Category: Evil

Brothers Reunited

How does the story of Joseph end? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So Jacob has now died in the story and that leaves Joseph and his brothers. However, now Joseph is one of the most powerful men in the world. His brothers? Not so much. We all know sibling rivalry is a thing, but throwing your brother into a pit, selling him into slavery, and then telling your father he died, is somehow a step above shaking up their soda before you bring it to them at work. (Which I never ever did to my sister, of course!)

But as I said, Joseph has the power now and while his father was alive, he might have not wanted to do anything. Now, dear old Dad is gone. If anyone has the power in the family, it’s Joseph, and he does have the power indeed. He can do whatever he wants with these brothers. The only person who could really stop him is Pharaoh and somehow I suspect Pharaoh is interested in other matters besides sibling rivalry.

The brothers come up with an idea, and who can blame them? They claim that Jacob said that Joseph needs to show mercy and forgive his brothers. After all, it’s really easy to speak for someone after they’re dead. It’s not like Jacob is going to be able to say anything to him.

However, the brothers need not have worried. Joseph, if anything, is disappointed that this has happened. Do his brothers still not trust him yet? Do they not realize that regardless of what happened, that they are family?

Joseph assures them he has nothing against them. Yes. What they did was meant for evil. He doesn’t deny that. The reality is that God used it for good, the saving of many lives. This is something good for us all to keep in mind. Whatever someone intends for evil will be used by God for good one way or another.

We in the West look at this and think that this is a nice and heartwarming story. We don’t realize how important it is. For the Eastern audience, this could be the most important part of the story. Yes. Joseph has saved the world, but what about his family? No one ever forgets where they buried that hatchet. Will the brothers be reunited? If they weren’t, what would that mean for the future of the twelve tribes of Israel?

This isn’t just an epilogue. This is the story reaching its true resolution. Leave this out and there’s a mystery. Even if you see the twelve tribes together in Exodus, the audience would be wondering, “But what about Joseph and his brothers. How did that end?”

What we see here is a beautiful story of forgiveness. There’s a reason that Joseph is usually seen as a Christ figure of sorts in the Old Testament. Joseph can do whatever he wants with his brothers and he chooses to do one of the most powerful acts of all, to forgive them.

Genesis started with one brother killing another. It ends with one brother forgiving all of his when he could have been justified in killing them. That means the story ends in hope. Israel may not be in the promised land now, but they are united and at least they’re not killing each other now.

Tomorrow, I plan on a Christmas post, but then after that, hopefully, we will return to marriage and divorce.

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

Did Joseph Forget?

Did Joseph forget about his suffering? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Joseph does manage to escape prison when he’s thrown in by impressing the Pharaoh by interpreting his dream. The Pharaoh places Joseph second in command in Egypt and gives him a wife. Joseph has two sons through her and the oldest is named Manasseh while the youngest is named Ephraim.

Ephraim refers to being fruitful. We can understand that. Joseph is having a very fruitful time in Egypt. However, the name Manasseh is given because Joseph says that he has forgotten the suffering that he went through. He had forgotten his trouble and his father’s household.

Had he? When Joseph’s brothers show up not too far down the road, Joseph does remember them. He knows about them. If he’s able to talk about his father’s household, surely he hadn’t forgotten about his father’s household. Besides that, Joseph should have good memories of his Dad who favored him.

It’s my contention that sometimes when the Bible uses the word forget or remember, it doesn’t mean what we often think it means. In the flood, it says God remembered Noah. It’s not that God is looking down at the flood and sees that ark floating and thinks “Noah! I forgot all about Him!” Instead, it means that God returned his focus to Noah.

If that’s what it means to remember, then that would mean that Joseph had a new focus in life. He was not thinking about what happened growing up and how his brothers mistreated him and all the time he spent in prison. Instead, he was focusing on the future.

Joseph had come to see that God was with him in everything regardless of how his life was going. One day he’s in prison and has been forgotten by everyone. The next day, he’s the second in command in Egypt. The reader knows that God has been with Joseph granting him favor in the eyes of all who see him the whole time, but Joseph does not have that outside perspective. He is living the story that we are the spectators of.

Joseph having children is a sign to him that things are working out. God has allowed him the honor of having a family and having descendants. These are things he would have missed out on also if he had not been faithful in the house of Potiphar.

Speaking personally on this, divorce has been the worst event I have ever gone through. Something that has kept me going is a saying that I have heard before and I don’t remember where, but it’s that the best revenge is a life well-lived. I have decided I don’t want to be a victim of my past. I want to rise above. When I go to work, I try to see it as just a stepping stone. It is one spot on my journey and somehow it will lead to another and God has me here for a reason just like he had Joseph in prison for a reason that he didn’t understand.

After all, picture if Joseph had never been sold into slavery and then never been picked by Potiphar and then never thrown into prison. He would never have been made known to Pharaoh. He would never have led Egypt and the world would have suffered a famine. Joseph could have died anyway then. Every step of his suffering was used by God.

Joseph no longer had his focus on the past. He was looking to the future. Paul said the same in Philippians 3. He was forgetting what was behind and looking to what was ahead.  (Ironically, what was behind him was pretty good actually. It just didn’t compete with Christ.) Maybe we should all do the same.

It’s something that keeps me going in this.

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

The Incarnation and Evil

Why talk about the vet and the problem of evil? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So I wrote about Shiro this week because it does leave me thinking about the problem of evil. One story I thought of was a story about a farmer who wasn’t a believer and his family went to church one Christmas. He saw some birds outside in the cold and thought they would die so he would try to get them in his barn.

He goes out and tries to motion them to come in the barn lest they die, but he doesn’t have any luck. He then thinks about how much easier it would be if he could become a bird himself and then show the birds the rest of the way to come into the barn. It’s at that point he hears the church bells ring for Christmas and understands the incarnation.

It’s a good story, but is it accurate. Paul tells us to imitate him as he imitates Christ, but when we see Christ coming, we don’t see Him talking as if the reason He came was this. He showed us how to be good, but He doesn’t seem to say that’s why He came. He came to bring the kingdom.

When Christ comes, He really says very little about the problem of evil. I can only think of two times specifically. The first is in Luke where some people talk to him about the people whom Pilate mixed their own blood with their sacrifices. Jesus also brings up the Tower of Siloam falling on eighteen people and killing them and telling the people none of these people were worse sinners than anyone else in the city, but they need to repent lest they perish.

The second is in John 9 when the disciples and Jesus meet the man born blind. He is asked who sinned that this man was born blind. Jesus says that it wasn’t because anyone in particular sinned, but so that God’s glory might be displayed in his life. The whole chapter and story then revolves around God healing the man and how the religious elite responded.

Absent from any of this is an explanation for the evil in the first place. Jesus never even begins to move in that direction. Jesus doesn’t tend to get into the why of the suffering when it happens. He just deals with the problem.

So as I thought about taking Shiro to the vet, I thought also about if only I could speak kitty for the time and tell Shiro why this is happening. However, after awhile, it occurred to me that that might not be any good. Does a cat have the capacity to understand human thinking like that? I am pretty much saying that I want my cat to become a human and cease to be a cat.

Kind of defeats the purpose.

Is our wishing to understand evil this side of eternity that much different? God could explain things to me hypothetically about the suffering in my own life, but would I really understand it. Could the answer be so complex that it would be beyond me?

There’s a Woody Allen skit in a play or a movie where he and his wife are discussing their son who is coming for a visit and is an atheist and the wife says she wants Woody to explain the Nazis to him. He says something along the lines of “Explain the Nazis? I don’t even understand the microwave!” It’s funny, but it’s accurate. We can all think of some area in this life that makes no sense to us.

But we’ve convinced ourselves that we would understand the answer. Why else do we ask for one? Could it be we aren’t given one not because there isn’t one or God doesn’t care, or could it be that we wouldn’t understand it. If the distance between me and a cat is this great, how much greater between us and an infinite God?

Maybe the goal is not to understand evil. Maybe it’s just to trust in the evil. Right now, my cat is on good terms with me again. Last night I came home and all was back to normal. Now if I pick him up again and start carrying him outside of my room, he’ll know what’s going on again and resist it, but eventually, he will just choose to trust again. After all, if he lives in fear of me forever, what does he gain? If we live thinking God is out to get us everyday, what do we gain? After all, if He really is, we’re not changing anything by that. We can’t stop Him.

Ultimately, I’ve never really found evil to be a convincing argument against God, but I know some have. My suggestion here is that perhaps the wrong answer is being looked for. I encourage people to look at the positive evidences for the existing of God and for the resurrection. If those are true, there is an explanation for evil. You don’t have to know it. Maybe you couldn’t.

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

After The Vet

What happens after the vet? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So yesterday, Shiro got a clean bill of health. All is good and I picked him up and brought him home. I had to stop and get gas and I could see him in his carrier while I was pumping. With every move I made, he followed me with his eyes watching to see me.

When we got him home, he came out of the carrier and ran under the bed. For the most part, he’s been scared of everyone. Shiro doesn’t really care for my parents more often just tolerating them, but usually he’s all over me. It wasn’t like that yesterday.

If I tried to get close to him many times, he would run. Sometimes he would let me pet him a little, but if I got way too close, it was running under the bed again. He had a bandage on his leg from yesterday and he was trying to get it off. Fortunately, he did come to me and I took it off, but then it was off to run and hide again.

This morning before I got out of bed, he had climbed on top of me for a little bit. Right now though, he is still under the bed. He does come out to eat, but fear is still dominating him. It’s as if he has completely forgot all the good things I have done for him in the past and is now only looking at the bad experience.

It’s a good thing we’re never like that!

Too often, we are. How many times when trouble comes do I forget the good that God has done for me and only look on that suffering? I don’t understand why God has done this thing to me or allowed it to happen to me, therefore, I will not trust Him. This brings us to how people see the problem of evil.

It all depends on how one looks at God. If one sees Him as a monster. The bad is so awful that if anything good happens, it is just a chance. For the Christian, it is that the good is so good, there must be an explanation for the bad. It reminds me of the book The Man Who Was Thursday by Chesterton. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but it talks about some characters discussing the final main character.

““Then, and again and always,” went on Syme like a man talking to himself, “that has been for me the mystery of (Character whose name I have removed) and it is also the mystery of the world. When I see the horrible back, I am sure the noble face is but a mask. When I see the face but for an instant, I know the back is only a jest. Bad is so bad, that we cannot but think good an accident; good is so good, that we feel certain that evil could be explained.

For us, we know that there is a great good, so the evil must be explainable somehow even if we don’t know it. For the other side, the evil is central. Honestly, I would hope any skeptic would at least want to consider the Christian idea because wouldn’t you prefer there be some meaning to what happens instead of just random chaos? I know I would.

Will Shiro come out and realize that the suffering he experienced didn’t happen because I want to hurt him, but because I love him? I’m sure he will soon. He’s starting to warm up bit by bit. That’s the minor question.

The real question is, will I realize the same in my own life?

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

Shiro and the Vet

What can we learn about suffering from pets? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m taking a break from the series now to write about what is going on with me today. As I write this, it is around 8:35 and I am sitting at a Starbucks with my tea right next to me (None of those pagan coffee drinks) when I would more normally be waking up and have my little cat Shiro nuzzling me waiting for his food machine to go off so he can get breakfast.

Not today.

This morning, I got up at 6:30 instead, and called to Shiro when I didn’t see him. He came out from under the bed and I indicated to him I wanted him to jump up, which he eagerly did. A moment later, he regretted it. I held him and headed towards the door and then he knew what was coming. I had his kitty carrier in the bathtub in our big bathroom and had it already open as I put him in.

It’s a real chore honestly. It takes a lot of planning.

No. There’s nothing wrong with him as far as I know. He just has to have his regular shots, a dental cleaning, and I’m getting his nails trimmed while he’s under. Unfortunately, little Shiro understands none of this. For him, he’s gone without his breakfast and would much rather be at home and doesn’t understand why the only person in this world he now trusts is treating him this way.

You see, since the divorce, I have been with my parents and sometimes Shiro tolerates them, but he doesn’t trust them yet. I’m the only person he regularly comes close to and the only one who gets to hold him. He especially likes it if I lay down on the bed and he gets to be on top of me. He can sit like that for several minutes. He’ll often rub his face in mine, something I refer to as a kitty kiss.

This morning, I suspect he feels betrayed. If I loved him, I wouldn’t do this. Right? I would hear him crying on the way to the vet. I could picture him asking why I would do this if I loved him so much.

It’s interesting that we ask the why question.

In my Bible reading of the Old Testament, I am going through Job now. I contend that Job is not really about why bad things happen to good people. It’s asking why we are good in the first place. However, Job seems to want to know why what is happening to him is happening to him. Naturally, his friends think they have the answer which means of course, they were first-year seminary students.

It’s odd that Job argues against them while at the same time assuming to accept what they say. He wants his day in court. He wants to show he’s innocent. After all, the only reason he could be suffering is that he is being judged. Right?

Somehow, we often think a why answer would help us every time. Who is to say it would? Who are we to say we would even understand the answer.

As I type this, I think about my friend Ed. I spoke with him in person just last month at ETS and he has a hard life indeed as he has an unknown disease and a number of times has been at the hospital assured his time has come, but he is still here. Ed is a great servant of Jesus and in my own suffering in divorce has reached out to me a number of times.

And just after our meeting his 17 year-old daughter died suddenly.

I can’t imagine what that would be like. I’m not going to try. Even more unbelievable is he has contacted me through text message in this time saying he is sorry he hasn’t reached out to me. I tell him to please not worry about that and I mean it. I need to be there for him this time, and I do sometimes send him Bible verses about the resurrection.

Now I don’t doubt that God could show up and explain why this has happened. He could, but while Ed is a smart man, would he understand it? Would any of us? We’re talking about a being who knows the end from the beginning and can tell you everything that has happened in the story thus far and everything that will happen.

Also, is a good God obligated to prevent every kind of suffering we have here? I’m reading a book now called When Helping Hurts. It’s about how we can say we want to help the poor, but what we do really hurts them instead. Consider it like the little boy who wants to help the butterfly get out of the casing he’s in, so he breaks it. He thinks he’s helping. He’s just killed the butterfly. It’s in breaking out that it develops the strength it needs to be a butterfly. Without that, it dies.

One of the writers talks about being in a sort of slums area that he thinks is God-forsaken when he finds a church. He is invited to preach and being a good Presbyterian decides he will speak some on the sovereignty of God. He thinks that until he hears the prayer requests, such as a woman wanting protection since her husband beats her or for God to provide food for the children of someone in the congregation who are hungry.

This pastor knows about the sovereignty of God from his study of the text. These people know about having to depend on it for their very lives. One guess who really got the lesson on the sovereignty of God that day. Amazingly, those people, who are suffering far more than most of us in the western world are, have more trust in God and rejoice more in His goodness. Prideful skeptics here might call it delusional hope. Perhaps they should try to talk to those people some first and just really listen.

It’s part of our entitlement mentality. We all think we’re entitled to a life without suffering and God is there to aid in our joy and to keep us from evil and if He’s not doing that, well He’s not doing His job. Yes. God has His job and He is obviously our employee and if He doesn’t do the work, He’s not worth it.

It’s really an arrogant position.

It’s also not as if God does this for His enjoyment. Sure, I’m sipping a tea here in Starbucks and typing a blog and watching the people come in here, but if you asked if I would have rather been staying at home and doing all this work from there and then playing some Final Fantasy XIV with friends, it’s definitely the latter. I’m not a morning person. I’m a night owl. I’ve been going to bed earlier this week to prepare. (Fortunately, God in His grace let me have my Dad’s bronchitis so I didn’t have to work. Yes. Another interesting way suffering works for our good.)

I would like to be able to explain to Shiro that I love him despite what he sees. You who are reading this, regardless of your attitude towards cats, know that what I have done for Shiro is ultimately a loving thing and if I didn’t do it, you would have grounds to question my love for Shiro. It’s odd, but if I withheld this suffering from him, I would not be loving.

Part of my problem with arguments from evil is people who make them presume too much. They presume there is no good reason for this, that they have to understand the reason, and that God owes them to not have this evil suffering. It’s important to note that the problem of evil is the burden of the skeptic. They have to demonstrate there is no good reason for a particular suffering. Good luck with that. I don’t have to know why a particular suffering has happened and frankly, why should I know that? I consider myself a smart man, but I don’t think I would understand it either.

After all, I don’t understand yet why God allowed me to meet a girl who would ten years later shatter my heart in a divorce that was unjustified and call me abusive. I still don’t understand it, but I have held on to Him in the midst of it and that has been my hope. Friends assure me that sometime down the road, I will see this as a blessing, and in some ways, I do see good coming from it now, but I still wait for more. I especially hope to someday soon meet another girl who I can bring joy to.

And as I think about that, it brings me to something else about suffering and knowing why it happens. Most of us hate it if we’re watching a movie and someone spoils what happens in it for us. Strangely, we think we should have spoilers for our own life given to us. This is a story that we are in, but it is His story and we are just minor bit roles in it, though there is still something great planned even for us.

In a few hours, I will be picking up Shiro. Before too long, he will be snuggling with me again. Maybe not tonight as my Dad and I are going to see Christmas lights, but eventually, he will give me his trust again and be happy.

Will I give the one who watches over me the same and be happy just being with Him?

That’s up to me.

And for you, that’s your choice as well.

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

The Sin of Sodom

What was the sin of Sodom? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we’re going back a bit because I was mentally going through Genesis recently and realized I had skipped this story and the next one. This starts in Genesis 13 which tells us that these cities wlil be destroyed and assumes its readers already know that. (Which tells you this had to be a most memorable destruction meant to stay in the minds of the audience.) We could picture it as if a person was telling about the history of New York City and said “This was before the World Trade Center towers were destroyed.”

When the story begins for Lot, he pitches his tent near Sodom. We don’t hear from him again until lo and behold, now he is living in Sodom. Lot’s first mistake here was not keeping his distance from a city that had a wicked reputation. How often do we fail to keep our proper distance from something or someone wicked when we should?

Now move forward to Genesis 18 where God reveals that He is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah to Abraham. God gets to the point of saying that if he can find ten righteous people in that city, he will spare it. Unfortunately, those ten righteous people cannot be found.

So what was Sodom being judged for?

We go over to Ezekiel 16 and what do we see?

49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

Well, here you have it! They were prideful and thought only of themselves and didn’t help the poor and needy. That fully backs the inhospitable reading that we often see. Their sin wasn’t homosexual behavior obviously! It was not being kind to others.

Before we just dismiss this, let’s consider some matters. They definitely were inhospitable and that in the ancient world was a great sin. Also, all Christians should definitely agree that pride is a great sin. Lewis called it the greatest sin actually.

Yet if we stopped reading at that verse, we would miss out.

50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

The word for detestable is the same as used for the abominations in Leviticus 18 and 20 and does refer to homosexuality. We can then say that if it wasn’t the only reason for destruction, it was a big reason. Perhaps we could say pride was the main reason and this pride led to the inhospitality and to homosexual practice.

Such an idea might seem shocking to modern readers. Aren’t homosexual relationships all about love? In the ancient world, not necessarily. They were often a way of showing social dominance. We say the same today in some cases. We often say rape is not primarily about sex. Rape is about power and showing the dominance a rapist has over their victim, whatever sex the criminal and the victim are. Anyone could easily find someone willing to have sex with them, even if they had to pay money, but rape is not about that.

In these cases, a man would often be seen as feminizing another man by having homosexual intercourse with him. Such was the case going on with Sodom. There was no reason to think that strangers showing up in town were showing up to have sex with other men. Instead, the men want the men who visited Lot to come out so they can “know” them.

And yes, while know can sometimes refer to knowledge, in this and many other cases in the Old Testament, it’s clear it refers to sexual intercourse. This is clear when we see that Lot says his daughters have never known a man. Their Dad is there with them and they are engaged, so surely they know men, but they have never had sex with men.

By the way, there is also no defending Lot’s offer to them. Good guys in Scripture don’t always act like good guys. People make stupid mistakes in stressful situations, and your house being besieged by a personal army of angry men does count as such a situation.

Fortunately, Lot’s angelic visitors save the day. Everyone is given a chance to flee the town as destruction starts. Lot’s wife is the one who suffers since she looks back to the city as she was told to not do.

So why was Sodom destroyed?

Pride?
Inhospitality?
Immoral sexual behavior?

Yes.

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

Why This Series Matters

Why are we studying marriage in the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was listening to a radio talk show yesterday with the host talking about what our enemies should do if they wanted to destroy America from within. I agreed with many of the statements that were made and think they are happening right now, but there was one glaring omission I was shocked didn’t make the list and that is what is happening right now. That omission is the destruction of the family unit.

Ultimately, the sexual revolution in this country was one of the worst things that ever happened. When the pill came, everything changed. No, this is not a blanket condemnation of contraception, but it is one of our lack of self-control. We actually believed in sex without consequences. The reason we did so was we had somehow already had a diminished view of sex and I do not know exactly where that began, but it started coming out a lot in the late 60’s.

It wasn’t a shock that the next step that came along was abortion. The most anti-feminine thing a woman can do is to have an abortion. It is an attack on the life of a human baby and it is an attack on her own body. Any woman who is truly a feminist should be 100% opposed to abortion other than saving the life of a mother in the case where the child will definitely die. Giving birth is one of the things that makes women completely unique, and that uniqueness is treated as a curse.

Around the time of Reagan, we had no-fault divorce come. This, unfortunately, made divorce even easier to come about and when people think marriage can be broken easily, they don’t treat it as seriously. Marriage was no longer seen as a permanent institution meant to be treated as till death do us part. There are too many divorces that don’t have biblical grounds. What happened to me is one such case.

Around this time also we had the GRID contagion spreading. You haven’t heard of that? Yes, you have. You know it as AIDS. It was originally called GRID, Gay-Related Immuno-Deficiency. The disease showed up primarily in homosexual men and in people using IV needles. Why change the name? Why, the original name would be offensive.

But this was the move being made. The book came out called After The Ball about how Americans will come to love and accept homosexuality in the 90’s. The playbook was followed perfectly. People didn’t even realize that their minds were being changed, but they were. Naturally, the media was the main methodology. I don’t just mean news stations. I mean TV shows, like Will And Grace.

In the past, if a movie had a “sex scene” it was a man and a woman going into a room and you’d hear a click as the door locked. You knew what was going on. Now, they have to show nearly everything. The internet has also increased the spread of pornography, one of the most dehumanizing things ever if not the most dehumanizing thing, even above slavery itself.

The homosexual movement keeps going and what do we have coming on then? We have to change what our idea of marriage is. Unfortunately, if you can change marriage to mean anything, then marriage essentially means nothing. People didn’t think enough about what made sex special and in turn, they didn’t think about what made marriage special. Marriage has become all about me and my happiness and not about the future of humanity and for Christians, the spread of the Kingdom.

As soon as that battle was won, the shift came immediately to transgenderism. After all, being a man and being a woman can’t mean anything either. If we say there is something objective about men and women that makes them different, well that hurts equality. We can’t have that. I get absolutely astounded today that I have to defend the fact that men and women are different.

Any time there’s a story about a boy causing trouble in a girls’ locker room, I am not surprised a bit. This is what happens. Unfortunately, you’re the bad guy if you point this out. Parents cheer when a boy is allowed to use the girls’ locker room, ignoring that the girls are absolutely terrified, and who can blame them?

I won’t deny there’s a personal element in this for me. Divorce hurts. It’s been the most hurtful thing I have ever been through and it causes me some pain every single day. Yes. I am recovering and yes, I have come a long way, but there is always healing to be done.

This is also to answer questions people have for me about remarriage. I plan on it. Is it biblical? I am convinced it is, but I am also pointing out my reasons for this. I also hope to stop more unbiblical divorces from taking place and to help those who have been unbiblically divorced, especially my fellow men who are often faced with pressure in a culture that says “Believe all women.” (Which is also very subjective depending on who the woman is.)

The family unit is a threat to anyone who wants to control society. It is a unit that is dependent on no one else save God alone. It is its own private little society. It doesn’t need the backing of the government to exist. It is separate from the state.

I want to see that unit protected and defended. I want to see it again embraced as a lifelong man-woman unit. I want to see the end of abortion and even the end of pornography. I want to see the honoring of marriage and unbiblical divorce condemned and those who are the victims being given comfort and grace. Too many men have told me that even years later, they are treated like they have committed an unpardonable sin.

The family is a unit created by God Himself and we should treat it that way. The family is meant to mirror the holy trinity. We mess with it only to our own peril.

That is why this matters.

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

Calling In On Abortion

Can you kill your child? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday I am at work going on my lunch break and driving to a local pizzeria. I turn on the radio and hear the local talk radio show talking about the abortion debate. On my way there, I hear a lady call in saying that she is a Trump conservative and agrees with many conservative policies, but is different on abortion. Now to be sure, whether you hate or love Trump is irrelevant to this point. This is just a woman giving credibility to what she’s saying.

On abortion, she thinks it is a terrible and horrible thing. She would never abort her own child. So far, so good. However, who is she to judge the other women out there? She doesn’t know their stories. She doesn’t know what’s going on in the lives of these other women or their health or financial situation. How can she ban that from them?

I realize she’s trying to pull emotional heartstrings and I’m sure with a lot of people, it works. It sounds so kind and loving and tolerant. You’re just looking out for other women. You’re not celebrating abortion or anything. You agree that it’s horrible, but what about those other women?

But I have to get lunch so I go in and enjoy my meal and get back and turn on the radio again and hear a lady calling in saying pretty much the same thing. She also adds that she doesn’t want the judgment on this left to men. At this, I figure while I’m heading back, I might as well call in. So I call in and get on and say I want to say something in response to those women calling with that kind of story.

“I think killing an infant is terrible and horrible. I would never ever kill my own infant. However, who am I to tell another woman what she can’t do in this situation? Who am I to pass that judgment? I don’t know their story or situation and what she does in her own privacy is her judgment and not mine.”

The host was a bit taken aback and asked me to say that again. When I did, then he realized what I was doing. I might listen back today to see if anything was said after I called in as I had to clock in. Before I left though, I also added that if you don’t want topics like this decided by men, that’s fine, but keep in mind Roe V. Wade was decided by a court of nine men.

These women calling in were wanting to be compassionate, but they weren’t. Compassion extends to the least of these, which especially means children. So-called compassion that ends in the killing of innocent children is not compassion. The best way to really help these women is by supporting them in their pregnancy and then in the raising of the child. Fortunately, there are several crisis pregnancy centers that do that.

In this debate, it’s easy to have your heartstrings pulled sometimes, but remember what is at stake, a human life.

It’s not compassionate to kill it.

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

The Rape of Dinah

How does Scripture see rape? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Jacob’s only daughter, Dinah, is out one day visiting the women of the land where Jacob is staying. Shechem, the son of Hamor, sees her and likes what he sees and rapes her. At the same time, the text says he loved her and spoke tenderly to her and asked his Dad to get her for his wife.

Love can be expressed in funny ways. (Although I’d say it wasn’t really love but lust there.)

Jacob is approached by Hamor and during the conversation, Jacob’s sons come in and hear what happened and are shocked and furious. The sad part of this is we don’t know what Jacob thought about this. Jacob is really an absentee father in this case. A Middle Eastern audience would likely be very surprised by Jacob’s silence. Isn’t a father to protect his daughter and assure her virginity?

Jacob’s sons take the lead here and say that they will only agree to what is proposed if the men of the community are all willing to be circumcised. The text says they are speaking deceitfully, though the reader doesn’t know their plan at this point. Shechem agrees to this and all the men in the town are circumcised. While they are still in pain, Jacob’s sons come in and kill everyone and rescue Dinah.

Despite what some internet skeptics and atheist websites say, the Bible never approves of rape. It records it and tells Israel that if they are unfaithful to God, He will cease to protect them and that means the nations around them who have no problem with their men raping the women, will come in and have their way. This is not God ordaining it or approving it. He’s just not stopping every instance of evil. He has no obligation to.

The rape of Dinah is presented as an evil and no reason needs to be given for it. The text assumes at the start that you know that Dinah was treated in a way that is wrong and shameful both. Her brothers saw it immediately.

Yet another tragedy in all of this is that after the slaughter, this is when we see Jacob speak and he’s concerned about his reputation in the eyes of those around him. Whether we agree with the method of her brothers or not, they had the right idea. Should their sister have been treated like a prostitute? Simeon and Levi, the two brothers involved, are more concerned about their sister’s honor than Jacob is.

Thus, we have an account of one woman who went out to meet the other women and her honor was turned to shame. She met a man who mistreated her. This man took advantage of her entirely.

Go forward around a couple of thousand years and in this same area, the reverse will happen. One woman, who has been shamed by five different men will go out and not to meet other women. She will go out alone. She will meet a man who will honor her. This woman will then go out to other people and say “Have we met the Messiah?”

The shame of Dinah is reversed at the coming of Jesus, and Jesus can today help those who have gone through the horror of rape. Such who go through are the victims and have no need to be ashamed. Shame should belong to the perpetrator of the crime. Any person (Because men can be raped too) who has been abused can find solace in Christ and a place to have their honor restored.

If you have gone through this or know someone who has, please get some help for yourself. Please also consider the claims of Christ. You don’t have to live in defeat. You can still enjoy the freedom He offers.

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

Divorce and the Holidays

What are holidays like for those grieving? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’m emphasizing divorce here because I can speak personally of that. I cannot do that for other situations. However, for anyone going through grief and loss, the holidays can be hard. I think of my friend Evan Minton, who lost his mother this year and how Thanksgiving could be very awkward this year. There are many widows and widowers out there who will be having a hard time. I think of my friend Christina in Charlotte whose young husband died this year.

Now for me, I have never really cared for Thanksgiving. I really like for the most part being on the spectrum, but Thanksgiving is awkward. The holiday is now pretty much all about the food, that I don’t care for aside from pumpkin pie, and then socializing. The first Thanksgiving I remember truly enjoying, I had the flu and had to stay home and Ocarina of Time had just come out and I spent the evening trying to get through the Forest Temple for the first time.

That used to be my second best also.

The best would have been the first Thanksgiving I spent with my ex-wife and her family. I can’t really say that anymore. That memory now only brings pain.

I noticed at my own job that I was becoming more irritable these past few days. I suspect it has to do with all these people coming in talking about the holiday and saying “Happy Thanksgiving.” It doesn’t help that my love life has suffered and just recently I thought I might have had something, but no, that didn’t work out. For me, Thanksgiving is a kind of loneliness.

Sure. I have my parents here, but I’m 41 years old and I thrive on being independent. Being in Texas for ETS was an awesome time for me because I was out there and on my own and making my own decisions. No. My parents don’t control me, but I am dependent on being in their house. They’re great people, but I do long to be out there myself.

I am busy preparing for the furtherance of my education and I don’t know how I will manage to pay for it all. I still want to earn enough to live on my own. I want to have a woman in my life again. I want to be able to go to a job that I enjoy and that I think I make a difference at.

In that situation for me, Thanksgiving is hard because I’m thinking about all the things I don’t have and I am tempted to cry, “How long, O Lord? How long?” I know I have many things to be thankful for, such as I am a child of the king, I live in the greatest country on Earth, and I do have my family and many great friends.

Sometimes, it’s just hard still.

You could call me ungrateful, and I suppose that could be true to some extent, but it’s something we all struggle with for the most part. We all can easily overlook our blessings, but for the holidays, those going through a real loss can still struggle with that. The things I write of I pray for every night.

This holiday season, through Thanksgiving and Christmas, try to remember those people around you who are grieving. If you know someone who has lost a loved one, do a kind gesture for them. Do something that says you’re thinking of them. Get a gift for a friend or invite them over to do something.

Remember also those less fortunate you don’t even know. Work with a charity this year to provide for someone in need. Provide a Christmas gift for a child who will have nothing this year without one. If you know someone who does care for food, invite them over to Thanksgiving dinner or provide a meal for their family.

This year can be hard for many people struggling and depression and suicide rates can easily go up. Please be remembering those people. For me, this is my first holiday season officially as a divorced person and don’t think it doesn’t come to mind that I proposed on Christmas Eve. It’s easy to tell someone to focus on what they have, but it can be hard as we all know. It’s far better to walk alongside those who are suffering.

Please be a gift to them this holiday season. Maybe they can be thankful in the end you’re in their lives.

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