IPC Messenger
A W eekly P ublication of T he I ndependent P resbyterian C hurch
O ffi c e 912-2 3 6 - 3 3 46 | F a x 912- 236-3676 | E-Mail [email protected] | Website www. ipcsav.org
V olume 18 • N o 22
T
JUNE/JULY 2018
Land Mines
oday we minister God’s word
with an ever shrinking pool of
topics with which we may deal
without causing great offense for an
increasing pool of people. Gone are
the days when the gospel (narrowly
defined) and only the gospel caused
the offense. The exclusive claims of
Christ, for example, have long proved
scandalous in an age of religious
pluralism. However, now we are
surrounded by potential land mines of
a social nature ready to explode if we
fail to nuance our subject just so. Or
they may explode anyway. Yet every
one of these just-below-the-surface
IEDs were non-existent prior to more
recent times. Here is a partial list of the
landmines:
• Prohibition of sex outside of
marriage of one man and one
woman
• Primary roles of men and women
• Definition of marriage
• Leadership in the home
• Sex or gender determination
• Two-parent ideal
• Discipline of children (especially
corporal punishment)
• The sanctity of unborn human life
Yet the Bible is loaded with teaching
which makes normative the traditional
Christian understanding of marriage
and family. God created us male and
female (not just men and women,
masculine and feminine, with
distinctive and unalterable gender
characteristics). He created one man,
Adam, to marry one woman, Eve (not
one man and three women or two men).
He designed marriage to be the life-
long committed context within which
reproductive union takes place, for the
sake of both the couple as well as their
future children. He created the man
first that he might lead and the woman
second that she might follow (Gen
1:27; 2:18-24; Deut 22:5; Mt 19:3-9;
Eph 5:21-33; Col 3:18; 1 Pet 3:1-7;
1 Tim 2:11-15). He charges mothers
and fathers with the responsibility
to discipline and teach their children
(Eph 6:4; Prov 22:6; 13:24; 22:15;
23:13, 14; 29:15). Unborn human life
is sacred and protected (Ps 139:13ff;
Ex 21:22-25). Scripture explicitly
confirms with commands the implicit
principle that the will of God is known
through the acts of God, what He wants
by what He designs, what He intends
by what He creates (Rom 1:18ff).
Christians happily lived with these
principles for nearly 2000 years.
Indeed, family life flourished. Because
we live in a fallen world, there have
always been those who have found
these norms difficult. Some people
find themselves erotically attracted to
persons of the same sex, or to children,
or to siblings, or even to animals. Even
the latter is recognized by Scripture,
addressed, and prohibited (Lev 18:23;
20:15, 16; Ex 22:19). Erotic desire not
infrequently may be misplaced. Some
Continued Page 2
IPC Messenger
CONTENTS
3 Student Ministry
4 Children’s Ministry
Career Ministry
5
College Ministry
6 America’s Greatest
Generation
8
Moral Concerns
10 Family Corner
12 Announcements
15 Communion Season
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