January 22, 2024

Hello my Beloved,

It’s been a busy three weeks.  As you already know, we spent the last week of January on lock down.  I don’t think this was the planned big one we have each year.  Rumors range from knife issues to drug and alcohol issues in several dorms.  They never came and searched our dorm.  They also didn’t turn off the kiosks.  Time goes by slowly when we are on lock down.

After the lockdown, I spent the next two weeks engaging Jason.  My goal was to hopefully win him to the truth.  If I couldn’t, I wanted to either weaken his viewpoint where he stopped demanding it should be the only thing we ever talked about in Bible studies or marginalize it to the point where he was fearful to bring it up.

If you remember from my previous engagement with Jason, logic and reason were not of God, at least that’s what he believed at the beginning of our conversation.  Jason even went so far as to say that Paul was wrong to keep using logic and reason to reach people and wound up being a failure because of it.  I walked him through Matthew 11 and how Jesus used the empirical method to build a logical argument for John the Baptist’s disciples to take back to him when his faith was faltering.  This appeal seemed to move Jason to accept the use of logic and reason when interacting with ideas about God and His creation.  Remember, even God, in Isaiah 1:18 called his people to come reason together with Him.  The Hebrew word translated ‘reason’ in the passage is ‘yakah,’ it means ‘a legal discourse.’

I had hoped winning Jason over to this point would provide us with a foundation we both could appeal to, to test the truthfulness of our respective positions.  Sadly, this was not to be so.

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I had spent the time between our first and second meetings studying the verses Jason had given to me to support his position.  He starts with John 6:63 and 8:51. John 6:63 says, ‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no help at all.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.’  John 8:51 says, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.’  Jason takes the passages to mean that only the spoken words of Jesus are relevant to salvation.  He then appeals to Matthew 7:21 that says, ‘Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdon of Heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father, who is in Heaven.’  Jason argues that salvation is a process.  It starts with belief in Christ.  That belief will then motivate us to sin less and less as we obey Christ’s commands.  Salvation isn’t attained though until we reach a state of sinless perfection where the Holy Spirit comes and resides within us and we never commit another sin here on earth.

Jason bases this last part on how the King James Version of the Bible shows 1 John 3:8-9 says, ‘He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning.  For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.  Whoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.  1 John 5:18 says, ‘We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.’  According to him, not only does a true saved person never sin, it is impossible for them to sin.

I quickly looked the verses up in my ESV Bible.  In each case a form of the word ‘practice’ comes just before the word sin or sinning.  When I read the verses from my Bible, Jason got upset and told me that evil men had conspired together to change what real salvation was by producing the altered modern non-KJV Bibles many use today.

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I asked Jason why he believed that, and he got even more aggravated with me and chastised me for even asking the question.  He mumbled something about what the Greek said, so I asked him if he had read what the Greek actually said.  This time he started to attack me again for attending seminary and for relying on the words of men rather that the Holy Spirit.  Since Jason was clearly getting more and more agitated, I decided to switch tactics.  I calmly explained to Jason that there was no need to get upset.  I told him that we agreed on much more that we disagreed on.  We both loved Jesus, we both trusted what God gave to us in the Bible, and we both loved our neighbors enough to take the truths of God’s word to them.  Jason calmed down and apologized.  He said he knows he gets abrasive, but it’s only because he is so passionate about what God’s word says.  We shook hands and parted on good terms.

At our third meeting the next week, the teacher again started the class with the current lesson in the Prison Fellowship book.  The second verse he read to us was from Exodus.  Halfway through his reading Jason cut him off and said he didn’t know why he was bothering to read from the Old Testament.  We are clearly under the New Covenant and there is nothing in the Old Testament that applies to us anymore.  The teacher politely told him that the Old Testament is still important and there are many things we can learn from it.  Jason shot back that only the words of Christ are important, and he had better learn that quick.  Yikes!  Shots fired!  While I winced at the harshness of Jason’s statement, I was blown away at the teacher’s response.  Leaning forward and coming partially out of his seat, he pointed a thin finger at

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Jason and said, ‘Look boy, I don’t know what your problem is, but the last time I checked the whole Bible is God’s word and that means the whole Bible is Important!!’  What startled me is that your teacher is a volunteer from outside.  He is in his mid-80’s and frail.  He is a passive teacher and often brings up the fact that he feels inadequate to leading the class with 2 pastors and an inmate fluent in Greek.  To see him rise up and pop his claws was funny and refreshing.

Jason responded by saying that he didn’t know why our teacher was so snippy with him, but he could clearly see that for whatever reason our teacher was upset so he would just sit back and be quiet.  I decided that maybe I should intervene in an attempt to find common to focus on in the hope that the tension in the room could be brought down.  I said surely, we can all agree that even though we are all under the New Covenant, there are still moral laws we are commanded to follow in both the Old and New Testament.  Jason immediately huffed and rolled his eyes.  This was followed by yet another remark about me being taught by men in seminary instead of the Holy Spirit.  He then pointed to Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:8-13 and said that we don’t need to look at either the Old or New Testaments to determine right and wrong.  God had written his moral law on our hearts.  I told Jason that I had a slightly different understanding of that those verses meant.  I did have a question about his understanding, though.  He told me to go ahead and ask my question.  I said that I come from a very liberal denomination.  Within that denomination I have had people tell me God told them they were women trapped in a man’s body, that homosexual sex was ok, and that it was ok for a man to leave his wife to marry his young secretary.  I assume that you (Jason) would say that all of these

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are immoral positions.  Jason nodded yes.  I then said, since both of you are getting your messages from God through your hearts, how do I know which one of you is telling the truth, since I cannot look to the Bible for moral guidance?  Jason looked at me incredulously and just kept repeating, ‘Come on David.  Come on.’  He then refused to answer my question.  I told Jason that 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, ‘All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.’  That would include the Old Testament and the moral codes in the Bible.

Jason switched tactics and began to bash me for not understanding how to be saved and ignoring the commands of Christ.  He then said I called Jesus a liar.  At this point things were getting weird.  I couldn’t understand why he kept getting more and more upset.  I asked him when did I call Jesus a liar.  He ignored my question and accused me of not knowing Greek as it pertained to 1 John 3:8-9.  Thankfully, I had used the past week to investigate Jason’s previous claims on this point.  I pulled out my Greek-English Interlinear New Testament and turned to the passage.  I asked Jason if he read Greek.  He huffed and looked away from me.  I turned the Interlinear to Jason and pointed to the passage.  I said look at the Greek verb ‘poeeo,’ it’s written to indicate a current, ongoing state of being.  That’s why modern translations use the word ‘practice of sinning’ rather than ‘sin.’  I said furthermore, verse 7 of the passage uses the exact same Greek verb when it talks about, ‘Whoever practices righteousness is righteous.’  I asked Jason that if he believed the Greek verb in 8 and 9 was meant to describe a singular act and that single act of sin made us of the Devil,

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then does the single righteous act in verse 7 then make us righteous?  Afterall it is the same verb structure.

Jason turned blood red and started yelling at me.  He said I was demon possessed and he was tired of me persecuting him.  I calmly asked Jason how I was persecuting him.  He snapped back that my questions were persecuting him.  I asked him how my questions were persecuting him.  He yelled at me again and said I shouldn’t ask questions.  I then asked him if he had asked me questions over the last few weeks.  He said, yes, quite a few.  I then asked, how is it ok for you to ask me questions, but when I ask you questions, it’s persecution?

Jason yelled at me again and jumped up.  He said he was done with us and done with the Bible study; he will not be attending another one.  Wow!  Our teacher said in a stunned voice, ‘What just happened?’  I just sat in silence for a moment while Kenny attempted to explain to him Jason’s frustration and anger at not being able to steamroll the class with his bazaar theology.  I asked both men if I has said anything wrong or acted in any way uncharitable to Jason.  Both said absolutely not.  They both said not only did I act charitable, but I responded in kindness when Jason personally attacked me.  I still felt bad.  I really wanted to win Jason over.  Please keep him in your prayers.  Keep his student Eric in your prayer as well.  We gave Eric an Apologetic Study Bible recently and he is a new Christian.  He proudly told me that Jason told him he could keep the Bible.  When Jason stormed out, he dragged Eric behind him like a whipped puppy.  I at least hope I can reach Eric at a later date.

There seems to be no end to the types of people God has called me to engage in here, my Beloved.  Please continue to pray

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that I will have wisdom in my engagements.  Even more importantly continue to pray that I will engage those around me because of my love for them and my love for God.

I love you so much my Beloved!  Thank you for your continued encouragement and your own engagements with the guys.  I love to hear about your own stories.  Tell the other guys that engage with us that I am proud of them, I love them, and I continue to pray for them.

Love,

Me

GELPOY!

ILYSOOOM!

LAAF!

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January 15, 2024

Hello my Beloved,

It’s been an interesting week.  Carpentry class has been light on building things and heavy on renovation.  This involved the demolition of one of the 12’ x 24’ houses that sit on a 2’ block foundation.  The one we demolished only had 2 exterior walls, so it didn’t take long.  We also had to lift and move around 15 28’ trusses to the foundation of the house we just demolished.  My knees are screaming at me for putting them through that much abuse.

I continue to work with MJ on apologetics, theology, and philosophy.  He is getting good at Tactics.  We spent a lot of time this week looking at the arguments for and against the Young Earth and Old Earth positions.  MJ is a Young Earther like I am.  I wanted to instill in him a respect for the various Old Earth Positions.  It’s always good to know the arguments for and against any major position that you hold.  This will do several things for you.  First, it will make you a lifelong learner.  A dear friend once told me that learning is a change in behavior due to new information.  This means that I must ne open to listening to opposing points of view.  Furthermore, I must be willing to change my position if I find a more reasonable one.

Second, it helps to give you some insight into other people’s views so that when you engage them, you can more easily go to the core of their arguments.  MJ started the evening by ridiculing the Old Earth position.  By the end of our session, he respected their position while maintaining his Young Earth Position.

I went to the Thursday Prison Fellowship Bible study.  Jason was there.  I finally got a chance to engage him on his ‘interesting’ theological positions.  It was a ‘fun’ engagement.

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Let’s see, where do I begin?  I have been hearing about Jason for a while now.  Many Christians have been engaged by him.  They said he was very forceful and very knowledgeable.  I had been in 2 Bible studies with Jason so far and in both of them he tried to take over the study to teach what he kept referring to as the ‘Laws of Christ.’  He said he was the only one that knew them, and 2000 years of Christianity had gotten them massively wrong.  He also strongly insinuated at each study that any other topic we covered was nowhere near as important as what he had discovered.

At Thursday’s Bible study, Warden Beale started his lesson with Proverbs 4:26-27 which says, “Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.  Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”  It’s a great passage.  I pointed out that the word ‘ponder’ means to reflect over something or to consider it deeply.  I said that the chapter tells us how to ‘ponder’ in the preceding verses.  To ponder something, to think or consider it deeply, requires wisdom.  That’s why verses 5-13 implores the reader to get wisdom.  It then lists many of the benefits of a life guided my wisdom.  Verse 7 says that the beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom.

Since we are commanded to get wisdom, I asked the class if they knew what wisdom was.  If you don’t know what wisdom is then how do you know if you have it?  I explained that wisdom comes in two forms; one is a type of knowledge, the other is a skill.  Wisdom in knowledge form can be seen in any true ‘how to’ book.  Proverbs is a book of wisdom.  It gives ‘how to’ instruction on life.

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Wisdom as a skill involves the ability to discern the inner qualities and relationships of something.  This requires the use of logic and reason.  At the sound of those two words, Jason rolled his eyes.  He immediately told me that neither logic nor reason were of God.  We shouldn’t use them as Christians.  I pointed to Acts 17:2-3 which said, ‘And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on 3 Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.” ‘

I said reason was good enough for Paul to use, so it’s good enough for me.  Jason then told me that Paul was a failure for using reason, just look at his results, only some believed.  At this point I began to wonder if he even knew what reason was.  So, I asked Jason if he knew what the term ‘reason’ meant.  He said yes and none of us should ever use reason because it goes against God.  I asked him if he had reasons to back up his statement.  He said yes.  I purposely said, ‘So, tell me what reasoning lead you to your conclusion?’  Jason got about a sentence and a half into his ‘reasoning’ and started to yell and me and call me names.  He said I was arrogant, not of God, didn’t know the Bible, and I thought I was smarter than everyone else because I had been to seminary.  He then went on to angrily explain that my main problem was that I had allowed myself to be taught by men and not by the Holy Spirit.  I should never allow a man to teach me.  I should be like him and only be taught by the Holy Spirit!

I resisted the urge I had to point out that Jason was a man, and he was teaching me.  Should I reject his teaching since he was a man?  (I was almost afraid that he might claim to be the Holy Spirit since he was so bent on teaching everyone.)  Instead, I told him that I apologized if I came across as arrogant in anyway.

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I am so glad I have made a habit of reading a chapter of Proverbs a day.  They help me immensely in conversations like this.  For instance, Proverbs 12:16 says that the vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult.  Likewise, Proverbs 15:1 says that a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

After my apology, I told Jason that I just wanted to be more like Jesus.  In Matthew 11:2-6, we see John the Baptist doubting if Jesus is really the Messiah, so he sends his disciples to ask Jesus if that is who He really is or should they wait for another.  Jesus doesn’t tell John to just believe, just to have faith, or ask the Holy Spirit.  He tells John’s disciples to go back and tell John what they see and hear, the blind receive sight (Isaiah 29:18), the lame walk (Isaiah 35:6), lepers are cured (Isaiah 53:4), the deaf hear (Isaiah 35:5), the dead are raised (Isaiah 26:18-19), and the good news is preached to the poor (Isaiah 61:10).

In His response to John, Jesus first appealed to the empirical method.  He asked John’s disciples to notice what they had experienced using their senses, particularly sight and hearing.  He specifically pointed to these events because Jesus knew that John knew the prophesies in Isaiah of what types of miracles the Messiah would do when He came.  In doing so, Jesus appealed to reason.  He used a form of valid, logical argumentation called Affirming the Antecedent.  It looks like this;

If p then m.

p.

Therefore m

‘p’ stands for the Messianic prophesies being fulfilled by a person.  ‘m’ stands for Messiah.  In plain language the argument looks like this;

If a person fulfills the Messianic prophesies, then that person is the Messiah.

The Messianic prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus.

Therefore, Jesus is the Messiah.

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At this point Jason said, ‘Oh, I didn’t know what reason was.  I agree then that we should use both reason and the empirical method.’  Building on the good will I had just gained, I thanked Jason for his passion for God and His word.  I told him I was really interested in what he believed.  I told him it would be bad of me to assume he believed something he actually didn’t believe and then I attacked that position (just as he did.)

Jason agreed and went on to explain to me his views.  I even got him to write them down for me so I wouldn’t mix them up or forget them.  He believes the Bible is inerrant.  He does not believe you can lose or walk away from your salvation.  He also believes he is a Christian, but he is not saved.  You can only be saved when you reach a state of sinless perfection in this life.  That way when you die you can go to heaven.  :0 You have to be sinless so the Holy Spirit can dwell within you.  Jason shared with us that he had been the pastor of 2 different Pentecostal churches on the outside and started his own ministry there as well.

I thanked Jason for sharing his point of view.  I told him I looked forward to going back to the dorm and looking up the verses he wrote down for me and studying.  He again reiterated that we were wasting our time studying anything else because his views were foundational to all Christianity.  I suggested that next Thursday we allow him to make his case, since it was so important to him.

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Pray that next Thursday I am able to win Jason to the truth.  If I can’t do that, I want to cast so much doubt on his position that he stops pushing it so hard.

I love you so very much my Beloved.  Thank you again for all that you do.  As I have said many times, I wish you could see on a face-to-face level the impact you and the others are having on many of the inmates in here.  Love you!!!

Love,

Me

SCRAP!

GELPOY!

ILYSOOOOM!

LAAF!

January 8, 2024

Hello my Beloved,

It feels so good to finally be caught up on my letters.  I hope never to get that far behind again.  This week has been good.  In Carpentry, we worked on redesigning the layout of Thorne’s office and the shop.  He liked most of my ideas.  After tearing his office apart and rebuilding it according to our new design, he has a lot more room and things are much more organized.  Years of loading trailers at UPS has taught me a thing or two about how to put a lot of things in small places.

We also did the same thing to our shop.  I disassembled several things that we no longer used, reworked some others to make them more usable, and opened up a lot more room for students to work on projects.  Thorne handed out brand new PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for everyone.  I now have my own monogramed hard hat, goggles, and work belt.  I look forward to the tear down and rebuild of the two small houses in the shop next week.

In the Prison Fellowship Bible studies this week, I finally got to engage Jason.  I have had multiple people come over the past few months to try to set up a debate between Jason and I because of his forcefulness and unorthodox ideas.  Until this week I had never met him.  He is indeed a strange unit.  So far, he has told me that he is a Christian, but he is not saved.  Jason says that a person is not saved until they reach a point where they no longer sin.  He also told me that we should only follow the commands of Christ.  I’m not sure what he means by that.  He claims he has pastored two different churches, started his own ministry, but only became a Christian a few years ago.  He also claims to have discovered the ‘secret’ to salvation and it’s not the ‘Roman’s road.’  To understand these secret things, you have to know how to properly interpret the Bible.

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The funny thing is, he is the only one in 2000 years that has figured it out.  He says he keeps trying to teach people these secrets, but no one seems to understand.  Hmmm.  Please pray that I will be patient with Jason and that I will have wisdom in my future engagements with him.

I watched a show on prepping this week.  I was rather disappointed in the individual they featured.  His prepping plan involved only himself.  He had very little in the way of reproducibility.  His skill set was limited, and he was going to rely on his house cats to help him hunt.

I have always found the idea of prepping to be a fascinating concept.  It appealed to me for several reasons.  First, I have watched multiple generations of my family, including my father and grandfather, live as self-sufficiently as possible.  Second, it just seems natural that if I am going to love my neighbors, as Mark 12:31 commands all Christians to do, then I should equip myself to meet my family’s needs first, and then help as many as I can beyond that.

Prepping just means preparing to live safely through and emergency situation.  It could be something as short as a tornado and a safe room to retreat to, or a year’s long scenario like the electric grid being destroyed or some form of catastrophic financial collapse.  The first step in prepping is to decide what you want to prep for.  Prepping to live safely for two weeks without electricity because of a hurricane is far different than prepping for the collapse of the electrical grid because of a Coronal Mass Ejection.

Regardless of what a person decides to prep for, prepping should always start with like-minded friends.  Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 talks about the importance of having friends.  Not only does a community of friends provide for a greater accumulation of skills and resources, it provides for a larger workforce to draw from for the many jobs that may need to be done.

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The jobs, skills needed, and resources needed tend to fall into several categories: security, food/water, shelter, medical, communication, transportation, government, and outside communities.

Most preppers place a heavy emphasis on security.  They do this by buying large quantities of firearms and ammunition.  While these thigs are helpful, security also involves repair and usage training for all firearms.  Like any tool, a weapon is only as good as its training allows it to be.  This includes the safe handling of the weapon.  Security can also involve working as a team, intel gathering (personal and electronic), perimeter establishment, and plans to evacuate if necessary.

While security is important, so are the many other areas.  You can only live a few days without water and a few weeks without food.  There are two aspects when considering food and water preps, stored supply, and renewable supply.  Stored supplies of food can include off the shelf canned goods, pasta, beans and rice, as well as freeze dried, dehydrated, smoked, cured, or salted foods.

At least 6 months of stored food is optimal.  This allows time to shift to renewable supplies like chickens, rabbits, goats, and other animals and fish as well as the planting and harvesting of heirloom seeds for fruits and vegetables.  While water can be stored in a variety of ways, it should be done with a small supply of iodine and or chlorine to make sure it stays safe.  While water filters like the Life Straw allows you to draw water from any source safely, they are only good for a 1,000 or so gallons before they should be replaced, a shallow manual well will provide a near infinite safe supply, a deep well is even better.

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Along with food and water, the skills to maintain, cultivate, and prepare what you have is also important.  That includes knowing how to ration your supplies.

Of course, shelter is always important.  That includes not only a sturdy structure and a way to heat and cool it, it also includes the tools, skills, and materials to repair and build onto it, especially materials like nails, rope, screws, lumber, and metal.  Clothing is also a type of shelter.  Sturdy outfits designed for different seasons and weathers are a must.  Skills like sewing and tanning can turn scrap cloth and animal pelts into nice clothing.

Sanitation and hygiene are also important.  Providing for a way to stay clean and a way to remove waste from living quarters is essential to keep disease and poisoning to a minimum.

Having a way to light the inside of a shelter safely greatly increases it’s use during bad weather or darkness.  Oil lamps and candles work well if you have the skill and material to continually procure wicks and fuel.  Another option would be solar lighting.  A solar generator is a huge bonus because it never runs out of fuel and can power small electronics and appliances all the way up to whole houses depending on the size of the generator.

One final thing when considering shelter, make it a place where you can continue to grow as a person.  Intellectually, continue to educate yourself on a variety of topics.  Not only are there good books on every aspect of prepping out there, but there are also many free electronic books, audio, and videos that can be downloaded to a cheap tablet.  Emotionally, we need recreation or some form of entertainment.  Music, are, games, media, or some forms of competitions are great for keeping stress levels to a minimum.

The medical aspect of prepping is always the most difficult.  Primarily because both the materials and the skills needed to be successful in the area require special outlets and training facilities to acquire them.  Granted, simple IFAK’s (Individual First Aid Kits) can be ordered through Amazon, but the tools and materials needed to permanently close a wound, fight infection, or treat a severe burn requires a professional.

The ability to communicate is also essential to prepping.  Though there are many ways to communicate without using electricity, radio communications is the simplest and usually the most effective way to communicate with others.  This will require some way to recharge whatever radios are used, though.  Small UHF/VHF radios have a range of at least several miles.  Granted, to use them in nonemergency situations, you need a license.  A HF radio can send and receive over very long distances and are useful in acquiring news from the surrounding area as well as from far away.

The ability to travel can be tricky to prep for.  If there is an EMP, there is a lot of disagreement on which vehicles will be affected and how badly they will be affected.  Generally, pre-1980 vehicles are said to be the least damaged by an EMP.  If there is a weather-related disaster, roads may be impassable.  During an economic collapse, there may not be enough fuel or the price of it may make it impossible to afford.  Different types of vehicles have different pros and cons.  An older vehicle is easier to work on and repair.  An electric vehicle can be charged through solar if the charger is large enough.  Of course, horses work well over many types of terrain.  Human powered transportation like bikes and canoes are also great options.  I think the most important aspect of prepping is government.  Not national, state, or county governments, but the structure and process that you and your friends put together that will make the short- and long-term decisions for your group.  Regardless of the form of government you use, a constitution should be drawn up and ratified by everyone in your group.

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I would caution anyone that wanted to step away from the principles that guided the creation of our own constitution and country.

The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”  It goes on to list some of those rights and then says that government’s job is to protect those God-given rights.  This mirrors what Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17 says about God’s purpose for government, to promote good and to punish evil.  Therefore, if God is real and the Bible is true, all governments and their laws and principles, should in some way reflect God’s moral law, otherwise known as Natural Law.

How would I apply this to a community in a long-term prepping situation?  First, I would define my community.  That would usually involve those families that lived around me, that were committed to working together with us for the common good of our community.  Each family that owned land in the community would choose one member to serve on a governing counsel.  The governing council would be the decision-making body for the community.  They would not have the authority to vote to take someone’s assets or force them to do a particular job if they didn’t want to.  They would vote on how to use materials and skills that were donated for the use of everyone as a whole.  All laws promoting or preventing any sort of action would have to be grounded in God’s moral law.  This is of grave importance because almost all of the problems we suffer in our country today can be traced back to some form of moral relativism.

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Relativism is a particular philosophical position on the usage of the word ‘truth.’  Another way to frame up the way a relativist see’s truth versus the way an absolutist sees truth is to say truth is subjective versus objective.  A relativist sees truth as something that is entirely internal.  Truth comes from within, not without.  It’s the subject (you) that determines the truth of an object.  Therefore, everyone has their own truth and no one’s truth is better than anyone else’s.

The correct way to understand truth is to understand it as existing apart from your perceptions.  Meaning that truth is that which corresponds to the reality of an object, not in the perception of it.  For example, I may perceive that a sliding glass door is open and attempt to walk through it.  Instead of freely traveling through the opening, I walk into the spotless glass of the closed door. The truth of the door being open or closed did not rest in my perception of it, it rested in the reality of the door actually being open or closed.  In this case, my perception and my belief were wrong about the door.  Because I acted on that belief, I was painfully hindered from moving forward.

Now, take this concept and apply it to morality.  Are sin and virtue subjective or objective?  I would argue that God is real, and He has flawlessly communicated to us through the Bible.  My conclusion is based on a thorough examination of the arguments and evidence, both for and against my conclusion.  Therefore, when the Bible says in Mark 10:18 that no one is good except God alone, we must conclude that good/virtue can only come from God.  This means that anything that we call good that doesn’t reflect God’s nature or will is not truly good.

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Since God designed His creation to live according to His will, which is good, to live against His will is to suppress the truth and to invite His wrath (Romans 1:18.)  If I live a life that contradicts what God says is sinful, it doesn’t matter what I sincerely believe, I am going to suffer His wrath.

The majority of people in America today believe that right and wrong is subjective and live accordingly.  That’s why moral positions in our country are always in flux.  They are rooted in relativistic things like feelings and pragmatism.  Therefore, right and wrong changes as quickly as a person’s feelings or desires do.  Furthermore, there is no way to discern whose feelings or desires are good and whose are bad.  That’s why our society is so divided.

Until we return to a society governed by God’s Moral Law, we will always be a society doomed to fail, nationally or in a prepping neighborhood.  That’s why my communities Constitution would always be grounded in God’s Moral Law.

I love you very much my Beloved.  Thank you for working with me to keep God’s Moral Law at the center of our family and friends.

Love,

Me!

SCRAP!

GELPOY!

LAAF!

ILYSOOOM!

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