Friday, September 20, 2024

Part I

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Surgeon General Issues Newsflash of the Century: Parenting is Stressful – Even So, Christian Parenting is Joyful, Difficult, and Glorious Work

Well, it comes from none other than the Surgeon General of the United States. Surgeon General Vivek M. Murthy recently released a statement from the Surgeon General’s Office as Surgeon General of the United States announcing that there is an impending crisis when it comes to parents who are finding parenting very hard and very stressful. Okay, I set that up the way I did because I want to make the point, this is ridiculous. It is not ridiculous to say that parenting is hard and stressful. It is to say that it’s pretty ridiculous to say that this is a recent development that calls for an emergency bulletin from the Surgeon General of the United States. And in historical perspective, it just raises the question, well, when was it supposedly less hard and less stressful? Back during the Great Depression? Back during the time of the World War? Back in, say, Europe during the time of the conflagration of nations in the 19th century?

When was it easier? Was it easier in a time of poverty? Was it easier in a time of plague? When was it easier? And, of course, nonetheless, there’s something here that I think a lot of parents would recognize and say, “Well, it certainly seems hard. It certainly seems stressful.” Now, I want to state right up, there are some newly stressful aspects of parenting, but I think it’s a good time for Christians to think about some of that and think about how entering into the game in those terms is going to set this up to be extremely difficult. But okay, we need to look at what the Surgeon General said because, after all, he’s the surgeon General of the United States. What in the world’s he talking about here?

Well, Claire Kane Miller of the New York Times reported it this way saying that the Surgeon General came to the conclusion that parental stress has risen to a rare and alarming level. As she says, with this kind of alert, “putting it in the same category as cigarettes and AIDS.” She explains it this way, “It’s because today’s parents face something different and more demanding, the expectation that they spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children. These pressures, researchers say, are driven in part by fears about the modern day economy, that if parents don’t equip their children with every possible advantage, their children could fail to achieve a secure middle class life.”

We are then told that this parenting style is known as “intensive parenting,” and it turns out that is the expectation in many circles and it turns out that is quite stressful. The Times goes on to say, “We may have reached a point, the Surgeon General and other experts suggest, where intensive parenting has become too intense for parents. Parents spend greater shares of their money on their children than parents did a generation ago, especially for extracurricular activities like sports or tutoring. They spend more time actively engaged with them reading or on the floor playing. Though rich parents are more able to make these investments, the pressure parent like this reaches across class, research has shown.”

Well, let me just state that one of the creation order issues here, is the fact that parents love their children, and that’s a very good thing. That’s a God-honoring thing. One of the most God-honoring aspects of this is that parents have the responsibility, and in most cases gladly have the responsibility, to raise their children and to do so in a way that is premised upon the fact that they want for their children a good future. They want for their children in so many cases more than they have had for themselves. They may even want for their children what they would define as better parenting than they had themselves. Now, at least part of what’s behind this is an economic concern. Children are very expensive. They’re getting more expensive. Higher education is getting more and more expensive, especially as it is defined by so many Christian families.

And then it’s not just that their kids play sports, their kids have to play expensive sports that get ever more expensive. It just goes on and on and on. First, it’s a special opportunity. It’s a sports camp, then it’s a traveling team, and the next thing you know, everything is revolving around this. And there have been plenty of reports documenting and frankly plenty of parents saying out loud, “This is just getting too expensive.” And then there are the educational expectations as well. And I’m a big believer in investing in our children and in their education. But honestly, an awful lot of what’s going on in elite circles is all outside of rationality. It quite frankly explains why there are parents who put their children in private schools K through 12 that are more expensive than elite private universities. There’s just something wrong with this picture, but there’s something wrong with our society.

When you look at this, I think it’s just ridiculous to say that today’s parents are all of a sudden facing pressures that are unique in the history of parenting. When you look at the stresses that human societies have faced and you look at the challenges that human parents have faced during times of just say historical extremities such as World War or even economic deprivation such as the Great Depression, you’re looking at a fundamentally humbling realization that we should never say this is an entirely new experience. What we have here is actually a picture of something that needs to be named, and this is the particular set of challenges that comes with a society of abundance rather than a society of scarcity. So oddly enough, in a society of economic abundance, that’s not to say that everyone has what they want, it’s simply to say that by any kind of objective measure, we’re living in an age of abundance compared to previous generations of those living and raising children.

But in a time of abundance, people say, “Well, then we owe this. We need to do this. We have to keep up with this family. You have to keep up with this pattern. We have to keep up with this particular aspiration.” And I’m not saying they’re all wrong. I think, for one thing, there is a greater involvement in the lives of children by their parents than has been true in many previous generations. And I’m going to say that in general terms, that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing, but even that can come with some limitations. It’s also interesting to note that the New York Times ran an opinion piece, and this is not written for Christian parents, but it’s an opinion piece that tells us something. It’s by Darby Saxbe, a Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Psychology at University of Southern California.

The headline, “Parents Should Ignore Their Children More Often.” And this is about another tendency, which is parents who are so close to their children that their children don’t learn how to entertain themselves. Children don’t learn how to play without someone telling them, “Do this and do that.” They don’t have time to develop certain resiliency. And this is something that you see cross-culturally where you go to other countries and you see children walking themselves to school where that would be considered, well, very dangerous in our society. You see other things like that. So all I’m saying is Christians need to keep some biblical balance when it comes to understanding these issues. And it also requires us to look at something like this announcement from the Surgeon General and say, “Hey, I think this is more about the society than it is about the family.”

It’s more about our society and certain temptations and patterns than it is about parenting, per se. It’s ludicrous to say that all of a sudden parenting has become difficult in an unprecedented way. It’s always appropriate, however, from the Christian worldview, for Christians to say, “How can we be even more faithful as parents? How can we put this in a biblical context?” And, of course, Christians are concerned not only with whether or not their kids have a good retirement plan and get into a good college, but it is our responsibility to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is off the screen of this kind of secular analysis. So my encouragement to parents is, stay at it. Let’s hold to an understanding of why parents love their children and how parents discipline and invest in their children and teach their children and find joy in their children.

But let’s also understand that even as parenting is tough work, it’s very tough work, and in a more complex economy it just gets more complex in terms of the work. But the basic unit of the family is as old as creation. It is a gift from the creator. Let’s remember that. For Christians, one of the great responsibilities here is to keep putting it into a biblical perspective. It’s also our realization that without that perspective we shouldn’t expect to find much health.

Part II

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How Do I Dispose of Old Bibles? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

But next, let’s turn to questions from listeners. And I appreciate the questions. It’s always fascinating to look at these questions. It’s a daunting responsibility sometimes to know which questions should we take given the limitations of time. Here’s a question though I think that has come with some frequency, and clearly there are lots of folks thinking about this question. And this Christian believer in this case, a brother writes in and says, “I’m a member of a southern Baptist church, a very Gospel-centered church.”

He says, “While I believe the Bible is the word of God, I know each specific Bible,” he means the printed copy, “is not a sacred item, yet I don’t know how to dispose of them. It feels wrong to throw away my old Bibles that I no longer use and are falling apart. Should I keep them indefinitely or how should I go about it?” What a good question, and it does make a very useful theological distinction we need to think about for a moment. We believe the Bible is holy, but that means the words of the Bible are holy. Indeed, they are inspired by the Holy Spirit. They are given to us. The Bible is none other than the word of God. And yet you look at a copy of the Bible, you look at a translation of the Holy Scriptures, and you can see that some are quite dog-eared, some are quite old, some are falling apart, because at the same time, the Bible is a book, it’s a codex, it’s a bound volume. It is a bunch of pages that are glued together or, in better cases, sewn together.

We hope it’s a high quality paper, but we’re just glad for the Word of God to be published and disseminated even in less expensive editions that, by the way, don’t last very long. One of the things that people don’t think about is that the quality of the paper itself is a huge issue. And as you go back, for example, to times of privation such as the Second World War and priorities of national defense, the only paper available for printing, even printing Bibles was a very high wood content, which means it’s that paper that looks more like newsprint. You see it most often in paperbacks of an inexpensive variety, and they just don’t last very long. Before long they come unglued and they fall apart in your hands. And, of course, when it comes to Bibles, there are also extremely expensive, hand-sewn leather bindings on very high quality paper, that very thin Bible paper that holds up remarkably well.

And so those Bibles as individual items, they last longer. That copy of the Bible will last a lot longer than that high wood content, high pulp content paper that starts to fall apart in the bindings that are just glue and covers that sometimes are just cardboard. That’s a very different thing. And yet the big question here coming from this brother is, what do you do with a Bible when it isn’t really usable? It becomes something that needs to be replaced. Well, as you look at that, you recognize, well, because of what the Bible is, we sometimes have not only worldview analysis of what it represents, we not only have a discipleship understanding of how we’re taught by Scripture, we also have a personal experience with this particular copy of God’s word that makes it in some sense very special to us.

And we understand it is God’s word so we’re not going to treat it as if it’s the daily newspaper. We’re not going to use it as a paper in the bottom of the birdcage, that’s inconceivable. Now, one of the ways some Christians have dealt with this is to give Bibles away and let someone else deal with the problem. And so just about any Christian ministry that has some kind of clothes closet or some kind of ministry like that, the next thing you know you’ve got all kinds of Bibles and many of them are worn out. And you know even may have a warm feeling towards the people who brought them because why they brought them is because they don’t know what to do with them and they don’t want to throw them in the trash. They’re not about to take them in the backyard and burn them on the grill.

So what do they do? So I want to be honest, the physical object is going to decay and eventually it is going to have to be dealt with as a physical object that’s decaying. So I want to say this, I don’t think it’s wrong reverently to take the fragments of the Bible that are left or take a weak Bible that’s no longer usable and say reverently and graciously wrap it in paper and then in a very reverent way just dispose of it the way you would dispose of anything else. And I don’t think that’s irreverent. I think it’d be irreverent if you just did it casually. But I think there’s a way for Christians to say, “I’m not doing this casually. I recognize that I don’t think this Bible right now is in terms of stewardship, this particular copy is going to be very helpful to anyone.

And I don’t think it’s very usable. I do not want to mistreat it, but I also don’t think that we are to attach some priority which requires us to fill endless rooms with Bibles that aren’t going to be used.” Now, there are those who say the best way to dispose of them is in a dignified burial. And you can think at least of parallels to that. And so there’s some Christians that have done that, and that means either individually or even Christians gathering together with some kind of respectful observance. That’s just another way, by the way, of disposing with a worn out, worn copy of the Bible. And the bottom line is I think it should be done with maximum respect. There is no particular guidance as to exactly how to do that. Very interesting question.

Part III

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Why Does Satan Still Have Power and Influence? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

The next question comes in sent by a father as asked by his eight-year-old daughter during family devotions. “If God threw Satan out of heaven, why did he still give him power?” And this father I think rightly said that somehow it will end in God’s glory to finally cast Satan into the lake of fire having permitted him to retain power over his demons until such time. I think it’s that. It’s a little bit more than that in the sense that you look at the Book of Job and you look at others sections of Scripture, other texts, or for that matter, the temptations of Jesus, as you look at the Gospels, and you come to understand that Satan also is a deceiver and he is a liar and he’s a tempter when it comes to human beings as well. And I don’t think that necessarily relieves an eight-year-old sweet daughter asking a very clear theological question.

I think it helps when you come back because you’re absolutely right, I say to this dad, about the final glory of God revealed in his victory over sin and death and, yes, Satan. The casting down of Satan is such an important part of the Book of Revelation. Evidently, that is going to be so just, so righteous, and so glorious that it will explain everything that came before. And I think that’s where we have to understand that a part of what we say to ourselves as well as to our eight-year-old daughters is, it is because God, who is perfect, has willed it this way in order that the victory of Christ over sin and death and Satan, would be even more glorious than it would be had Satan never happened. I think it’s also quite fair, and I think even righteous to say to children, “There’s a limit to how much we can understand this now, but we will understand it all one day, to God’s glory.”

Part IV

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Should a Church Permit a Divorced Man to Serve as a Pastor? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, another man wrote in and he’s asking a question that is not without controversy these days, having to do with the qualification of a divorced man serving as pastor of a church or elder of a church. And I want to say that I think the answer is just really, really clear in Scripture, that it is a part of the reputational credibility of one who is going to bear pastoral responsibility in pastoral authority and teaching responsibility and teaching authority in a church. And I think that’s made clear in the Pastoral Epistles, 1 Timothy 3, for example. “The husband of one wife,” I don’t think it means one wife at a time. That wouldn’t make any sense. And by the way, some might say, “Well, that’s an admonition against polygamy.” Well, polygamy at that point wasn’t common in the Roman Empire anyway, so that really doesn’t make sense.

I think it does not apply, for instance, to a widower the same way it would apply to a man who is divorced. And I think that goes just in the context of saying being a good repute. And I’m not saying that there are not situations in which you can have a very highly talented, highly gifted, highly committed, wonderfully faithful man who may have experienced divorce involuntarily. And yet I’m asked the question, and I have to say, I think this would be the assumption of almost all gospel churches until quite recently. And I think the divorce revolution has brought about, quite frankly, a rethinking that sometimes isn’t much of a rethinking. And the Bible makes very clear that it is not true that the only avenues of service and faithfulness are in the service as an elder or as a pastor or a deacon of a church. There are all kinds of other ways that someone can be faithful.

I also do not believe there is any super ecclesiastical authority to say that a local church must adopt this particular policy or another, but I do think it needs to be a deeply considered biblically faithful policy. And I do think that divorce is in biblical terms simply because of what it means even as a picture of the gospel, it isn’t disqualifying for Christian faithfulness, but I think it is disqualifying in terms of the pastoral office. I think most churches actually do believe that, whether they will say it out loud or not. There is an alternative to that which some would argue for, which is taking it on a case-by-case basis. But even the man who wrote this in says that he is referencing a church where the pastor got divorced and continued and then got divorced again and continued, and is now on his third wife. You just look at this and you recognize, well, okay, so where do you draw the line then? Where do you say, “Okay, now that’s over the line”?

And there are those who say, “Well, you’re going to have to take every divorce on a case-by-case basis.” Well, I will simply say, that makes sense in a certain context of church discipline, but it is not fair or honest I think to say that you can always have a complete or adequate understanding of these things, especially as you look at the assignment of leadership in a church. Churches have to come to a biblical consensus on this issue because the answer is going to be yes or no. There can be questions raised by some, did this happen before or after conversion? But I think the way that, that qualification list in 1 Timothy 3 ends, especially in terms of good reputation, that’s something that really has to be taken seriously by the church and a mature evaluation of that could lead some churches frankly in a different direction that might lead another congregation sharing the same faith and in general the same practice.

But I think it’s just a matter, I want to be honest, I don’t want to say this out of any hypocrisy or sense of moral superiority. I simply want to say that, once you say, “We are going to leave the policy whereby divorce is a disqualification,” then you’re deciding when you’re going to decide, and hopefully you’re going to decide how you’re going to decide these issues on a case-by-case basis. I’m just going to offer the fact that, that is a very hard criterion to establish and stick to, honestly.

Part V

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I was Baptized as an Infant. I Now Profess Faith in Christ and Seek to be Faithful to Him. Should I Be Baptized Again? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Okay, here is a question that sounds like it might take some time to answer. I’m going to argue it could, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t really take much time to answer. And this is a faithful young woman, believer in Christ, and it’s a sweet, sweet question, and I have to offer an immediate, concise Baptist answer.

So here is the question. This young woman says that she was baptized as an infant. “Since then I have professed Christ. Does this mean I need to be baptized again?” She then says, “Am I living in sin by choosing not to be baptized after my profession of Christ?” Well, the last part of the way that’s asked is the hardest part, but let me just go back. I have to answer as a Baptist. I would never suggest that someone be baptized again. Now, I said that very carefully. That means that I believe every believer should be scripturally baptized. I believe scriptural baptism is believer’s baptism by immersion. So I would argue as a classical Baptist, don’t be surprised here, I’m President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, okay, that word’s really important, as a classical theological doctrinal Baptist, I would say that if it wasn’t on the basis of a profession of faith in Christ, and it wasn’t by immersion, it wasn’t baptism, undergoing believer’s baptism by immersion, therefore, is not rebaptism. It is baptism.

Now, I think some people listening are going to say, “Well, those are fighting words,” and in the history of Protestant Christianity, they have been fighting words. That’s the reason why there are Presbyterians and there are Baptists. And I say that with some of my closest friends being Presbyterians, but let’s just state the obvious. We have an honest disagreement on this issue. So again, would I suggest that someone be re-baptized or baptized again? I’d say, no. I want to encourage every single Gospel Christian to be a part of a Gospel church that practices biblically ordered baptism, and that means being baptized once, biblically defined to the glory of God.

Part VI

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How Should We Handle False Teachers? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right, but this is a great question. It’s a great question sent in by a young man, and I hope I’m understood when I say this is a classic young man biblical question. I love it. Here’s the question.

This young man says he was reading Deuteronomy 18 and came to verses 20 through 22nd. He then writes, “I was wondering why more Christians don’t hold clearly false prophets or pastors accountable. I’m not saying put them to death, but I also don’t think we should turn a blind eye. What are your thoughts?” Okay, hold on just a moment. I love the candor in this question. I’ve never been asked before about a question. “I’m not saying put them to death, but I don’t think we should turn a blind eye.” I think this is an honest reference to Deuteronomy and to the warnings concerning false prophets and Israel’s orders concerning what to do with false prophets in Deuteronomy 18. I would simply say that here’s a situation where the shift from that law given to Israel, to the law of the Gospel, the law of Christ, the law in the church is, in Israel, they were told indeed to exercise the ultimate penalty. But in the church, we are told to put them out, to repudiate them, to put them out of the church and to make this a public act.

And so this is what I think we should do. Again, I’m thankful I don’t have to make this up. I’m thankful I don’t have to use my reason and try to come to terms with this. I’m thankful the New Testament says very clearly about false teachers, put them out, confront their heresy in false teaching, and make very clear what faithfulness requires and what faithful doctrine, Christianity practiced morality looks like. About false teachers, put them out. And then again, this young man, his question says he’s 20 years old. He says, “What’s your advice to someone who wants to pursue pastoral calling? With a clear sense of calling, chances are,” he says, “I won’t get hired for a senior pastor at a young age. What do I do to prepare for such a position? What are the best stepping stones?”

Well, I’ll simply say to this young man, you’re talking to a seminary president. And so the entirety of my life in my adult life has been invested in trying to train young, God-called pastors for service in the church, God-called ministers for service in the church and on the mission field. So the first thing I’d want to say is you need to be in a faithful church and I believe you need to attend a faithful seminary, a faithful Bible college or Christian college in order to start your education. But especially training for the pastoral ministry, I believe in what I’ve been doing for the last 30-plus years. And I’ll just tell you, I want to encourage you to find a way to get as much biblical education, theological education as you can get in preparation for ministry.

And I would say hang around with pastors, hang around with your pastor, hang around with other pastors, and let them help to develop that calling and gift in you. And I also want to say, this question was asking, what’s your advice to someone who is called and feels clearly called to the ministry, but he says, “I’m not likely to be hired as a pastor a young age”? Well, I became pastor of a little country church when I was barely older than you are, so don’t discount what God will do.

Part VII

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You Used to Say You Would Vote Third Party If the Two-Party Candidates Were Not Pro-Life. What is Your Position Now? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right, finally, this is another one that’s going to test how fast I can do this. I’m going to take the challenge. The question is coming from a listener saying, “You have said, speaking of past election cycles, that it might be necessary for Christians,” I’m having to paraphrase here, to form a third party or support a third party candidate if neither candidate is pro-life or will defend unborn life.

And this listener says, “That’s not exactly what I’m hearing from you now,” pointing to the distinction still between the Republican and the Democratic nominees on this question. And I want to say this listener, look, I want to lean into consistency here. I don’t think we know enough right now about the future of the Republican Party to know whether or not it is salvageable, returnable to a very clear pro-life position. I can tell you, I think an awful lot of pro-life activists, and I’m a part of some of these conversations, are openly asking whether or not it will become inevitable that we have to have some new political party, some new third way. But I can just tell you honestly, there’s no way in 2024 anything like that can be organized, much less rightly organized or thought through between now and November. And that’s just a part of how this particular election has unfolded.

These developments have come so fast and furiously and election day is not going to wait. And so I think this is a situation in which we’re simply going to have to say, “We need to be faithful in the voting booth as best as we can in November of 2024.” And then we’re going to have to sort things out on the other side. And I mean that just as bluntly as I say it. We’re going to have to sort things out on the other side. It’s going to be very quick. We’re probably on the other side. In the meantime, let’s be as faithful as we can possibly be in our vote. Let’s defend the unborn to the greatest extent possible, and then let’s have a real honest conversation on the other side of this election knowing what kind of challenge, at least in that sense, we will face.