Having looked into the tearful eyes of parents whose children have abandoned the Faith, I have learned there are a million miles between our children “going through the motions” in reference to their spiritual lives versus our children possessing hearts that dictate their actions. In this column, I plan to share with you what I hope to instill in the hearts of my own children and those whom I love.

It used to be uncommon and unspoken. However, today divorce has reached epidemic proportions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the ratio of marriages to divorces is 2 to 1. While a husband and wife may vow to love one another in sickness and in health, for richer and poorer, and for better and worse, the reality is that many individuals only stick around during times of wealth, health, and happiness. Many people can remember years ago, when parents in America would often have many children. Today children oftentimes have many parents. Sadly, the concept of commitment has been lost in our “disposable” and “instant gratification” world. There is no doubt that the tentacles of divorce reach deeply inside most—if not all—church families. And those tentacles have caused many problems throughout the body of Christ. While we don’t talk about it much for fear we may offend some, this topic desperately needs to be addressed in order to stem the epidemic.

Here’s what I intend on teaching my children about divorce.

A good marriage is one of the richest blessings you will ever know. It is an institution that was formed by God (Genesis 2:22-24). While we pray that you are able to experience it one day, we want each one of you to realize that you do not have to be married or be a parent to serve God faithfully. Consider for a moment all of the Biblical examples of faithful individuals who were single or barren/childless (e.g., Paul, Dorcas, King David’s wife Michal).

Believe it or not, your mother and I have been praying for you and your future spouses (and even their parents!) since before you were born. This topic is so crucial that we believe the time to start teaching you the importance of marriage and relationships is not when you are a teenager, but rather from your toddler years on up. Aside from your decision to be a Christian and your relationship with God, there is nothing more important on this planet. This special person will either  help or hinder your journey to Heaven. Our prayer is that your mate will be a strong Christian who can help you in your spiritual journey. We hope that as you grow and mature you will select someone with which to spend your life who has similar values and priorities..

Make no mistake about it, good marriages take a great deal of work. You won’t receive a “how-to” book along with your marriage certificate. This is one reason it is so important to keep your marriage God-centered. The relationship you see daily between your mom and me did not happen overnight. We have been together through good years and bad. We have had to learn how to communicate effectively with one another, how to fight fair, how to compromise, and how to let our words be reflected in our actions. With each happy memory and each trial, our relationship has deepened and grown. However, even after being married as long as we have, we still have to invest time and energy into our marriage. That is why we try to regularly have “date night” without any children present—to reconnect, rekindle, and grow our own relationship.

Your mother and I have a rule that divorce “is not even an option.” We made this pledge to one another very early in our marriage, and it has been comforting during times of trial. The Bible is clear that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). Never forget that God joins you together with your mate (Matthew 19:6), and His original intention was that man and woman remain married until death (Mark 10:2-9). Study carefully Matthew 19:8, where Jesus explains that while divorces were permitted because of the hardness of their hearts, but “from the beginning it was not so.”

Keep your marriage intact and avoid divorce! Invest time and energy in one another. If you feel things are spiraling out of control talk to your parents, preacher, elders, or godly friends. (Don’t confide problems to a friend of the opposite sex, as that can often lead to danger.) Find a happily married, faithful couple with whom you can spend time and glean wisdom. Take time to find activities that both you and your spouse enjoy, and do those. Be willing to compromise. And do your best to never take your spouse for granted. The Bible is the best source for how men are to love their wives (Ephesians 5:25) and how wives are to treat their husbands (Titus 2:4-5; Ephesians 22-23). That’s a whole different topic!

In Matthew 19, Jesus outlines the only allowance for divorce and remarriage—sexual immorality (verse 9). That’s it. Divorce and remarriage is not allowed simply for irreconcilable differences or because one party is no longer happy. Many people have tried to manipulate this passage to find exceptions or make loopholes. In fact, many men with advanced degrees have desperately tried to argue that they possess a “newfound wisdom” about what this Scripture actually means. But as we have taught you from childhood, you don’t need advanced degrees to understand the important matters of the Bible. God is able to effectively communicate His plan on marriage and divorce.

Never change your views on Biblical matters simply because it has become personal. Remember, God is immutable (Malachi 3:6)—He and His Word do not change. It is usually the case that those trying to conjure up “exceptions” to Jesus’ teaching on marriage have personal stakes involved. For instance, maybe their children, other relatives, or friends have divorced for reasons other than sexual immorality, and they want to find a way for them to remarry. But the Scriptures are clear.

Many try to offer excuses to justify divorce and remarriage such as, “One party was not baptized at the point of marriage,”, or “Children are involved,” or “The original intent was not for a biblical permanent marriage.” They use mental gymnastics to find loopholes between Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7:10-13. Remember, these commands were written to believers and unbelievers, thus baptism does not alter an adulterous marriage. Notice that 1 Corinthians 7:10 clearly states: “Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife.” The decision to marry is important and should not be entered into lightly, or because of temporal lust. Your mom and I agree that rather than jumping through hoops and rearranging the original intent looking for a “way out” years later, your time would be better invested in creating and building a healthy marriage that includes God.

This is why trust is so vital in a marriage. Go the extra mile and give your spouse information as to where you will be—don’t leave them wondering. Post a copy of your wedding picture or vows to your computer. Keep that golden band on your finger as a constant reminder.

On the day your mom and I said our wedding vows the man who baptized me read a poem that I want to share. It’s titled “Marriage Still Takes Three” (author unknown). I look forward to reading it at your wedding one day in the future.

I once thought marriage took

Just two to make a go,

But now I am convinced

It takes the Lord also.

And not one marriage fails

Where Christ is asked to enter,

As lovers come together

With Jesus at the center.

But marriage seldom thrives,

And homes are incomplete,

Till He is welcomed there

To help avoid defeat.

In homes where Christ is first,

It's obvious to see,

Those unions really work,

For marriage still takes three.

Love, Dad

P.S. While you may not welcome the idea, your mom and I really like the idea of “prearranged marriages,” so we are happily accepting applications from faithful parents of children your ages! J

Introduction

The term teleology means “purpose” or “end goal,” so the teleological arguments start from order, adjustment, purpose and design in nature, to argue the case for one capable of producing such complexity. This is by far the most commonly employed argument for God’s existence, being used in the philosopher’s classroom as well as by the proverbial “man on the street.” It is also one that is frequently attacked as inadequate to establish a case for God.  The argument goes like this: Order, adjustment, and/or purpose imply design. And design implies one capable of effecting such order, adjustment, and/or purpose. Thus, a supreme Designer exists!

Identifying the Designer

            Perhaps the most well known expression of this argument is found in the writings of William Paley with his famous “watch” argument.1 Paley argued that no one would be so foolish as to suggest that a watch (as complex as it is) had no designer. Just as it is foolish to suppose that a watch had no designer, it is even more foolish to suppose that the marvelous human body had no Designer.

One can explain some marvelously structured things by means of non-intelligent intervention. For example, snowflakes exhibit symmetrical, interesting, and often beautiful shapes, and yet we know that these can be explained simply in terms of the physics of crystallization. In other words, in spite of the fact that God would be the ultimate explanation of such occurrences, one does not need to posit God as an immediate explanation for snowflakes. No one can explain ice sculptures without appealing to intelligent intervention. We can explain the beautiful stalactites and stalagmites found in limestone caves like Mammoth Cave in Kentucky or the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico by appealing to non-intelligent natural causes. However, no one would dare try to explain the carvings on Mt. Rushmore apart from intelligent intervention.

If such simple statements like “the UnCola” or “Coke—the Real Thing” convince us that they had an intelligent source, then how could rational men refuse to recognize the same connection with reference to the highly complex information-rich packets found in living things? In other words, complex information-rich packets imply an intelligent source. Rational men could not conclude otherwise! Ultimately, all information-rich packets imply an intelligent source, for all information is complex, and no information arises from mere natural (non-intelligent) causes!

Identifying Intelligence

Carl Sagan, well-known atheistic scientist (now deceased) argued that even a single contact from outer space would prove that there are intelligent beings there. Because of his fascination with extra-terrestrial life, he had been involved in numerous efforts to search for life in outer space. He said:

The receipt of a single message from space would show that it is possible to live through such technological adolescence: the transmitting civilization, after all, has survived. Such knowledge, it seems to me, might be worth a great price.²

Now, how can scientists (or anyone else, for that matter) be so sure that just one simple message from outer space would prove an intelligent source? Is it not possible that such could be merely an accidental combination of noise? Hardly!! Regular experience demonstrates to each of us that even such a simple message as described by Sagan implies an intelligent source. Interestingly enough, Sagan also told us that living things are highly complex bundles of information. For instance, he said, with reference to a single living cell:

The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10¹² bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.³

How much information is contained, then, in the human brain? Sagan ventured his estimate here too:

If written out in English, say, that information would fill some twenty million volumes, as many as in the world’s largest libraries. The equivalent of twenty million books is inside the heads of every one of us. The brain is a very big place in a very small space.⁴

The information contained within each living cell is equivalent to the amount of information contained in a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The information contained in the human brain is roughly equivalent to the information contained in twenty million books of any given library. If each book contained five hundred pages (probably an average number of pages for such books), then the information content would total ten trillion pages! Now, Sagan argued that a single simple message from outer space proves the existence of intelligent life that is capable of communicating by means of such a message. How much more so is that apparent when one considers the amazing living cell? Only a very stubborn irrationality can argue that a single, simple message from space proves an intelligent source, whereas the complex information-rich packets found within living cells proves nothing at all with reference to its source!

Agnostics Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe were forced by the evidence to abandon the traditional evolutionary explanation of the origin of life. They said:

No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. Troops of monkeys thundering away at random on typewriters could not produce the works of Shakespeare, for the practical reason that the whole observable universe is not large enough to contain the necessary monkey hordes, the necessary typewriters, and certainly the waste paper baskets required for the deposition of wrong attempts. The same is true for living material….Just as the brain of Shakespeare was necessary to produce the famous plays, so prior information was necessary to produce a living cell. But information from where? (emp. added).⁵

The only answer that makes sense at all is that there is, in fact, an intelligent Being who is capable of acting upon cells so as to “inform” (or program, if you prefer that word) them! This Being is what theists mean when they speak of God. Indeed, the Bible speaks of God as the Creator of all things that exist other than Himself (Romans 1:19ff; Acts 17:22ff.). Actually, a quite simple passage conveniently summarizes what is meant by both the “cosmological” argument and the “teleological” argument. “For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God” (Hebrews 3:4, NASB ‘95). Let’s ask an intriguing question:  “How would you explain what caused a house?” You would certainly not say that it is in its present state because of millions upon millions of years of natural forces acting upon wood and metal and other things that eventually resulted in the finished structure. If we asked another question, “What accounts for the orderliness of the structure?” you would not insist that the order we now see in the finished product resulted due to chance forces acting over time.

Objections to Intelligent Design Answered

Richard Dawkins tried his hand at an objection to design in a book he authored.⁶  The rationale behind the book is the following:

All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind’s eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker (emp. added).⁷

Dawkins intends his book to be a refutation of the popular design argument. Still he cannot help admitting the point made earlier about the incredibly complex information content of cells in the body. He admitted:

And the author consists of trillions of those cells, many of them different from each other, organized with intricate architecture and precision-engineering into a working machine capable of writing a book. Each nucleus contains a digitally coded database larger, in information content, than all 30 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica put together. And this figure is for each cell, not all the cells of a body put together.⁸

Dawkins likens this information content to the programming of a computer. He continues:

It is raining DNA outside. It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs.⁹

He is making use of a supposed analogy between computers and living beings. Every computer has ROM memory and RAM memory. ROM member is “read-only memory” which cannot be written to except when it is first manufactured. Dawkins says, “That is true also of the DNA in cells, except for occasional random errors in copying.”¹⁰ Data is written to different addresses on the computer. Dawkins explains that different species have different addresses too, so “it is not possible to compare contents, address by address, because addresses don’t correspond to each other across species barriers.”¹¹ This simply means that humans are humans, chimpanzees are chimpanzees, elephants are elephants, etc. They simply don’t cross breed, or intermingle, because their DNA coding is different and unique! 

Now, how do you suppose that all of this different and unique coding happened? I have argued earlier that there is only one sensible answer to this question. Information-rich content presupposes an Informer! It demands intelligent intervention from the outside!! This is the only explanation that fits the evidence.

 Several years ago, I was given a book that changed my entire perspective on dating and courtship. After reading it, I was convinced the current American dating model must be abandoned by Christians if we are going to save our children.

We have very few examples of dating in the Bible, and all of them are found in the Old Testament. One of the more notable accounts is found in the selection of Rebekah for Isaac.

And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had, “Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell: But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac” (Genesis 24:2-4 KJV).

Abraham was not going to allow chance and good fortune to determine whom his son married. His love for God and his son manifested itself in direct parental involvement in this monumental decision.

Furthermore, the New Testament sets forth principles to guide parents as they help their children find a mate. “Flee also youthful lusts…” (2 Timothy 2:22 KJV); “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers…” (1 Timothy 4:12 KJV); “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication” (1 Thessalonians 4:3 KJV); “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 KJV); “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another” (Romans 12:10 KJV).

Below are some suggestions for parents and teenagers on dating. I am certainly no expert in dating, but these common-sense, Biblical principles will help everyone deal with this consequential stage of life.

1. Parents need to parent their teenagers in dating. We may let them choose between pepperoni or sausage on their pizzas, but when it comes to matters that affect their souls, parents must be clear and consistent. Parents have an obligation to make rules for dating that should be known and repeated to their children beginning in childhood. As with Abraham, parents need to look out for the “future” spiritual welfare of their children by helping them find godly mates.

2. Parents should never, never allow their teenage son or daughter to be alone with a friend of the opposite sex. They should each never go into the other’s room, and they should never be left unsupervised anywhere. Cars, teens, and dating are not good combinations. It is far too easy to find a few minutes alone when there is no supervision. Young people, this is not a matter of trust, but an understanding and awareness of sexual attraction. Dads know how strong the male attraction is and therefore should take great care to protect their sons from sexual temptation. Moms can protect their daughters by teaching them the differences between male and female attraction.

3. Teenagers, don’t date too early. Studies consistently show a link between early dating and teenage pregnancy. Thirteen-, fourteen-, fifteen-, and even sixteen-year-old teens are not ready or prepared for a serious boy/girl friend and steady dating. If a friend of the opposite sex wants to be your friend, he or she can find such friendship every Sunday and Wednesday during periods of Bible study and worship. Parents, don’t allow the world to sound the dating alarm clock too soon!

4. Teenagers, date only those who will help you go to Heaven. If they are not interested in the Church, you should not be interested in them. Attendance at Bible study and worship is a good test of the heart. Too many brothers and sisters can share their struggles that stem from a marriage not formed out of a spiritual foundation.

5. Teenagers, don’t date too often. The more time you spend with someone the more difficult it will be to remain pure and holy. If you are dating, limit your time together. Some who date spend more time together than husbands and wives do. If you act as though you are married, you may find yourself doing what only married people are authorized to do.

6. Teenagers, never treat dating as a game. Dating helps us find a soul mate (someone who can help your soul go to Heaven). First, dating is not a social outlet. If you want a social outlet, go with a group, join an activity, or play a sport. Second, dating is not a popularity contest. You don’t have to date if you are in high school. In fact, it is probably better if you wait.

7. Engaged couples, never forget that you are not married. In this stage of dating you should both agree upon rules for your relationship. Limit time you spend together and limit your physical contact. Be very clear on how far is too far. Remember, if you are not married, don’t act as if you are, or you will soon be married before you planned. The words of Solomon’s fiancé need to be rehearsed between every engaged couple, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please” (Song of Solomon 3:5 KJV).

. An Indian preacher named Brother B. Ratnam was right when he expressed concerns about our American dating system. Indeed, it is dangerous! There are many lessons we can learn from the Bible to help both parents and teens with dating. We must re-evaluate our approach to and method of dating. We must throw out the Hollywood model and adopt the Holy Word’s examples and principles. Don’t wait until they are teens to talk to your children about dating. Parental failure in this area of life may have a consequential impact here and in eternity. As Abraham said, “Let us go into our country” to find mates for our children.

 I can still remember playing outside on a hot summer day and vividly hearing the sound of my Dad’s 1965 Plymouth Valiant downshifting as it pulled off the main road and into our subdivision. My thought at the time was – I was not at home where I was supposed to be, clean and ready for supper. That is just one of my childhood memories. Good or bad, depending on how you look at it, it doesn’t matter--it is still a memory.

I have the best job in the world. I would not trade it for any amount of money or anything else. Ever since I was a little girl, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be a mom! I watched my mom daily, as she was always there when I came home from school, as she attended school functions, as she cleaned house, as she ironed our clothes and took care of our family. I was always proud to have friends over, and our house was always the “hang out” for the neighborhood kids. That was my mom’s job and that was the job I wanted when I grew up. You could tell she enjoyed her life and what else was I to think other than,“I want to do that when I grow up.” These are my memories.

I am now a mom of two teenage girls. I have lived through the baby years, the toddler years, and the preteen years. There are some days when I would love for them to be toddlers again, but then I look at them and see where they are and how they have gotten there, and I really wouldn’t change much. I have planned the birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, sleepovers, and vacations, but the one thing you really can not plan are the memories. I can see God’s beautiful plan for the circle of life as I watch my own daughters build memories and grow into beautiful Christian women.

The funny thing about memories is that they occur daily when you least expect them. Part of being a parent is the “everyday walk” that you live. It includes encouraging your children to do what is right and being there for them when they are confused and question why some things are right when it seems that they are the only ones doing it that way. We must lead by example and know that we are always being watched. When our children are young, they are like sponges. They watch us and mimic what we do as they learn what is appropriate. Why do we think this stops as they become teenagers? Do we, or should we, ever really stop trying to do good and set good examples for our children?

I believe that our children always watch us and “decide” whether our actions are something they want to inherit. The wise writer of Proverbs recorded “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (22:6).  That training is a continuous process--old or young our children are still sponges, but they “filter” out to their own personalities—traits they will then share with their children. The memories and the cycle of life continues. Just as it did with my own mother—our special MaMa.

Once you experience the loss of a close family member, you have waves of memories rush through your mind. These are the memories of the little things, such as taking the MaMa medicine that always healed the boo-boos, going to the drive-in movies as a child and taking your own popcorn and can drinks because they were too expensive to buy there, taking the TV outside on the patio and watching it in front of a fire that Dad so carefully built to keep us warm as it got dark, and killing the snake in the backyard with the orange crocket mallet. These are the memories that flood your mind as you get older. Did we plan these events to last as memories? No, it was just the way we lived our lives. Yeah, you remember the vacations and the birthday parties, but what we can’t forget is that every day we are making some type of memory. Is it a memory that you want your children to have?

The biggest compliment my children can give me today is when I say or do something and they look at me and say, “You just had a MaMa moment” or “You just sounded like MaMa”. I know I am on the right track making memories by being close to my family. Talking with them, letting them know I care, and being silent when they don’t really want to know my opinion. That is my job. I am a Mom. I am a memory maker.

In memory of my Mother

Dora Martin Kirby

     1926 - 2007

 “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). We don’t endure physical threats as the early Church did, yet countless young people lose their spiritual lives on account of persecution. Your children will be on the “hot seat” because of their beliefs. They’ll encounter people who’ll take pride in teasing them because their goodness condemns the people’s own lack of morals. People will criticize our children for not being “tolerant” of the lifestyle they’ve embraced, and persecution such as this leaves too many of our youth abandoning their faith.

Some parents respond to this persecution by telling their children to “ignore people like that.” They have ears; they can’t ignore things said to them, but they can be taught how to hear persecution and not let it affect their desire to serve God.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road and asks the Cheshire cat, “Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to go to,” said the cat. “I don’t much care where,” replied Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Each time our children are persecuted, they come to a fork in their road, forcing them to choose a path of destruction or life. Whether they verbally ask or not, they’re looking to you, as Alice did the Cheshire cat, to tell them which way they ought to go. If it matters which direction they take, you have to lead them where you want them to follow.

Be an example for your children (Matthew 5:13-16). It’s not enough to educate them about God’s laws. How many people have departed from the Lord who grew up in the Church and had a complete awareness of God’s will? Logic isn’t the only aspect governing decisions your children make. Emotions are also involved. Emotions cause us to be sensitive to what others think, and concern for what others think is hard for children to dismiss, unless they see that we’re comfortable in our “spiritual skin.”

Your children will have spiritual confidence if they see it in you. When your children look at you, they need to see someone who’s okay with being different rather than someone who is trying to live as much like those in the world as possible (Romans 12:2). When your children look at you, they need to see someone abstaining from every form of evil rather than someone who is comfortable living in a degree of sin for the sake of man’s acceptance (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Your children will have spiritual confidence if you allow them to see the real you. They need to know you’re a real person. They need to know it isn’t always easy for you to be different in a righteous way. Emphasize that such is, and was, a problem of many, including those recorded in Scripture.  

Read the books of Samuel with them. Talk about King Saul’s willingness to serve God only when he found it to be easy. He valued admiration from man more than from God, and as a result, he caved when pressured not to do things God’s way (1 Samuel 15:24). His poor choices cost him; he was rejected by God. Tell your children about Stephen and his boldness to proclaim the Truth, and how, though it cost him his physical life, he gained eternal life (Acts 7).

The Bible isn’t merely a history book of how people lived long ago but a book of encouragement to help us navigate through life. Share your enthusiasm and passion for God’s Word. Emphasize the reward of Heaven, and how one must be a Christian through and through to inherit it (Matthew 7:21-23).

Let your children know you identify with the temptation to downplay or abandon your convictions when confronted by someone hostile to Christianity. We do our children a disservice if we make them feel as though we’re “super-human” and never struggle spiritually. Boost their spiritual confidence by letting them know they aren’t the only ones who struggle with persecution (1 Peter 5:9).

Your children will remember what people say to them; what you want them to remember more is that they need God’s approval more than man’s (Galatians 1:10). Encourage them with the promise of life to come, worth all the persecution they’ll endure in this lifetime (Revelation 21:4). Be an example of one who not only knows what is required of a Christian, but one who lives as a Christian even when persecuted.