Christianity – Page 2 – Jason W. Triplett

June 25, 2022August 3, 2022

Christians! Beware the Victory Lap

I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is in no way a satisfactory answer to unplanned pregnancy.

Yesterday the US Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe v. Wade in the decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

The decision was met with celebration and alarm as social media, news outlets and live feeds brimmed with responses from single words and sentences to paragraph long rants and sharply constructed memes.

Many Christians decided to create or share posts in “victory” over Roe v. Wade. I saw Christian people declare that we’d won. Some crowed that our opposition (i.e. those who’d support abortion rights, the legislators and governors, our next door neighbors) had fallen and that the cause of Christ had triumphed.

Here’s the problem. Abortion is still legal in the US. Only now, it’s the state legislatures that will determine it’s legality, not the Federal Government. Don’t believe me? Look here.

Today women are still making appointments to have their pregnancies terminated. The question in the US is not if abortion is legal or illegal. The question is “how legal” abortion is.

Living in Illinois, we see the Midwestern capital for abortion. It’s estimated that we will see an increase of 20-30,000 abortions in the next year alone from women in the surrounding states who’ll seek services here. That would take the number of abortions per year in Illinois closer to 100,000. (1)

The Illinois Reproductive Health Act (775 ILCS 55) ensured that even if Roe v. Wade fell, Illinois would be among the US leaders in guaranteed abortion rights (details here). In 2017, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner eliminated the trigger law which would go into effect when Roe v. Wade failed. So when current Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said yesterday that an “extremist court” bent on causing an increase in back alley abortions risked lives due to the Dobbs decision, he’s basically signaling to the rest of the Midwest that Illinois is doubling down and increasing it’s commitment to abortion rights.

So no, abortion has not been made illegal. In the five states that surround Illinois, only two have eliminated abortion for any reason except the life of the mother. And those in Arkansas and Missouri who are seeking an abortion for any other reason will find one not only in Illinois, but in Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky and Iowa. (2)

Christians and pro-life advocates, please abstain from taking a victory lap. The job is not done by a long shot.

We need to shut off the valve in order to stop the flow. Roe v. Wade is done. But the effort must now change into making abortion unthinkable, to eradicate the perceived need in the hearts of men and women for abortion. It’s a reality that many people believe that abortion of a child is the only answer to unplanned pregnancy. We must work to change that perception.

If we are Pro-Life, are we Pro-Foster care? Pro-Fatherhood? Pro-Truth Based Education? Are we willing to offer help to prospective parents with substance abuse problems or financial problems? Are we willing to raise the babies born to people who cannot raise them alone? What are we prepared to do to make abortion an inessential last resort?

The bigger question to the Church is do we believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ? If so, we know that complex issues can neither be abolished nor advanced with the stroke of a judicial pen because human problems are based in sin and not on social or legal dogma. We cannot legislate (or de-legislate) morality.

Instead of declaring victory, let’s continue to declare the same state of emergency that Christ declared until He returns.(3) People are dying each day without knowing the God who made them through faith in Jesus Christ. While the demise of Roe v. Wade is a battle won. It’s only one battle in the much larger war being waged for the souls of each human being, born or unborn.

March 6, 2022March 6, 2022

Christians, We Need to Talk

Have you ever been asleep on your feet? It’s a dangerous thing. Your body is still moving, but your mind drifts, fades and then you lose awareness of where you are and what you’re doing. Sleep takes over. Most people simply decide to go to bed at that point. But what if you need to stay awake?

I used to work the night shift. I picked up three nights a week at a local distribution warehouse where I pulled orders and loaded pallets for delivery. It wasn’t hard work. They provided all the equipment and clothing to work there. They started you off slowly, trained you well and did their best to ensure you’d be successful working for the company. The hardest part was from midnight to around 3am when my body and mind started demanding sleep.

I noticed a trick that some of the other workers would do to stay awake in those magic hours of the night. They’d talk to one another. Some of them were really good at their jobs, could pace themselves and still make their rate for the night. They wouldn’t get all their work done right away, they’d work for a while and then take five minutes to have a conversation, then continue on. Others would literally run their mouths all night long. They’d shout across the warehouse at each other. They’d yell, cheer or sing loudly. Some would stop and tell each other jokes. The laughter kept things lively in the place.

There’s a quote from the story “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. The main character Pilgrim and his companion Hopeful are journeying together. This is how it reads.

“Christian and Hopeful, as they journeyed towards the Celestial City, said to themselves, ‘To prevent drowsiness in this place, let us fall into good discourse.’ Christian enquired, ‘Brother, where shall we begin?’ And Hopeful answered, ‘Where God began with us.'”(1)

Here, the two decide that in order to stay awake for their journey, they’d have good conversation about what God is doing and has done for them. Following this thought is immensely important in this day where we can so easily ‘fall asleep’. We can fall sleep when we immerse ourselves the world of voices which drown out the voice of God in our lives. We are in danger of drowsing when we pay more attention to the signs of the stock market over the signs of the times. Our heads can nod when we are more concerned with the latest trends over the ancient wisdom.

The Apostle Paul says it this way.

“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” 1 Thessalonians 5:6–8 (ESV)

We are tempted to sleep each night when the darkness surrounds us. We turn out the light, we nestle in our beds and trust there is safety in the dark. Without God, there is no safety in the spiritual darkness of the world. We cannot afford to nod off while it envelops us and others.

Notice what else Paul says in this text. See what guards us as we stay awake, gazing into the darkness. Our hearts are protected by our faith and the love of God. Our minds are overseen by the hope of our salvation in Jesus Christ. We will need all three of these; faith, love and hope. Even though in the darkness, where evil and sin run rampant, these virtues seem to be missing.

In the darkness, faith is replaced by either fear or self-sufficiency. Love, the sacrifice of self for others, is replaced with the sacrifice of others for self. And hope, the belief that rescue is coming, sits upon false foundations of human performance instead of the Lord’s provision.

As Christians walk to that celestial city, traversing the world and speaking the name of Jesus to those who will hear, we need companions who’ll remind us of God’s wondrous works and continual faithfulness. We need good Christian conversation which elevates God’s goodness and the joy of our salvation above the murk.

Otherwise we might walk alone, look into the abyss and see the darkness as the solitary thing. We’d be tempted to submit to it, make ourselves comfortable, close our eyes and be consumed.

(1) Spurgeon, C. H. Morning and Evening: Daily Readings. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896. March 6th Entry.

January 6, 2022March 6, 2022

Suffering is the Most Powerful Love

Last night, my son came to me with his Bible open. He’d played the “Magic 8-ball” game with the scripture (as kids do). He chose a random book, a random chapter, and a random verse to read and think about before praying and heading to bed. He told me, “I needed some Jesus tonight before I go to sleep.” His facial expression told me he had a question. He pointed to this verse.

1 Peter 3:14 (ESV) “But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled,”

He was confused. The context of this verse is the Apostle Peter’s teaching to the early Church about being loving and compassionate to others while focusing on doing what is good before the Lord. It’s a teaching that helps us understand the role of good deeds and loving others as Christ followers amid opposition and persecution. Verse 14 troubled him. He asked me why Christians could suffer for doing what is good, right, and true. He was hung up on a notion that God would allow goodness in his people to be punished. He questioned how suffering could come from always trying to do what is good and avoiding evil.

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this question from someone because it’s an inescapable thought that many people have. We are taught and come to believe that good behavior deserves good outcomes. Oddly, while many people believe this, it’s not true about the world. Life does not return goodness or evil to us based on our doing good or doing evil. Admittedly, we do see some good results from doing good things. But doing good in no way guarantees a life without pain or suffering.

We may ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” This is still a good question because it leads us eventually to a determination about God. The question assumes there is a system in place in the universe that returns good experiences when we do what we believe to be good. It’s like a big cosmic vending machine. When that vending machine breaks down, we tend to smack it around and decry the evil of a system that hasn’t given us what we are owed. The broken cosmic vending machine causes us to declare that someone now is in our debt, but God is clear, He and this world owe us nothing. (Romans 11:33-35)

Why does God allow suffering for those who’d seek only to do good and avoid evil? It’s because God is interested in us being the givers of authentic sacrificial love. He wants that powerful love to draw all people to a right relationship with Him.

Consider what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5:44–46 (ESV) “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?…”

Here the Lord Jesus says we are to love our enemies. We are to pray for those who’d oppose us and cause us to suffer. Only real love does such things. True goodness loves and prays for others even when they are the source of our pain. We are true children of our Father in heaven when we love those who don’t love us back. And when our doing of goodness and love relies on the vending machine returning the favor, it questions the authenticity of the good we are doing.

But God wants us to do good because it’s His good, not due to anything we get in return. He wants us to owe others nothing but to love them. (Romans 13:8) And he doesn’t want us believing that He or the cosmos owes us anything in return.

I told my son we emulate Jesus when we do good things for the reason that God is good and not for anything we get out of it. Whether we suffer or not shouldn’t change our desire to still love like Christ loves. For on the cross, He showed us this love and goodness. Jesus went willingly for people who’d caused him to suffer, doing the ultimate good for all humanity and He didn’t do it for Himself. He did it for us. And that love is powerful.