Monday, March 27, 2017

Scripture Spin--What a Ride!

It makes you dizzy. It addles the brain. The ground underfoot dissolves. There is no foundation. Thoughts are confounded. That's scripture spin.

It's almost funny what lengths people will go to in order to reinvent the gospel of Jesus Christ to fit the sophistries and sexual immorality of the day. Our culture is in a state of free-fall right now, because of the ubiquitous internet, pervasive and persuasive social media, the radical individualistic, self-centered, sexually permissive spirit of the times, and the intimidation, misinformation, and fear showered on those standing for truth and righteousness. Again we say, sin is as old as mankind. What's new right now is the embrace of bad ideas and sins as if these are a person's identity, the ignoring and censoring of truth regarding the dangers of bad ideas and sins, the praise and celebration of badness, the abandoning of God's timeless proven standards and the reinstituting of arbitrary, inconsistent, and contradictory new standards that have no foundation but what somebody or other said 5 minutes ago. 

Warnings against such developments are not only seen throughout Holy Scripture but throughout the best literature mankind has produced.

"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned [from the internet] they think they are wise [prideful know-it-alls] , and they hearken not unto the counsel of God [the scriptures], for they set it [God's Word] aside, supposing they know of themselves [pushing their own prideful, self-serving ideas on everyone else], wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness [they aren't smart at all; they are fools] and it profiteth them not. And they perish [physically/ mentally/ spiritually]."  2 Nephi 9:28

"Professing themselves to be wise they became fools [ignoring God and believing whatever the world espouses at the moment]". Romans 1:22


C. S. Lewis said the same thing in his own words. Read The Abolition of Man, a slim volume full of real wisdom based on God's standards for human thought and behavior.  Once God is given up (or spun beyond recognition) there is no limit for human behavior. Without God, all is permitted, wrote Dostoevsky. Because mankind too often proves nonbenevolent toward mankind---in a big way---as in people seizing power who have no business seizing power---this sort of thing inevitably ends badly for everybody.

It seems the only vice still somewhat perceived as a vice by most people is the sexual abuse of children. But please note that even this horrendous evil is being softened. Once you give in on one evil, it is easy to give in on the next. As you read this the greedy and perverse are producing child porn and snuff films, courts are becoming more lenient with child rapists, pedophilia is finding a respected niche in society, and child abduction into sex slavery is rampant worldwide.It all comes of abandoning God's standards. Those who cheer on abortion and homosexualism and the like are responsible for the rising tide of criminal child sexualization. And those who do nothing to stop all of these evils are guilty as well.

It comes down to God's wisdom versus man's foolishness. Sexual purity in not rocket science. Responsibility for procreation is not rocket science. Valuing and protecting human posterity is not rocket science. Current ideas about sex, abortion, and homosex are based on pure selfishness, convenience, superficiality, worldliness, even brutality. God's laws are based on unselfishness, responsibility, depth of thought, everlasting truths, and goodness.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is plain and precious. Worldly ways are the opposite of God's ways: alphabet-soup-complicated and a dime-a-dozen.  People who wrest the scriptures, that is, twist, spin, or reinterpret them to fit current popular worldly notions are the foolish talked about in the scriptures. We are to love God first. That includes obeying His laws because we love Him. The more we love God the more we will truly love others, as Jesus loves.That's not as human beings commonly love. It's like Jesus loves us, with our eternal welfare foremost.

Loving God means humility. It means decency. It means intellectual honesty.

Scripture spin is none of those.

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