on Jesus..."..."To mature to the measure, the standard of Christ in you..."......"a transformation of our life to show the world..."....."That it is in Christ alone..."....."Raised to walk in newness of life..."....."The Spirit to work thru you.."...."to do more than we ever thought we could do..."....."Trusting in Christ alone.."...."Work the work of Christ in you..."

Now just like when Bahnsen gave the example of "A surge of pious agreement came over me the first time I heard someone confidently assert that "The Word of God no more needs defense than does a lion in a cage. Just let the lion loose, and it will take care of itself!" There seemed something very right about that sentiment. seehere

There is much very right and truthful with the phrases I have put up, but at the same time if we do not ever flesh out what they mean or can mean or how they can applied, or how they should change how we think and view life then everyone can ascribe their own comfortable meaning to them, the whole congregation can nod their heads in unison and we can (I said we can, not we have) in effect bear false witness to the Word of God. We can deny it of its ability to change us and situations if we do not see how to apply it as God would want it done. If we do not go beyond just quoting these type of lines and verses we too will head for an 80% attrition rate. I can put verses and phrases all over the walls of my house but if I do not have some way to apply them, to really walk them out, what good are they? (Yes, they are still God's Word and so there is an intrinsisc goodness and truth to them.)

Because I really believe those phrases mean something and that it is for our Father's glory that we must search it out and apply ourselves to it. And not just for ourselves, but for future generations too, that they can receive blessings and not curses, and that we will be found to be obedient to our calling and election.

Now from the Word I don't see anything automatic about growth in our walk with the LORD after we have been saved. Other than when we die we will by then, at that moment, for sure be attained to his likeness. If it is automatic why would Paul warn in Col 2:4 now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words...and in v8 beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. .why also warn us in Eph 4:17 that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their minds. Unless it really is possible for saved people to walk as the gentiles walk and be deceived, for saved people to be... tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning, craftiness of decietful men.Eph 4:14 Now I look at modern Chrisitanity and I think, maybe a lot of people are being decieved...Or some, I know, will take choice B those people cannot be saved. But I can see how many ways I have been decieved and am now just starting to see clearly on some stuff, did I really just get saved or was I decieved?

The word is just loaded with statements like, I press on that I may lay hold of... Phil 3:12, press toward the goal... Phil
3:14, forgetting those things which are behind and reach forward to those things that are ahead.... Phil 3:13, run the race...? , laying aside everything that hinders....?, these all speak of applying God's truth.

Here's the kicker, What I have personally experienced is if you try to show "hey, this is how we can apply this"... you can bet someone will suggest were being legalistic or suprise!.. someone will opine that we really should just focus on Jesus. doh!?! thankfully I have only heard one, " ..that's too hard..." Now if someone does suggest something, it doesn't mean you have to do the same thing, there might be a hundred other situations and ways to apply a truth from God.

Now Paul said in Phil 3:17 brethren join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. ..."stinking legalist"...."sounds like works"...." shouldn't we focus on Christ rather than men"....ok,ok, I am having fun :)

I'm bringing this up as I think I am going to continue to see and hear more, not less of this. Also we can all examine ourselves and see how we might respond in the future when someone trys to apply the Word in a manner were not use to. (Remember the first time you heard Doug Phillips, ok, so not a good example, as I was ready to stand on my chair and clap at the time. I did wonder at the time why so many women were walking out?.... Strange....) Maybe we will hesitate when we get sent outside to get the firewood to burn the heretic.

So as most of the church is functioning today it is giving us an 80% loss rate of our children. So if we stand pat with what has been done before, what reason do we have that we will see anything different? That is a definition of insanity to continue to do the same thing while expecting different results. Don't kid yourselves we have been qouting these verses and phrases for a long time as evangelicals while at the same time not really seeing what to do with them. 50,75, 100yrs. ???

I thank God for men like Phillips, Sproul, Swanson, Wilson, and Rushdoony who have been faithful to try and help the church see that we are wet, and to take the desert island challenge, etc, for what we have just taken for granted for so long.

All standard disclaimers apply, this is not about works, our righteuosness before God, our salvation experience ...this is about Eph 4:13 till we all come..to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. v15...but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things may into him who is the head-Christ- Col 1:18 ...that in all things he may have preeminence.

So Let Your Light, update2, CD2

Lawrence Windham shows how both profound and how simple the Christian walk should be on this talk. In a nutshell, our calling is to repeat back what God has said. To let God define. He knows reality.
He shows Eves failure in the garden to repeat back what God has said to the serpent, but when Jesus is tempted he does repeat back what God has said to defeat Satan.
Any time I listen to a talk more than 6,7,8 times it's usually nailing something so clear, but at the same time hidden from my eyes, because of some aspect of my old faulty world view.

This talk makes it very clear that we do need all of scripture, that we may know what God has said.

God said.....What do you say! Awesome.
available here

So Let Your Light, updated, CD1

Talked about this this set of cd's from RC Sproul Jr Highland Study Center. I want to pass on how truly liberating Ken Meyers is in describing God's creation as part of the redemption we have in Christ. As a modern evangelical I always took what God has done or is doing and made the individual, me, as the focal point for what he is doing, I take the focus off of God and place it on me! TA Dah!!! (enough of me talking about myself, what do you think about me!)

This will screw up how you interpret scripture and look at life.
He presents a holistic view of the Chrisitan life. I loved it. If you like having a fragmented, compartmentalized, American view of your faith and life, Don't get these cds!

His point was we separate creation from redemption. Adopt the sacred/secular view of life.

Some teasers...

"It's the task of the Chrisitan community to give witness and guidance in the living of life in a culture that is relentless in restricting and reducing life"

"we think that concern for daily life and concern for eternal life might be opposed to each other"

"the gospel is not the fracture of heaven and earth but the wedding of the two..."

"when Jesus defines the mission of the church in what we call the great commision he doesn't say to go out and save souls,he begins by declaring that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, he has authority over every aspect of creation and every aspect of human life and so there is no dimension we should not strive to be his disciples...."

"Christ's victory on the cross has consequences for every part of our lives"

" so when the church must show what the way of Jesus is for everything....Our culture isn't just confused about sin and grace, it's confused about everything, it's confused about the family, justice, history, work, nature, sex, beauty, it's not just confused about religion.."

"we like to keep the gospel separate from creation, there's an advantage, unbelievers like it because then we keep our faith to ourselves, believers like it because we don't have to look weird, we don't have to do anything challenging we can accept the world's understanding of reality except on Sunday... but it's not biblical.

"when Jesus said to render to Caesar what is Caesar's and render to God what is God's he didn't mean that Caesar gets to define what is his, he doesn't decide what the split is...

This talk went past the 7/8 times listening mark, always a measure on how much is there.

available here

Father/Daughter cd set, updated, WOW!

I have finished the whole set now and am even more floored than when I first wrote about this set. It's almost a shame that it is named from the father/daughter retreat as it is possibly one of the best roundups of a biblical vision for the family that I have ever heard. There were many great specifics, details and just fantastic perspectives on the family, that's what I need, as I can be so dense.."Oh! that's what you mean!"

Doug gives a talk encouraging men to give a verbal, if not preferably, a book for daughters to look at spelling out their father's vision....After hearing these I am challenged at how much more I can do to prepare my daughters and son for there future lives. This set will give you ideas.

Both of Scott Browns talks were outstanding! Makes me excited to hear him in October, at the AZ UCFC conference. Go to vision Forum and get signed up if you haven't already.

Stop living for the present and start letting God use you as he has intended, you will never have another set of disciples that will ever be as attentive to you as your kids, ever! It's staggering when you really think about it. God has made the family to be the incubator for "future generations" that can follow hard after the Lord. I see it as two parts, guard like a tiger from your kids that which the world wants them to partake in, yes it can be done, unless someone holds a gun to your head there is absolutely nothing to make you let your kids swim in our culture, "dont they need..." boloney. "Isnt it important that they experience..." no. "But everyone else is.." let them, they have no vision, so long as Johnny doesn't get arrested and Suzy doesn't get pregnant their happy, if that's what you are living for then I feel sorry for you. Your wasting your life.

The second part is to pass on a vision, a Godly vision, something you and your family were meant to have, a purpose, something to be deliberate about. Living for the Glory of God. That's eternal!

This cd setwill help flesh it out for those who want to have something to live for.

I have to listen again, but this time with my yellow pad, to write out notes...

We Need the Whole Counsel of God, updated

A follow up to previous post...couldn't sleep

The "We need the whole counsel of God" post is another perspective, another manifestation of what I struggle with,the comparmentalization and fragmenting of how I see life, rather than seeing my inheritance as a whole. Eph1:10,11 ...he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him we have obtained an inheritance...

It's like the story of the vineyard that was rented out....I want what is due me. I can see more and more how large my inheritance is but as I try to collect what is mine in Christ, my old engrained way of looking at life, the old man, "world views" are laying in wait and abuse and beat me and in effect try to kill the heir. First I couldn't see it, but now I know it's there and I can hear them...."this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance".

The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. All my guns and ammunition won't help me in this battle. As a man thinks so is he.

Looking for my flak jacket...

We Need the Whole Counsel of God

The following is "only" the foot note for an article I read at Chalcedon. It's so easy to take something out of context from the word. Or try to apply some segment of the word while missing out on other scriptures that would alter the application or give correct understanding and that is what he addresses here. It's from a section for subscribers of the magazine ,or I would link to it. The magazine is very good. We all have seen this happen, it will be good to have this perspective in the back of your mind when it happens again. Often as I am working on my strained carrots, I look over at someones elses plate and ask "could you cut me off a little piece of that.."

Note I'm not putting it all in italics, as I wanted to stress certain portions of it.

Martin G. Selbrede

4. The disingenuous condemnation usually takes is easy to recognize: all fundamentalism is bad, and it is the reason people fly jetliners into skyscrapers, or why self-appointed vigilantes will shoot and murder a doctor who performs abortions. The answer is self-evident: all these abuses arise, not from a totalistic approach to Scripture (where the whole counsel of God is understood and applied) but from a piecemeal approach to it. We see this in humanistic attacks on the Bible: critics always quote an “offensive” verse or two in isolation and rail about what that allegedly leads to. But Christianity, as Greg Bahnsen well says, must be defended as a system, and theology, as Dr. Rushdoony makes crystal clear, is a seamless garment. The best protection against the abuses lamented by humanists is Biblical totalism. The man who is guided wholly and authoritatively by the entire Word of God is not some mindless automaton, a ticking time bomb that could go off and kill his fellow citizens without a thought, but a man constrained, a man immune from being controlled by those who manipulate fragments of Scripture to their own ends. Far from abandoning ethics and morality, the fully equipped man of God alone has an expansive, well-anchored morality that exhibits, in exhaustive detail, his loving his neighbor as himself. In short, the only solution to the caricature painted of Christian fundamentalism is Biblical totalism. Christian fundamentalism can go astray when it fails to anchor itself to the whole counsel of God, when it plays the piecemeal game the humanists indulge in. The vigilantes can be criticized for being “consistent” with a verse or two, but their actions show their gross inconsistency with the whole counsel. Critics paper over this difference because humanists know nothing other than a piecemeal approach to anything: thinking in a system is alien to their premises. In their hands, our Lord’s instruction in the Great Commission would be changed to “teaching them to observe a select handful of the things I’ve commanded you,” rather than all things I’ve commanded. Herein lies the modern error: the straw man it erects against the Bible is its own humanistic, fractured approach to the Bible.

Critics deride Rushdoony’s “jot and tittle” approach to Scripture as leading to such a piecemeal approach to God’s Word, but even that criticism misquotes Rushdoony: the mandate is to obey every jot and tittle, not pit them against each other. “[T]he spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor. 14:32), forbidding the isolation of any portion of the Scriptures from the testimony of the rest. Modern Christendom sets legalism in motion when it picks and chooses between jots and tittles but disdains to teach all of them, because what remains after filtering is no longer subject to scriptural checks and balances (those having been expunged). When the Sadducees attempted to refute the doctrine of the Resurrection, they cited jots and tittles concerning Levirate marriage, yet Jesus said to them, “Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures …?” (Mark 12:24). Unless one embraces the total message of the entire Bible, he “knows not the scriptures” and will blunder into a ditch as readily as the Sadducees had done.

My Rights

From Chalcedon today, I found this funny, first funny funny, but the more I think about it, it's rolaids funny. Note what Rushdoony wrote is originally from 1976, extrapolate our culture from then till now and you have...

Vision

She was a very modern, attractive young woman in her twenties. While in bed with her lover, her husband came home unexpectedly, thrashed the adulterer soundly, and threw him out. Meanwhile, the young woman called the police, and, when they arrived, demanded that they arrest her husband. Why? Because, she said, he had violated her privacy and her “rights”! She was outraged when the police refused to do anything, and she wondered what the world was coming to.

Surprised? You should not be. Proverbs 29:18, in the Berkeley Version, reads, “Where there is no vision the people run wild; but happy is he who keeps the law.”...

very short, read it

Our Economy, Aug 2007

I think that this is true. What Ron Paul is saying. I have never heard a candidate speak like this. They will crush him by making everyone feel like he is going to take away what is rightfully theirs. Medicaid, social security, etc, they will scare everyone to death before too long. I do believe that this is what is starting to come home to roost. How it will shake out I do not know. It is in Gods hands and I wish we could say that we have been obedient as a nation to his ways, that we could expect the blessings of his right hand.
Be prudent. Can you get out of debt?

High-Risk Credit
by Ron Paul

As markets went on a rollercoaster ride last week, our economy is coming close to a day of reckoning for loose credit policies being followed by the Federal Reserve Bank. Simply, foreign banks we have been relying on to buy our debt are waking up to the reality of much higher default rates than predicted, and many mortgage-backed securities have been reduced to “junk” ratings. Wall Street fears the possibility of tightening credit and the tightening of America’s belts. Why, they say, “if Americans spend only what they can afford, think of the ripple effects throughout the economy!” This is the cry, as the call comes for the fed to cut rates and bail out companies in trouble.

More inflation is, however, never the answer to inflation...

...We’ve been headed in the wrong direction since 1971. This week marks the 36th anniversary of Nixon’s decision to close the gold window, which convinced me to seek public office to call attention to the runaway money train that would come in the aftermath of that decision. The temptation to print and spend money with impunity, like the temptation to max out lines of credit, is too strong to for government to resist. While Nixon brokered exclusivity deals with OPEC to prop up demand for the tidal wave of green pieces of paper the Fed pumped into the markets, the world is tiring of marching to the beat of our drum in order to secure their energy needs. The house of cards Nixon built is now on the verge of collapsing on our heads, and on our children’s heads...its short,read it all
If you curious for more of what Ron Paul has written, not some handler,go here, note you cannot find any other candidate being this frank.

more on this subject

a whole lot more
Two months ago i could barely find anything like this, now im seeing it more and more. The talking heads are not talking about this on the eve news, or the markets would be a lot lower. We serve the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and he will not be mocked forever. We will trust in him!

Who We Are

Here Wilson gives his 2 cents about Gerlertner's writing. Again it's helpful to me as I keep examining my americanism and try to have The Kings perspective on it.

American Zionism and the Creed
Topic: Americanitas

David Gelernter really celebrates the Puritans.

"To understand America and Americanism, you must understand those Puritans. They are a difficult proposition, an intellectual handful. They were religious fanatics. But their intolerance gave birth to toleration; their quest for religious freedom yielded freedom in general; and their devotion to the Bible and the biblical idea of covenant contributed significantly to the modern liberal state" (p. 38).

This is all quite true, but when it comes to making a case for "Americanism" it is completely beside the point. If I might, I would start my critique of this chapter right out of the blocks. The Puritans did in fact shape the American personality. But personality is not the same thing as character. Two men can have an outgoing personality, with one of them honest and the other treacherous. Two men can be quiet and withdrawn, with one of them a rock of integrity and the other a knave. We do share certain personality features with the Puritans, attributes we inherited from them. But inheriting a personality like this is not the same thing as inheriting their character.

To hear praise of the Puritans like this is like hearing the Prodigal Son raise a toast in some seedy tavern (Distant Country Ale House) in honor of his father, who supplied him with all this great money. Just like in the parable, there will come a day when we run out of all that "great money" that the Puritans supplied us with. We may already be there -- the pig food is starting to look pretty good.....


Read it all!

Father/Daughter retreat CD set from Vision Forum

Heads up! If you haven't heard the 2007 father/daughter retreat cd set, put it on your short list. This would be a great addition to any church library.

I have only heard 4 of the seven cds one from Doug, Scott Brown and 2 from Botkin. Outstanding to hear nuts and bolts on a biblical perspective for raising our daughters in a fashion to honor God, prepare them to be successful in God's eyes. I thank God I am fathering at a time when this type of vision is being re-introduced back into the church. I wish it had been modeled for me for the last 20yrs, but I am thankful that I still have time to make course corrections. If you have daughters you will be WISE and get a hold of these, and let God expand what your doing.

If you have sons you should hear these too and let God help you shape a model of what a marriage can be as your sons get older, there is great stuff for just married couples as far as hearing and seeing something that just sounds like it's from Mars but your spirit will just soar as you let God show, nudge you, to be the man you are called to be! There was much I saw that I can push myself forward with for my own marriage. Great stuff for working with my daughters and just fantastic material to eventually help my son see what is important in a women for the Kingdom. Catch a vision and let God help you build a family that will impact the nation. This stuff is armor piercing.

I'm telling you, we have been sold such a bill of goods, just garbage, and we live with this because we don't see anything else. Wake up and buy a vowel, start living for our King. Let it not be said of us that we are just locked into following a small God of personal peace and affluence when we have been made and called, to move forward in his view of life!!! It's the only life worth living, let the pagans settle for wood, hay, and stubble. Not us! Time is short if you want to let God use you to impact future generations.

If you think "my kids are too young for this" they may be, but as a parent you are gonna have to make up for lost time if you want to trade out the view of life that you have grown up with and let God engraft into you His vision. You are too old, and I don't care if your only 18, to let anymore water run by under the bridge. We can be building a community of like minded familys that encourage each other to good works and good deeds out of a desire to be obedient to our LORD.

The first father/daughter retreat cd set finished my initial course change for my family. (what do you mean? your church doesn't have the first set? get it!) The best part was my wife couldn't see it, couldn't catch the vision because of all of the years of humanistic indoctrination she recieved, the individualism and egalitarianism and I'm talking about what was modeled for us in the Church. God used that first set to open her eyes and we both continue to beg God to "show us more", that we may not discourage others who may be further down the road and as we do violence to the status quo to enter the Kingdom of Heaven! (I'm not talking about righteousness or salvation) The Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force! Are you having to force your way past anything? Old world views? Every wife knows how to maintain a level control over her husband and family, but is yours still doing it? These talks can help!

To him who has ears to hear, let him hear.....

get it now

National ID Cards are Here?

I don't think this is a good idea. From the Chalcedon blog
you combine this with the article called, Clergy To Be Used During Martial Law and you just know it's not a good combo.

I have not read it all yet but the long column they have reprinted from Rushdoony on the Chrsitians proper understanding of Romans 13, submission to governing authorities looks like it will be intersting too...

Real ID Act: Countdown to Tyranny

By May 11, 2008, if you don't have federal Real ID card to identify yourself, you won't be able to board an airplane, walk into a federal building, or national park. Any citizen that lives in a state that refuses to comply with this tyranny must have a passport instead. Imagine, you can't go to Yosemite National Park without a passport!

The Real ID Act was signed in 2005 and is intended to replace your driver's license by creating a new national ID. That's right. The Department of Homeland Security is calling for all "states to begin issuing new FEDERAL licenses" by May 11, 2008. You will no longer have a driver's license that reflects your own home state. You belong to the Fed now. It's the only way they can protect you. They claim "Real ID is an essential weapon in the war on terror."...
Read more>>
you must scroll down the page....

Honest Money, Dr. Gary North

At the AFHE convention at Swanson's table they were selling Gary North's Honest Money they had sold them all out and would ship it to me, and was taking so long to get my copy in the mail after the convention that I emailed asking if they had forgottn me. Was very suprised that they had to order more than thought they would be needing as the response for it was so great.

Only recently have I been exposed to examples of teaching and writing that show that God's word is not silent as I would've guessed a short time ago towards monetary policy of Nations? To think that we can turn to the Bible to have guidance on whether central banks and governments are functioning in rebellion to Gods order.

Have not read it yet. But I have my copy now and found the inside cover had a quote from Rushdoony

...stating that the issue with respect to gold is an issue more centrally with respect to God. Is there an ultimate and absolute order, and does Gods sovereign law establish an inescapable order with respect to every sphere, so that transgression of the law brings penalties and decay. Or is humanism true, and the only value is man and his desires, his pleasure in consumption, display and expression...

But a sound monetary policy rests in the framework of absolute law, in the basic premise of the sovereign and absolute God whose Law-order governs all reality....the monetary policies of socialism reflect, after all the consistant faith in the ultimacy and sovereignty of man and mans ability to create his own law, money, and world at will... Rushdoony "Politics of Guilt and Pity" 1970

How We Got Here, McArthur, Wilson

Have listened to John McArthur's "When God Abandons a Nation" Good stuff. What caught my attn was at the end, when he asked the question, "what can we do?" He told his listeners to be repentant and follow the Lord as the only hope. Which the converse would be, because we have not been repentant and followed the Lord that's why we are dealing with this tidal wave of perverted humanity. He didn't say that. But I have heard Wilson more than once say it, ouch.

That reminded me of this Credenda Agenda issue "Sodom as Yawnsville" vol 16 iss2
Arrows in the Hand of a Limp-Wristed Man
Ben Merkle

The homosexual movement is by necessity a parasitic movement. Gay men don't reproduce and lesbians only do so with some clever science or helpful friends. Therefore, the gay world is a necessarily barren world and depends on the straight community for its children. Without the children of heterosexuals, the homosexuals could have no next generation. But, despite the homosexual sterility, the gay movement seems to have no shortage of new blood. So where do they all come from? The answer is fairly tragic. They come from the Church.

Christianity has become a spiritually castrated movement. As a Church we are not able to reproduce. We might produce children of the flesh, a host of Ishmaels, but no children of the promise, no Isaacs. Our children grow up in the Church only to lose interest in the faith and to walk away from the blood of Christ and the glories of the New Covenant. We have grown so used to losing our children to unbelief that we have begun to expect it....

...Now one man says to the other, rather dismissively, that of those thousand church members, almost seven hundred are children. Should this fact make one more nervous or less nervous about the potency of the Church? What a terrible tragedy that a host of children in the Church's ranks calms the opposition, rather than filling them with fear.

Try another thought experiment. Imagine America at its founding, with a deep and glorious Christian heritage. Now imagine the overwhelming number of American Christian fathers raising their children to know the Lord. And imagine that continuing for just ten generations. What would modern America look like? How would things be different?....

And what a blessing from God that the most important battle the Church faces begins when you come home from work, take your tie off, and begin wrestling with your son. How many Christians,
Read the whole thing

From the Horse's Mouth

High-Risk Spending
by Ron Paul

Last week this column addressed the train wreck that federal spending has become. To score political points politicians will make loud noise about fairly small matters such as earmarks, even while refusing to address the real problem. Namely, that our federal government is too big and does too much. Politicians prefer to pass a bill or create a program every time somebody points to a new social problem; this way they can tell their constituents how much they are doing to help. Instead of rationally explaining the proper role of government, politicians have attempted to play the role of friend, preacher, parent, social worker, etcetera – in essence, whatever any organized special interest can demand...

One thing that has not drawn enough attention is the link between the size of government and the mismanagement that leads to wasted money. If the government was restrained within its proper constitutional functions, it would be far better managed and much more readily would proper oversight occur....


In the time that the GAO list has existed, there have been 33 additions and a mere 18 removals, including two this year. Only when the people demand the federal government stop trying to meet any and all demands, and instead return to a constitutionally limited republic, will the list of programs subject to waste, fraud and abuse be dramatically reduced. While government will never be perfect, a limited government is far more able to not only identify problems, but to actually correct them.Read more>>

Look! Another Puzzle Box Top

Tammy will love this post....

Tonight my wife was cutting my hair. When we do that, we always put something on to listen to. Tonight it was cd 1 from "So Let Your Light", A Defense of Chrisitan Culture, from the Highland Study Center. It's put together by RC Sproul Jr. I think I am hearing this one for the fith/sixth time, we got it last month.

When we first received this set my wife started to listen to it first. On the phone she told me "you need to listen to these cds, this is what you've been talking about!"

From the back of the cd set "... should we be about the the business of bringing all things under subjection to Christ? should we labor that His will would be done on earth, as it is in heaven?..."

As a evagelical, I think the description of trying to put a puzzle together without the puzzle box top describes my experience pretty well. It's like we can put a few pieces together here and over there is another dozen pieces together, actually all over the table you can see some together. But you cannot see any theme that can tie it all together. It's disjointed. I couldn't see the box top clearly, even though I kept reading the Bible, I was a prisoner of the strong man of my cultural upbringing, like Joseph Neesima was. (you will have to wait for the link to Joseph, as I am still putting that email together for some friends, but it will make it to the blog soon)

Instead of working to conform my immediate culture (that which I could control) to the norms of the gospel I just syncretised it all together along with everybody I have gone to church with. Everyone did it, it was normal. It was in my 40's that I was starting to see that, this just cannot be right, so much of what was normal church life. But I had no clue of what needed to be changed.... I had no way to see puzzle box lid clearly.

The early Church was not immune to this either. All the early Christians knew about life was from within the context of the Roman Empire. It's all anyone knew for hundreds of years. Centralized power in a central figure ,the emperor, was all they had as a reference point by way of structured community. If you have read Church history you can see that the early Church by the yr 200 was on well, well, on it's way to accepting the idea the there should be a central ruling figure and by the yr 400 or so the head of the Church even used the name of the Roman Emperors, Pontifex Maximus.

World views are huge. When Jesus spoke of not pouring new wine into old wineskins, because they will burst, I think that has a world view component to it.

This cd set was excellent,one of the best if not the best for trying to show that redeeming creation is as much a part of the redemption work of Christ as was the saving of souls. Lots of fuel to help give understanding for our Christian walk. I keep saying that I feel God is making me more 3 dimensional. I'm tired of being a shadow of what God intended me to be, I want to be a real human for the glory of God.

So if you too would like something to help you see the box top more clearly, I cannot recomend this highly enough.

Ken Myers, Edward Veith, L Windham, and RC Sproul Jr.

8 cds I think it's $35

Col 1:15-20...all things, all things, all things....
Eph 1:10... all things, all things...
Eph 1:21 ...above all principalities..
Eph 1:22 ...he put all things under his feet....
Eph 4:15...speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him...Christ..
Col 1:18...that in all things he may have preeminence...

find it here

Seeds Come To Fruition

From the Chalcedon Blog. I have a lot of Rushdoony's books, compared to other authors, not compared to how many he wrote. What is amazing is you can read his stuff from 20-30-40yr ago and it will just nail our culture on how it is. That is a testimony that in so many ways he was correctly applying God's truth to the human condition.

"Mommy, tell my professor he's not nice!"
In May of 2007, Nadira A. Hira, in an article titled Attracting the Twentysomething Worker writes,

When it comes to Gen Y's intangible characteristics, the lexicon is less than flattering. Try "needy," "entitled." Despite a consensus that they're not slackers, there is a suspicion that they've avoided that moniker only by creating enough commotion to distract from the fact that they're really not that into "work."...

With the focus in education on the needs of the child, we have raised a generation of selfish brats. From the time they were born until the day they graduate from high school, they have been told that they are special and they deserve to get whatever they want – and they believe it. When they played on the local sports team, everyone one, on every team, got a trophy....

We now have an entire generation of children entering the work force and real life in general that can not understand why everyone does not constantly gush all over them....

Once again, Rushdoony’s books of 40 years ago read like the morning paper. Why? Because Rushdoony read, understood, and expounded upon the Word of God. In 1961, R.J. Rushdoony wrote in Intellectual Schizophrenia,...

For the emphasis now is on the needs of the child, not on the demands and expectations of the culture. Once the literature of youth abounded in an emphasis on what the young man needed to know, what his spiritual armor was, what made him a complete man, a complete farmer, cobbler or apprentice, all on the premise of his responsibility to the culture and his personal incapacity if he failed to meet the requirements of manhood and faith. But the approach now is radically different…. To have a child now is no longer an act of nature but a matter of painful research. “Essential” education is in terms of the needs of the child, not in terms of the requirements of God and society. The consequences, of course, are children who are group-directed and consumption-centered, whose attitude towards life is one of appetite rather than responsibility. (pg. 75, emphasis added)...
Read more>>