Which Life is Worth More?

 There have been two significant news bulletins recently. Only one is getting a lot of press, showing up on page 1 of newspapers and landing pages of news websites and blowing up social media feeds. The other was relegated to page 6 of a regional paper and I have yet to hear of any secondary news agencies pick it up. The former is the news that the US Supreme Court heard arguments in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health. This case is predicted to cease a national liberty for a woman to end her pregnancy by abortion and return the legislative deliberations to each state to grant the liberty or not.

Abortion has been on the decline with the CDC reporting under 650,000 abortions in the year 2019. A lot of the politically-inclined evangelical world is excited by the possibility that the US Supreme Court will overturn the preceding decisions of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The latter story is that over 22 million Afghans are nearing death through starvation this winter. The story has been carried in various secular news feeds but not in Christian feeds. World Vision has mobilized to provide assistance. Albert Mohler, who comments on "news of the day" each day, has not provided a comment on this story.

Is the evangelical world more concerned with 600,000 deaths of unborn children than 22 million Afghans or 5 million people who have died from COVID-19? If so, then an unborn child is worth 36 Afghans and 9 people worldwide.

If we have the heart of Christ and we are ambassadors of His, shouldn't we be just as anguished over 36 Afghans and 9 other people perishing without His grace and mercy as well as the unborn child?

[Also published on Compassionate Curmudgeon and Business Radical blog.]

The Myth of the Proverbs 31 Woman

  Last night I heard an inspiring and encouraging message given to women at our church. (I was like the church mouse hiding in the balcony running tech.) The base text for the talk was Proverbs 31.20. There are many good attributes in this chapter of the bible. The female speaker pointed out how nearly impossible it is to be as good as this described wife; others have also noted that no woman in the bible lives up to the Prov. 31 standards. However, I was kind of expecting the female speaker to discredit the lofty aspirations because of its authorship.

Not many people read closely the text leading into the chapter. Essentially, this chapter is written by the (future) queen's mother-in-law as perhaps a snipe towards her son's mate: The sayings of King Lemuel contain this message, which his mother taught him.

Might not the mother's-in-law perspective contribute to the lofty standards. I am not discounting the divine inspiration of the writing. I am saying we need to show grace and mercy to women who think they've failed if they miss a beat according to these verses. Just like being disinherited from the Kingdom because we are greedy, envious, quarrelsome, etc., we know God is gracious. The Sermon on the Mount also might be considered impossible standards and yet Christ says, "Knock and the door shall be opened" which will allow us into the kingdom even if we are not consistently poor in spirit. Or we might be persecuted for our own stupid mistakes, and not righteousness' sake.

[Also published on Compassionate Curmudgeon and Business Radical blog.]