Sting of Death, Seed of Woman

S. Lewis Johnson Message of the Week

STING OF DEATH, SEED OF WOMAN
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson exposits the temptation of woman and man and their disobedience to God’s word.

Scripture Reference: Genesis 3:8-19

Click here to listen: Sting of Death, Seed of Woman

Transcript Excerpt:

Will you turn with me to Genesis Chapter 3 and listen as I read versus 8 through 19 for our Scripture reading.  Moses has recounted the probation and he has also now taken us through the fall of man and we read in verse 8 following the opening of the eyes of Adam and Eve and the fact that they now knew that they were naked and had sewed fig leaves together to make themselves coverings.

“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’  And he said ‘I heard the voice of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’  And he said, ‘Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’  And the man said, ‘The women whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’  Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’  And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’  And the Lord God said to the serpent, (you’ll notice he does not ask him any questions) ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field.  On your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.’”

…. you can read the full transcript here.

How To Integrate Your Faith at Your Workplace

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:50 — 8.7MB)

Guest: Lee Truax, President, Christian Business Men’s Connection

“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve” (Colossians 3:23-24).

You’ve heard of the “Sunday-only Christian”, the person who thinks that faith is for church on Sundays and not for life in the real world during the week, specifically in the workplace.  Or you might have heard a professing Christian say, “I’m not able to bring my faith into my secular work environment” or “There’s constant pressure to compromise my biblical values at work.”

But what is God’s call for the Christian businessperson?  Is it possible to be an ambassador for Christ at work, and if so, how can that be pursued?

This weekend on The Christian Worldview, Lee Truax, president of Christian Business Men’s Connection (CBMC), will explain what it means to integrate your faith in the workplace.  If you want to be a stronger and more effective Christian at work, this program is for you.

The End of Men? — A Hard Look at the Future

Is our postmodern, postindustrial society simply better suited to women than to men? Hanna Rosin makes the case for this claim in the current issue of The Atlantic, and her article demands close attention. Men, she argues, are simply falling behind women in almost every sector of cultural influence and economic power. This shift, she understands, is nothing less than unprecedented in the span of human history.

Rosin begins her article with the fact that sex-selection technologies in the West are now more often used to select a preference for girls than for boys, reversing the historical trend. Why? She explains: “Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed. Cultural and economic changes always reinforce each other. And the global economy is evolving in a way that is eroding the historical preference for male children, worldwide.”

Rosin’s article is well documented and forceful in argument. The bottom line is the claim that the trend and trajectory of the global economy has for some time now been headed toward female skills and talents. At the most basic level, this means a shift from physical strength to intellectual energies and education. At the next level, it also means a shift from leadership models more associated with males toward the nurturing leadership more associated with women. In any event, the changes are collosal.

Nothing has brought this into clearer sight than the current global recession. In the United States, the recession has been dubbed a “he-cession,” due to the fact that three-quarters of the 8 million jobs lost were lost by men. Even more devastating to men, most of these jobs will not return, given the vast changes the recession has brought about. “The worst-hit industries were overwhelmingly male and deeply identified with macho: construction, manufacturing, high finance. Some of these jobs will come back,” Rosin predicts, “but the overall pattern of dislocation is neither temporary nor random.”

It’s not just the United States, either. In Iceland, Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir (the first openly-lesbian head of state) ran her campaign for office with a pledge to end the “age of testosterone.”

But the picture in the United States is particularly striking. For the first time in the nation’s history, women now outnumber men in the workforce. The working class, “which has long defined our notions of masculinity,” Rosin argues is “slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions.”

Why? “The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today — social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus – are, at a minimum, not predominately male.”

Rosin actually makes two main points, and both demand attention. The first has to do with what is taking place in working class families. The matriarchy Rosin describes is now coming more fully into view. In many cases, it is husbands and fathers who are unemployed and wives and mothers who have paying jobs. This means a huge shift in male function, and many men just exit the family process or forfeit decision making. Rosin refers to these men as “casualties of the end of the manufacturing era.” Across the nation, older men are increasingly unemployed and younger men face little hope of a job in this sector — the virtual birthright of previous generations.

Of the fifteen job classifications marked for future growth, men dominate only two, janitorial services and computer engineering. The same pattern is now extending to managerial and professional roles, where women hold 51.4 percent of jobs currently. Why are women gaining and men falling behind? Rosin explains:

They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, according to many studies, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important—for better or worse—it increasingly requires formal education credentials, which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.

Beyond the numbers, Rosin reports that office environments and corporate cultures are adapting to women as well, reshaped by the gender transformation of the last twenty-five years.

And yet, even after all this, Rosin makes her most powerful argument when she looks, not at the current workforce, but at what is happening on America’s college and university campuses. There, she explains, “we can see with absolute clarity that in the coming decades the middle class will be dominated by women.”

She continues:

We’ve all heard about the collegiate gender gap. But the implications of that gap have not yet been fully digested. Women now earn 60 percent of master’s degrees, about half of all law and medical degrees, and 42 percent of all M.B.A.s. Most important, women earn almost 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees—the minimum requirement, in most cases, for an affluent life. In a stark reversal since the 1970s, men are now more likely than women to hold only a high-school diploma. “One would think that if men were acting in a rational way, they would be getting the education they need to get along out there,” says Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. “But they are just failing to adapt.”

While many theories to explain this pattern have been offered, no one can argue with the numbers. Boys are clearly falling behind girls in both educational achievement and aspiration. The long-term consequences of this shift are momentous, and virtually impossible to reverse in a single generation. This pattern has vast implications for marital prospects, since women express a strong preference to marry a man of equal or greater educational and professional potential. The collapse of the marriage culture within the working class, Rosin argues, is due to the fact that women are in control, and have set expectations “too high for the men around them to meet.”

Hanna Rosin’s article is not the first salvo of information on these troubling trends, but the fact that The Atlantic chose her essay as a cover story is itself evidence of how this phenomenon is taking hold of attention, even among the elites.

For Christians, the importance of this article is even greater. God intended for men to have a role as workers, reflecting God’s own image in their vocation. The most important issue here it not the gains made by women, but the displacement of men. This has undeniable consequences for these men, and for everyone who loves and depends on them.

The failure of boys to strive for educational attainment is a sign of looming disaster. Almost anyone who works with youth and young adults will tell you that, as a rule, boys are simply not growing up as fast as girls. This means that their transition to manhood is stunted, delayed, and often incomplete. Meanwhile, the women are moving on.

What does it mean for large sectors of our society to become virtual matriarchies? How do we prepare the church to deal with such a world while maintaining biblical models of manhood and womanhood?

The elites are awakening to the fact that these vast changes point to a very different future. Christians had better know that matters far more important than economics are at stake. These trends represent nothing less than a collapse of male responsibility, leadership, and expectations. The real issue here is not the end of men, but the disappearance of manhood.

“Inside The Revival” Released for Epicenter Conference

The Fall of Man

S. Lewis Johnson Message of the Week

THE FALL OF MAN
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson exposits the temptation of woman and man and their disobedience to God’s word.

Scripture Reference: Genesis 3:1-8

Click here to listen: The Fall of Man

Transcript Excerpt:

We are studying in the Book of Genesis in this morning session and we are turning today to the third Chapter, which is the chapter on The Fall of Man.  And I’m asking if you will, to turn to that passage and listen as I read Versus 1 through 8 of Genesis Chapter 3.

Now the story of the creation has been given.  God has created the universe, this earth, the man and the woman, and he has also put man under probation, those accounts given as in the first two Chapters.  We resume with the first Verse of the third Chapter and Moses writes,

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.  And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’ And the woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.  And the serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’  When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.”

…. you can read the full transcript here.

The Christian Worldview is now on Twitter!

The Christian Worldview radio program and website is now on Twitter!

You can follow us here with the username ThChrstnWldvw.  Each week we will tweet about the upcoming weekend show topic, link to “must read” articles,  and keep you informed on important issues impacting the christian worldview.

What Does Husband Have To Do With Father?

Podcast: Download (Duration: 50:50 — 8.7MB)

Guest: David’s Father

TRANSCRIPT

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them … Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart” (Colossians 3:19,21).

Father’s Day Weekend is here which is a good opportunity to consider what a good and godly father should be.  Who are the best biblical examples of a godly father and what are their shared traits?  What must guide fathers to parent well in this difficult culture?  And how does being a good husband to his wife impact being a good father?

This weekend on The Christian Worldview, you will hear my own father’s perspective (along with some from my mother) on these questions in our annual Father’s Day interview.  Now 78 years old, my dad has been a faithful husband to my mom for 56 years and a steady role model to his four children and six grandchildren.

Don’t miss this “discussion with Dad” — and your phone calls — this weekend on The Christian Worldview.

Meet the New American Family, Digitally Deluged

The Campbell family of California just might be the prototypical American family of the future. Kord Campbell and his wife, Brenda, recently moved to the the San Francisco area from Oklahoma, along with their two children, Lily, age 8, and Connor, age 16. They also came with plenty of digital technology — and they have acquired more.

The family is profiled by Matt Richtel in an article in the June 7, 2010 edition of The New York Times. As Richtel explains, the Campbells might not be just any other family in the neighborhood with respect to their digital habits. Then again, they might be, after all. At the very least, they probably point to a new family reality that will become all the more common.

Kord Campbell is starting a software venture. And yet, his life is so filled with e-mails, text messages, chats, Web pages, and video games that he missed a crucial e-mail from a company wanting to buy his business — for 12 days. In Richtel’s word, Campbell is struggling with a “deluge of data.” More alarming than that, his family is drowning in the deluge as well.

As Richtel reports: “Even after he unplugs, he craves the stimulation he gets from his electronic gadgets. He forgets things like dinner plans, and he has trouble focusing on his family.”

“This is your brain on computers,” Richtel asserts.

Scientists are beginning to document the effects of digital exposure on the brain. They are finding that everything from phone calls (remember those?) to e-mail and text messages exacts a toll on the brain’s ability to concentrate and focus. Furthermore, they have identified a physiological reward for digital stimulation — a “dopamine squirt.” That little squirt of dopamine in the brain serves as a physiological pay-off for digital stimulation, and it can be habit-forming.

It is for Kord Campbell. This husband and father admits to being often unable to focus on his wife and children and their family life.  He goes to sleep with a laptop or similar device on his chest. When he awakens, he goes directly online, where he remains throughout the day. During family time, he often retreats into his digital world. He has left family outings to play video games and check his digital gadgets. Brenda laments, “It seems like he can no longer be fully in the moment.” When he tries to unplug, he becomes “crotchety until he gets his fix.”

And yet, rather than attempt a move out of such digital dependence, Mr. Campbell seems to be drawing his family members into the digital net. Brenda checks e-mail about 25 times a day, sends and received text messages, and is getting more involved on Facebook. Connor, age 16, is becoming so involved in the digital world that his grades are slipping. Lily, age 8, has only one hour of unstructured time each day, and she often devotes that hour to digital devices. Connor apparently has a computer with Internet access in his bedroom, along with his iPhone. When he studies, an inner voice seems to call out to him to move instead to a digital distraction.

The Campbells may be atypical in the extent of their digital entanglements, but new research indicates that they are probably not as atypical as we would hope. Richtel reports that Americans in 2008 consumed three times more daily information than in 1960. Those who use computers at work change windows or screens an average of 37 times an hour.

The change in human experience is so vast that Adam Gazzaley of the University of California, San Francisco, names it one of the most significant shifts ever experienced in the history of humanity — and one with inevitable consequences.

What about multitasking? Many people claim that exposure to digital technologies prompts the development of a new mental skill, managing multiple mental tasks. As it turns out, multitasking seems to be more of an illusion than a reality. Richtel reports that brain researcher Eyal Ophir of Stanford University has found that multitasking actually takes quite a toll on the brain’s ability to concentrate on anything. Furthermore, research also suggests that multitaskers have a very difficult time turning that mode of thinking off — a fact that goes a long way toward explaining why some people cannot handle real-life face-to-face conversations.

In an accompanying article in The New York Times, Tara Parker Pope asked a chilling but revealing question: “Has the high-speed Internet made you impatient with slow-speed children?” Does that question not arrest you on the spot?

The research indicates that people who are highly invested in digital involvements are less empathetic, less attentive, less patient, and less able to remember something as basic as a conversation.

Just imagine what all this means. While the average American is likely to express some measure of concern in light of this research, and while most families no doubt seek a life different than that described of the Campbells, Christians have to look at this picture with a very different and far deeper set of concerns.

Is that what we were created to be? Is this the purpose for when God created humanity? The Creator made us in his image, and thus to be relational beings. But this relationality is intended to be expressed first and foremost in relationships with human beings, and certainly not with machines. A biblical understanding will also press us to identify the relationships of our greatest accountability — the relationships of marriage, family, kinship, and congregation — as well as the relationships of greatest Gospel opportunity. When these relationships suffer due to digital distractions, we bear full moral responsibility.

The answer is not to throw away all the digital gadgets. The information revolution is here to stay, and it comes with great gifts as well as tremendous temptations. Christians are not called to be modern-day Luddites, smashing digital devices with sledgehammers. But we are called to be faithful stewards of digital opportunities, even as we are also called to be faithful in all our relationships. That second stewardship is surely of greater importance than the first.

This stewardship will require clear boundaries, honest self-knowledge, and autherntic accountability. Otherwise, you may well end up spending more time with your digital devices than with the people you love. Count on this . . . they will notice.

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I will be speaking today at the Ligonier Ministries 2010 pre-conference: “Bits, Bytes, Blogs & Bibles: Christian Communication in a Hypersocialized World.” You can watch the event by Webcast here. My address, “The Hypersocialized Generation,” begins at 10:25 EDT.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

Matt Richtel, “Hooked on Gadgets and Paying a Mental Price,” The New York Times, Monday, June 7, 2010.

Tara Parker Pope, “An Ugly Toll of Technology: Impatience and Forgetfulness,” The New York Times, Monday, June 7, 2010.

Tune into the 2010 Ligonier Conference LIVE Webcast

The Ligonier Ministries National Conference is being held June 17-19, 2010 in Orlando, Florida and you can watch the LIVE webcast here.

The speaker lineup is a veritable who’s who among today’s most influential preachers:  R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, Albert Mohler, Steve Lawson and several others.  The theme of the conference is “Tough Questions Christians Face.”

Thursday’s schedule includes:

3:10 pm ET  Why Did Jesus Have to Die? – John MacArthur
Many skeptics have argued that the Christian doctrine of the atonement is inherently unjust. How is it just, they say, for an innocent man like Jesus to be punished for the sins of another? Even professing evangelicals have questioned the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, with one going so far as to call it “cosmic child abuse.” In this lecture, Dr. John MacArthur looks at the biblical doctrine of the atonement showing how the righteousness and holiness of God are upheld in it.

5:10 pm ET  Is the Doctrine of Inerrancy Defensible? – Michael Horton
For centuries orthodox Christians have taught that the Holy Scriptures are inerrant.  Skeptics, on the other hand, claim that this doctrine is meaningless, saying that the doctrine of inerrancy has died the death of a thousand qualifications.  How should Christians respond?  In this lecture, Dr. Michael Horton explains what the orthodox Christian doctrine of inerrancy means and shows how and why it remains a defensible part of our confession.

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