What Ever Happened to the 4th (or 5th) Commandment?

I was brought up a Catholic, and was taught from my earliest school years that the commandment to “honor thy father and thy mother” was Number Four in the Decalogue (the theological name for the “Ten Commandments” in Exodus 20). As my spiritual journey brought me into a living, saving relationship with Jesus Christ, I left the Catholic Church (with no animosity, I want to add) to seek a purer, more Scriptural approach to this relationship, At present, my husband and I worship and participate in Bible study with a Southern Baptist congregation.

I say this because, long ago, Protestant exegetes and Bible translators assigned a different numbering system to the Decalogue, resulting in this present-day “problem”: Is the commandment concerning honoring one’s father and mother the fourth or the fifth commandment? Well – guess what! – I’m not going to get involved in that discussion (I was never really good at numbers, either then or now).

So what do I want to say? It is this: the Bruce / Caitlyn Jenner and the Rachel Dozeal / Dolezal (I have found both last names on the internet, to my astonishment) storms are fundamentally issues involving disobedience to God and His clear Word. But there is more beyond the face-painting of “gender reassignment” and racial “identification”: in both instances, these “instant celebrities” have publicly dishonored their fathers and their mothers. How, you say? I respond: Isn’t it obvious?

When Bruce / Caitlyn was born, his parents rejoiced over a son “born of [our] flesh.” When a baby emerges from the womb, one of the first things the doctor or midwife tells the mother (and father) is the sex of the child. This fact is clear and uncomplicated: if the child has certain genitalia, it is a boy; if it has another set, it is a girl. The mother can verify the attending physician’s pronouncement instantly; she does not have to go through any long process of “discovery.” And, aided and encouraged by the child’s parents and other people involved in the community surrounding that child, the child is affirmed with respect to his / her physical characteristics: the child is such-and-such a height; the child is such-and-such a weight; the child is a boy (in Bruce’s case). (Yes, I know I am ignoring the mental / spiritual side of Bruce’s argument for the moment, because it is not quantifiable. Only these sorts of facts are.) May I remind my readers that these physical characteristics contributed heavily to Bruce’s sports accomplishments in high school, college, and the 1972 and 1976 Olympics?

I wish to offer a sidebar at this point. If one is to take Bruce / Caitlyn’s “gender reassignment” seriously, isn’t he ethically required to return his Olympic medals? He competed as a male; he won as a male. He didn’t win any of the female competitions, because he wasn’t qualified. If he now asserts (rightly or wrongly is irrelevant) that he has always self-identified as a female, then he competed unfairly, even in 1972 and 1976. The Olympics Games Committee – whatever other faults we may accuse it of – is pretty strict on rules, and to my knowledge, there is no rule allowing for “plasticity of gender.”

And while we are tackling that issue, please let’s consider the fact that his biological children (presumably) have birth certificates listing him as the father. Is the plasticity evident in all this media hype surrounding Jenner’s assertion not supposed to affect the “products of conception” that his wives brought forth? Are the children (yes, I know they are grown – but they are still his offspring) now supposed to call Jenner “mother”? Are any grandchildren now supposed to call Jenner “Ga-maw” or “Na-Na” or “Granny”? You may not want to go there, but it’s an issue – provoked exclusively by Jenner – nevertheless.

And now back to my original point: In taking the (very public) steps that he has taken, Jenner has brought public shame on his parents. “They lied when they called me a boy,” he is, in effect, saying. “They conspired to make me into something I wasn’t.” Now, his parents are obviously innocent of these charges. So is Jenner following this Fourth / Fifth Commandment? I cannot – even using creative imagination – say “yes” to that question.

Let’s move on to Rachel Dozeal / Dolezal. Apparently, not only has her racial identity somehow mysteriously shifted (contrary to all known laws of genetics and biology), but her birth certificate “neither proves nor disproves” (her words) that her parents are her parents (as she said in an interview with Matt Lauer on June 16, 2015)! (Funny, I thought things like birth certificates were necessary things in courts of law and suchlike because they could prove those very things!) Is there something unique to R.D.’s existence that precludes a biological association with the people who conceived her, cared for her, supported her, and (until this nonsense) were actually identified as her parents?

Apparently, R.D. thinks there is, and this “uniqueness” resides – sadly – in her own mind as pure re-invention. She acts as though she is completely justified in denying her parents (and all the other details of this bizarre event) because…well, because she has convinced herself that it is true (all other factual evidence to the contrary). Ah, but there’s just a slight problem in that situation: Scripture records that, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV). Here the Old Testament prophet does not provide an “exception” clause; all people are deceived at one time or another by their mental machinations. It is the very nature of sin. That’s why God gave us commandments to be truthful and peaceful…and honorable towards our parents.

One cannot adequately judge by television appearances; therefore, one cannot pronounce whether Rachel’s parents were good, bad, or indifferent via that medium. However, that does not figure into the Fourth / Fifth Commandment at all. God did not enunciate “Honor thy father and thy mother” with an added stipulation that the parents be good, wholesome, and conform to the latest Sinai / Negev Desert regional regulations related to child-care practices. Instead of a stipulation – as Paul the Apostle pointed out – God added a promise – yes, a promise directed to the child, not to either parent – “that [life] may go well with you…” (Deuteronomy 5:16, Ephesians 6:3). God wants us to honor our parents. Deserving or undeserving. Period. No asterisk.

Jesus Christ chided the Pharisees for their practice of “corban” – cutting off aid to aging parents by declaring such aid had been “dedicated to God” and therefore not available to mere mortals (Matthew 15: 4 – 6, Mark 7: 10 – 13). Furthermore, He made dramatic (and public) provision for His own mother as He hung dying on the cross (John 19: 26 – 27). These are not the words or deeds of an ascetic, imperious self-identifier; they are the words of pure love. Is R.D. trying, through her NAACP work, to emulate the founder of Christianity (with whom the NAACP used to be proud of associating themselves – check out Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”)? If so, she should be paying more attention to His words.

If Jenner and R.D. are guilty of breaking the command to honor their parents, what should we do? Well, the first thing would be to not celebrate them! They cannot dishonor their parents and somehow be honorable people. Forget those haloes that the media have put around them; their actions are plain, and they have acted against   God’s law to be honest and truthful. Condemn the sin and pray for the perpetrators.

And then let’s all work on following the Ten Commandments and the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Mizz Liz

Noah and the Eco-Flood

My husband and I were exploring NetFlix the other evening, and we made a serious mistake: We decided – since it was “free” – to watch the epic non-epic Noah. We were not deterred by the fact that it was rated only 1.5 stars out of 5. We were not deterred by the warnings from friends that there were un-biblical elements in it. We were not even deterred by a former-gladiator-turned-biblical-prophet leading man. What could be so bad?

We soon found out. 

First it is the Lava Landscape, complete with – well, nothing. No trees, no vegetation. Just “industrial waste” everywhere (which is explained by a Star-Wars-type introduction). Hmmm…industrial waste? Sounds like the epic got planted in the wrong century.

Then there are the raindrops (precious few, I might add) which produce pretty little daisies everywhere they drop. Besides the obvious absence of seeds and fertile ground (some of this volcanic / industrial ash was still smoking), I spent about half the pre-Flood episode wondering what these solitary flowers symbolized.

Speaking of vegetation: Being a mother and grandmother, I casually wondered what on earth (pardon the expression) Noah’s family ate. No meat (more on this later). No veggie plots; everything was volcanic ash. No trees bearing nuts (did they have nut allergies back then?). No goats. No milk or cheese. Sounds like they had to rely pretty much on the film crew’s chuck wagon.

Next, the audience is introduced to Magical Methuselah. This nearly thousand-year-old crotchety cave-dweller doesn’t want to have much to do with his offspring, let alone his offspring’s offspring, but he is big on Magic. Oh, and he gives Noah some hints about understanding the Creator. (Good ole Anthony Hopkins can pull off just about any role, even a ridiculous one like this!)

Next, the movie introduces us to the Rock Thingies. These Rock Thingies are Bad Spirits – oops…I mean… Unfortunate Beings of Light who had fallen into some lava-stuff and are sort of encrusted and “imprisoned” in this muck. And all of these Beings – who have been somewhat “naughty” in Heaven (hence the fall to earth and the volcanic clothing) – were really, really penitent, and just longed to show the Creator (the euphemism for God) how sorry they are.

So they pick up their hammers and uproot about a gazillion trees…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In fact, the movie – from start to where we turned it off – is nothing but silly science fiction. But that’s not the worst of the whole concept:

The Creator – get ready for it – is angry because – hold on to your seat – the Bad Guys have been eating meat. Yep, humans are angry, murdering, bloodsuckers who have turned the earth into an industrial ash heap, with all sorts of other Bad Stuff going on in their cities (by the way, Noah and his wife and kids live in a tent on the top of a volcanic ash heap – all alone). But their Chief Sin is…well, eating a three-course meal with meat on their plates!

Now, in this Flood According to Hollywood, Noah has been keeping his distance from these Bad Guys, but he’s really quite fond of the Rock Thingies – especially when they build a super-duper ark in no time. God doesn’t really have to get that involved in this version; the Rock Thingies know what, where, and how to build this thing. (They get rewarded for their boatbuilding skills by being freed from their rock garments and accepted back into heaven.) Oh, and what’s more, the Chief Bad Guy manages to steal aboard the Ark just as every other Bad Guy drowns, eats a piece of fresh meat (he has obviously killed one of the animals aboard the Ark – yuck!) and tempts Noah’s youngest son (an impressionable teenager) to get up to even more mischief.

Sorry, but that’s where we turned the movie off. No sense in wasting electricity on it.

I went back to my Bible, where God’s quarrel with mankind makes much more sense: Mankind sinned all over the place. God wanted to cleanse the wickedness. He spoke to Noah, who built the Ark himself. No Magic Daisies. No Rock Thingies. No Lava Landscape. No Hollywood political correctness. In the Bible, God is the center of the story – His plan, His rules, His timetable. And His outcome.

Oh, and one more little detail: If the God of the Bible was truly outraged over mankind’s meat-eating habits, why did He give permission to Noah and his sons to eat meat after the Flood was over? You might want to check out this Biblical development in Genesis 9:2 – 3. 

I’ll stick to the original script, thank you.

Some Baltimoreans failed to educate themselves, not the other way around.

I have heard or read a lot of commentary lately about how “education has failed Baltimore,” as if that somehow explains the recent lawlessness in the city. I beg to differ from those who make that statement. Education did not fail Baltimore; some Baltimoreans failed to educate themselves.

Please allow me to make a point from the Bible. Many people of Baltimore – especially those brought up within the church culture (and we know at least some of the looters and destroyers were) know the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt after God had liberated them from slavery. It is an inspiring story, detailed in the chapters of Exodus.

However, fewer people pay attention to the equally-important details surrounding the liberation of these former slaves. Now please concentrate on the phrase I just said: former slaves. Although we can admire Israeli ingenuity today, with its life-enhancing technology made available throughout the world, we also can state that their ancestors did not emerge from Egypt a literate, culturally-advanced culture. Yes, they could make things – we know that the Tent of Meeting was an exquisite example of this – but this is in keeping with a people who had been forced to construct much of Egyptian infrastructure. Basically, though, when they emerged from captivity, they were not on the “World’s Most Desirable Culture” list.

Patience! We’ll soon come to my point.

These people knew something about the God they worshipped, but apart from that, they were as “ignorant” about Him as the Baltimorean thugs seem to be. They did not leave Egypt with “education”; what they left Egypt with was a man: Moses. Period. The defeater of Pharaoh – but it took 10 tries! The “articulate” prophet of Jehovah – except that Aaron had to substitute as his spokesman almost immediately!

Now, some Bible scholars insist that Moses probably represented the epitome of Egyptian culture. After all, he had been the adopted son of an Egyptian princess. He had to have had every advantage; why, he probably wrote the entire Mosaic Law as a young slip-of-a-thing… Oh, that’s right: He had to flee Egypt for having a murderous temper (seems even his prince-hood couldn’t save him from his family’s law!).

Anyway, forty years later (way beyond any benefit from that supposed “Egyptian education”), Moses the marginalized sheep-tender (do you have any idea of how stinky sheep can be?), the outcast of Egyptian society (remember, the Egyptians were the Head Honchos of that era!), the fearful felon (one never knew when the Strong Arm of the Law would reach out to the ghetto of Midian) – that very same man led 600,000 men (plus women and children) beyond the boundaries of Egypt. They went quietly and peacefully, with no riots, no stealing, and no destruction whatsoever. Egypt retained all of its pristine glory (except that God had conclusively demonstrated to one and all that Pharaoh was not His son!) – every brick, every pyramid, every temple was perfectly intact. Yes, and the former slaves asked (in other words, requested politely!) “the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing” (Exodus 12:35).

Note: the word translated “plunder” in verse 36 of Exodus chapter 12 does not mean what it does in Baltimore; no windows were smashed, no pharmacies set on fire. In fact, most Egyptians were “favorably disposed” to compensating their former slaves, because they had seen God’s displeasure with their own wickedness in subjugating them.

No one who left Egypt on Moses’ Wilderness Trek had ever attended high school, nor could any one of those Hebrews tell a textbook from a hand trowel. (The written Bible that we have today hadn’t even been started by their leader.) They had simply been told – like sheep – to follow the One God – by the one man, Moses. No teachers, no computers, no school supplies, no bells, no buildings, no principals. No “education.”

And also note this: No stones were thrown. No produce carts (the delivery vans of that day) were looted.  No horses and chariots (think “police cars”) were burned. No Egyptians were attacked. No pyramids were destroyed (after all, they were the ultimate “symbols of oppression” in those days!). Moses did not urge his people to assassinate / jail / shame / retaliate against anyone of the Egyptian hierarchy. (He left that to God.) You see, the Hebrews’ education came from walking and listening and talking and worshipping and depending on the God who led them. They only had to hear “Thou shalt not steal” once, and they were instantly responsible from then on not to steal.

Before I close, I would like to ask this question: How did a ragtag cluster of frightened, complaining, disenfranchised, marginalized former slaves transform themselves into the fighting force that ushered them into the Promised Land 40 years later? Did they organize elementary schools, middle school, and high schools – even colleges and universities? Did they demand “equality” from the Amorites, the Jebusites, and all the more powerful forces of the Middle East of their day? Did they print books on religion and politics? Did they form societies and community action groups?

Or did they educate themselves – in the right way and with the right leader and with the right God?

Now, this must be said about the rioters and looters who have been “educated” – however marginally – who do the opposite of what the Hebrews did so long ago:

They are listening to the wrong Moses.

They are following the wrong “freedom path.”

And they are certainly following the wrong god(s).

And I say again: education has not failed them. The education has been there all along, in forms far beyond what the ancient Hebrews of the Bible had access to. Some Baltimoreans have simply failed to educate themselves.