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Daily Archives: September 2, 2017
Evangelical Coalition Releases Nashville Statement, A Manifesto On Biblical Sexuality
From Berean Research:
A manifesto written by evangelical leaders has drawn the ire of the LGBTQ community, the liberal press, and has Progressive Christians ticked off as well. Why? Because conservative evangelicals had the audacity to release a statement proclaiming that traditional sexual morality is based on the clear teaching of Scripture, not on the whims of an ever changing culture.
Liberals aren’t the only ones who have voiced their concern. Even some conservative evangelicals are apprehensive about the declaration. They point out that there are always risks involved with these sorts of issue declarations. And they’d like those who penned what is being called the Nashville Statement to address those concerns.
So – our advice is this: Before you sign it make sure your concerns are addressed. Ask yourself, do I really want my signature on a statement just because some of my favorite Church leaders signed it?
Being a Berean means doing your research. Bereans investigate. So for starters, go to the scriptures and find out what our Creator has to say about what it means to be a human being. What was God’s design for marriage from the very beginning? Then carefully read through the Nashville Statement. Does it line up with Scripture?
Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was a speaker at the event in Nashville, TN where the manifesto was announced and a signatory as well. On August 30th Dr. Mohler began The Briefing with a lengthy explanation of what the Nashville Statement contains. Following is from the transcript:
In a time of confusion, one of the greatest gifts that can be given to and by Christ’s church is clarity, and clarity requires at times that matters of truth, matters of truth in particular times of trial, should to be put into words in order to bear the testimony of that clarity. A manifesto was released yesterday; it’s known as the Nashville Statement, it’s a coalition for biblical sexuality. A group of evangelical leaders had gathered in Nashville for a meeting to determine how the statement should be released, and it was released yesterday morning by the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. I should say at the beginning, I was a speaker at the event and a signatory to this statement, and there are many others, as we shall see, who signed it as well. The big issue is this: What took place as released on August 29, 2017 was a statement by Christians who believe that it is our responsibility to speak clearly to issues of gender and sex and sexuality and biblical morality in a time when these issues are commonly confused. By late yesterday the Nashville Statement was one of the most often discussed issues in social media and it had gained a great deal of media attention as well. More on that attention in just a moment, back to the statement for now.
The statement begins with a preamble that states,
“Evangelical Christians at the dawn of the twenty-first century find themselves living in a period of historic transition. As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being.”
Is Discernment Ministry Biblical?
We urge our subscribers and visitors to our site to watch (or listen to) this video — and share it!
From Polemics Report:
This is a sermon from the Judge Not Conference, on the topic of “judging” as taken from Matthew 7 and a systematic theology of discernment. Is discernment ministry Biblical? Is it a sin to judge? Should discernment stay within the local church? JD Hall begins speaking at 5:25. (Source)
MacArthur and a response to racism
John MacArthur was recently on the radio in Los Angeles (the Frank Sontag Show) to discuss the Charlottesville attack, but it became a longer conversation on the roots of racism and the Christian’s response to culture-wide hatred. Here are some of the highlights of that twenty-minute conversation:
Sontag: John, how to do we respond as Evangelicals to racism?
MacArthur: We need to understand the roots of this. The roots of this are really not political, they’re not even economic. They’re moral and have to do with the sinfulness of the human heart. The Devil is the murderer from the beginning. The first crime was a killing. That basically defines the Kingdom of Darkness. That defines the realm of Satan. Jesus even said to the leaders in Israel, “You are of your father, the Devil. You’re either a child of doubt or child of Satan.” Those are the only two possibilities. For those in the Kingdom of Darkness hatred, anger, hostility, harm, and even murder is just par for the course.
That’s why God has designed mitigation into the culture. That’s why God has given every human being a conscience so at least you start out with some form of internal restraint. That’s why God designed the family and the rod in the family so that children can be harnessed and can be taught even to some inflicted reasonable amount of pain to be socially contributing to the well-being of society. That’s why God has ordained the police and given them the sword because this solemn world is completely captive to hatred and hostility at the most vicious level.
Of course, it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It might have various political forms, whether it’s white supremacy, Black Lives Matter, or whatever other form of it. Whether it’s Kim Jong-un or ISIS. This is how the worst in this solemn world conduct themselves.
It must be denounced on every level, but it also has to be understood that the remedy is not a political one. We need to restrain it by strong laws that are enforced at the highest level with justice essentially demanded and meted out.
Sontag: John when you say that the remedy isn’t necessarily political, is there an inherent warning in those who are followers of Jesus to not get too caught up in “The president should have done this, the president didn’t do that,” or that somehow the solution is only found primarily in politics and the political process?
MacArthur: The solution is not in politics. The solution is not in education. The solution is not in science. The solution is not in some kind of economic advancement for people who are deprived. The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Man is at his most base level angry and hostile. He really is a threat to kill so he has to be restrained.
From the external standpoint, that’s why you have a conscience and a family. Of course, when the family breaks down and you pollute the conscience by teaching false standards of morality, literally twist morality, put good for evil and evil for good, and reverse everything creating a generation of people who have no clue what morality is. All they know is that they think they are entitled to their own desires and their own will. They haven’t been raised in such a way as to be disciplined in those kinds of things that make socially-acceptable human beings out of them. You have families that are just torn up by all kinds of animosity and hatred on all levels and across all of the spectrums. Then you start looking at the fact the police are continuously denounced and discredited. You have a formula for disaster.
But this is human history and the answer isn’t political or any of those other things. The answer is the transformation of the heart.
The first thing that defines a gospel transformed heart is love. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another. That is the defining attitude of the believer. The apostles followed up saying, “if you don’t have love, you don’t belong to Christ.” So only Christ can change the heart and only changed hearts can create the kind of love that has an impact on the force of the solemn heart in society.
Sontag: An interview that we’ve done previously I’ve brought up the tragic slaying of Martin Luther King Jr. Racism existed then and it exists now. I hesitate to say this, but there’s racism in the church. There’s some of us that say we are the followers of Jesus and yet we’re caught up in this Devil’s way of keeping us separate as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?
MacArthur: That’s such a repulsive thing. The defining reality of a true Christian is love. That love knows no bounds. Certainly not racial bounds or ethic bounds. Where you have that hostility, racism, and those kinds of attitudes you have a very legitimate right to ask the question, “Are these Christian people?” because racism is antithetical to everything that is characteristic of a generous heart.
Sontag: John when you heard the news Saturday [about the death in Charlottesville], would you be transparent and just share your initial thoughts?
MacArthur: My initial thought, you might understand this, was to immediately go back into my memory to standing at the memorial not too long ago in Oklahoma City. The memorial was for all those people that died when Timothy McVeigh blew up that building. Immediately my mind was back there – that memorial by the way is a powerful, moving memorial – and I thought of the horror of that. It’s represented in an ongoing way in that city and it was like, “Here we go again.” This is as reprehensible as any kind of hatred and animosity. You might not like the fact that they are going to take down the statue, but come on, if that’s what’s harming, vilifying, and hating other people then you’ve got a pretty shallow life. You’ve allowed yourself to be driven by things that don’t really matter at all. This whole culture seems to me to be just on that edge of anger breaking out in rash ways.
Sontag: You just made mention of our culture as almost on the brink of anger breaking out. We know if we look in the bible, nothing is really different. This is sin, this is where we’ve been then and this is where we are now. We need the lord savior in our life. That being said, anything you can add to the conversation that says yeah that’s true, but my goodness it’s been decades since I’ve really seen this unrest, this spirit of rebellion, a man in the White House that virtually no one foresaw him becoming president, etc. In other words, the grounds are where they are now. Any way in which you can address that and how we as true followers of Jesus and scripture can recognize, “Look we’ve got to be really discerning here, we’ve got to be bold, and we’ve got to be careful.”
MacArthur: One way to answer that would be to say, this political thing has reached a point where there is so much hostility, so much hatred, so much anger that the whole American has ground to a halt. What we are seeing now is this extreme animosity and hatred driven at anybody that doesn’t agree with somebody. The answer to all of this is for the church to demonstrate wisdom, love, kindness, and mercy. To love all people, all races, all ethnic identities, all parties, and all economic statuses. Endlessly to embrace them in the name of Christ.
One of the things that I love about Grace Community Church, and I love about the Master’s University and Master’s Seminary, is it looks like Los Angeles. LA is this incredibly wonderful melting pot, out of which the Lord is building his church and raising up leaders for the future. That’s how it should be.
Ronnie Floyd to preside over National Day of Prayer
“The National Day of Prayer includes Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Hindus,” reminds Jeff Maples” and just about any other aberrant anti-Christ religion in the world who will stand in front of courthouses, government buildings, churches, streets…anywhere, and join hands in prayer to their false gods in the name of ‘restoring America.’”
So with this in mind, why would a former SBC president agree to take part in the National Day of Prayer? In a piece over at Berean Research Amy Spreeman reveals who the movers and shakers (literally) are that have hijacked the ecumenical event. Hint: NAR.
Former SBC President Dr. Ronnie Floyd will assume the role of President of the National Day of Prayer. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the ecumenical May event has been organized since 1952. It is a time when millions of people of all religions stop what they are doing and pray in unity with one another to whichever god they worship for the well being of America.
Says Floyd:
The National Day of Prayer must become a multi-church, multi-denominational, multi-ministry, multi-generational, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual movement of prayer for America.
I believe this is possible by having strategic partnerships with churches, ministries, and denominations. We must create authentic relationships with all people regardless of who and where they are, whatever their age, stage, or vocation may be. With a convictional and competent staff team, we will exemplify servant leadership to all persons. Source
Is Emergent Theology the New Normal in today’s Church?
Most of us have heard the term “The Emergent Church,” but how many of us can explain what it is and who is in it? How do you define something that in their own words is continually evolving?
Today we are joined by Eric Barger of Take a Stand Ministries to discuss the history and ongoing impact of progressive, emergent theology on the church in America. Has this deception become so entrenched in American Christianity that it is the new normal? And what are the dangers of this emerging theology? Where and when did it start? Check out the podcast for a refresher!
Daily podcast, relevant articles on issues pertaining to Christians and more can be found on Stand Up For The Truth.
Visit Stand Up For The Truth for the full post.
More Lonely, Fewer ‘Friends’, Less Sex – Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation?
More comfortable online than out partying, post-Millennials are safer, physically, than adolescents have ever been. But they’re on the brink of a mental-health crisis…
The Atlantic’s Jean Twenge asks the most crucial question of our age… “have smartphones destroyed a generation?”
…Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, [teens today] talk on Snapchat, the smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. Sometimes they save screenshots of particularly ridiculous pictures of friends. “It’s good blackmail,” Athena said. (Because she’s a minor, I’m not using her real name.) She told me she’d spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That’s just the way her generation is, she said. “We didn’t have a choice to know any life without iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people.”
I’ve been researching generational differences for 25 years, starting when I was a 22-year-old doctoral student in psychology. Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. Beliefs and behaviors that were already rising simply continue to do so. Millennials, for instance, are a highly individualistic generation, but individualism had been increasing since the Baby Boomers turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then I began studying Athena’s generation.
Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data – some reaching back to the 1930s – I had never seen anything like it.
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What happened in 2012 to cause such dramatic shifts in behavior? It was after the Great Recession, which officially lasted from 2007 to 2009 and had a starker effect on Millennials trying to find a place in a sputtering economy. But it was exactly the moment when the proportion of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent.
The more I pored over yearly surveys of teen attitudes and behaviors, and the more I talked with young people like Athena, the clearer it became that theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media. I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet.
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More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today’s teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They’re markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking’s attendant ills.
Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: Rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.
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There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives – and making them seriously unhappy.
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You might expect that teens spend so much time in these new spaces because it makes them happy, but most data suggest that it does not. The Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and designed to be nationally representative, has asked 12th-graders more than 1,000 questions every year since 1975 and queried eighth- and 10th-graders since 1991. The survey asks teens how happy they are and also how much of their leisure time they spend on various activities, including nonscreen activities such as in-person social interaction and exercise, and, in recent years, screen activities such as using social media, texting, and browsing the web. The results could not be clearer: Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on nonscreen activities are more likely to be happy.
There’s not a single exception. All screen activities are linked to less happiness, and all nonscreen activities are linked to more happiness. Eighth-graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they’re unhappy than those who devote less time to social media.
The allure of independence, so powerful to previous generations, holds less sway over today’s teens, who are less likely to leave the house without their parents. The shift is stunning: 12th-graders in 2015 were going out less often than eighth-graders did as recently as 2009.
Today’s teens are also less likely to date. The initial stage of courtship, which Gen Xers called “liking” (as in “Ooh, he likes you!”), kids now call “talking”—an ironic choice for a generation that prefers texting to actual conversation. After two teens have “talked” for a while, they might start dating. But only about 56 percent of high-school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent.
The decline in dating tracks with a decline in sexual activity. The drop is the sharpest for ninth-graders, among whom the number of sexually active teens has been cut by almost 40 percent since 1991.
Even driving, a symbol of adolescent freedom inscribed in American popular culture, has lost its appeal for today’s teens. Nearly all Boomer high-school students had their driver’s license by the spring of their senior year; more than one in four teens today still lack one at the end of high school. For some, Mom and Dad are such good chauffeurs that there’s no urgent need to drive. “My parents drove me everywhere and never complained, so I always had rides,” a 21-year-old student in San Diego told me. “I didn’t get my license until my mom told me I had to because she could not keep driving me to school.”
The number of eighth-graders who work for pay has been cut in half. These declines accelerated during the Great Recession, but teen employment has not bounced back, even though job availability has.
At the generational level, when teens spend more time on smartphones and less time on in-person social interactions, loneliness is more common.
So is depression. Once again, the effect of screen activities is unmistakable: The more time teens spend looking at screens, the more likely they are to report symptoms of depression.
Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan. Since 2007, the homicide rate among teens has declined, but the suicide rate has increased. In 2011, for the first time in 24 years, the teen suicide rate was higher than the teen homicide rate.
This trend has been especially steep among girls. Forty-eight percent more girls said they often felt left out in 2015 than in 2010, compared with 27 percent more boys. Girls use social media more often, giving them additional opportunities to feel excluded and lonely when they see their friends or classmates getting together without them. Social media levy a psychic tax on the teen doing the posting as well, as she anxiously awaits the affirmation of comments and likes.
The correlations between depression and smartphone use are strong enough to suggest that more parents should be telling their kids to put down their phone. As the technology writer Nick Bilton has reported, it’s a policy some Silicon Valley executives follow. Even Steve Jobs limited his kids’ use of the devices he brought into the world.
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If you were going to give advice for a happy adolescence based on this survey, it would be straightforward: Put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something—anything—that does not involve a screen. Of course, these analyses don’t unequivocally prove that screen time causes unhappiness; it’s possible that unhappy teens spend more time online. But recent research suggests that screen time, in particular social-media use, does indeed cause unhappiness. One study asked college students with a Facebook page to complete short surveys on their phone over the course of two weeks. They’d get a text message with a link five times a day, and report on their mood and how much they’d used Facebook. The more they’d used Facebook, the unhappier they felt, but feeling unhappy did not subsequently lead to more Facebook use.
I realize that restricting technology might be an unrealistic demand to impose on a generation of kids so accustomed to being wired at all times. Prying the phone out of our kids’ hands will be difficult, even more so than the quixotic efforts of my parents’ generation to get their kids to turn off MTV and get some fresh air. But more seems to be at stake in urging teens to use their phone responsibly, and there are benefits to be gained even if all we instill in our children is the importance of moderation. Significant effects on both mental health and sleep time appear after two or more hours a day on electronic devices. The average teen spends about two and a half hours a day on electronic devices. Some mild boundary-setting could keep kids from falling into harmful habits.
Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones
Social Media Has Hijacked Our Minds
There’s lots to reflect on in this article on social media:
Sometimes our smart phones are our friends, sometimes they seem like our lovers, and sometimes they’re our dope dealers. And no one, in the past 12 months at least, has done more than Tristan Harris to explain the complexity of this relationship. Harris is a former product manager at Google who has gone viral repeatedly by critiquing the way that the big platforms—Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram—suck us into their products and take time that, in retrospect, we may wish we did not give. He’s also launched a nonprofit called Time Well Spent, which is devoted to stopping “tech companies from hijacking our minds.” Today, the TED talk he gave last April was released online. In it, he proposes a renaissance in online design that can free us from being controlled and manipulated by apps, websites, advertisers, and notifications. Harris expanded on those ideas in a conversation with WIRED editor in chief Nicholas Thompson. The conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.
Nicholas Thompson: You’ve been making the argument that big internet platforms influence us in ways we don’t understand. How has that idea taken off?
Tristan Harris: It started with 60 Minutes and its piece reviewing the ways the tech industry uses design techniques to keep people hooked to the screen for as long and as frequently as possible. Not because they’re evil but because of this arms race for attention. And that led to an interview on the Sam Harris podcast about all the different ways technology is persuading millions of people in ways they don’t see. And that went viral through Silicon Valley. I think several million people listened to it. So this conversation about how technology is hijacking people is really catching on.
NT: What’s the scale of the problem?
TH: Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts. But we have three technology companies who have this system that frankly they don’t even have control over—with newsfeeds and recommended videos and whatever they put in front of you—which is governing what people do with their time and what they’re looking at.
And when you say “three companies” you mean?
If we’re talking about just your phone, then we’re talking about Apple and Google because they design the operating systems, the phone itself, and the software in the phone. And if we’re talking about where people spend their time on the phone, then we’re talking about Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram because that’s where people spend their time.
So you’ve started this big conversation. What’s next?
Well, the TED talk I gave in April was only heard by conference attendees, but now it’s available online. It basically suggests three radical changes that we need to make to technology. But before understanding what those changes are, we have to understand the problem. Just to reiterate, the problem is the hijacking of the human mind: systems that are better and better at steering what people are paying attention to, and better and better at steering what people do with their time than ever before. These are things like “Snapchat streaks,” which is hooking kids to send messages back and forth with every single one of their contacts every day. These are things like autoplay, which causes people to spend more time on YouTube or on Netflix. These are things like social awareness cues, which by showing you how recently someone has been online or knowing that someone saw your profile, keep people in a panopticon.
The premise of hijacking is that it undermines your control. This system is better at hijacking your instincts than you are at controlling them. You’d have to exert an enormous amount of energy to control whether these things are manipulating you all the time. And so we have to ask: How do we reform this attention economy and the mass hijacking of our mind? And that’s where those three things come in.
OK. How do we reform it?
So the first step is to transform our self-awareness. People often believe that other people can be persuaded, but not me. I’m the smart one. It’s only those other people over there that can’t control their thoughts. So it’s essential to understand that we experience the world through a mind and a meat-suit body operating on evolutionary hardware that’s millions of years of old, and that we’re up against thousands of engineers and the most personalized data on exactly how we work on the other end.
Do you feel that about yourself? I tried to reach you last weekend about something, but you went into the woods and turned off your phone. Don’t you think you have control?
Sure, if you turn everything off. But when we aren’t offline, we have to see that some of the world’s smartest minds are working to undermine the agency we have over our minds.
So step one is awareness. Awareness that people with very high IQs work at Google, and they want to hijack your mind, whether they’re working on doing that deliberately or not. And we don’t realize that?
Yeah. And I don’t mean to be so obtuse about it. YouTube has a hundred engineers who are trying to get the perfect next video to play automatically. And their techniques are only going to get more and more perfect over time, and we will have to resist the perfect. There’s a whole system that’s much more powerful than us, and it’s only going to get stronger. The first step is just understanding that you don’t really get to choose how you react to things.
And where’s that line? I do choose sometimes to use Instagram because it’s immensely valuable to me; I do choose to go on Twitter because it’s a great source of news. I do go to Facebook to connect with my friends. At what point do I stop making the choice? At what point am I being manipulated? At what point is it Nick and at what point is it the machine?
Well I think that’s the million-dollar question. First of all, let’s also say that it’s not necessarily bad to be hijacked, we might be glad if it was time well spent for us. I’m not against technology. And we’re persuaded to do things all the time. It’s just that the premise in the war for attention is that it’s going to get better and better at steering us toward its goals, not ours. We might enjoy the thing it persuades us to do, which makes us feel like we made the choice ourselves. For example, we forget if the next video loaded and we were happy about the video we watched. But, in fact, we were hijacked in that moment. All those people who are working to give you the next perfect thing on YouTube don’t know that it’s 2 am and you might also want to sleep. They’re not on your team. They’re only on the team of what gets you to spend more time on that service.
So step one is, we need to transform our self-awareness. What’s two?
Step two is transforming design, so that based on this new understanding of ourselves—of how we’re persuaded and hijacked, etc.—that we would want to do a massive find-and-replace of all the ways that we are hijacked in ways that we don’t want, and to replace them with the timeline of how we would have wanted our lives to go. An example of that is today, you look at your phone and you see a Snapchat notification. And it persuades you to think a bunch of things that you wouldn’t have thought. It causes you to get stressed out about whether or not you’ve kept your streak up. It’s filling up your mind. And by responding to that one streak, you get sucked into something else, and it cascades. Twenty minutes later you’re sucked into a YouTube video. And there goes your day.
What we want to do is block those moments that hijack your mind in ways you regret, and replace them with a different timeline—what you would have wanted to have happened instead. The resource we’re conserving is time. Imagine these timelines stretching out in front of people, and right now we’re being tugged and pulled onto these brand-new timelines that are created by technology. Let’s do a massive find-and-replace from the manipulative timeline to the timeline we would’ve wanted to have happened.
How do you do that?
As I say, it has to do with design. An example I gave in the TED talk released today was the idea of replacing the Comment button with a Let’s Meet button. In the last US election, conversations were breaking down on social media. People posted something controversial, and there’s this comment box underneath that basically asks you, Which key do you want to type? It turns into a flame war that keeps people expressing their views in small text boxes and keeps them on the screen. People end up misrepresenting each other’s ideas because their views get compressed into these little boxes of text. So it’s causing people to stress out. It’s causing people to dislike each other.
Imagine we replace the Comment button with a Let’s Meet button. When we want to post something controversial, we can have the choice to say, “Hey let’s talk about this” in person, not online. And right underneath, there’s an RSVP, so people can coordinate right there to talk about it over a dinner. So you’re still having a conversation about something controversial, but you’re having it at a different place on your timeline. Instead of a fragmented timeline over 20 minutes at work getting interrupted 20 times—while Facebook delivers the messages drip by drip and other notifications come in and you’re getting sucked into Facebook, which is a total mess—you replace that with a clean timeline where you’re having dinner next Tuesday, and you’re having a two-and-a-half-hour conversation in which a very different sequence of events happens.
But how do you know meeting for dinner and talking about things is what you want to happen? Suddenly you’ve created this whole new system where you’re pushing people to meet in person because of your assumption that meeting in person or videoconference is better than talking in chat boxes. Which may be true. Or it may be false. But it’s still a decision made by the person or the social media company.
Yeah, exactly. And so before we ask, Who are we, Nick and Tristan, to say what’s better?, let’s ask: Why is Facebook promoting a comment box and Like button in the first place? Were the designers thinking about what’s the best way for humankind to have conversations about controversial topics? No. They don’t get to ask that question. The only question they get to ask is, “What will get people to engage the most on the platform?”
If we really wanted to have a reorientation of the tech industry toward what’s best for people, then we would ask the second question, which is, what would be the most time well spent for the thing that people are trying to get out of that situation? Meeting for dinner is just an example. I’m not saying everyone should meet in person all the time. Another example: On the podcast, Sam Harris and I talked about the idea of a Change My Mind button. Imagine on Facebook there’s an invitation, built right in, to ask to have our minds changed. And maybe there are great places on Facebook where people are already having fantastic conversations that change minds already. And we, the designers, would want to ask, “When is that happening and when would we want to help people have those conversations.” Someone pointed both Sam and I after that to a channel on Reddit called “changemyview.” It’s basically a place where people post questions, and the premise is, “I want you to change my mind about this thing.” And it’s really really good. And that would be more time well spent for people.
So you want all the designers who work at these big companies and on these platforms to stop and think about what’s best for humankind: Hash that out, debate it. And maybe there is no single thing that’s best for humankind. But maybe you get closer to some ideal if you’re having those conversations instead of just thinking about engagement. Is that right?
Yes.
OK, so that’s part two. What is part three?
Part three is transforming business and accountability. We have to have a big conversation about advertising. I think we’re going to look at the advertising model—which has an unbounded interest in getting more of people’s time on a screen—and see it as being as archaic as the era when we got all our power from coal. Advertising is the new coal. It was wonderful for propping up the internet economy. It got us to a certain level of economic prosperity, and that’s fantastic. And it also polluted the inner environment and the cultural environment and the political environment because it enabled anyone to basically pay to get access to your mind. And on Facebook specifically, it allows the hyper-targeting of messages that perfectly persuade and polarize populations. And that’s a dangerous thing. It also gave all these companies an incentive to maximize how much time they have of your life. So we have to get off of this business model. And we haven’t actually invented the alternative yet.
So just like what happened with coal and things like wind power and solar power, if you went back to 1950 and said, “We’ve gotta get off coal,” good luck. We didn’t have any alternative that would’ve gotten us near producing the amount of energy we needed to support society. Same thing with advertising. If you said, “We’ve gotta get off advertising,” subscriptions and micropayments don’t (yet) add up to getting us back to where we are with the advertising model. But just like what’s happened with all of these renewable energy technologies, we can get to that point with technology if we make those investments now. And the background for this third point of transforming business is, the tech platforms are only going to get more and more persuasive.
What I mean by that is, we’re only going to have more information about how Nick’s mind works, not less. We’re only going to have more information about what persuades him to stay on the screen. We’re only going to have more ways to scrape his profile and what he posts to find the keywords and topics that matter to him and then mirror back his sentiments about everything he cares about when we sell him ads. We’re only going to get better and better at undermining his mind. And so the only form of ethical persuasion that exists in the world is when the goals of the persuaders are aligned with the goals of the persuadees. We want those thousand engineers on the other side of the screen working on our team as opposed to on the team whose goal is to keep us glued to the screen. And that means a new business model.
But can’t you make a compelling argument that being able to better target advertising is a way to give people what they want? If an advertiser knows that I need running shoes, they offer a discount on running shoes.
Yeah, so let’s be really specific here. This is isn’t about not getting ads for shoes we like, it’s about the advertising model. People say, “I like my ads for shoes!” People say, “And I don’t mind the advertising on the right-hand side of the article.” Exactly, the advertisements themselves are not the problem. The problem is the advertising model. The unbounded desire for more of your time. More of your time means more money for me if I’m Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. That is a perverse relationship.
Again, the energy analogy is useful. Energy companies used to have the same perverse dynamic: I want you to use as much energy as possible. Please just let the water run until you drain the reservoir. Please keep the lights on until there’s no energy left. We, the energy companies, make more money the more energy you use. And that was a perverse relationship. And in many US states, we changed the model to decouple how much money energy companies make from how much energy you use. We need to do something like that for the attention economy, because we can’t afford a world in which this arms race is to get as much attention from you as possible.
And as we start to go into virtual reality using these platforms, we become evermore manipulable and persuadable, right?
Exactly. The real message here is, now is the time to change course. Right now, 2 billion people’s minds are already jacked in to this automated system, and it’s steering people’s thoughts toward either personalized paid advertising or misinformation or conspiracy theories. And it’s all automated; the owners of the system can’t possibly monitor everything that’s going on, and they can’t control it. This isn’t some kind of philosophical conversation. This is an urgent concern happening right now.
Back to the analogy of the energy companies: Their behavior changed because the energy companies are regulated by the state. The government, which acts in the public interest, was able to say, “Now do this.” That’s not the case with tech companies. So how do you get to the point where they come together and make a set of decisions that limit the amount of attention that they take?
Well, I think that’s the conversation we need to have now. Is it going to come through the threat of EU regulation? Or will the companies get ahead of that and want to self-regulate. There are pros and cons to each of those approaches.
So tomorrow you want Mark Zuckerberg to call up Jack Dorsey, and you want the CEOs of all these companies to get together and say, “OK, we’re going to tell our engineers that they need to think about what’s best for their users, and we need to make a pact among ourselves that we’re going to do XYZ”?
That’s one part of it. And that touches on all sorts of problems having to do with colluding and self-policing and a whole bunch of other things. But we need to have a conversation about the misalignment between the business model and what is best for people; we need a deep and honest conversation among the companies about where these harms are emerging and what it would take to get off the advertising train. And I’m here to help them do that.
Talk to me a little bit about the differences between some of the companies. Apple, Google, Facebook—they have infinite sums of money. If they wanted to change their policies, that would be fine. Twitter—
Twitter not so much, but Apple and Facebook and Google could, yeah.
So you can imagine some kind of agreement between the infinitely profitable companies, but then Twitter, Snapchat, and the other companies not having the same financial success presumably wouldn’t join the pact.
Exactly, and that’s why it gets more complicated, because you can’t control, for example, popular companies that are outside the US. What do you do when Weibo swoops in and takes all the attention that Apple and Facebook and Google left on the table when they did their self-policing agreement? That’s why it has to be coordinated from the outside.
There are two ways that can happen: One is through regulation, which is unfortunate, but something you have to look at; the other, and the opportunity here, is for Apple. Apple is the one company that could actually do it. Because their business model does not rely on attention, and they actually define the playing field on which everyone seeking our attention plays. They define the rules. If you want to say it, they’re like a government. They get to set the rules for everybody else. They set the currency of competition, which is currently attention and engagement. App stores rank things based on their success in number of downloads or how much they get used. Imagine if instead they said, “We’re going to change the currency” They could move it from the current race to the bottom to creating a race to the top for what most helps people with different parts of their lives. I think they’re in an incredible position to do that.
So you’ve partnered with this app called Moment, and one of the things it does is tell users how much time they’ve spent in each app, then users rate their satisfaction with each app. So Apple could presumably take that data, or create its own, and at the end of the day ask you, “How satisfied are you?” And if people are very satisfied it could put that app at the top of the App Store.
Yes. That’s one small thing that they could do. They could change the game, change what it means to win and lose in the App Store. So it would not be about who gets the most downloads.
What else could Apple do, specifically?
Change the way that they design the home screen. And notifications. They set the terms. Right now when you wake up in the morning it’s like every app is still competing all at once for your attention. Netflix and Facebook and YouTube want your attention just as much as the morning meditation apps. Imagine if there were zoning laws. So they could set up zoning lines in the attention city that they run and separate your morning from your evening from your on-the-go moments of screen time. So when you wake up, you’d see a morning home screen, in which things compete to help you wake up, which could include there being nothing on there at all. It’s like the stores are closed until 10 am, just like back in the old days. Right now, you don’t have a way to set that up. And there’s no way for there to be a marketplace of alternatives—alternative home screens or notification rules. So this is actually a way in which Apple could either do a really good job themselves or enable a marketplace of competing alternatives so that people could set up these zones, and we could figure out what would really work best for people.
But the incentives don’t work like that now. The reason these companies want you to use everything all the time is so they can serve you the maximum number of ads and get the most revenue and please their shareholders, but also so they can harvest the maximum amount of data.
I think we need to move from a conversation about data to a conversation about what data enables, which is persuasion. If I have data, then I know exactly what’s going to move Nick’s psychology, and I can persuade your mind in ways that you wouldn’t even know were targeted just at you.
So this is the world that we’re already living in. And this is the world that, again, ran away beyond the control of the engineers of the platforms.
But data isn’t only used to persuade me. It’s also used to help me plan my travel route most efficiently and to get me from A to B more quickly. So there’s a lot of good that can come from data, if used carefully.
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s part of why in this TED talk I say we have to have a conversation and whole new language for the difference between ethical and unethical persuasion. We don’t have good language in English for the difference between the words “manipulate” versus “direct” versus “seduce” versus “persuade.” We throw around the words like they refer to the same thing. We need formal definitions of what makes up a persuasive transaction that you want in your life and what makes up something that is nefarious or wrong. And we need a whole new language for that. That is one of the things that I plan to convene a workshop on in the next six months, bringing together basically the leading thinkers on this problem. Part of it is just defining these externalities and these costs, and the other part of it is defining what makes for ethical and unethical persuasion.
Right. I can decide, “Actually, I’ve looked at the data and I wish I spent less time on Facebook and less time on Twitter.” And then I can optimize my phone for that, or Apple can help me optimize my phone for that. But there are all these other ways that what I do on my phone or what I do in my car, all that data is transmitted to the companies and all these other things are made from it that I have no insight into. So determining a system where that is done in a way that is best for me and best for humanity is a more complex problem, right?
We need to think of these services and platforms as public infrastructure, and we need to be able to fund the solving of those problems in advance. If you’re a New Yorker, how much of the taxes you pay go to paying for police, subways, or street repairs? How much goes to sanitation? There are a lot of taxes and resources that are allocated to keep the city working well for people, asking what’s best for people. In contrast, think about how little at these technology companies is spent on “what’s best for people.” If you think of the actual scale of Facebook, just to pick on them a little bit, 2 billion people’s minds are jacked in, more than the followers of most world religions. You need a lot of people—not just 10, 20—working on the misinformation problem. We need a lot more people working on these problems, from cyberbullying to radicalizing content to misinformation and beyond.
So you want many more people looking at this. You want the companies to devote many more resources to identifying these problems, to being transparent about these problems, and you want a lot more effort put into letting users have agency and being made aware of the ways they lack agency.
Yes.
OK. And how are you going to win this war when one of the most important weapons for fighting it is social media itself? How do you win a battle about disengaging from the main weapon used in the battle?
It’s very interesting because this speaks to a related problem, which is the fact that these services are monopolies on the news. If they wanted to, without anyone knowing, they could quash my voice. They could make it so no one reads this article. And that speaks to the problem. I think this is why we’re creating a social movement in which people who care share this with each other and we start coordinating. We need to reach a consensus that there really is a problem with how 2 billion minds are being hijacked. That it’s not happening by accident. We need to talk about that with each other and pressure these companies to change.
All right, I think that is a good note to end on. Is there anything else, Tristan, that you want to say to WIRED’s readers?
I think the core ideas are here. And if people care about convening around the problem, resourcing it, or helping with advocacy—they should get in touch and join the movement for Time Well Spent.
Source: Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones. Tristan Harris Wants to Rescue Them
Counseling Parents about Smart Rules for Smartphones (And All Social Media)
Smartphones are everywhere and it is common to see very young kids playing on a tablet or to see older kids texting at every intersection. As counselors or parents, how do we navigate the inevitable conversations, develop reasonable rules, and lay down age-appropriate guidelines regarding smartphones? I hope to lay out some ways you can help those you counsel be smart about smartphones and other social media.
The use of tablets, the internet, and social media in general is an important topic for any parent. My wife Tammy and I have three kids: 17, 15, and 9 years old. We have been thinking through this for several years. We have made mistakes and found greater success as we adjusted our approach based on biblical principles through trial and error.
We have to help parents think about how well they model responding to prompts from their phones as well as how and when they spend time in front of a screen. We can’t ask our kids to be self-disciplined about their screen time if we are not. To be honest, at one extreme we have been lazy at times, allowing our kids to binge on games or text during homework time. On the other extreme, we have taken month-long fasts from electronics as a family to spend more time reading, playing games, and enjoying family time. Neither extreme is realistic or healthy long-term. That is why we have been working on guidelines that are reasonable and sustainable, helping our kids use their devices wisely. Whatever you decide, it is best to agree as a couple or be consistent as a single parent in order that what you say should happen actually does happen.
So, when do you let your child use the family cell phone? Looking at your phone under your supervision could start quite early, but what they watch and how long they have the phone is important. We typically let our 9-year-old have the phone (or iPad) for 30 minutes on weekdays and for an hour on weekends. Both our teens were assigned a family phone they call their own at age 15. That means it is our phone, not theirs, but they can carry it, use it to contact or text us throughout the day, or do homework, play a game, or text friends during certain hours of the day.
While there are filters for the web and restriction on apps, my kids’ showing responsibility in handling these things well was very important in our decision as parents to give them access. I would have waited even longer if I had not seen that pattern of responsibility in school, at home, with friends, and with social media on the computer. Boundaries can always be broken and your kids showing responsibility is the litmus test for access and continued use. We would suggest that you research safeguards that limit access to certain sites, games, and what is age appropriate for your child before you grant any access.
What I’m proposing to you here is not the hard and fast rule of exactly what is best for your child and situation. Whether your child should have access to a phone or other electronic device is an important decision that should not be made without prayer, counsel, and conversation with your child.
I believe waiting until your child is 7-years-old or above to even begin to interact with electronic games or age appropriate entertainment is a good start. By seven, most kids have developed both cognitive and moral reasoning well enough to understand right and wrong. Most will also have enough self-control to understand how to view their use as a privilege.
Nothing substitutes for knowing your child and adjusting rules to their maturity level. Our kids need to know we want them to succeed and our protection is in their best interest. It is rare for any child to wisely exert their intellect, moral reasoning, and/or self-control without close parental supervision and wise guidelines. As I share what we have tried, let me make a distinction between hard and fast rules and wisdom guidelines. Think of rules as tall fences (“Don’t text and drive!”), and guidelines as speed bumps (“No phones at the dinner table.”).
Here are 10 rules and 10 helpful guidelines I would suggest, with the caveat that some may be different in your home.
10 Rules for Smartphones and Social Media (Violation Means Restricted Use for Days or Weeks)
- Never text while driving a car.
- Never write a text or send a photo that you wouldn’t want your mom or dad to see.
- Always ask before you forward a text or photo.
- Never post your cell phone number anywhere.
- Turn off location services and never broadcast your location.
- Never respond to numbers you don’t recognize.
- If someone asks you to send an inappropriate photo, say “No!” and talk to your parents about it.
- If you receive an inappropriate photo, delete it immediately and tell your parents; block the sender.
- Don’t download apps without your parents’ permission.
- Don’t use social media or electronic devices to bully or gossip.
10 Smart Guidelines for Smartphones and Social Media (Violation Means Restricted Use for Hours or Days)
- Demonstrate you have a life beyond your smartphone (you are not addicted to it).
- Turn in phones at a certain time each night (different times based on age).
- Kids must leave phones at a charging station in a public room in the house at night.
- No cell phones at the dining room table.
- No cell phones out of your backpack while you are in class.
- Don’t text someone in the same room. Talk face to face.
- Don’t wear your cell phone on your body (jury is still out but those waves can’t be good for you).
- No Snapchat-type apps that allow you to erase history.
- Parents can look at phone or take phone at any time.
- If you break, it you buy it.
I hope these rules and guidelines are helpful to you as you discuss them with your spouse, children, and others concerned with your children’s welfare. I would suggest a contract be developed, especially with teens. Have them read it, ask questions, and sign it. From Parenting 101, remember this: don’t make a rule you don’t plan to enforce, and don’t implement a guideline that you can’t keep yourself. Ask God for courage and consistency as you implement your agreement or contract. If your kids are like mine, they will say no other parent is as strict as you, but your kids will be better off (and might even admit it once in a while) and you will sleep much better at night too. Be wiser than your tech-savvy kids and smarter than their smartphone by proactively getting on this today.
Source: Counseling Parents about Smart Rules for Smartphones (And All Social Media)
Kids at Risk: AWANA Continuing Down the Emergent Road
Following is a letter to the editor of Lighthouse Trails. The person who wrote the letter offers plenty of reasons parents should be concerned about their children’s participation in AWANA. Church leaders such as Sean McDowell recommend that our youth read books by Henri Nouwen, Dallas Willard, Rick Warren, N.T. Wright and others:
Dear Lighthouse Trails:
A while back I alerted you to the fact that Awana was joining forces with Josh Griffin who was the youth pastor for Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. Josh Griffin is also associated with Youth Specialties, an organization that promotes occult [contemplative] practices to youth.
Unfortunately, Awana is continuing down the emergent road. Here are some examples:
1. On February 22, 2017, Steve Kozak, the executive director of Awana YM, (Youth Ministries) wrote a blog post encouraging youth leaders to promote Lent. Lent is very popular among those in the emerging church. Wikipedia says “The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer through prayer, doing penance, mortifying the flesh, repentance of sins, and self-denial.”(1) Kozak in his blog said, “Teach your students to go without, so that they can experience an overflowing of Christ.”(2) Nowhere in the Bible is the practice of Lent mentioned.
See our Research Paper on Contemplative Prayer
Source: Kids at Risk: AWANA Continuing Down the Emergent Road
Surgeon General’s Warning To Be Stamped On All Bibles Starting Next Year
U.S.—In an effort to make sure the public is educated about the drastic effects the Word of God may have upon its readers, the FDA has announced that beginning next year, all new Bibles sold in America must be stamped with a warning from the Surgeon General which notifies them that “Bible Reading Can Cause […]
. . . finish reading Surgeon General’s Warning To Be Stamped On All Bibles Starting Next Year.
Progressives Appalled As Christians Affirm Doctrine Held Unanimously For 2,000 Years
U.S.—After numerous prominent Christians and everyday believers alike signed the Nashville Statement affirming basic Christian doctrine held with rare exception for 2,000 years, progressives across the nation flooded the internet in droves to voice their horror and disgust at the shocking set of beliefs. “I can’t believe these people would just come out and blatantly […]
. . . finish reading Progressives Appalled As Christians Affirm Doctrine Held Unanimously For 2,000 Years.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires
by Mike Ratliff
1 Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, 6 among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;
7 to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 1:1-7 (NASB)
Genuine Christians were rescued out of this lost and dying world…
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The Lord is good to those who wait for Him
by Mike Ratliff
2 And do not enter into judgment with Your servant,
For in Your sight no man living is righteous. Psalms 143:2 (NASB)3 “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:3-4 (NASB)24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:24-26 (NASB)
Despite the prevalent “Christian” teachings in our time that suffering is never God’s will for His people, a close, sober, and honest study of scripture reveals that the fires of tribulation are used by God to form and refine His people. The view that God desires of each Christian to…
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September 2, 2017: Verse of the day
In this passage Paul expressed that principle using familiar agricultural imagery: Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Every farmer recognizes that the size of the harvest is directly proportionate to the amount of seed sown. The farmer who sows seed sparingly will reap a meager harvest; the one who sows bountifully will … reap a great harvest. In the spiritual realm, the principle is that giving to God results in blessing from God; bountifully translates eulogia, which literally means “blessing.” Generous givers will reap generous blessings from God, while those who hold back selfishly fearing loss will forfeit gain.
In chapters 8 and 9, Paul sought to motivate the Corinthians to complete their giving for the needy members of the Jerusalem church. First, he reminded them of the example set by the Macedonians (8:1–9), then he gave them a direct exhortation (8:10–9:5), and in this section he pointed out the potential benefits. God graciously promises a harvest in accord with what believers sow. The appeal is not, of course, to self-interest. The promise is not that God will reward generous givers so they can consume it on their own desires. The real purpose of God’s gracious rewarding of believers will become evident as the passage unfolds.
To motivate the Corinthians to give, Paul gave a fivefold description of the harvest that would result: love from God, generosity from God, glory to God, friends from God, and likeness to God.
Love from God
Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (9:7)
It is hard to imagine a more precious promise than to be the personal object of God’s love. All the world’s acclaim, honor, and rewards given to all philanthropists put together does not come close to this privilege of being loved by God. Yet that is what He promises the cheerful giver. God loves the world in a general sense (John 3:16), but He has a deeper, more wonderful love for His own (John 13:1; 1 John 4:16), and a special love for each one of His who gives cheerfully.
Cheerful giving comes from inside, from the heart, rather than from external coercion. It begins by giving just as one has purposed in his heart. Once again, Paul stressed the truth that Christian giving is strictly voluntary (see the discussion of 8:3 in chapter 21 of this volume). But though it is not forced, neither is it casual, careless, or a mere afterthought. Proaireō (purposed), used only here in the New Testament, has the idea of predetermination. Though there is spontaneous joy in giving, it is still to be planned and systematic (1 Cor. 16:2), not impulsive and sporadic. Nor is giving to be done grudgingly. Lupē (grudgingly) literally means, “sorrow,” “grief,” or “pain.” Giving is not to be done with an attitude of remorse, regret, or reluctance, of mourning over parting with what is given. And, as noted above, it is not to be under compulsion from any legalistic external pressure.
The giving that God approves of comes from a cheerful giver. Cheerful translates hilaros, from which the English word hilarious derives. Happy, joyous givers, who are joyous in view of the privilege of giving, are the special objects of God’s love.[1]
6 To emphasize the rewards of generous giving (v. 5) Paul cites what appears to be a proverb: “scanty sowing, scanty harvest; plentiful sowing, plentiful harvest” (TCNT). No exact parallel to this maxim is extant, but a similar sentiment is expressed in several places in Proverbs (e.g., 11:24–25; 19:17; 22:8–9), in Luke 6:38 (where Jesus says, “Give, and it will be given to you.… For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”), and in Galatians 6:7 (“A man reaps what he sows”).
7 The image of the harvest naturally suggests the freedom of sowers to plant as much seed as they choose—whether “sparingly” or “generously” (v. 6). Similarly, each person is responsible first to decide in his or her heart what to give (cf. Ac 11:29; 1 Co 16:2) and then to give it. Giving should result from inward resolve, not from impulsive or casual decision. Once the amount to be given has been determined, says Paul, the gift should be given cheerfully (since the cheerful giver always receives God’s approval—agapa, gnomic present, “loves”; cf. Pr 22:8, LXX), “not reluctantly [as though all giving were painful; cf. Tob 4:7] or under compulsion” (because there seems to be no alternative or because pressure has been exerted).[2]
9:6 / The argument begins in verse 6 with the concept of metaphorically reaping what is sown, which is part of the common stock of ot and Jewish wisdom tradition (cf. Prov. 22:8; Job 4:8; Sir. 7:3; Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues 21, 152; On the Change of Names 268–269; On Dreams 2.76; On the Embassy to Gaius 293). The prophetic tradition challenges the direct relationship between reaping and sowing by announcing that there can be an inverse relationship: those who sow wheat can reap thorns (Jer. 12:13), and those who sow in tears can reap with shouts of joy (Ps. 125:5). Paul partakes of the wisdom tradition when he states in Galatians 6:7–8: “A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” Likewise in the present context, Paul applies the wisdom principle to the matter of giving generously to the collection for Jerusalem (cf. Prov. 11:24).
9:7 / With this principle in mind, Paul exhorts the Achaians to give. Paul does not want to imply that the wisdom tradition that he uses in verse 6 reflects a merely mechanical process of sowing and reaping. He wants to emphasize that the wisdom tradition itself regards giving as a matter of the heart, and only cheerful giving is acceptable (cf. Sir. 35:8–9). As we have seen, the freewill offering for building the tabernacle is a prime example of giving that one decides in the heart (cf. Exod. 25:2; 35:5, 21, 22, 26, 29). Likewise, 1 Chronicles 29:16–22 speaks of a freewill offering for the temple that is given freely and joyously. Someone who gives grudgingly cannot expect a blessing from God in accordance with the wisdom principle. To establish this point, Paul gives a modified citation of Proverbs 22:8 lxx: “God blesses a cheerful and generous man.” In the previous line, this same proverb states that “he who sows wickedness shall reap evils.”[3]
9:6. The NIV translates the opening phrase touto de as remember this, but a variety of translations are possible. Literally, Paul said, “and this,” which may be elliptical for something like “now consider this” or “now this is important.”
The apostle began with what was probably a common agricultural proverb which taught that sowing sparingly results in a poor harvest and that generous sowing results in a plentiful harvest. It is also possible that Paul alluded to Proverbs 11:24–25; 22:9. Paul used a similar analogy in Galatians 6:7, 9. This analogy encouraged generous giving. Just as farmers should not expect a large harvest unless they sow generously, so Christians should not expect many blessings from God unless they bless others in a generous way.
9:7. In light of this wise saying, Paul encouraged the Corinthians to give. As before, he did not want them to give beyond their means, and the exact amount was a matter of conscience. The reliance on inward conviction in this matter is particularly important because Paul had no directive from God. As in every ethical choice that believers must make, there comes a point when the inward conviction of the Spirit must guide specific actions. Decisions of the heart must not violate the revelation of God, but they are necessary for practical application of the principles derived from the Old and New Testaments.
Acting according to conscience was very important in this situation. Paul wanted the Corinthians to receive God’s blessings in response to their generosity, but this would not occur if they gave reluctantly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver. Once again, Paul relied on proverbial wisdom. This proverb probably circulated widely among Jewish rabbis and early Christian teachers because Paul used it freely as justification for his view. Paul believed that God’s love extends to all who are in Christ, but he had in mind here a special affection or approval that leads to significant blessings in the life of the believer.[4]
6. The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows generously will also reap generously.
Translations of the first clause vary because Paul’s statement is brief. It literally says, “And this,” so that we have to supply a word or phrase to complete the thought. Here are a few examples:
“Remember” or “Remember this” (NEB, REB, NCV)
“But this I say” (KJV, NKJV, NASB)
“Let me say this much” (NAB)
“Do not forget” (JB)
Although we do not doubt that Paul could have taught the truth of this verse at an earlier occasion, the present context suggests that we should state either “this I say” or “the point is this” (RSV, NRSV). The stress falls on the following saying, of which the first part may have been an agricultural proverb in that day: “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows generously will also reap generously.” We do not know whether Paul was thinking of a verse in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs, “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty” (11:24).
In the agricultural society of the first century, the activities of sowing and reaping lay close to the hearts of the people. The sower in Jesus’ parable (Matt. 13:3–9 and parallels) did not close his hand when he saw that some kernels would fall on the beaten path, the rocky soil, and the briar patch. He sowed generously as with rhythmic walk he strode across the field. And just as the parable of the sower has a spiritual application, so the words of Paul are analogous to a spiritual truth. He writes elsewhere, “A man reaps what he sows” (Gal. 6:7; see also Luke 6:38), which is a law inherent in both physical and spiritual spheres.
When seed falls to the ground, it decays while it germinates. In a sense, the farmer loses the seed he has scattered; he takes the risk of weather conditions, disease, or insects destroying much of the seed. But as he sows, he trusts that God will grant him the satisfaction of reaping a harvest. This is also true spiritually. Missionary James Elliot put it succinctly: “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Elliot was slain in an effort to evangelize the Auca Indians of Ecuador, but his death was instrumental in leading them to Christ.
The words of the proverbial saying reveal an inner symmetry that is striking:
he who sows sparingly,
sparingly he will also reap
he who sows blessings,
blessings he will also reap
The Greek text is more precise than our translations. Although the adverb sparingly occurs only here in the New Testament and is self-explanatory, the word blessings has spiritual overtones and without doubt was written by Paul. The second half of the proverbial saying literally reads: “he who sows on the basis of blessings, on the basis of blessings he will also reap.” That is, he who gives by praising God will in turn reap a harvest for which he thanks the Lord. The generous giver responds with thanks and praises to God for the numerous material and spiritual blessings he receives (see Deut. 15:10).
7. Let each one give as he has decided in his mind to give, not reluctantly or out of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver.
- “Let each one give as he has decided in his mind to give, not reluctantly or out of necessity.” Paul issues no command, enacts no rule or regulation, and exercises no coercion. He gives the Corinthians complete freedom and tells them to decide in their own hearts what to give. He specifies, however, that the responsibility rests on the individual and not on the church as such. Each person must ponder this matter in his or her own heart and then decide, so that the entire congregation may be united in contributing to the collection.
Paul says that the act of giving must be accomplished neither reluctantly nor grudgingly. Reluctance implies a clinging to possessions that one hardly wants to give; and when they have been given, the giver grieves. Giving grudgingly denotes that external pressures compel one to conform to the rules of society; that is, necessity forces one to comply with the community’s objective. Giving, however, must be voluntary and individually motivated (see 8:3; Philem. 14).
By participating voluntarily, each person testifies to true faith in Jesus. Indeed, by voluntarily giving to the collection, Gentile Christians in Corinth demonstrate equality with the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. They also authenticate their legitimate membership in Christ’s universal church.
- “For God loves a cheerful giver.” Within the Christian community, this verse is most often quoted in connection with giving. The verse comes from the Greek text of Proverbs 22:8a, “God blesses a cheerful man and giver,” from which Paul has deleted the words man and and has changed the verb blesses to “loves.” The Hebrew text lacks this verse; it is found only in the Greek text of the Septuagint. This saying probably circulated orally as a proverb that Paul quotes from memory.
Why did the apostle write “loves” instead of “blesses”? Did his memory fail him? While writing, could he have had access to a scroll of Proverbs? There are no specific answers, but there are at least two suggestions to explain the substitution. First, in Paul’s epistle the concept love is much more prominent than the family of the word bless. Next, the force of the verb to love is all-encompassing, while that of the verb to bless connotes a beneficent act.
From a theological perspective, Paul discerns the indescribable love that God the Father imparts to his children. Just as he loves them, they must love one another. For this reason, Paul told the Corinthians that he wanted to test the genuineness of their love by considering the grace of Jesus Christ (8:8–9).[5]
[1] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2003). 2 Corinthians (pp. 314–315). Chicago: Moody Publishers.
[2] Harris, M. J. (2008). 2 Corinthians. In T. Longman III &. Garland, David E. (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Romans–Galatians (Revised Edition) (Vol. 11, p. 508). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[3] Scott, J. M. (2011). 2 Corinthians (pp. 186–187). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.
[4] Pratt, R. L., Jr. (2000). I & II Corinthians (Vol. 7, pp. 404–405). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
[5] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Vol. 19, pp. 310–313). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
The Rise And Fall Of The Christian Bookstore
The flailing Christian bookstore industry reached code red status earlier this year when Family Christian Stores, touted as “the world’s largest retailer of Christian-themed merchandise,” declared it would shutter all of its 240 stores across America and lay off 3,000 employees.
Back in the 1990s, it often seemed that every city and town in America had a strip mall with a Christian bookstore where you could purchase WWJD bracelets and enough devotional books to fill up the Ark of the Covenant. But today, these Christian bookstores are a dying breed. Indeed, it seems we are fast approaching an America where this particular brand of religious retailer will be no more than a memory.
Over the last decade, Christian bookstores across the nation have been shuttering. In some cases, consumers are just less interested in the stores’ God-blessed inventory. But plenty of others are just opting to purchase religious items from online retailers, with Christian bookstores humbled before the same digital market forces that felled secular mom-and-pop bookstores.
The flailing Christian bookstore industry reached code red status earlier this year when Family Christian Stores, touted as “the world’s largest retailer of Christian-themed merchandise,” declared it would shutter all of its 240 stores across America and lay off 3,000 employees. The 85-year-old chain said that “changing consumer behavior and declining sales” left it no choice.
Given the state of the industry and larger retailing trends, Family Christian Stores’ closure is seen by many as a harbinger of things to come. If trends persist, Christian bookstores may well be destined for the history books.
But Christian consumers should not let their hearts go troubled. This trend may turn out to be good news for the faithful.
Christian publishing has long been a presence in American life. But it was a renewed desire to evangelize the world following World War II that fueled the modern rise of Christian publishing, which focused mostly on Bibles and gospel tracts at the time. In 1950, the Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) formed in response to the growing need to connect and equip Christian product providers in the marketplace.
As time passed, religious retailers slowly spread across America and expanded their offerings. Then the industry truly exploded during the 1970s, and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA) was formed in 1974 to help give these new religious storeowners a chance to network and strategize.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly which cultural trend triggered the renewed interest in Christian content, but the American cultural revolution in the ’60s and ’70s seems like a plausible candidate. A perfect storm of progressive social change movements — from civil rights to feminism, anti-war protesting to environmentalism — swept across America. Many traditionalist Christians felt as if their religious values were under siege. In response, these believers mobilized and became more visible and vocal. The cultural unrest created an opportunity for printed content that spoke to these Christians’ concerns and anxieties.
In 1970, Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth rocked the marketplace with claims that the biblical end of the world was fast approaching. Bantam picked up the title in 1973, making it the first Christian prophecy book released by a secular publisher, and it went on to sell more than 30 million copies. The Living Bible was the bestselling non-fiction title of 1972 and 1973, and Billy Graham’s Angels was the bestselling non-fiction title of 1975. The mainstream success of books like these proved that a hungry market of religious readers existed in America.
The trend continued to build. In December 1983, an Associated Press article titled “Christian book sales are booming” relayed that Christian booksellers had grown by 20 to 25 percent over the past decade.
As Sue Smith, president of CBA notes, industry growth continued into the ’90s thanks to several breakout bestsellers. “People who would never walk into a Christian store suddenly would come in for The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose Driven Life, and the Left Behind series,” she says. Each of these titles became #1 New York Times bestsellers.
In the late ’90s, however, the advent of the digital age began to transform the way Americans shopped and consumed media. The rise of online retailers created stiff competition for brick-and-mortar stores. The absence of rent, real estate, and large staffs allowed these emerging distributors to offer deep discounts that traditional booksellers simply could not match. The internet also created options for authors to affordably self-publish their work and distribute it straight to consumers. This, combined with a sharp decline in book sales generally and the rise of reduced price e-books, ate into publishers’ profits.
The post The Rise And Fall Of The Christian Bookstore appeared first on The Aquila Report.
Further connection of the New Order of the Latter Rain to the FGBMFI.
Before reading this article, it is worth familiarizing yourself with William Branham’s influence on the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International.
What is the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI)?
This is because Branham played a central role in developing the theology of the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) cult. One of William Branham’s close friends and disciples was Oral Roberts. In her book ‘Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel’, Kate Bowler talks about how Oral Roberts in 1947 started pushing what is commonly known as the prosperity gospel. Bowler records how Roberts taught how Christians are to prosper by twisting 3 John 2.
Oral Roberts’ theological twist on 3 John 2 is a result of Franklin Hall and William Branham’s false signs and wonders ‘Gospel of the Kingdom’. Read below how the NOLR gospel evolved through Oral Roberts into developing the Prosperity Gospel:
“Robert’s miraculous youthful recoveries from tuberculosis…
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What is the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI)?
We have slightly touched on the FGBMFI, its connection to the New Order of the Latter Rain (NOLR) cult and its influence in developing the the leadership, the networking and the theology of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) cult.
History of the NAR cult infiltrating the marketplace.
Franklin Hall and William Branham helped shape the false gospel and dangerous prosperity theology of the NOLR which in turn helped develop the notorious Healing Movement across America. Franklin and Branham’s heretical teaching also helped shape the ministries of T.L. Osborne, Jack Coe, A.A. Allen, and David Duplessis. As Branham helped develop the healing movement in the early 1950s, it has been observed, “Branham worked closely” with the FGBMFI leader Demos Shakarian during the height of his early revivals” and that “Branham was the keynote speaker at a number of FGBMFI meetings during the initial years of that ministry, and was instrumental in the…
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