Check out this pretty compelling video about something happening right in our own city:
“It’s the future: people of good will, engaged with the Bible, they change the world. And rather than a divided and polarized America, we envision a transformed America–a renewal of civility and generosity for the common good.”
Tonight we’re going to be studying (at least a portion of) 1 Corinthians 15. I am working with the running title of “How Can we Be Sure Believers will be Resurrected?” for one of the sections. One of the proofs Paul produces is that Jesus himself was raised from the dead. Paul notes the fact that, at the time of his writing, many (of the many) people who saw Jesus alive after he had been dead and buried were still around and available to speak with. Pretty amazing.
In that vein, I wanted to share these two videos (one short and one long) of William Lane Craig detailing all the other evidences for the resurrection of Jesus. Dr. Craig helpfully proceeds directly along the lines of what the average person would call “evidence” today. If you haven’t ever heard these, I suggest you pick one and give it a watch or listen.
If you’re currently dating someone, what kind of boundaries have you set? Most people immediately think about physical boundaries when this topic comes up, but what about conversational boundaries? For instance, here’s a clip from a a helpful article by Marshall Segal:
Most of us have never thought of setting conversational boundaries. I wasn’t ready when one girlfriend’s dad asked in the first couple months of our relationship, “Have you mentioned marriage yet?”
[Long, awkward pause.]
“Um, yeah . . . I think we did talk about it once. . . . ”
“I don’t think that was appropriate for you to talk about, and I expect you to care for her better than that.”
I was totally caught off guard. I had never even thought of certain topics of conversation as inappropriate or dangerous.
Many of you in the young adults group know that my wife and I did not discuss marriage before we were engaged. Now, times were different then…it was way back…in 2002. No, really…it wasn’t that long ago. And even then I knew of no other couple that did it that way. We were weird. As far as I can remember, marriage discussions, life-planning, and even tandem ring shopping were common occurrences among all the couples our age. Sometimes it worked out, of course. They talked up marriage, shopped for rings, and got married. And sometimes it didn’t. They talked up marriage, shopped for rings, and then I’d be sitting with a shocked friend in a diner trying to help them hash out where things went wrong. And nothing’s changed, really. I know it’s basically the only way people in the young adults group do things, still. When you like each other, it’s just so hard not to talk about getting married, like, right away.
And of course, this isn’t necessarily sin. But I agree with Segal’s points here, too:
You don’t have to figure out your whole future together by the third date. You don’t have to talk about your relationship every time you talk, or even half of the time. You don’t need to remind each other why you like each other every fifteen minutes. You really don’t need to talk much about marriage until it’s reasonable that you might actually get engaged and married relatively soon. Conversations like these easily become places we compromise without realizing it in the moment. We indulge desires for intimacy without touching. If you don’t have anything to talk about now except your relationship and your future, you probably won’t have much to talk about if you do get married.
This isn’t bible. But to me, it has the ring of wisdom. And I found it to be true, and a source of strength, in my own life. I knew that my future wife’s heart would be “engaged” in a different way if I began to talk about marrying her than it would be if I was simply dating her. I knew pretty early on I wanted to marry her, but you know, I didn’t have a ring. I hadn’t prayed too much about it. There were a hundred details I hadn’t thought out. And I wasn’t sure exactly how she felt. I knew I could have forced the issue–I could have brought it up and made her think about it. In effect, I could have forced her to say “yes” to an offer I wasn’t really making–to make a commitment to me before I had actually made a commitment to her (including the very real financial commitment of buying a ring). And that just never seemed right to me. I mean, I waited to buy the ring til I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be rejected down there on one knee–there are ways to kind of know things without directly discussing them. But I’ve always been glad that I waited to ask her til I was all in. The first time it came up, it was kind of a surprise for her. There I was, kneeling down. It was real. If she said yes, we were getting married. That was it. You just don’t get many moments like that in life.
So of course, no one can say that this is the only way to do things. But I’d like to suggest, especially to you young men, that it is a sure-fire way to honor and protect a sister’s heart, and keep yourself honest before the Lord about how you’re conducting the relationship.
Something to think about…
Check out this paragraph from a comment posted to a popular blog, on the issue of immigration and Americans who fear for their communities:
We (as in, human beings in the 21st century) are probably having a tougher time assimilating people into our communities than we have in the past because of our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. If we never physically walk over to speak with our neighbors or spend time with them in person, we can’t begin to understand them, or their cultural symbols, or even begin to assess their moral character or hope to influence it for the better. And we all know at least one big reason why: we spend WAY too much time behind our TV’s, computers, and smartphones.
This is interesting on two levels.
First, it connects two things that most people probably don’t connect in all these heated discussions everyone’s having:
I mean, imagine if someone was complaining about a new family that moved into their neighborhood, and you asked them, “How much time do you spend watching TV, gaming, or looking at your phone?” I think most people would assume that you had just changed the subject. But no, the writer of that paragraph has pointed out a very real connection, and pointed indirectly at another one. Technology use is most definitely driving this “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” and in turn, as more and more of us simply get home from work or school and turn to a screen for the rest of our waking hours, that creates a dynamic in which people stay indoors and never meet their (physical) neighbors, and therefore come to see the people they live near as strangers and potential threats. All of this is (to quote one former Facebook exec) “ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
What if all the fear and anxiety (on display in many of these discussions about immigration) is made exponentially worse by Americans‘ own bad habits–our absolute addiction to entertainment and mindless time-wasting whenever we’re not on some clock? What if the problem has as much to do with people who’ve been living in America for years or generations as it does with anyone trying to get here for the first time?
More importantly, for Christians, is the need to remember that neighbor-love is a core teaching of Jesus. And, when he was asked to explain who counted as a neighbor, he told a story involving a people from groups who feared, loathed, and mistrusted each other (Jews and Samaritans). So as followers of Jesus, we know that we do not have the option to simply fear and wall out people who are unfamiliar to us. Especially people in need.
…Which brings us to all the way around to the connection made in the comment above. What if this is just one more reason we need to examine our personal use of entertainment and technology?
If we take it to the Lord in prayer, would he tell us that the way we use screens is directly affecting our ability to love our neighbor?
Would he tell us that technology is standing in the way of keeping his commands?