Skip to main content

Government Shutdown





The U.S. Government has been shut down (sort of) because of the inability of Congress to agree on a budget. House Republicans will only approve a budget that defunds Obamacare, and Senate Democrats will only approve one that defends Obamacare.

In situations like these there must be a compromise. Both parties must be willing to give up some things in order to satisfy both groups. When a compromise cannot be reached, the Government cannot perform all of its functions.

This shutdown does not mean disaster for America; in fact, it’s the 18th shutdown in our history. But if the shutdown is not resolved, that will end in disaster. What we are seeing on Capitol Hill is exactly what Jesus said would happen:


“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.”
Mark 3:24-25

Jesus went on to talk about the danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit; His context was not political, but the truth still applies. No kingdom, government, household, or church can stand when it is divided against itself.

Let the Government shutdown serve as a warning to the church of Jesus Christ that we will suffer a similar fate if we think we can exist as a divided body. Congressional approval ratings are embarrassingly low because people dislike the fighting.

Do they think the same thing when they look at the church? Do they hear argumentation over song selection, instrumentation, Greek pronunciation, and interior decoration? Occasionally churches split over doctrinal differences, but more often than not the fighting is over superficial cosmetics.

No matter what church you attend, seek to live peaceably with all people, and work to resolve all differences in love. If you simply can’t worship in a building that has green carpet instead of your desired blue, then go find a building with blue carpet; don’t split the green-carpeted church on your way out.

America has seen enough church shutdowns. What they need is a church that seeks to fulfill the Great Commission and serves as the hands and feet of Jesus on earth.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The “Christians Hate Gays” Myth

During these Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) hearings before the Supreme Court I keep hearing how much Christians hate gay people. This was news to me since I am a Christian and I don’t hate gay people. I also go to church with over 1000 other Christians, and if any of them hate gay people, they sure haven’t told me. Before moving to South Carolina I worked at or attended several churches in Texas; prior to that I spent a decade going to church in Florida. Guess what? No one hated gay people. In fact, I don’t know any Christians who hate anybody. The very uniform of a believer is his love, and if a person does not show consistent love, then he is not actually a believer. Are there non-believers who hate gay people and claim to be Christian? Of course. But that doesn’t represent Jesus or His church. Equating  hateful sign-wavers with Christianity is like equating a kindergarten baseball team to the New York Yankees. They may claim to be playing the same

Famous Frauds in Homosexual Science Part 2: Twin Studies

A second piece of shoddy science has been heralded as proving people are born gay. This time, instead of cadavers, living twins were studied. This study compared male identical twins to male fraternal twins; in each set of twins, at least one man was homosexual. 22% of the fraternal twins showed both brothers to be gay, compared to 52% of the identical twins. Since identical twins are closer genetically than fraternal twins, this study claimed that genetics play in to homosexuality, or that people are born gay. But an obvious question that arose from this study is, why did 48% of the identical twins only have one gay brother? If they are so close genetically, then 100% of the identical twins should have two gay brothers. This study does more harm than good to the argument from genetics. There are other factors to be considered. One is that the men doing the study (Richard Pillard and Michael Bailey) could have intentionally picked fraternal twins that the

The Rose of Sharon and Lily of the Valley

If you have spent much time in church you have probably sung some songs with lyrics like these: “He leads me to his banqueting table, his banner over me is love… Jesus is the rock of my salvation, his banner over me is love.” “Sweetest rose of Sharon, come to set us free.” “He’s the lily of the valley, the bright and morning star…” But are those songs biblical? They come out of the writings of the Song of Solomon, but are we to understand those lines as describing Christ? The Song of Solomon is a collection of love poems that were written between two people who were deeply in love and about to be married. While we know that King Solomon is one of the writers, the other’s name has escaped us, and we know her today simply as the Shulamite woman. Some people believe that since this woman is not named then she never existed; some teach that this book is pure allegory, only existing to serve as symbolism. King Solomon, they say, represents