THE PRETTY MUCH LOST ART OF DEBATE

I think almost everyone would agree that the term “debate” is really a misnomer for the pre-election Presidential & VP debates a couple of months ago. Out of the 4 people who participated in them, the only one who really succeeded in following what I would consider traditional ideas about political debate was the now VP-Elect Mike Pence.

I recently watched as much as I could stomach of a pre-election debate between Dinesh D’Sousa & Cenk Uygur. Uygur really did a great job of showing us how debate should not be done. Some of his more despicable methods were sarcasm, moral equivalency, mocking the messenger, deliberately misquoting (which is lying), doing what is known as “pivoting,” & generally treating his opponent like a fool. I couldn’t accept as credible what he was saying for a number of reasons. One of them was his apparent definition of what constitutes debate.

On the other hand, D’Sousa did his best to be civil, address what he could of Uygur’s claims, & try to keep the debate on track & focused.

One of the really important keys to getting our country back on track is to debate properly. The term “debate” implies that there are differences in opinion (& at the same time does not imply that all opinions are equal). But it would be nice to hear debate that shows respect for those whose opinions differ regardless of the validity of their opinions.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED ABOUT ECONOMICS FROM BEING A MISSIONARY

To put it bluntly, I have learned that what some call “re-distribution of wealth” doesn’t work. For a lot of reasons.

My wife & I have spent a lot of time doing what we can to leave the most positive & enduring legacy from our time of serving here. For her, it’s doing children’s ministry & training those who are & will be involved in children’s ministry. For me, it’s developing pastors to the highest possible level as spiritual leaders.

You may not understand this, but one of the biggest temptations that a missionary can face is that of becoming the guy who gives out money. After all, there are innumerable needs all around.

But what happens when we redistribute wealth? When we do it in ways that are inappropriate, it results in resentment, greed, & jealousy. Resentment toward the foreign “Santa Claus” who has come to be the source of provision for meeting economic needs. Greed & jealousy toward those who have benefitted from the well-meaning benefactor. We run a very real risk of creating unhealthy welfare addicts with our uninformed benevolence.

And all the while, we feel really good about ourselves because we did something praiseworthy in meeting a tangible economic need.

Luke 4:18-19 really speaks to this issue:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

I’m trying to communicate a lot of things in one short blog. Please feel free to ask about why I see things this way & I’ll do my best to clarify it to you.

But the bottom line is this: If you want to distribute something, it’s better to distribute the empowerment to create wealth, than to re-distribute wealth. You will never meet all the needs. Those needs will continue to afflict people long after you are gone or have used up your resources. The people will still be in bondage to satanic schemes to keep them in poverty.

But if you work hand-in-hand with the Lord to do what Luke 4 says, you will leave a lasting legacy of spiritual & economic freedom & empowerment.

This has implications not only in the place where we serve, but also in our earthly homeland.

ANOTHER LOOK AT HEBREWS 11

I read this wonderful chapter which some call the “Hall of Faith” today. It’s 40 action-packed, encouraging & challenging verses.

Early in my Christian walk I was introduced to the idea that faith is “now,” meaning that if we have faith we should expect to see the results of our faith right away.

The unfortunate thing with this view here is that such an idea is not really in the text. The word “now” in verse 1 is probably best understood as a transition into a different aspect of what chapter 10 was talking about. Also, this view of the text can lead us to understand that “now” is defined by the believer, not by the Lord.

When understanding Hebrews 11 that way, I didn’t see beyond the idea that all these incredible heroes of the faith saw extraordinary answers to prayer & the powerful working of God’s power.

Then I began to see that they were not all delivered (verse35b “And others…”). So the next view I had of Hebrews 11 was that it really calls us to be faithful to the Lord regardless of what does or doesn’t happen.

However, there is another important, big-picture view that I have been seeing over the last few years. That is God’s overall redemptive purpose in Christ. The theme of Hebrews includes the idea that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The experience of those saints in the Old Testament who are mentioned in Hebrews 11 is only made complete with the coming of Christ & with what the original readers of the book had experienced in Christ.

Each Old Testament saint was part of the bigger picture. Their lives were somehow leading toward the fulfillment of God’s ultimate plan.

It’s the same with us today. There is no “improvement” on Christ or additional fulfillment of God’s plan apart from Christ. But God is still guiding human history toward the fulfillment that He has planned from eternity past. He has a redemptive plan. Every disciple of Christ is part of that plan.

Faith means that we are growing in our relationship with God to the extent that we are committed to Him & it no matter what it may imply for us personally. It also means that we do this because it has eternal, redemptive implications for others. We won’t know those implications in their entirety until we see them in the Lord’s presence in eternity.

That’s faith!

POPULAR VOTING

According to vote counts today, Clinton had as many as 400,000 more votes than Trump. Every presidential election when the popular vote is like this, we get treated to a lot of complaints about the Electoral College & why we need to get rid of it & change to a simple popular vote.

One thing we need to remember is that our Founding Fathers, the people who conceived the Electoral College, didn’t do it in the kind of setting that today’s disappointed activists do.

They spent countless hours seriously discussing & debating the issue. They had done extensive reading & thinking about how to best keep elections reflective of the will of the people & the individual states. And, their discussions weren’t in the context of frustration about how they wished an election had turned out.

I won’t go into the rationale that finally brought them to the place where they enshrined the College into the federal election process. There’s a lot of information online about that.

The other thing that is important to remember is that we shouldn’t assume that every single one of those 400,000 votes was legitimate. 

Voter & election fraud are real, & I’m very thankful that there apparently wasn’t enough to swing the election in Clinton’s favor. I hope that one of the priorities of the Trump DOJ is to investigate & prosecute cases of voter & election fraud (not to mention voter intimidation). If not, it will grow like a cancer & affect future elections.

WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

Have you ever heard someone, when he reacted badly to a perceived wrong, blame the circumstances or something wrong that someone said or did to him? I have.

But here’s something I don’t remember ever hearing – someone who responded correctly to a bad situation saying that his right reaction was the result of the wrong that was done, said, or experienced.

That is because our reaction, good or bad, is more about what is inside us, not around us. 

What am I saying here? Simply that God in His wisdom uses negative things to bring out what is already in our hearts. For what purpose? So that we can see more clearly what is in our hearts, the things that are already open & visible in the sight of our Heavenly Father.

He knows that if left undetected, negative & sinful things can poison us spiritually, emotionally, & even physically. We will not be able to experience the fullness of His plan for us if we are affected by unseen, hidden faults or sins.

Rather than blessing others, we are in danger of poisoning them.

It may be that God is allowing you to go thru a difficult situation. It may seem to be unjust or unfair. The important thing right now is not so much that it gets made right. The important thing is that we use the situation to let God show us what is in our hearts. 

Then He can do the necessary work in us. And we can trust Him to do what is right in the situation that we are facing.

MADE TO BE BROKEN? REALLY?

Back in the mid & late 1960s a common expression among my peers was “Rules are made to be broken.”

It reflected a rebellious, smug attitude that considered our “enlightened” way of seeing things as superior to what generations of Judeo-Christian culture had established.

Another negative fallout of this “we know better” attitude is that not only are rules made to be broken, but relationships are also made to be broken. The truth is that the marriage relationship has God’s stamp of creation & approval. It is made to last for a lifetime.

Of course, my generation isn’t the only culprit in the creation of a “throw-away relationships” culture. Popular entertainment in earlier decades began to legitimize this way of seeing marriage relationships.

I’m not criticizing or condemning those who have experienced broken marriages. On the contrary, I’m saying that they are experiencing the results of a false view of what God intended marriage to be. The results of thinking that relationships are made to be broken aren't really so enlightened or wonderful after all…

What I'm saying is that no matter how smart of clever we feel we are as a culture, we can never go one better than what God has established. 

I'm also saying that it’s a lot smarter, not to mention more fun, to stay with His way of seeing the marriage relationship.