How Dutch legalizing of prostitution, drugs, & euthanasia is working out
The Netherlands, that once-Calvinist land, has gone farther than just about any other country in legalizing “victimless crimes,” such as prostitution, drug use, and euthanasia. Now that country is facing the unintended consequences, including an upsurge in organized crime, social squalor, and a deluge of sex tourists, drug tourists, and death tourists (who only buy a one-way ticket).
The biblical understanding was never that a person would work until he or she reached the point of retirement, and then that person would be able to finally begin doing what he enjoyed. Instead, the biblical ideal was to work until death. The good life was to find work in something about which one was passionate. That person would work six days, and rest one. Both acts were offerings to God.
Would you be comfortable having your husband or wife sitting beside you and seeing this activity log? How about your pastor or a good friend?
Controlling Other People: This is a Heart Issue
Put this on YOUR fridge and read it every day. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” To follow God’s guidelines in such texts, God will change the world from the inside out.
Yet Jesus didn’t construct a court of judgment. He is building a church that would give Father attentive glory. This has been a shock to my rant and rave belief system that I brought into the pulpit 38 years ago. I’m not the big-shot I had both wished and assumed. I’m not in the picture; God and others are.
A Letter to the Church, from a Pastor
Personally, I’m thankful for good leadership and staff around me at each of the churches where I’ve served, but my heart goes out to the pastor who doesn’t feel the support of the church and is the only staff member. Remember, you are doing noble work and you are part of something bigger than today, you and even your church! The local church…the body of Christ…is still in God’s plan today…and nothing will overcome that. Praying for you today!
Why Clarence Thomas Uses Simple Words in His Opinions
What I tell my law clerks is that we write these so that they are accessible to regular people. That doesn’t mean that there’s no law in it. But there are simple ways to put important things in language that’s accessible. As I say to them, the beauty, the genius is not to write a 5 cent idea in a ten dollar sentence. It’s to put a ten dollar idea in a 5 cent sentence.
That’s beauty. That’s editing. That’s writing.