day no. 17,326: stupid people

Jeremiah 10:14

Every person is stupid.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Proverbs 12:1

Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, 

But he who hates correction is stupid.

Stupid is rejecting correction. Stupid is knowing what to do and refusing to do it. Stupid is not being ignorant. Stupid is being arrogant.

So, stupid is as stupid does, but stupid also is what stupid doesn't, which is to say that not repenting is stupid.

day no. 17,325: night mares and day stallions

“The center of every man's existence is a dream. Death, disease, insanity, are merely material accidents, like a toothache or a twisted ankle. That these brutal forces always besiege and often capture the citadel does not prove that they are the citadel.” ― G.K. Chesterton

Pain and suffering are a part of life, but they are not life itself. They cannot be easily ignored, but they should not be readily indulged. Sin seems indomitable, but it only seems that way. Death seems inevitable, but it only seems that way. When you have a toothache, it is all you can think about, but life goes on. You may not sleep or eat as well as you once did, but your life is not a living toothache, even if it feels like it. When your ankle is sprained, it dominates your life for a time. It changes the way you walk, but it does not change the fact that you still have places you have to walk to. Nightmares seem inescapable until you wake up. Good dreams do not go away with the morning. They dominate the waking hours as much as they do the night.

day no. 17,324: women in the workplace

“Most of the Feminists would probably agree with me that womanhood is under shameful tyranny in the shops and mills. But I want to destroy the tyranny. They want to destroy womanhood. That is the only difference.” — G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

Womanhood in the workplace is tyrannical because women in the workplace is a tyranny. It is not a matter of women being allowed into the workforce as much as it is women being forced into the workforce by abdicating fathers and abandoning husbands. Women were marched into the workplace long before they marched to secure a place there. 

So, like Chesterton, I agree. Women in the workplace is less than ideal.

"Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it." — G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World

Feminists want to turn women into men. They want the standards of men applied to women and the rewards of masculinity available to feminists. I, like Chesterton, want that tyranny toppled. No one should be held to someone else's standard. Each servant should answer to his or her master and not for his or her fellow servants.

Romans 14:4

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.

So, a woman should not be held to a man's standard in the workplace and a man should not be held to a woman's standard in the classroom. But both should answer to God and strive to live according to His standards for them respective to their posts.

“The woman does not work because the man tells her to work and she obeys. On the contrary, the woman works because she has told the man to work and he hasn’t obeyed.” — G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

When men fail to work, women must fill the void. When men are willing to let others starve, others either need to get to work or starve.

“What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible.” — G.K. Chesterton

Women in the workplace would be necessary if husbands went home to their wives and fathers went home to their children. Men must go to work, but they also must come home when they are done. When the men abandon their posts, it is only natural that the the women will unnaturally abandon theirs.

day no. 17,323: doctrine and desire

Psalm 37:4

Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

The pharisaical separate doctrine from desire. They put their hope in right living while indulging in wrong loving. They assume that the right answers excuse the wrong desires. They feel free to go on wanting wrong things because they continue to understand the right ones.

Mark 10:9

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Doctrine and desire go hand in hand. You must love what is true, good, and beautiful and you must do that which is right, good, and helpful. You cannot excuse bad actions by good beliefs and good actions cannot grow on the tree of bad belief.

day no. 17,322: throwing shade at the shade

“The only liberation from accusation is to accuse the spirit of accusation. This is the only thing that can bedevil the devil.” — Douglas Wilson, All the Condemnation

If the condemner does not stand condemned, our condemnation is sure. 

Unless the accuser is accused, the accusations against us have no answer. 

If Christ does not become a curse for us, we are cursed.

The best way to rob the robber is to rob him of his crowbar. 

1 John 1:8-10

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

If we drag our sins out into the light, the accuser loses his power. Accusation grows only in the dark. If we try to pretend we are perfect, we fertilize the weeds of the wicked one, but when we pull them up by the roots in broad daylight, we are free.

Throw shade at the shade and live in the light.

day no. 17,321: when your wife has completed her forty years of testing

Happy 40th Birthday, Paige!!!

I have now known you over half of your life. I've had a front row seat to the last twenty years of your life. In many ways, you are still the same person I met in the Cornerstone Church parking lot over 20  years ago and in many others ways you are a different person. All the things I liked best about you back then are still alive and kicking and a whole bunch of new things I now like about you have come to life since that day. It is crazy to think that I was introduced to you as a teenager, married you in your twenties, raised children with you in your thirties, and are now getting ready to begin launching children out into the world with you in your forties. I've seen you in four separate decades of your life. You are my favorite show. I love all the old episodes and I look forward to the new ones that come out each day. I like being subscribed to you. 

I am proud of you. You get so much done on a daily basis. A normal day for you includes meal prep, laundry, and cleaning up after twelve people. Most days you are also teaching kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. I like knowing that my children are being raised and taught by you. You are so smart and so good at asking good questions and counseling people through things. You are a teacher, a counselor, a friend, a mentor, and a coach to our kids. One of my favorite things is hearing you teach our kids through the walls as I work from our bedroom. I love knowing that they have access to you and that when they have questions and concerns that you are the one they ask. It is like having a living, breathing, God-fearing search engine in my living room that my kids get to use. What a blessing.

I like that my friends know that you are my wife. You truly are a crown and you bring me honor in the way you conduct yourself. You are beautiful and smart and funny. You ask good questions and provide good answers. You make me look good by how good you look in wisdom, stature, and favor with others. Thank you!

You are a good wife and a good mom. You take care of our home and you take care of us. You always have the things we need in stock and you always have something ready to make for us when we need it. You make our home beautiful and functional. We get things done and we get to enjoy the view as we do them. You wash our laundry and fold it. You clean our walls and sanitize our surfaces. You treat our wounds and care for our aches and pains. We have what we need and more because you take care to stock them up for us. You look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of eleven other people.

I will say it again, I am proud of you. You are doing a really good job. I am honored to be your husband and grateful that you are my kids mom. I love you and I like you and I always will.

Happy Birthday, Paige!

To mom!

day no. 17,320: american milk and honey

“Jesus is either the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, or He is not. There is no real way to split the difference on such a question. If the claim is false, then Christians are guilty of perpetuating the most preposterous fraud ever. If the claim is true, then pious Jews studying the Old Testament are like Shakespeare scholars who have devoted their lives to the study of Hamlet, but who have failed to recognize the prince of Denmark. As just mentioned, it is not possible to have Jesus be the Messiah ‘for the Christians' and not the Messiah ‘for the Jews.’ That might seem like a mild form of relativism, but relativism always metastasizes.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

Either Christians understand the Old Testament better than the Jews or they don't. If Jesus is the Christ, then they understand the prophets better than the Jews. But if Jesus is not the Christ, then the Christians have utterly confused and possibly even corrupted the teachings of the Old Testament.

“After the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, all they had left were their erroneous traditions. This is why modern Judaism is best considered a heresy of the Old Testament faith, and not a representation of it. To be a Christian is to maintain that the fulfillment of the Old Testament is in the Christ of the New Testament, and not in rabbinic Judaism.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

Modern Judaism is a Christian heresy. Since Jesus is the Christ, the entire Bible is Christian, thus making modern Jews heretics and apostates.

“The traditions that Jesus so violently rejected were the traditions of the first half of the Talmudic stream. Indeed, the Talmudic traditions of the elders were the reason why Jerusalem was judged so severely.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

Jesus rejected Talmudic Judaism. He confronted it and was killed by it. He rose from the dead to overcome it and came back in 70 AD to put an end to it. Jesus judged Jerusalem for its sins, the primary one being its rejection of Him and secondarily being its rejection of the prophesies concerning Him.

“So according to Christ, the rabbis had been supplanting the teaching of the Word of God for the sake of their traditions, and they had been doing this for centuries [Mark 7:6-13]. To be clear, what Jesus is talking about here is a gradually forming Talmud.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

The perverting of God's Word had been ongoing for sometime, but it did not fill up the measure of its sins until it met Jesus and rejected Him. Not only that, but it plotted against him and jury rigged a case against Him in order to snuff Him out. It did not merely reject Him for their own purposes, but it tried to ensure His wholesale rejection by having Him killed.

“Many Christians, particularly some in the dispensational tradition, regard our differences with the Jews as extreme denominational differences, but still somehow within the pale. But modern Judaism is not the religion of the Old Testament. It is something else entirely. It is not the biblical faith with Jesus left out.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

Judaism is not just the Old Testament faith marching past Christ until our present day. The Old Testament faith culminated in the coming of Christ. Adam was a Christian. Abraham was a Christian. Moses was a Christian. David was a Christian. They looked forward to His day.  There was no way to hold the Old Testament faith that did not involve looking ahead to the Messiah. You cannot reject the Messiah and say that you are still in the Old Testament faith. To reject Jesus is to admit that you were never part of the Old Testament faith. Whatever you believed and continue to believe at that point, based on your rejection of Him, is apostate, heretical, and antichrist in its inception. Any form of Old Testament religion that continued after the ascension of Christ was antichrist by nature. It was based on a rejection of Him. That was the foundation of the faith. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD removed any attempt to pretend differently. The old system came to an end. The only way to perpetuate something beyond that was to hold to a heretical version of it you already had for such a time as this.

“The New Testament warning, delivered to the Gentiles, is [to] not become like your persecutors. Do not turn into your adversary. If you turn into what you hate, it indicates you only thought you hated their sleek arrogance of power. You didn’t hate it—you envied it.” — Douglas Wilson, American Milk and Honey

Christianity hates Judaism the way it hates Islam. Both are Christian heresies and both should be met with fierce opposition. But we do not hate the Jews the way the Jews hated Jesus. We do not hate the Muslims the way they hate us. We hate Allah because we hate evil. We hate Judaism because we hate evil. But we love our enemies. We love them well by opposing them well. And it goes without saying that supporting their efforts is not opposing them well because it is not opposing them at all.