Tag: Election

Saturday Strands

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Loose strands for our growth:

The Awakening We Need: Why the Reformed Pray for Revival – Ray Ortlund (DG)
“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” May Psalm 85:6 grab our hearts and never let us go!

Is the ‘Silent Treatment’ a Godly Approach to Conflict? – Joe Carter (TGC)
Passive-aggressive tactics are ungodly because they promote division over unity, reflect anger rather than understanding, and withhold forgiveness and love in an effort to gain control.

How (and How Not) to Fight Sin – J. Garrett Kell (Crossway)
Fighting sin is spiritual warfare, and warfare requires a battle plan. If left to our own devices, we would have little success against our unseen enemy. Thankfully, God’s word supplies wisdom to assist us in eluding the evil one’s snares.

Rome Is Not Our Home: Live Counterculturally During Election Season – Pete Nicholas (TGC)
Charity is an underemphasized Christian virtue today, and to be charitable requires eschewing suspicion, cynicism, and laziness. It means good conversation and prayerful reflection to inhabit another’s point of view.

Flashback: The Spirit’s Fruit
And the gentle Spirit works in our lives to make us a gentle people in the image of our Triune God. The gentle Spirit works in our lives to make us gentle in situations where we otherwise couldn’t on our own. The Spirit works to replace our tendency towards harshness, loudness, and quarrelsomeness with a Spirit-led gentleness.

Current

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A few more helpful posts as we think about the upcoming election:

10 Guidelines for Christian Voters – Brian G. Najapfour

To Those Christians (and Others) Who Can’t Vote for Trump or Clinton – Frank Turek (AFA)

What Christians Should Do This Election Season: Give Space, Show Grace – Trevin Wax

What You Should Know About The… – Joe Carter (TGC)
Republican Party Platform
Democratic Party Platform
Libertarian Party Platform
American Solidarity Platform
Green Party Platform
Constitution Party Platform

If you missed the other two election collections, you can find them here and here.

Current

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Here are some more helpful posts on the upcoming election:

Seeking Clarity in this Confusing Election Season: Ten Thoughts – Kevin DeYoung

If You Don’t Like Either Candidate, Then Vote for Trump’s Policies – Wayne Grudem (TH)

Should Christians Vote for Trump? – Eric Metaxas (WSJ)

Hillary Clinton Is a Threat to Religious Liberty – Marc Thiessen (WP)

 

Current

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So many Christians are trying to figure out whether to vote for Trump or a third party in November. Here is a helpful collection of posts from various viewpoints that explore the issues involved:

Why I Don’t Think You Must Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils– Dan Doriani (TGC)

Evangelical Views of the 2016 Election: Ethics and Theology Professor on Why Trump is the Best Candidate for President – Norman Geisler (CT)

Evangelical Views of the 2016 Election: Evangelicals, We Need to Start Looking Beyond the Candidates – Ronnie Floyd

4 Evangelicals, 4 Different Ways to Consider Trump – Trevin Wax (RNS)

Trump’s Moral Character and the Election – Wayne Grudem

Doctrine Collection

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A new semi-often collection pondering the beliefs of the Church:

Not All Doctrines Are at the Same Level: How to Make Some Distinctions and Determine a Doctrine’s Importance – Justin Taylor
He provides three helpful models for thinking this through.

Take a Test on the Trinity – Tim Challies
To use one of the models from the above post, this is an absolute doctrine that all Christians hold.  How well can you do on this little quiz?

3 Objections to the Doctrine of Election – Tim Keller (TGC)
Actually, it very helpfully answers three objections to election.  We talked about election this past Sunday at my church, so here is a little follow-up to continue thinking through this doctrine.

Vote and Pray

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God has given us an incredible opportunity that few people in the history of our world have ever had.  We have the opportunity to vote for our leaders.  Tomorrow we each get one ballot to choose who we want to be our leaders for the next few years. We must be good stewards of this opportunity God has given us.

To be good stewards, we must vote.  To stay home tomorrow is to follow the example of the wicked servant who refused to use the one talent given to him.  He buried it in the ground instead, and was strongly condemned (Matthew 25:14-30).

To be good stewards, we must vote for a candidate who has a chance of winning.  In the presidential race, that means we must vote for Romney or Obama.  To vote for anyone else is to waste your vote, to bury it in the ground.  It would be like going to a casino and playing a game with absolute 0% chance of winning.  Your chances at a casino are never good, but playing with 0% chance of winning is utter foolishness.  So is voting for someone who has no chance of winning.  You may not like either candidate, but one of them is going to win, so vote for the better of the two.

To be good stewards, we must vote wisely by weighing the issues.  We must weigh the economic issues.  We must weigh the foreign policy issues.  We must weigh the moral issues:

  • What is the candidate’s stand on same-sex marriage? (See a discussion here)
  • What is the candidate’s stand on abortion which has killed 50+ million babies in almost 40 years?
  • What is the candidate’s stand on the current administration’s policy requiring even religious non-profits to pay for insurance that will pay for their employees to buy abortion-inducing contraceptives.  Will the candidate stand for religious freedom and against this religious persecution?

To be good stewards, we must weigh the issues, and then vote accordingly.  We must vote wisely.

For further thoughts on why you need to vote tomorrow, see Joel Beeke’s helpful post.

But we must do more than vote.  We must also pray.  This too is an incredible opportunity that God has given to us.  We must be good stewards of this opportunity and cry out to God on behalf of our nation.  I could elaborate on this point, but instead I suggest you go to Albert Mohler’s post and use it as a guide for your prayers.

Vote and pray.  May we be good stewards of both opportunities tomorrow.