BIBLE inSITE completes its first year of publication with this issue. The editor would like to extend his thanks to all who have supported this effort. It has been his prayer that all who come in contact with this paper would be uplifted and exhorted by its message. Thanks to all of the authors and publishers who have graciously agreed to allow us to reprint their work on these pages. Finally, praise be and thanks to God and His Son, without whom our earth-life would have no purpose.
[Editor's Note: Bro. Quinn wrote this article in response to the recent school shootings.]
It Makes No Sense by Jon Quinn
Reprinted from the May, 1999 issue of The Expository Files
(http://www.geocities.com/~expository/)
It makes no sense. None at all. None.
It is a public high school. Administration, faculty and students gather and pray. Where is the ACLU when you need them? Don't they know that you can't have public school teachers, administrators and students praying together? Don't they know they are jeopardizing our constitutional freedoms by allowing such? Keep prayer at church! Don't allow religious yearnings to be expressed in such a public forum. In the case of religious expression, have we not learned that our constitution means we are free to express ourselves in such matters as long as we are not in any way associated with the state at the time?
It makes no sense.
It makes no sense that the teaching of Biblically based morality, or that there is (or even may be) a God that created us in His image, or that principles of right and wrong are absolute and real; it makes no sense that the teaching of these things are prohibited and that public schools must pretend that these are all non issues. Refer to these things at all and a teacher could well be in a "heap o' trouble!" Never mind that to the degree that we are committed to these Biblical principles, to that degree we are a safer and happier nation.
It makes no sense.
It makes no sense that teachers and children must not participate in these things together until tragedy strikes and the innocent are dead and dying, and then coming together to call upon God for comfort and strength is permissible, at least until a proper period of mourning is complete. Then I suppose it becomes unconstitutional once again.
It makes no sense.
It makes no sense that prayer is not allowed to prevent tragedy, but only as a response to tragedy which has already occurred.
It makes no sense.
It makes no sense to say that our ancestors crawled out of primitive ooze, fought their way up the evolutionary chain to our present state, and then to suggest that murdering one another is somehow wrong. Isn't that what evolution and "survival of the fittest" is all about? The unfit perish. The slowest, weakest, less adaptable are removed as the stronger and fitter survive to produce young. and so forth. Listen! That is what many of our schools must teach today, while at the same time they are required to ignore the creation theory. And then we wring our hands when some young person or persons get guns and bombs and take their rightful places in the evolution of the race by removing some of the less fit specimens, and we ask "How could such and such a tragedy happen?" But I wonder, "How could it not happen?"
Readers; It only makes sense to call the events of Littleton, Paducah, Jonesboro and others "tragedies" if the victims were something more than the products of cold, blind chance. And they are. The schools just are not permitted to teach them so. At one time they were, before the reinterpretation of the constitution. Do you, like me, think that sometimes it appears as if our nation is in a whirlwind of moral confusion and tragedy? Why do we expect any different? We are sowing the wind, just as certainly as those of Hosea's day.
"For they sow the wind, And they reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads; It yields no grain. Should it yield, strangers would swallow it up." (Hosea 8:7)
[Editor's Note: We are NOT looking for a new preacher as the following article suggests. Read it first, jump to conclusions second!]
Search For A Local Preacher - Author Unknown (contributed by S. Tegg)
We do not have a happy report to give. We've not been able to find a suitable candidate for this church, though we do have one promising prospect still. Please note that we have checked three references on each one. The following is our confidential report on the present candidates.
Adam: Good man but problems with his wife. Give's in to her whims to much.
Noah: preached in one place 120 years with no converts. Prone to unrealistic building projects.
Joseph: A big thinker, but a braggart, believes in dream interpreting, and has a prison record.
Moses: Poor communicator, even stuttering at times. Some say he left an earlier church over a murder charge.
David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair he had with his neighbor's wife.
Solomon: Great preacher but is bigamist and has too many outside marriage affairs.
Elijah: Prone to depression-collapses under pressure.
Elisha: Reported to have lived with a single widow while at his former church.
Hosea: A tender and loving pastor but our people could never handle his wife's occupation.
Jeremiah: Emotionally unstable, alarmist, negative, always lamenting things, and reported to have taken a long trip to bury his underwear on the bank of a foreign river.
Isaiah: On the fringe. Claims to have seen angels in church. Has trouble with his language.
Jonah: His references said he was swallowed by a great fish and was spit up on a shore nearby. We just hung up.
Amos: Unpolished...has hang ups about wealthy people... would do better in a poor congregation.
John: Has a weird diet and provokes denominational leaders.
Peter: Has a bad temper-even has been known to curse. Aggressive, but a loose cannon.
Paul: Preaches all night, short on tact and harsh. Has been thrown out of most towns he visits.
Timothy: Too young.
Jesus: Has had popular times, but once when his church grew to over 5,000 - he managed to offend them all and this church dwindled down to twelve people. Seldom stays in one place very long and he is single.
Judas: His references are solid. A steady plodder. Conservative. Good connections. Knows how to handle money. We're inviting him to preach this Sunday. Great possibilities with this one.