Month: December 2020

PornHub Under Scrutiny

What is going on with the industry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Of all places, even the New York Times has apparently had an article against PornHub. The charge is that the site is infested with rape videos. There looks to be no denial by PornHub that this has happened. Of course, this would be a very tough denial to pull off. Just last year, a missing teenager was found when sexually explicit videos of her showed up on the site.

What do these changes mean? Not much I suspect sadly. A number of things could happen here. Maybe they won’t be held up. Maybe instead people will find work arounds to get such material up there as you can’t go to each person in each video and just ask and even if you could, many could know they have to lie. If it leads to the site shutting down due to competition, then it could very well be because the competition is even worse and doesn’t have any censoring of any kind.

The only cause for rejoicing here is that even in the secular world now, a closer look in the proper way is being given to the porn industry. Unfortunately, even then one wonders how effective it will be. With so many men in the world participating in the industry even if only consumers, getting information against it is going to be difficult.

The danger of people going to other sites also is very real, especially since these sites could allow for rape videos. In the porn industry, what is needed from consumers often is novelty. Something new is needed that hasn’t been seen before and like any drug, when the prior dosage isn’t enough, a new high must be hit.

The real danger is to the women involved. Our culture has reached a point where women really are giving sex more and more to get love. This is one reason I don’t have an account on SnapChat. I know the stories of women sending topless pictures of themselves and I want no part of that. It’s not because of any lack of desire for female beauty on my part, but because I think such is reserved for the marriage covenant.

Also, many women do find themselves in the human trafficking industry. I recommend books like Rebecca Bender’s In Pursuit of Love or Annie Lobert’s Fallen. Their stories of how they fell in in ways that seemed innocent enough at the start and how they managed to escape are gripping.

Josh McDowell has said the porn industry is the greatest foe the church has ever faced. He could very well be right. This is because it is a great depression on our values and our view of men and women and sex and thus, the building block of society, the family. Our young people are the hardest hit with many women who might not even watch porn thinking they have to do more and more to please their men and it usually being assumed that the young man is watching pornography.

I can’t tell the future of what will happen, naturally, but I do encourage Christians to start acting now. Parents are the first stage with learning how to talk to their children about sex and that will be different for boys and girls. The next stage is going to be the churches where pastors actually need to do sermons on porn and make places accessible for men and women affected by the industry in any way to seek recovery. Beyond that it will be contacting your state representatives and asking them to do something about the porn industry.

We can all change matters if we do something.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Happens If You Don’t Read

Why is reading so important today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For thousands of years, people who could read were at a minimum. Today, we so take it for granted that a common objection against the Gospels is “Why didn’t anyone write this down earlier?” The idea is that obviously, you write the message down because everyone can read and that’s the fastest and best way to communicate. Back then, it wasn’t.

Today, you would be surprised to meet someone in the West who can’t read. Our phones with simple instructions for games even depends on it. We have road signs that depend on it. Go to a restaurant and you have a menu and they don’t normally have pictures in them of everything. You are expected to read.

Today, too many people don’t. I still remember visiting an old college professor who during the summer break asked a student what he was reading to be told, “Nothing.” I wish I was surprised by that story, but I’m not. Too many people today don’t really study at all.

About a year or so ago, I remember being in a check-out line at the grocery store and somehow the topic turned to the book I was reading and some reference was made to Daniel in the Lion’s Den. The kid at the register had no idea what I was talking about. Even if you don’t believe the Bible to be true, to be a functioning member in Western society, you at least need a basic knowledge of the Bible and the stories therein.

Those who don’t read are those who are not going to be learning in their positions. Yes. You can go on YouTube and watch videos and get good content sometimes and you can go to podcasts and get some good content, but most of the time, the real in-depth material doesn’t come out except in books. Most scholars aren’t dishing out their works entirely for free.

At this, I would also like to say that I suspect most of my audience is Christian and you’re saying, “I do read. I read my Bible everyday.” That’s wonderful. I’m not opposed to that a bit. However, you need to be reading more than the Bible. If you’re in ministry, definitely.

It has been said that a man of the book will be a man of many books. I thoroughly agree with this. This isn’t just reading books about the Bible. This is learning about the world we live in.

Every minister should seek to be as educated as possible. Some might say the apostles never went to a Seminary, but let’s consider that. These guys had about three years training directly under Jesus. I think any Christian I know who has seminary training, including myself, would trade their training for that.

A Christian should also be learning about the world besides Scripture. They should learn science, history, economics, math, philosophy, etc. It is all God’s truth and it is all worth knowing. C.S. Lewis said years ago one of the greatest blessings in the world would be that if someone wanted to learn about an academic topic, the best works were always by Christians.

If you’re a scientist, be the best one you can be for Jesus. If you’re a doctor, be the best one you can be for Jesus. Same for economist, fashion designer, journalist, waiter, etc. As long as the job is a moral job, do the best you can at it as if working for Jesus.

Read. If you don’t have much money, go to the library and read books for free. Drive a lot? Get audiobooks at the library. Read while traveling. I’m reading Jordan Peterson’s Twelve Rules For Life while driving now.

Don’t be hesitant to read fiction either. You can learn good material from fiction and be entertained at the same time. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both wrote fiction that sticks with us today. I’m reading through the Regan Reilly mystery series now by Carol Higgins Clark.

Bottom line is read. It will not hurt your reputation when people can tell that you know what you’re talking about because you read. You will also be better able to interact with the world around you. That will greatly help your impact for Christ.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

What Does God Want?

What does God want of us? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m not a prayer warrior. Some of you might think with my being in Christian ministry, I spend a lot of time in prayer and it comes naturally for me. No. It doesn’t. I do have an attitude of it throughout the day asking God about events in my life, but to go somewhere and focus for a long time in prayer is difficult.

After one such time recently, I found myself thinking that so many times, I come to God and I have the list of all the things that I want. What does God want from me when I pray? I don’t know if I had ever thought about that before, but I decided to ponder it.

I have really only come to one conclusion. God wants us to love Him. It might sound simplistic, but there’s a profundity to it I think. It’s easy to come to God when you think about what you want instead of just coming to Him for who He is.

Sometimes skeptics often ask “If God wants me, why doesn’t He just appear to me immediately? Why doesn’t He make Himself known?” He could do that if He wanted to, but maybe that doesn’t give the true results desired. That treats God like He’s just a trivia question instead of the person saying “No. If God exists, I really want to know it. I really want to know Him.”

There are some skeptics who have said that even if they were shown that God existed, they wouldn’t worship Him. With such people, there’s definitely no reason for God to reveal Himself. God does promise though that if someone is genuinely seeking, they will genuinely find.

Sometimes with this kind of thing I think about the Little Mermaid. Remember in that movie Ariel has to without her voice get the man to kiss her? Now in reality, the best way she could do that is to have removed that wrapping she had around herself immediately when she saw him and odds are she would have got a kiss immediately, but it would not have been a kiss of love. It would have been one of lust. Instead, she had to work and spend the time with him to really try to get that kiss.

In the same way, if God shows up in all His glory, you’re really not going to have much of a say in the matter. The ones who will get to see the glory of God are the ones who have put forward the work to relate to Him first and find Him first. Those who are coming to Him only wanting just the benefits, which does include Heaven, are the ones who don’t really want Him. This is one reason I find that when we talk about life in Heaven, God is usually treated like an afterthought.

“Oh yeah! You get to live in a mansion! The streets are gold! You live forever! There’s no pain or sickness or death! All your dead loved ones are there waiting for you! Oh, one more thing. There’s this guy called God there if you care about that.”

We wouldn’t come out and say that, and I’m not saying I believe in a literalistic description of Heaven, but that is the way it usually is treated. Most of us don’t think about God when we think about Heaven. We think about what benefits us. The purpose of getting someone to be a Christian is usually, “Well you want to go to Heaven, don’t you?”

It’s really using God.

So now, when I have come in prayer, I have tried to make statements of love and sometimes, I may not feel them or think I mean them, but I try to say them anyway. What if God wants to be loved for Himself, which is really what we all want?

The Jews have a song sang at Passover called Dayenu where it lists step by step the blessings God brought to His people at the Exodus and for each step it is said “And if you had just done XYZ, dayenu, it would have been enough.” Then they go one step further everytime adding in dayenu.

What God has already done for us, well dayenu. He has done more than enough for us. Everything else is a gift. If we do not come to Him as He is appreciating what we have already, we are guilty of ingratitude to God and using Him. We all have many gifts in life and none of us are debts owed to us. It is all a gift.

Maybe it’s time to express some love back.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: God and the Pandemic

What do I think of N.T. Wright’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I really like reading N.T. Wright and I try to read anything by him that I can get my hands on. I was a bit hesitant about this one, however. After all, as much as I think Wright is wonderful on theology and history, I sometimes question his political approaches. Would I see more of that in here? Would I see approaches to blame the right or even the left or would I see a drastic push that we must have universal health care now?

Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised. There was a bit on universal health care at the end, but not much. If anything, Wright said something I have been saying for some time. Too often, the church has done work in an area, but we have been happy to let the government take it off of our hands. When plague spread through Rome before, it was the Christians who cared for the sick the most. Even the apostate emperor Julian said that Christians were better at caring for the poor and sick than the Roman Empire.

Wright also has a problem with people who try to see the hand in God in all of this. “Ah. A pandemic has come. Now people are ready to hear the message of Christianity.” Yes, some might be. Some might be more resistant actually and be willing to blame God for allowing it to happen or think that He directly caused it to happen.

In all of this, Wright has the right emphasis. He points us back to Jesus every time. If we are saying that now is the right time, then we are saying that the words of Jesus before were insufficient. Jesus told us what we must do. We are to go out there and do it.

In Acts 11, the church hears about a plague coming and immediately, the cry goes up that this is the perfect time to tell people about Jesus. Wait. You didn’t read that in the Bible? That’s right. They instead said “Who is going to be the most affected and what can we do to help them?” It might sound like just something practical, but that is what they did and that is the example left for us in Scripture.

Wright’s words are meant to give hope to those who are suffering wondering when it will end, but are also calling everyone else to go out there and be Jesus to the populace. With regard to churches opening up, there are both sides, although he does deal with a silly idea one parishioner has that the devil doesn’t know how to get in a church. He just tells her that as a bishop, he can assure her that the devil certainly does know how.

This is really classic Wright throughout the book, but the good thing is hopefully with it being about a pandemic, more people will read it and take it seriously. The church would be far better if more people were familiar with N.T. Wright. I may not agree with him on the political and practical questions surrounding Corona, but I certainly agree with him on the topic of Jesus.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Trinity and Acts 2:36

Does Acts 2:36 disprove the deity of Christ? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve had two times where I have interacted with someone online from the group called the Iglesia Ni Cristo, a cult group that seems to have the strategy online of “Say the same thing over and over preferably very loudly and ignore anything to the contrary.” Last night, I encountered someone who seemed to think the only verse in the Bible worth talking about was Acts 2:36. This is one a lot of skeptics of the deity of Christ and/or the Trinity use.

So what does the verse say?

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

The idea is rooted in the word “made.” If Jesus was made Lord and Christ at His resurrection, then He was not these things before. Right?

The Greek word is ποιεο and if you want to base your argument on this word, well good look. Unfortunately, it’s one of those words that has a lot of meanings behind it. Here’s what you can find at BlueLetterBible.com.

  1. to make
    1. with the names of things made, to produce, construct, form, fashion, etc.
    2. to be the authors of, the cause
    3. to make ready, to prepare
    4. to produce, bear, shoot forth
    5. to acquire, to provide a thing for one’s self
    6. to make a thing out of something
    7. to (make i.e.) render one anything
      1. to (make i.e.) constitute or appoint one anything, to appoint or ordain one that
      2. to (make i.e.) declare one anything
    8. to put one forth, to lead him out
    9. to make one do something
      1. cause one to
    10. to be the authors of a thing (to cause, bring about)
  2. to do
    1. to act rightly, do well
      1. to carry out, to execute
    2. to do a thing unto one
      1. to do to one
    3. with designation of time: to pass, spend
    4. to celebrate, keep
      1. to make ready, and so at the same time to institute, the celebration of the passover
    5. to perform: to a promise

So let’s go a different route. Let’s start with Lord and limit our usage to Lukan usage before the resurrection. Luke 1:43 has Elizabeth referring to Mary as the mother of her Lord. In Luke 2:11, the angels say that born in Bethlehem is Jesus, who is Christ the Lord. In 3:4, John the Baptist prepares the way for the Lord and then here comes Jesus.

In 5:8, Simon calls Jesus, Lord. A leper does the same in 5:12. In 6:46, Jesus asks why call Him, “Lord, Lord” and not do what He says? The friends of the centurion call Jesus Lord in 7:6 and Luke calls Jesus Lord himself in verse 13 and again in 31.

In 9:54, two of Jesus’s disciples refer to Him as Lord and two would-be disciples do so in verses 57 and 61. Luke again calls Jesus the Lord in 10:1 and the returning disciples in verse 17 call Jesus Lord as well.

Honestly, I suspect at this point this is getting repetitive. You can search on your own and find the numerous places where many people in the Gospels call Jesus the Lord in Luke and this before His resurrection. So what about Christ?

Yep. Luke 2:11 mentioned above and Simeon is told in the came chapter he won’t die until he sees the Lord’s Christ. Demons declare Jesus to be Christ in chapter 4 and in chapter 9, Peter makes his great declaration of faith that Jesus is the Christ.

So now, either all of these verses are wrong or need to be reinterpreted or Acts 2:36 needs to be.

So how do we read Acts 2:36 then?

It’s easy. The resurrection was the action whereby God declared that Jesus was indeed Lord and Christ. It is God’s vindication of the claims of Jesus. It in now way means that Jesus became Lord and Christ at that point or else Jesus Himself is wrong many times throughout the Gospels and surely should have corrected all those people giving Him those titles.

Thus, the INC and the JWs and anyone else using this verse just really doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Unfortunately, such groups will continue to do so because they don’t know better. They will also avoid contrary scholarship that disagrees because sadly, they don’t want to know better.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Aren’t Jesus’s Words Enough?

What more does it take to get us to do something? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was reading something recently on how N.T. Wright said that some people have used the Covid situation to say “This is the time to get the message out for people needing hope.” Now, I am thankful people are getting the message out either way, but he makes the point. Why do you need a crisis to do something? Aren’t the words of Jesus enough? Don’t people already need hope?

It’s easy to lose sight of in the church, but we are already familiar with our marching orders no matter what is going on in the world around us. Whatever the situation, our responsibility is the same. The early church took it so seriously that when a plague struck that left countless people dead, the Christians stayed behind. Julian the apostate later on said that the Christians were better at caring for the poor than the Roman Empire was.

Consider a passage like the Great Commission. Sometimes, people ask the question about what about those who never heard. It’s an important question, but Scripture nowhere addresses it directly. Why? There is no need to. We have our marching orders and we are not given a Plan B of what happens if we do not do this. We are not told we can rest confidently because this is how God will handle those people.

What about when this election has been going on and the anxiety that has been provoked. Our orders are still to be anxious about nothing and to rest in Christ. We are not told a solution to the problems that we face. We are told to just trust in Christ.

We are told to love our neighbors. God never asks us once how we feel about our neighbors. He never even asks us if we like our neighbors and never commands us to like them. Yes. You can love someone even if you don’t particularly like them. He tells us to love and that is that.

We are told many hard commands that we are not given any option to push back on. I understand from those who serve in the military that when your commanding officer tells you to do something, you do it. At your job, if your boss tells you to do something and you don’t do it, you can expect to get in trouble for it. We would do all of these things, and yet when the Lord of the universe tells us to do something, we don’t do it?

Now thankfully, sometimes things happen that can spur us to action, but we are not in action already, we need to search our souls and ask why. We can be sure the problem does not lie on the end of our commanding officer. The problem lies with us. What in us is still resistant to the call of God on our lives?

The Roman Empire was a dark place when Christ came and yet without the aid of modern transportation, media, and facilities, the Christian message turned it around. We who have so much more should be able to do so much more today. We have no excuse.

There won’t be one on that day also. It’s up to us. We will give an account for what we did with what we had and there will definitely be no excuses on that day.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Contrary To Popular Belief, Ellen Page Is A Woman

Is society wrong on gender? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today, I woke up and heard the news that Ellen Page, known for the movie Juno among others, has decided that she is a man. Of course, what hard data is there to present for this belief? None. I went to look her up when I got home to see what news there was and lo and behold, before too long, I found myself looking at Elliot Page.

And Wikipedia is already updated.

Elliot Page (born Ellen Grace Philpotts-Page; February 21, 1987) is a Canadian actor and producer. He first became known for his role in the film and television series Pit Pony (1997–2000), for which he won a Young Artist Award, and for recurring roles in Trailer Park Boys (2002) and ReGenesis (2004). Page also received recognition for his role in the film Hard Candy (2005), and won the Austin Film Critics Association‘s Award for Best Actress.

Page had his cinematic breakthrough with the title role in Jason Reitman‘s film Juno (2007), earning nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Critics’ Choice Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He also earned praise for roles in The Tracey Fragments (2007), Whip It (2009), Super (2010), Inception (2010), and Tallulah (2016). Page has also portrayed Kitty Pryde in the X-Men films The Last Stand (2006) and Days of Future Past (2014), produced the film Freeheld (2015) in which he also starred, and made his directorial debut with the documentary There’s Something in the Water (2019). Since 2019, he has portrayed Vanya Hargreeves in the Netflix series The Umbrella Academy.

Page publicly came out as a gay woman in February 2014 and subsequently as transgender in December 2020, announcing his new name as Elliot Page.

I also saw someone on Twitter commenting on someone posting about this and saying “It doesn’t cost you anything to use proper respect and the pronouns they want.” Well, yes. It does cost us something. It costs us reality.

Reality is too many women are going out even earlier in their lives and declaring that they’re transgender. This is also going against the trends. Gender Dysphoria is a real thing, but it usually happens predominantly among men. This is happening in greater numbers with women and often in groups and often after spending a lot of time on social media or hearing a speaker at a school.

The problem is this is based on how the person feels. We don’t do this in other areas. Suppose you’re a doctor and you have a girl come to you who weighs looking at her about eighty pounds or so. She to you is apparently skin and bones. She is telling you she is hideous because she is so fat and she asks if you can give her weight loss medicine. Are you going to do it? She feels fat. She really does.

Do it you and you could be responsible for her death and sued for weight loss. Anorexia is a serious condition and the person’s feelings do not match reality. They are in no way fat.

A person with Cotard Delusion is not really dead and we don’t treat them by putting a tag on their toe and sending them to the morgue. A person with Jerusalem Syndrome is not helped by declaring that they really are the Messiah. If someone believes that they can fly, we do not throw them off of a skyscraper to prove otherwise.

Yet here we jump right on board and say the person’s feelings are accurate when all the physical evidence we have from their body and DNA says “No.” We’re also told that this is the science of the day. If some people wonder sometimes why so many people are skeptical of science on topics like evolution or climate change, this is one reason.

This is certainly not to say that people who believe this are to be condemned or treated harshly. They are to be loved just as much, but if a person has a delusional belief, you do not show love to them by enabling them in that delusion.

We are also saying that a person’s emotions dictate reality. They don’t. You do not get to hold reality hostage by your feelings. Because you feel like you are the opposite sex, I should in no way be forced to agree with that belief. You can think you are the Messiah all you want, but I will not be forced to bow down and call you Lord.

So we will wait and see what Ellen Page does to mutilate her body if she goes that route, but remember the old question. How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Answer. Four. Counting the tail as a leg does not make it a leg. You can call Ellen Page whatever you want, but it will not change reality. She is and always will be a woman. The more we find ourselves trying to push against reality, the more it will push back until one day it breaks. I dread seeing what will happen when it does.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Reversing the Sermon

What would happen if we turned around the Sermon on the Mount? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Even many a skeptic of Christianity can find the Sermon on the Mount motivational. This is certainly a fine message that has great ethical principles. If we lived out the sermon well, how much better off our world would be?

Last night I was reading some N.T. Wright and he said the sermon though is not about ethics, but it is about mission. It is about sending the people out into the world. These are the kinds of people that will be sent out. Let’s consider that. What would happen if we went with a different kind of people instead?


3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So let’s go through those one by one. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Those are the ones who will see the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who are not will not see the Kingdom. If someone doesn’t want to see the Kingdom, then they need to realize they have no right to force the king to let them in and it would fail anyway. Whatever else is the alternative to that, that must be accepted.

Those who are mourn are comforted, but those who don’t will not be. This is I think not just mourning for natural causes like death of loved ones, but mourning over sin. If you mourn over your sin, you will be comforted. If you don’t, you won’t.

Blessed are the meek. They will inherit the Earth. The contrary is that those on the opposite end will not. Those who try to rule by force and bring about the Kingdom that way will not inherit the Earth. Again, whatever the alternative, that is for them.

If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be filled. That is a guarantee. If you want to be righteous, truly righteous, you ultimately will be. Note that if you try to live like a demon and then think you can get it anyway, then it won’t happen. Those who hunger and thirst will live like it.

The merciful will be shown mercy. If you do not show mercy, do not expect to receive it. This brings to mind the parable of the unmerciful servant. He did not show mercy, because he did not think he had received it.

The pure in heart will see God. One of the reasons for this is that they are the only ones who want to. If you are not pure in heart, then you will not see God. If God is the greatest good, then this is truly a tragedy for someone’s life.

The peacemakers will be called the children of God. Some might think that rules out self-defense, but that is not always so. Usually, this is against someone who is violating the peace. Disrupting them is restoring the peace. This why Wyatt Earp called his gun, the peacemaker. If you do not wish to have peace, you are not a child of God.

Those who are persecuted for righteous are those who identify with the kingdom of God and show themselves citizens. If they are persecuted for that truly, then they are the children of God. Persecution in itself does not mean you are a child of God. Persecution for the true Kingdom does.

And if you don’t like that treatment from the enemies, you are still blessed. This is what was done by those who went before you, the prophets and others. You’re in good company.

The Sermon reminds us of the kind of people we are to be as Kingdom people. If we live that out, then we are servants of the Kingdom and we get the benefits. If we don’t live it out, we can expect the opposite.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)