Time to Re-Engage with the Bible

At the Prophecy News Watch website, an interesting article was posted by Dr. Michael Brown. It was titled, "Here comes Polyamory, Progressives Push For End to Marriage Between Two People." "As reported in a New York Times article titled, "A Massachusetts City Decides to Recognize Polyamorous Relationships," "The city of Somerville has broadened the definition of domestic partnership to include relationships between three or more adults, expanding access to health care." Dr. Brown continues, "After all, if the winning mantras of the same-sex 'marriage' movement have been 'Love is love' and 'Love wins' and 'I have the right to marry the one I love,' why limit that number to two? Isn't that discriminating against love? Isn't that simply carrying over the outdated, outmoded, limiting ways of the past?" He then goes on to state: "Why limit the union to two people? Based on what? All the solid arguments for limiting marriage to two people are, ultimately, arguments for marriage being the union of a male and a female. All other arguments fall short. Very short. When it comes to polyamory, which can include virtually any combination of number of men and women, on what basis should the government not recognize such relationships? Is not love still love? Does not love still win? And is not love the only thing that matters? So the argument goes." "According to a 2015 Gallup poll, a small-yet-growing-percentage of Americans report that they find the concept of plural marriage 'morally acceptable,' while polyamorous relationships are increasingly receiving mainstream media coverage. A 2014 Newsweek article even estimates that there are more than 500,000 openly polyamorous families living in the United States today." Friends, the slippery slope of moral decline has just gotten steeper. But you knew this was coming when the Supreme Court ruled in June 2015 that the definition of marriage had changed forever. Oh the consequences when truth becomes mere opinion. Why this decline from traditional biblical moral structure? Last week Christianity Today published an article titled, "Bible Reading Drops During Social Distancing." It can be found at: www.christianitytoday.com/news/2020/july/state-of-bible-reading-coronavirus-bama-abs.html. "Between early 2019 and 2020, the percentage of US adults who say they use the Bible daily dropped from 14 percent to 9 percent, according to the 'State of the Bible 2020' report released today by the Barna Group and the American Bible Society(ABS). ... This decline continued during the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, and by June, the percentage of daily Bible users had dropped to 8.5 percent. Amid the pandemic, a larger decline occurred among the Americans who say their choices and relationships are shaped by the Bible, a group ABS calls 'Bible engaged.' In January 27.8 percent of American adults were Bible engaged. By June, after months of quarantine and church closers, that figure was down to 22.6 percent. "'This study supports the idea that the church plays a significant role in benefitting people's wellbeing and Scripture engagement,' said John Farquhar Plake, ABS director of ministry intelligence. 'To increase Scripture engagement, we must increase relationship connections with one another through the church. The pandemic - and now this survey - have shown that when relationship church engagement goes up, so does Scripture engagement, but when it does down, Scripture engagement drops with it.'" "'You can't download a hug,' said Donald Whitney, professor of biblical spirituality at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Lack of encouragement from 'physical presence' with other believers 'can diminish our engagement in the spiritual disciplines because when we're together, we're encouraged to stay faithful to the things of God." So, if we are not being engaged daily in the Scriptures, then we are not feeding our souls upon the nourishment from God's Word. That means we are starving our spiritual lives. And when starvation sets in, then our moral foundations begin to collapse as well. The answer is to stay grounded daily in the Word of God. It is the lamp to our feet. It is the light to our paths. It is the sword with which we assault the evils that surround us. It is the truth that exposes the darkness. It is time that we re-engage one another in God's Word.

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