I’m sick and tired of hearing people say “religion, especially Christianity has held society back.” This is a patently false statement, and it appears in shows like “Family Guy,” and others (I’ve long since stopped watching the show, but clips show up on social media now and again). The fact is that Christianity has shaped the West. And it’s not like the communists, neo-fascists and anarchists would have you believe, that the West brought colonization, or any other such thing. While I admit that there have been many people who have used the name of Christ to advance their own agenda (you follow Jesus, and seek Jesus, and compare His followers to Him to see how they measure up, not the other way around), you cannot deny what Christians have done for the world.
Christians have advanced science and medicine to a degree unheard of, because they felt the liberty, in Christ to explore His creation. Robert Boyle (who, in the 1600s defined elements, compounds, and discovered the first law concerning gases, which is now called “Boyle’s law”), Anotine Levoisier (The founder of modern chemistry in the 1700s), Leonard Euler (Who published more on mathematics than anyone in history, lived in the 1700s), Gregor Mendel (From whom we get Mendellian Genetics, in the 1800s), Blaise Pascal, Sir Isaac Newton, and more, to name just a few have advanced humanity by their discoveries leaps and bounds, and were men, devoted to Christ!
Education is a world-wide push, as Christians felt it necessary to educate people, so they could discover God through the Scriptures for themselves! Universities were begun, largely by Christians (many began as seminaries), so that people may study the deeper things of God (including science and mathematics). Many hospitals have the names of saints, and why? Because Christians felt that human dignity relied on good health (which is also why soup kitchens, orphanages, adoption agencies, foster care, and yes there’s good ones) have largely been a concern of many, many Christians. Slavery has existed for all of human history, and yet Christians in the West put an end to it in their countries and seek laws toward its world-wide prohibition (Slavery only existed 90 years in the US since its founding, for example, whereas it existed and still exists in a large portion of the world, and has for millenia). Meanwhile, more people died in the 1900s in the name of secular humanism (Josef Stalin killed 60 million of his own people, Chairman mow, about 40million, Adolf Hitler, 11.5 Million, just to name a few), than died in every recorded war in History.
If we filter things by people who have an agenda, who are bitter toward God, or want to be gods themselves, and, thus want to rewrite history or by a media and governmental agencies who want to control what you think and how you feel, you’d believe just about anything. But if you dig in to actual historical records (before they’re re-written, buried, or destroyed), you’ll find the opposite is true. So study the real, life changing, historical person of Jesus. See how his TRUE followers have sought Him, and how He has changed the world through them. Pursue Him, and in doing so, you’ll discover that the greatest commandment (To love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself) is life changing and world changing and supernatural all at once.
Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.
2 Peter 3
This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.
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