Just a year ago, I had a regular attendee in my Paradoxes Sunday school class1 who was 101 years old. He was mentally sharp and, for his age, physically fit. He lived alone and drove himself to class. He claimed that the secret to his longevity was a disciplined diet and daily physical and mental exercise. However, a few months ago, he caught a flu bug that within a week took his life.
Our class centenarian was an example to all of us that a disciplined lifestyle will extend our lives but also that there seems to be a limit beyond which none of us can go. Now, a recent exchange of papers in the journal Science establishes that there is indeed a hard limit to how long we humans can live—a limit that is in perfect accord with what was written in Genesis nearly 3,500 years ago.......
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21)
Think about the far-reaching implications of that one statement. Imagine growing up in a family that embraced that one guideline. How many rules would we need if everybody just did that? Can you think of a marriage conflict that couldn’t be resolved if both parties decided to submit to each other freely out of reverence for Christ? This was Paul’s way of saying: “Put others first, just as Christ put you first.”
I call this the principle of mutual submission. I’m convinced this is the most powerful, transformational, relational dynamic on the planet. In a relationship characterized by mutual submission, both parties choose to submit themselves to the other. Mutual submission doesn’t work unless it’s mutual. It only works when both parties work it. But, like Jesus, Paul didn’t stop there.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
New covenant participants are to submit to one another in light of what Christ has done for them. Paul doesn’t instruct believers to submit to one another out of reverence for one another. Let’s face it—most “one anothers” don’t deserve to be submitted to. Paul takes us back to the dynamic Jesus introduced in the upper room. The phrase “out of reverence for Christ” suggests we are to submit to one another out of reverence for the fact that Christ submitted himself to each of us on the cross to pay our sin debt. His sacrifice is to serve as the inspiration and standard for our submission to one another. It’s that just as thing again.
“Submit to one another” wasn’t Paul’s only one-another. He left the church with some other one-anothers. According to Paul, the primary duty of Jesus followers is to one-another one another. Here’s his list:
Submit to one another.
Forgive one another.
Encourage one another.
Restore one another.
Accept one another.
Care for one another.
Bear with one another.
Carry one another’s burdens.
If we were to ask Paul what faith expressing itself through love looks like, he might rattle off this list. This is the short list of what God through Christ has done for each of us.
ISLAMABAD — The release of a Christian woman in Pakistan who was acquitted eight years after being sentenced to death for blasphemy was apparently delayed Friday, after talks failed between the government and radical Islamists who want her publicly hanged.
Also, a lawyer representing a local cleric who had raised the initial blasphemy charges against Asia Bibi petitioned the Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse its acquittal.
The top court in a landmark decision on Wednesday overturned Bibi’s 2010 conviction of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Since then, Islamists have blocked highways and damaged or set-fire to dozens of vehicles to pressure the government to stop her release from an undisclosed detention facility.
This undated handout photo released to AFP on November 1, 2018 via the UK charity British Pakistani Christian Association shows a portrait of Asia Bibi, who had been on death row in Pakistan since 2010.HANDOUT/AFP/Getty Images
Islamists were to hold nationwide rallies after Friday’s prayers, stoking fears violence. Pakistan shut down schools and colleges after radical cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, the leader of Tehreek-e-Labbaik party, announced that “talks” between his deputies and the government about Bibi’s fate had failed.
Before dawn Friday, Rizvi told an emotionally-charged rally in the eastern city of Lahore that one of the government negotiators threatened his deputies during the talks that security forces will ruthlessly kill them if they did not disperse peacefully. He asked his supporters to continue sit-ins as authorities summoned paramilitary troops to restore order.
“We are ready to die to show our love for the prophet,” he said.
For a second day, protesters rally to condemn a Supreme Court decision that acquitted Asia Bibi, a Christian woman, who spent eight years on death row accused of blasphemy, in Karachi, Pakistan, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018.Shakil Adil/AP
Rizvi’s envoys had demanded that Bibi be barred from leaving the country but Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry rejected the demand, saying the government will not accept any dictates.
Ghulam Mustafa, a lawyer representing a provincial cleric in Punjab who had filed the initial blasphemy charges against Bibi, petitioned the Supreme Court, requesting the judges review her acquittal. The court has set not dates to take up the petition, but Bibi’s release could be further delayed by the process. Pakistan’s Supreme Court has not been known to reverse its decisions but court reviews typically take years.
Authorities say they have stepped up security near an undisclosed detention facility where Bibi is being held for her safety. On Thursday, prison officials said two inmates were arrested last month for planning to kill Bibi by strangling her. They said the men were still being questioned.
Bibi’s family had expected her release by Thursday night. Her husband, Ashiq Masih, returned from Britain with their children in mid-October and was waiting for her release so that they can fly out of Pakistan. Though the family has not disclosed the country of her destination, France and Spain have offered asylum.
Bibi’s acquittal has posed a challenge to the government of Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Imran Khan, who came to power this summer partly by pursuing the Islamist agenda.
Khan condemned the Islamists on Wednesday after cleric Afzal Qadri urged supporters to kill the three judges who acquitted Bibi, revolt against army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and overthrow Khan’s government.
Military’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor said Friday the army was exercising restraint, to give a chance for a peaceful resolution. He asked demonstrators to refrain from violence and await the outcome of the review petition to the Supreme Court.
“Let this legal process be completed first,” he told state-run Pakistan Television.
However, over 2,000 Islamists continued blocking a key road linking the capital, Islamabad, with the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Friday, causing traffic jams. Hundreds also blocked another key motorway, linking Islamabad with other major cities.
Pakistani protesters burn a poster image of Christian woman Asia Bibi, who has spent eight-years on death row accused of blasphemy and acquitted by a Supreme Court, in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018.Pervez Masih/AP / AP
Bibi was arrested in 2009 after she was accused of blasphemy following a quarrel with two fellow female farm workers who refused to drink from a water container used by a Christian. A few days later, a mob accused her of insulting Islam’s prophet, leading to her 2010 conviction.
Bibi’s family has always maintained her innocence and says she never insulted the prophet.
Bibi’s case has drawn international attention and also put Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws into focus again. The charge of blasphemy carried the death penalty in this majority Muslim nation and critics say it is often used to settle feuds and arguments.
A professor in Ohio has filed suit against his university on the grounds that they violated his freedom of speech and tried to force him to violate his sincerely held religious beliefs.
Nicholas Meriwether, a full professor of political philosophy at Shawnee State University, found himself with hot water with the administration when he refused to call a transgender student by the student’s preferred pronoun.
Meriwether teaches his classes using the Socratic Method, often calling on students to participate in the discussion. When he addresses students, he usually calls them “Mr., Miss, or Mrs.” and responds to questions with “sir” and “ma’am.” He says that he uses “this formal manner of addressing helps them view the academic enterprise as a serious, weighty endeavor.”
On January 9, 2018, Alena Bruening asked Meriwether a question and he responded, “Yes, sir.” Meriwether’s complaint said he responded to Bruening “in this fashion because Bruening is male.” After the class, Bruening, who identifies as a female, approached Meriwether and demanded that he use feminine pronouns and titles in the future.
Meriwether responded that he did not believe he could accommodate the request and did not believe students could dictate a professor’s speech. Bruening responded in anger, using a derogatory term to refer to Meriwether and promising to get him fired.
Meriwether is an evangelical Christian and a member of a congregation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of America. He holds traditional, evangelical views on gender, believing that God created people male and female and that gender is determined by biology, not identity.
Acting Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Roberta Milliken, spoke with Meriwether and told him that he should refer to students by their last names only and cease using gender references when calling on students. Meriwether said this violated the serious academic environment he wanted to foster, but would make an accommodation for Bruening, who continued to attend classes, take part in discussions, and received a high grade for the course. Milliken initially agreed with this arrangement before changing her mind.
Milliken later met with Meriwether again and told him he could stop using titles and pronouns altogether or refer to students by their preferred pronouns and titles. She said he would choose one of the two options or face charges of violating the University’s non-discrimination policy.
Meriwether filed a grievance request with the union, believing the university violated his freedom of expression. When he met with a school administrator and representative from the union, the “openly laughed” at his religious beliefs and refused to follow through on his request for a grievance.
He claims another administrator, humanities department chair Jennifer Pauley, mocked him during a 2016 meeting in which they discussed how the Obama administration’s Title IX guidance on transgender students applied to someone with his convictions. Meriwether claims Pauley told him that, “adherents to the Christian religion are primarily motivated out of fear” and that “Christian doctrines regarding hell are harmful and should not be taught and that anyone who believes hell exists should not be allowed to teach these doctrines.” He further claimed that education existed to “liberate students,” but “religion oppresses students".
Continued, here.
