Selecting a University: "A plea to prospective university students [and parents]"

Here is a great article by Jeremy Walker about selecting a university to attend. 

In discussing people who select a college and then ask him if he knows of any good churches in the area he says...

What would you think of someone who told you that they had made arrangements to move to a new planet, and then asked if you knew if the atmosphere was breathable? Or that they were on their way to a new country, but they were not sure if there would be any food there that they could eat, and did you have any recommendations? You would look at them as if they were mad! Air to breathe and food to eat: surely these are your first considerations when planning such a significant step, not the questions that you worry about once the business of getting there has been accomplished!

So why is it that year after year, professing Christians students (and their parents) plan their intellectual, academic, professional or social development (or invest in the development of their offspring), and only subsequently ask whether or not their souls will receive faithful and loving care in the only environment on earth that Christ has ordained as the normal means for the lasting health of his people?

He goes on to discuss how selecting a school (or potential job) may include having a list of school/work possibilities and a list of good churches and then looking for where there is overlap. Not a bad idea (try 9marks.org church search feature to get you started in locating potentially good churches). 

He also notes that it is true that God sovereignly works through our failures and at times thwarts even our best plans. So, a lack of planning will not thwart God and all the planning in the world will not force his hand of blessing. However, God's sovereignty is never a reason to shirk the God given responsibilities of wise decision making.

In case you are wondering if Christians have to go to church, or why church is such a big deal, check out this video from Crossway:

The Conscience and Abortion

Recently, an article and a video about abortion caught my eye. In both, I sensed the fact that the American conscience is conflicted, confused, and, in some cases, seared about the issue of abortion.

1. The first is a cover story recently published in New York magazine, entitled "My Abortion," in which 26 women share their stories of having abortions.Al Mohler (president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) wrote an article about this piece and notes that,

For the advocates of abortion, these testimonies offer a clear refutation of their strategy of doing everything possible to speak constantly of a “woman’s right to choose,” while avoiding any reference to the baby. The baby refuses to disappear. When these testimonies of abortion reveal the very women who had an abortion speaking of “our baby” and noting that “the baby would now be one year old,” the moral bankruptcy of the pro-abortion argument is there for all to see. The baby refuses to leave the picture.

We see in the testomonies of these women that even as many of them affirm their choice to have an abortion, their consciences are conflicted. Why? Because if abortion ends the life of a baby our consciences cry out against it. The conflict comes in when our actions are contrary to what we know is right.

2. The second thing that caught my eye was a video of a late term abortion clinic in New Mexico (you can watch it below). A hidden camera reveals a young woman asking the abortion doctor about her baby. The doctor admits that the baby has "all it's parts" and that it would probably survive birth at this stage of development, but he or she would need a little help breathing at the hospital. She then goes on to describe the horrific process of late term abortion as if it were no big deal. Here we see a conscience that is not confused but completely seared. To say it is a baby and then speak of injecting him or her with something which stops the heart is insane. It sounds like a lethal injection without due process on a person innocent of any crimes.
 

HT: Justin Taylor

What do we take from all of this?  

As Christians we have a Savior and a gospel which cleanse even the worst sins. We have the hope of a clean conscience to offer women who have had an abortion. It isn't by telling them to ignore their sense of guilt or to keep trying to justify their actions. It is by calling them to repentance and faith in a crucified and risen Jesus.

Hebrews 9:14- how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

1 Corinthians 6:9a-10 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?... And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Oh, how I pray that these abortionist doctors and women who have killed their babies will come to know the soul cleansing, hope restoring, conscience renewing power of the cross of Jesus Christ.

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What Role Should Preferences Play in Selecting a Spouse?

It is common in our day and age, in which we have so many choices, to be paralyzed by a fear of making the wrong choice. I mean even the Iphone now comes in several different (not just two) color options. Marketers have made it their aim to appeal to as many different tastes as possible. Such is the status of modern consumerism.

It should not be surprising that in this culture we also find our preferences and tastes coming into play in the area of dating and finding a spouse. This is the cultural air we breath and so it seems normal.

God has designed us with personality and desires and these are often shaped the culture we are in. Preferences are not inherently bad or sinful (though they can be if they are unbiblical). But, I would say that the tendency in our culture is to elevate our preferences to dangerous heights and this often causes us to overlook potential godly mates.  

Recently I read a blog post by Tripp Lee on why he married a white woman (he is black). And I found him to be quite helpful. Below is an excerpt on this issue of preferences:

Jessica didn’t look like I expected my future wife to look, but honestly that didn’t matter to me. Don’t get me wrong, I thought she was beautiful from the first time I met her. And I was never opposed to marrying a white girl. I just didn’t think I would. But as I grew in my faith and my heart changed, my preferences started changing too. My main preference was that my wife be godly, and Jessica was. So I wifed her.

Never for a moment did I feel like I was settling. It feels more like settling to overlook a godly woman merely because of her ethnicity. I never wanted to value my preferences for a wife over what I needed in a wife.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with having preferences, but we have to hold them with an open hand. I know some people who overlook a potential godly spouse because they don’t fit some random preference. Some of our preferences really don’t matter that much. Some of our preferences may even be foolish, so we have to submit all of them to Scripture....

It’s OK to want things in a spouse, but we have to submit our desires to what God wants for us in a spouse. What I wanted and needed most was a godly partner, and that’s exactly what God provided.