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“I was recently introduced to a book about the state of religion in America. It’s titled: “American Worldview Inventory 2021-22: The Annual Report on the State of Worldview in the United States.” The author is George Barna of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. Barna is known for his surveys of the state of American religion. I was amazed while reading the book to find how the views of many claiming to be Christian, and holding a belief in the Bible, are really at odds with what the Bible teaches.
Barna’s data reveals that 64% of those who profess to be Christian believe that all faiths are of equal value. This does not square with what the Bible teaches. Acts 4:12 says “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” It is very plain. Only in the name of Jesus Christ is there the hope of salvation. You cannot profess to be Christian and deny such specific teaching as this.
Barna also discovered that no more than 6% of Americans hold a true biblical worldview. A worldview is the frame by which we view the world. To believe the Bible is the Word of God and to live by every Word of God is to live a life based on that book. The Bible must form the view of a Christian’s world. More than 90% of Americans hold a different view. The conclusion of this remarkable study shows that most professing Christians hold a combination of differing incompatible beliefs. The result is a set of beliefs that pose a threat to biblical truth.
The Bible and biblical teaching have been de-emphasized and minimized out of our schools and out of our Christian lives. This results in what Scripture describes: "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Barna’s research reveals most Americans think of themselves as a Christian, and a majority still think that Christianity is “kind of” about the Bible. Though many Americans believe they have a “biblical worldview,” very few do. There is a large gulf between what people think the Bible says and what it really does say.
Does what you believe about the Bible square with what the Bible really teaches?
Does your worldview match with what Scripture reveals about the conditions of human nature, this present world and God’s solution for the problems we face every day? Developing such a view is your key to understanding why the world works as it does.
It's time to take another look at the Bible and to ensure you have a correct understanding of what is says. Our study guide, “How to Understand the Bible,” begins with a helpful chapter to begin forming a solid foundation of knowledge about this most important book. Read the introduction now: “Introduction: How to Understand the Bible.” I encourage you to begin that study today.” From: https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?e=72c729d811&u=1d04480cefc2e7c4492fe4a04&id=544da97e98
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Do you face obstacles, challenges or hardships that you feel you will never be able to overcome?
“Is there a difficulty that seems impossible for you to solve, or have you suffered a misfortune you believe will be impossible to ever get past?
So did a young man named Todd Jones, and I want to share part of his story with you. This is what he faced before he became a most famous voice. Long before he became famous, Todd was just a young boy, born in Mississippi in 1931, of African, Cherokee, Choctaw and Irish descent. While he was still very young, his family moved all the way to Dublin, Michigan, where he grew up, went to school and later to college.
But life was difficult for Todd, because he had a problem, an obstacle, a serious hardship he had to face: Todd stuttered. I don’t mean just a little. Todd stuttered a LOT! It was so embarrassing and distressing to try to communicate with the spoken word that Todd became very withdrawn, and almost mute. He would attempt to speak only with family and a very few friends who were patient with his terrible stutter. In school he appeared to be withdrawn, sullen and almost never spoke.
However, Todd had a keen sense of observation, and he had a sharp mind. Since the spoken word eluded him, Todd turned to the written word, poetry in particular. He could memorize a poem with little effort, and enjoyed writing poetry as well. As a freshman at Dickerson High School, Todd was drawn to an English teacher by the name of Donald Crouch. Mr. Crouch cared for all his students, but he was especially drawn to Todd. He saw so much potential, and he wanted to find a way to draw out the gifts of this withdrawn and nearly mute young man. Mr. Crouch noticed Todd’s love of poetry, so one day he assigned his students the task of writing an original poem. The subject didn’t matter, so long as it was something they felt passionate about, and the poetry was original. Poetry was their homework that night.
During that time, as a way to help public health, the government began shipping truckloads of Florida citrus fruit to places like Michigan. When a crate of ruby red grapefruit arrived at Todd’s house, he thought it the most beautiful fruit he had ever tasted, and it inspired his poem: “Ode to a Grapefruit.” When Mr. Crouch handed the students’ poems back with grades and his comments, he held one back, and he did something most teachers today would never dare do: he put a young man on the spot. He called on Todd to come to the front and read his poem to the class.
Everyone was stunned. They knew how Todd stuttered. Why would Mr. Crouch do that? How painful would it be for everyone to suffer through Todd reading? Todd was gripped by a cold fear. How could his favorite teacher do something like this to him? When he didn’t move, Mr. Crouch challenged him before the class. “This poem is very good. In fact, I think it is too good to be yours. If it is your poem, prove it by reciting before the class.” Todd sat accused of being a fraud!
Now motivated more by anger than fear, Todd stood and recited his poem in a deep, strong voice just as he had written it—clear as a bell, without a single stutter! Mr. Crouch had noticed when Todd recited poetry, his stutter vanished, and he wanted Todd to see that too. This was the first step in a process that changed Todd’s life. Before he graduated from high school, he joined both the debate team and drama. His new love of the spoken word and performing led him to the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre and Dance. His career, which spans more than seven decades, took off on Broadway in 1956 when he was cast as the lead in Shakespeare’s Othello. On stage and later on the silver screen his powerful and commanding voice came to be recognized the world over.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors ever, he has won an Academy Award, three Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award and he has been nominated an additional 18 times for the various awards. He is one of only a handful of actors in history who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards. But you don’t know him as Todd, because early in his career he changed his name to the one you probably do know—James Earl Jones.
He overcame a debilitating stutter to share his voice with the world as the voice of the Star Wars villain Darth Vader, and as Mufasa in the animated movie The Lion King. Do you face challenges and difficulties that you feel you will never be able to get past? James Earl Jones had Mr. Crouch to prod and help him along. But don’t forget, we also have a lot of people to help us too!
After writing what we often refer to as the “Faith Chapter” of Hebrews 11, the author encourages us with: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The examples in Scripture, and those we know today, all serve to prod and encourage us to move beyond trials and challenges. Of our ultimate help, the very next verse says, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” We have the greatest power in the universe on our side, and He wants us to overcome and succeed! The Father even allowed His Son to die so that we can repent, be forgiven and eventually be born into the family of God!
In Romans 8:31 Paul wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” What a loss it would have been if an English teacher, Mr. Crouch, had never taken the time to push James Earl Jones to overcome. What a loss it will be if we do not take advantage of all the help offered by our Father, to bring us into His Kingdom! What God has in mind for each of us is something far greater than just being a most famous voice. Kind regards, and have a great week, Tom Clark, for Life, Hope and Truth”
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13 Reasons Why Eating Pork Is Bad For Your Health
Here’s 13 reasons why eating pork is not good for your health:
1) A pig is a real garbage gut. It will consume anything, including urine, excrement, dirt, decaying animal flesh, maggots, or decaying vegetables. They will even consume the cancerous growths off different pigs or animals.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
2) The meat and fats of a pig absorbs toxins like a sponge. Their meat can be 30 times more toxic than beef or venison.
3) When consuming beef or venison, it takes 8 to 9 hours to digest the meat. so, what little toxins are in the meat are slowly placed into our system and can be filtered by the liver. But when pork is eaten, it takes most effective 4 hours to digest the meat. We thus get a much higher level of toxins within a shorter time.
4) Unlike other animals, a pig does not sweat or perspire. Perspiration is a means by which toxins are removed from the body. Since a pig does not sweat, the toxins remain within its body and in the meat.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
5) Pigs and swine are so toxic or poisonous that you could hardly ever kill them with strychnine or other poisons.
6) Farmers will frequently pen up pigs within a rattlesnake nest due to the fact that the pigs will eat the snakes, and if bitten they will not be harmed by the venom.
7) When a pig is butchered, worms and insects take to its flesh sooner and faster than to other animal’s flesh. In a few days the swine flesh is full of worms.
8) Swine and pigs have over a dozen parasites inside them, inclusive of tapeworms, flukes, worms, and trichinae. There is no safe temperature at which pork can be cooked to ensure that all these parasites, their cysts, and eggs will be killed.
9) Pig meat has a whole lot more fat than beef. A 3 oz T bone steak carries 8.5 grams of fat; a 3 oz pork chop contains 18 grams of fat. A 3 oz beef rib has 11.1 grams of fat; a 3 oz pork spare rib has 23.2 grams of fat.
Image Source: Pixabay.com
10) Cows have a complicated digestive system, having 4(four) stomachs. It thus takes over 24 hours to digest their vegetarian diet causing its food to be purified of toxins. In contrast, the swine’s one stomach takes approximately 4 hours to digest its foul eating regimen, turning its toxic food into flesh.
11) The swine contains about 30 diseases which can easily be passed to humans. This is why God commanded that we aren’t even to touch their carcass. (Leviticus 11:8).
12) The trichinae worm of the swine is microscopically small, and once ingested can lodge itself in our intestines, muscles, spinal cord or the brain. This results in the disease trichinosis. The signs and symptoms are sometimes lacking, however when present they are mistaken for other diseases, inclusive of typhoid, arthritis, rheumatism, gastritis, MS, meningitis, gall bladder trouble, fibromyalgia, or acute alcoholism.
13) The pig is so toxic/poisonous and filthy, that nature had to prepare him a sewer line or canal running down on each leg with an outlet in the bottom of the foot. Out of this hollow oozes pus and dirt, his body cannot pass into its system rapid enough. Some of this pus gets into the meat of the pig."
Leviticus 11 “Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth: 3 Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat. 4 Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is [a]unclean to you; 5 the [b]rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is [c]unclean to you; 6 the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you; 7 and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you. 8 Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.”
From: https://thepowerfulfacts.com/13-reasons-why-eating-pork-is-bad-for-your-health/
Here is what Joel Osteen says about it, YouTube: “What Does the Bible Say About Eating Pork.” https://youtu.be/9DLA_BRO4p4.
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