For “Scripture Sunday”:
Thinking of Getting an Abortion? Don’t Do It!
“If you’re faced with an unwanted pregnancy, please read at least the beginning of this article. “Thirty-Six Couples Wait for Every One Baby Who Is Adopted.”
Lunar Caustic/CC BY-SA 2.0
As God’s children, we should determine to preserve the lives of the unborn, who are also His children, at all costs.
Did you know it’s a crime to destroy an eagle’s egg in the United States? Yet killing an unborn child is permitted. Society today is completely mixed up!
And the scourge of abortion is worldwide. It was reported several years ago that “nearly a third of pregnancies in Europe end in abortion” (Claire Bates, Daily Mail, Jan. 19, 2012). In China the number is an unthinkable 23 million per year (“China Commits ‘Staggering’ 23 Million Abortions Per Year, According to US State Dept.,” LifeSiteNews, April 15, 2016).
How does ending life in this way find such widespread acceptance? Many in favor of abortion make the woeful argument that what is growing in a woman’s womb is not really a human being.
But an unborn child is a human being. It’s not a piece of tissue. “A baby’s heart beats in 22 days, hiccups begin [at] 52 days, organs function 8 weeks after conception—in short … abortion kills a human” (Keith Riler, “Thirty-Six Couples Wait for Every One Baby Who Is Adopted,” LifeNews.com, July 9, 2012). The unborn can even hear and respond to music!
For those facing an unwanted pregnancy, abortion is the wrong answer. We must all learn to seek direction from God—and His forgiveness where we have gone astray—learning to value precious human life as He does.
What does the Bible say?
Society may call the unborn mere “tissue,” but Scripture makes it clear that the unborn is a child. Exodus21:22-23 says regarding expectant mothers: “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life …” (emphasis added throughout). This meant the death penalty if the woman or the unborn were killed. Some will dispute that, but notice further that the unborn here is called a child.
Now consider Luke 1:1-2, which contains the story of the births of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, encountered her cousin Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John: “And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe [John] leaped in her womb” (Luke1:41). Elizabeth said: “For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (verse 44). The Greek word translated “babe” here is the same word we find in Luke 2 referring to Christ as “the Babe … in a manger” (verses 12, 16).
Again, the baby John leapt for joy in his mother’s womb. Clearly he was already a real person while in the womb—as was Jesus. Would it have been okay for John or Jesus to have been aborted then?
So both the Old Testament and the New Testament affirm that the unborn are indeed tiny babies! They have every right to human life!
Disaster at the U.S. Supreme Court
One of the most tragic decisions ever handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court was the January 1973 landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade, which allowed women across the country the “legal” right to abort the young life in their womb. This ruling has been interpreted to mean that the unborn do not have constitutional rights.
How horrific and sad! If the unborn have no constitutional rights, then who will protect the unborn?
The argument that every woman has the right to decide what is best for her own body is quite shallow. Do children in the womb have no rights concerning what is done to their bodies—whether to live or die? Who will speak for them?
Amazingly, “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade whose real name was Norma McCorvey, later had a complete change of heart and came to regret her role in legalizing abortion. She became a Christian pro-life advocate in the mid-1990s and remained involved in campaigning to make abortion illegal until her death in 2017, stating “that her role in the landmark court case was the biggest mistake of her life””
Continued at: https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-magazine/thinking-of-getting-an-abortion-dont-do-it
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Are There Examples of Sexual Assault in the Bible?
“God does not condone sexual assault. But this does not prevent man from committing these crimes when they are not living their lives in accordance with God's Law.
Aaron Burden/Unsplash
In every situation involving rape or sexual assault in Scripture, there are negative ramifications. God does not condone sexual assault. He expressly forbids it. God loves His children and He has compassion on those who have been affected by this crime.
Recent headlines have seen a resurgence of reports of sexual assault at the hands of powerful men. One such case—the numerous allegations against filmmaker Harvey Weinstein—has propelled and empowered a number of women to come forward with their own stories. The #MeToo movement has gained steam, and over the past months the number of these allegations has increased.
Sexual assault is not a modern issue. Sadly, as King Solomon wrote, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). There are examples of sexual assault and rape found in Scripture, and God is not silent on this topic.
The key passage within the law of God regarding sexual assault is found in Deuteronomy 22:25-27:
“But if a man finds a betrothed young woman in the countryside, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. But you shall do nothing to the young woman; there is in the young woman no sin deserving of death, for just as when a man rises against his neighbor and kills him, even so is this matter. For he found her in the countryside, and the betrothed young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.”
The Hebrew word used in this passage to indicate assault is chazaq, which indicates force, violence or an overpowering of someone. This is by definition not consensual because the individual overpowered the victim. Additional proof of it being non-consensual was the implication that the young woman cried out, but there was no one to save her.
This passage is describing what we would term in our modern vernacular rape, or sexual assault.
What is important to recognize is what this is clearly stating.
1. It’s not the woman’s fault. Notice the phrase: “There is in the young woman no sin deserving of death.” The perpetrator of this crime holds all of the guilt in the described scenario.
2. The perpetrator is to be put to death, just as a man who rose up against his neighbor and killed him. Its punishment was to be equivalent to that of murder.
As a result of these verses, we can conclude that God does not condone sexual assault. Unfortunately, however, this does not prevent man from committing these crimes when they are not living their lives in accordance with the law of God.
The rape of Dinah and the spiral of violence
There are a few more examples of sexual assault in Scripture, all of which brought negative consequences.
One of the first examples is the story of Dinah in Genesis 34. Dinah was one of Jacob’s daughters, born to him by Leah. When Jacob and his family moved to the outskirts of the city of Shechem, Dinah went out to meet with the women of the land. When Shechem, the son of Hamor, saw Dinah, he assaulted her.
His heart was then drawn to her, and he attempted to have his father negotiate for her to be his bride. Ultimately, her brothers, Levi and Simeon tricked Shechem, Hamor and the men of the city to become circumcised so they would be able to intermarry with them. When the men were healing from their circumcisions and in pain, Levi and Simeon set the city to the edge of the sword, killing all of the men in the city as a reprisal for the rape of Dinah.
Levi and Simeon wrongly meted out the death penalty on more than just the perpetrator, and in Genesis 49, when the blessings and curses were given to Jacob’s sons, Levi and Simeon were cursed for their anger, likely referencing this event.
Chaos in the royal family
Another example of sexual assault in the Bible is the story of Tamar and Amnon, children of King David, found in 2 Samuel 13. In the account, Amnon burned with desire for his half-sister Tamar. He was so desirous of her that he made himself ill. He confessed the situation to a confidant, who helped him scheme a plot that would allow Amnon to take advantage of her.
Amnon follows through on the plan, asking Tamar to bring him food that he might eat it from her hand. She unsuspectingly enters his bedroom to feed him in his illness. He then demands that she come to bed with him, to which Tamar responds, “No…don’t force me, for no such thing should be done in Israel. Do not do this disgraceful thing!” (2 Samuel 13:12). She did not consent.
Amnon overpowered and raped Tamar. Afterward, he loathed her and put her away.
Tamar’s blood-brother Absalom caught wind of what happened, telling her to remain quiet about the situation instead of reporting it. He didn’t let on to Amnon that he knew what he had done, but all the while his hatred for him grew. When their father, King David, found out about the situation, he was furious, but didn’t do anything about it. Tamar lived in Absalom’s house in desolation.
Two years later, Absalom exacted revenge, ordering Amnon killed at a gathering for the princes of Israel. David grieved over the murder, and Absalom fled.
This entire episode—Tamar’s rape, Amnon’s murder and Absalom’s part in it—further drove a wedge into the relationship between David and Absalom, eventually resulting in Absalom’s coup, David’s exile and Absalom’s death at the hand of David’s chief military men. Even the division of the nation of Israel into its northern and southern kingdoms has its roots in this conflict between David and Absalom.
In every situation involving rape or sexual assault in Scripture, there are negative ramifications.
God does not condone sexual assault. He expressly forbids it. God loves His children and He has compassion on those who have been affected by this crime.
If you have been a victim of sexual assault, please get help. It’s not your fault. You can go to www.rainn.org , or call 1-800-656-HOPE to receive resources to assist you as you go forward in your healing.” From: https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/bible-questions-and-answers/are-there-examples-of-sexual-assault-in-the-bible
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Update.
The two articles above are in their entirety because I couldn’t find a good place to abbreviate them. Both rang home to me, because I have been assaulted, impregnated, and therefore thought about abortion, but didn’t do it.
This week has been a bit different. Now that the 5-piece dinette booth has gone we had a lot of space in the mini-house. We did bring in an old dropleaf table, just to have one in there to work on, but I wouldn’t want it for a permanent fixture. Then we moved in a credenza/sideboard that I have for sale, to display it better than out in the storage.
Tuesday, my neighbor Hans picked me up and we went to the YMCA yoga and exercises. I had gone with him the week before and joined the Y, but I didn’t do the yoga that time. Each morning I do the Sit-and-Be-Fit exercises on PBS, but as my insurance pays for the Y, and Hans goes there twice a week, I knew it would be a good addition. But the only problem is that a crowd of them go to the Incredible Pizza Buffet afterwards, which seems self-defeating to me! Even though I just stuck to the veggies and salads.
One day I helped my friend over at the storage, and he took me to Schlotzky’s, and I just couldn’t believe that they charge over $10 for a sandwich, and people pay it! But it was still factory-farmed and CAFO food (confined animal feeding operations) and I just can’t stomach eating it, after learning what those poor anumals go through: https://youtu.be/YHBPpv01n-M and for more on this, if you want to watch the movies:
TheTruth About Your Food with FOOD, INC. Filmmaker Robert Kenner https://youtu.be/2Oq24hITFTY
or: H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters (2018) - Full Documentary
https://youtu.be/FprMvJYnD44 I hope that you will bookmark this page and watch these. Your good health deserves that, because your health is your most precious asset.
Then you will understand why I would rather just eat the organic food that I have bought and prepared myself to stay healthy in my mid-eighties.
Jay came on Friday, and we installed some pretty fancy white lattice across the posts of the middle carport at the mini-house, because I keep some stuff that is for sale there, and I don’t want the place to look junky. I would rather put it out there when I know people are arriving, because I don’t want prospective customers coming into my house.
For the Sabbath potluck, I took Pizza Potatoes and Cheesy Cabbage, but the cold kept a lot of people away, so I ate the left overs, and fed some to Zack. The Bible readings were Psa. 19, Gen. 41:1-57, Isa. 29:1-16, Rev. 7:1-17 and all of Mat.7. The Teaching was about Memorials, examples were to remember the Sabbath, and when Jesus said to “do this in remembrance of me”, meaning the Bread and Wine on that fateful time before Passover day.
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