See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.[Colossians 2:8-9]
A week or so ago, the Daily Devotions spoke of the house arrest of the astronomer Galileo. In that devo we tried to lay to rest the long-standing, and altogether false opinion, which said God's people are always narrow-minded when it comes to accepting the truths of science. Instead of this old "belief," we shared research that said scientists were partially responsible for silencing Galileo.
This week we lay to rest a number of other wrong things, which everybody believes. On that list are
1. fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce;
2. most ongoing marriages are unhappy, and
3. Christian marriages break up with the same regularity as that of unbelievers.
Well, my friends, it's all baloney.
That is the fact-based position of Shaunti Feldhahn, a Harvard-trained researcher. Feldhahn did her research -- eight years of research -- and found out that
1. the actual divorce rate has never gotten close to 50 percent, and
2. those who regularly go to church have a significantly lower divorce rate, and
3. most marriages, that is, four out of five, are pretty happy.
And where did those original, false figures come from? Feldhahn says they "came from statisticians who, years ago, projected that if things continued on unchecked, they might be true sometime in the future." Well, according to Feldhahn, these guys and gals were wrong, and so is everybody who takes their conjectures and promotes them as being factual.
Now all of this is good news for believers who have been getting clobbered for years by such wrong numbers and false accusations.
Because of Feldhahn and other fact-finders, we are able to confront the skeptics and the scoffers and say, "We husbands may not love our wives as wonderfully as Christ loved the church, but with Jesus we're still doing a far better job than the world does without Him."
We should not be surprised. Anyone who has taken a look at the life of the Savior has seen how He showed His love and taught us to love others. He taught us how to forgive and encouraged us to do the same. His life showed us how to make sacrifices for others, and He prayed that all who followed Him might reflect a similar, loving picture to this sinful world.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, in the early centuries of the church, Tertullian imagined unbelievers looking at Christians and, in awe, saying, "Look ... how they love one another." Grant that the love we have received from the Savior may be a witness we make to this unbelieving world. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
A week or so ago, the Daily Devotions spoke of the house arrest of the astronomer Galileo. In that devo we tried to lay to rest the long-standing, and altogether false opinion, which said God's people are always narrow-minded when it comes to accepting the truths of science. Instead of this old "belief," we shared research that said scientists were partially responsible for silencing Galileo.
This week we lay to rest a number of other wrong things, which everybody believes. On that list are
1. fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce;
2. most ongoing marriages are unhappy, and
3. Christian marriages break up with the same regularity as that of unbelievers.
Well, my friends, it's all baloney.
That is the fact-based position of Shaunti Feldhahn, a Harvard-trained researcher. Feldhahn did her research -- eight years of research -- and found out that
1. the actual divorce rate has never gotten close to 50 percent, and
2. those who regularly go to church have a significantly lower divorce rate, and
3. most marriages, that is, four out of five, are pretty happy.
And where did those original, false figures come from? Feldhahn says they "came from statisticians who, years ago, projected that if things continued on unchecked, they might be true sometime in the future." Well, according to Feldhahn, these guys and gals were wrong, and so is everybody who takes their conjectures and promotes them as being factual.
Now all of this is good news for believers who have been getting clobbered for years by such wrong numbers and false accusations.
Because of Feldhahn and other fact-finders, we are able to confront the skeptics and the scoffers and say, "We husbands may not love our wives as wonderfully as Christ loved the church, but with Jesus we're still doing a far better job than the world does without Him."
We should not be surprised. Anyone who has taken a look at the life of the Savior has seen how He showed His love and taught us to love others. He taught us how to forgive and encouraged us to do the same. His life showed us how to make sacrifices for others, and He prayed that all who followed Him might reflect a similar, loving picture to this sinful world.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, in the early centuries of the church, Tertullian imagined unbelievers looking at Christians and, in awe, saying, "Look ... how they love one another." Grant that the love we have received from the Savior may be a witness we make to this unbelieving world. In Jesus' Name. Amen.
In Christ I remain His servant and yours,
Pastor Ken Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Psalms 130:(0) A song of ascents. By David:
660 Mason Ridge Center Drive
St. Louis, Missouri 63141 United States
1-800-876-9880
www.lhm.org
____________________________
Pastor Ken Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Psalms 130:(0) A song of ascents. By David:
(1) Adonai, I call to you from the depths;
2 hear my cry, Adonai!
Let your ears pay attention
to the sound of my pleading.
3 Yah, if you kept a record of sins,
who, Adonai, could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
so that you will be feared.
5 I wait longingly for Adonai;
I put my hope in his word.
6 Everything in me waits for Adonai
more than guards on watch wait for morning,
more than guards on watch wait for morning.
7 Isra’el, put your hope in Adonai!
For grace is found with Adonai,
and with him is unlimited redemption.
8 He will redeem Isra’el
from all their wrongdoings.
131:(0) A song of ascents. By David:
(1) Adonai, my heart isn’t proud;
I don’t set my sight too high,
I don’t take part in great affairs
or in wonders far beyond me.
2 No, I keep myself calm and quiet,
like a little child on its mother’s lap —
I keep myself like a little child.
3 Isra’el, put your hope in Adonai
from now on and forever!
132:(0) A song of ascents:
(1) Adonai, remember in David’s favor
all the hardships he endured,
2 how he swore to Adonai,
vowed to the Mighty One of Ya‘akov,
3 “I will not enter the house where I live
or get into my bed,
4 I will not allow myself to sleep
or even close my eyes,
5 until I find a place for Adonai,
a dwelling for the Mighty One of Ya‘akov.”
6 We heard about it in Efrat,
we found it in the Fields of Ya‘ar.
7 Let’s go into his dwelling
and prostrate ourselves at his footstool.
8 Go up, Adonai, to your resting-place,
you and the ark through which you give strength.
9 May your cohanim be clothed with righteousness;
may those loyal to you shout for joy.
10 For the sake of your servant David,
don’t turn away the face of your anointed one.
11 Adonai swore an oath to David,
an oath he will not break:
“One of the sons from your own body
I will set on your throne.
12 If your sons keep my covenant
and my instruction, which I will teach them,
then their descendants too, forever,
will sit on your throne.”
13 For Adonai has chosen Tziyon,
he has wanted it as his home.
14 “This is my resting-place forever,
I will live here because I so much want to.
15 I will bless it with plenty of meat,
I will give its poor their fill of food.
16 Its cohanim I will clothe with salvation,
and its faithful will shout for joy.
17 I will make a king sprout there from David’s line
and prepare a lamp for my anointed one.
18 His enemies I will clothe with shame,
but on him there will be a shining crown.”
1 Corinthians 1:1 From: Sha’ul, called by God’s will to be an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua; and from brother Sosthenes
2 To: God’s Messianic community in Corinth, consisting of those who have been set apart by Yeshua the Messiah and called to be God’s holy people — along with everyone everywhere who calls on the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, their Lord as well as ours:
3 Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
4 I thank my God always for you because of God’s love and kindness given to you through the Messiah Yeshua, 5 in that you have been enriched by him in so many ways, particularly in power of speech and depth of knowledge. 6 Indeed, the testimony about the Messiah has become firmly established in you; 7 so that you are not lacking any spiritual gift and are eagerly awaiting the revealing of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. 8 He will enable you to hold out until the end and thus be blameless on the Day of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah — 9 God is trustworthy: it was he who called you into fellowship with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord.
10 Nevertheless, brothers, I call on you in the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to agree, all of you, in what you say, and not to let yourselves remain split into factions but be restored to having a common mind and a common purpose. 11 For some of Chloe’s people have made it known to me, my brothers, that there are quarrels among you. 12 I say this because one of you says, “I follow Sha’ul”; another says, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Kefa”; while still another says, “I follow the Messiah!” 13 Has the Messiah been split in pieces? Was it Sha’ul who was put to death on a stake for you? Were you immersed into the name of Sha’ul? 14 I thank God that I didn’t immerse any of you except Crispus and Gaius — 15 otherwise someone might say that you were indeed immersed into my name. 16 (Oh yes, I did also immerse Stephanas and his household; beyond that, I can’t remember whether I immersed anyone else.)
17 For the Messiah did not send me to immerse but to proclaim the Good News — and to do it without relying on “wisdom” that consists of mere rhetoric, so as not to rob the Messiah’s execution-stake of its power. 18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God. 19 Indeed, the Tanakh says,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent.”[1 Corinthians 1:19 Isaiah 29:14]
20 Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of today’s thinkers? Hasn’t God made this world’s wisdom look pretty foolish? 21 For God’s wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the “nonsense” of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it. 22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom, 23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is nonsense; 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God’s power and God’s wisdom! 25 For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.”
And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.” 26 Just look at yourselves, brothers — look at those whom God has called! Not many of you are wise by the world’s standards, not many wield power or boast noble birth. 27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong; 28 and God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important; 29 so that no one should boast before God. 30 It is his doing that you are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! 31 Therefore — as the Tanakh says — “Let anyone who wants to boast, boast about Adonai.”[1 Corinthians 1:31 Jeremiah 9:23(24)]
____________________________
The Lutheran Hour660 Mason Ridge Center Drive
St. Louis, Missouri 63141 United States
1-800-876-9880
www.lhm.org
____________________________
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