Making Life Work

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win notes.

    If you asked 100 people where the expression “free love” came from, I doubt you would find more than one person who knows. I surely didn’t. I thought it originated back in the 60s with the flower children. But I was wrong. The term originated in the 1850s in a religious commune in Oneida, New York. Called the Oneida Community by some and the Oneida Experiment by others, it was an experiment with sexual freedom under religious auspices, and quoting Scripture for its justification.

    I’m not sure what sent me looking for this, but I found an article in Touchstone Magazine titled, The Oneida Experiment, What We Have Discovered About Not-So-Free Love, by Frederica Mathewes- Green. Oneida was founded...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes

    If God were to send a prophet to us today, what would he have to say? What would his message be? In the first place, the mere presence of a prophet is reason for apprehension. God does not usually send a prophet to tell us how well we are doing. God figures when we do things right, we aren’t really earning any points. We are just doing the best thing for ourselves. That gives no reason to pat us on the head.

    God might tell the prophet to come and tell us: “Thus saith the Lord, the Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth who gave you this good land. You have become incredibly rich. There has never been a nation as rich as you have been, and you never ask where it comes from? You never ask, ‘Why...

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win notes.

    This message is crucial for Christians and non-Christians alike. For too long, for generations in fact, Christians have cloaked their faith in church speak, jargon that too often, even they don’t understand. In a sense, it is inevitable, because most church or religious radio and television programs are taped in church. That is to say that the speaker is talking to an audience of insiders who know the vocabulary, or at least think they do.

    On the other hand, when questioned carefully about their beliefs, too many Christians have to admit they don’t really understand what their church teaches.

    This is one difference between the Born to Win program and some others. I am not speaking...

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win notes.

    Once upon a time there was a people who had returned to their homeland after a generation in exile. These people had been tasked by God with repairing the Temple and restoring worship.

    It wasn’t that God dwelt in houses made with hands. The Temple was symbolic, a center of worship, a reminder of who God is—really—and of what is really important about life. But life wasn’t working very well for them. They were in the middle of an economic failure—a position not unlike where we find ourselves today.

    They had been told by the prophets from Isaiah to Jeremiah to Ezekiel why they were going into exile before it actually happened, so they just might listen to a prophet this time. God sent...

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win Notes  

    In my years of education, from the first grade in 1940, until I graduated from high school in 1952, I don’t remember hearing of a single school shooting.

    I went off to the Navy for four years, and then to college for six years, and I still don’t recall hearing of a single school shooting. Now, it has become like an epidemic. Has something changed?

    Were there just as many school shootings in years gone by and we just didn’t hear about them? Did the media just treat them as isolated tragedies? Are we hearing about these shootings now because of the gun control movement?

    I do remember a group of kids taking shelter under a tree in a thunderstorm. They were all killed when...

From Ronald L. Dart's Born to Win program notes.

    Cops nationwide rank methamphetamines the number one drug they battle today. It has surpassed marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, and usage is growing by leaps and bounds. It takes people to highs they have never before experienced, and then it destroys them—physically, mentally, and morally.

    How fast is it growing? Take the town of Towanda, Pennsylvania—a little town of 3000 people. No one there had ever heard of the drug until a cooker/dealer set up shop there. Five years later, the police have identified at least 500 people who are using or cooking the drug in the county. And they don’t know about all of them. The US Attorney says the actual tally is probably “significantly worse” than...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes, written by Allie Dart  

    Years ago, when I was in charge of a small college, we had a dress code. It was far short of wearing a uniform, and had to do with things such as haircuts for the guys and modesty for the girls. Most students complied and got on with more important things like their studies. But some complained that we were making them into yellow pencils—all of them just alike.

    When I heard that, I had to laugh. But it is not surprising, given the psychology of young people who are searching for identity and self-expression. Having spent four years in the Navy, where we not only wore uniforms, we had to maintain a short haircut and shine our shoes, I wondered what all the hullabaloo was about.

...

From Ronald L. Dart's Program Notes, by Allie Dart  

    I don’t consider Jewish beliefs to be the norm for Christians, but the original Gospel accounts were written in such a way as to be understandable to Jews and practitioners of Judaism. Judaism is not the authority on what Christians should do and how they should understand the Bible. Make no mistake, the Bible is the sole authority. Since the Bible is our sole authority, it is all the more important that we should be careful interpreting what we are reading.

    A point was made in the Christian Origins series to keep in mind, when we read the Bible, that we’re reading someone else’s mail. And because of that, we often make mistakes in understanding what we are reading. This CD series...

From the program notes of Ronald L. Dart

    In the movie, The Ten Commandments, a voice said, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land and the inhabitants thereof.” Did you know those words were inscribed on the Liberty Bell in 1753?

    When you think about it, the dominant theme of that movie was liberty—liberty for a people who had just been set free. In the same way, the central idea of what Jesus taught is liberty or freedom. That was intended from the beginning. Jesus wants us to have freedom.

    The purpose of the Law was to guarantee freedom. The whole idea was freedom for man. When at last you are given freedom, you don’t want control to rear its ugly head. The Law and freedom are no problem until man steps in and tries to control...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart. Written by Allie Dart.  

    Because of the things that have happened in our lives during the past 16 months, Ron and I decided to read through the Book of Job for our nightly Bible study. We’re learning well that Job did not wear A Mask of Evil. He was a righteous man, yet God allowed him to suffer. It’s been interesting to see how Job’s friends probably weren’t the encouragement he had hoped for, but they dragged out the magnifying glass, so to speak, to try to find ways where Job had missed the mark.     Throughout this most difficult trial, we’ve had many very supportive friends for whom we are very grateful. But, the same as Job, there have been those who have somehow felt it their duty to, frankly,...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart

    There was a time when I thought anti-abortion people were a little too cute in calling themselves, “pro-life.” I don’t think that any longer. I have come to the conclusion that it was precisely the right term to use—at least it is the right term for Christians to use.

    The real issue is much bigger than abortion. To some degree, the issue is clouded by the terminology. For example, “choice” is not the opposite of “life,”as in “pro-choice vs. pro-life.” The opposite of life is death.

“This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV).

...

An Excerpt from The Thread: God's Appointments with History

By: Ronald L. Dart

    One of the great losses to the nominal Christian faith was the abandonment of the holydays of the Bible, their dismissal as merely “Jewish” institutions. And surely, one of the greatest of the Christian holydays is Pentecost, because it was on this day that the church was empowered to do its work. Some even call Pentecost the birthday of the church.

    But on that first Pentecost of the New Testament church, no one even thought of abandoning this festival. They were too high with the experience. Imagine yourself sitting in a room with 120 of the first disciples of Jesus. You have been...

From the Program Notes of Ronald L. Dart

    When you hear the word “Pentecost” do you automatically relate it to what happens among charismatic Christian groups today? Pentecost is actually older than the New Testament church. Considering the significance of what happened on this day, it’s astonishing that so many Christian churches know so little about this most important day, and so few even keep it or take note of it.

    Let’s consider one statement from the Book of Acts. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they [Jesus’s disciples] were all with one accord in one place” (Acts 2:1). But to do what? It is beyond dispute that they were there to observe the Feast of Pentecost. These were all Israelites. So, the disciples had observed...

From Ronald L. Dart's Program Notes:

    Does God get angry? We know he does. Everyone has heard about the wrath of God. It’s fair to say many people don’t see what God has to be all that angry about. When they read the Scriptures about the wrath of God, they may shiver a little, but they really don’t understand. They either think of God as a belligerent tyrant, or they don’t believe he’s all that angry.

    Between the movies, The Ten Commandments and The Prince of Egypt, everybody knows how the death of the firstborn in Egypt was the means God used to finally force Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. But, someone asked on one of our Internet forums why God had to kill the firstborn of Egypt just to get the Israelites out of there. After all, he’s...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes

What has made you and me friends is the Bible, Jesus Christ and his Father, and the Holy Spirit. It is here that we have found common ground. It is here that we find a spirit of brotherhood and friendship. I think the Apostle John must have felt the same way when he wrote his first epistle.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship...

From Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win Notes

The Bible is an ancient book. It has stood the test of time, and has survived a few attempts to suppress it, or even get rid of it. This book deserves to be approached with awe and respect, even by people who don’t believe it. And even more by those who do.

A lady called Ron after she had heard a Born to Win program and was very complimentary. She appreciated most his honesty with the Scriptures. He couldn’t help wondering if honesty with the Scriptures was all that unusual. As Ron mused on this, he thought that if there is any cause to be less than honest with the Bible, it probably grows out of church or denominational affiliation. This is not intended as a criticism of church membership or affiliation,...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you suppose God would ever call a man to be a lawyer? Or perhaps, a Governor? No, I am not about to tell a lawyer joke, or talk about Arnold Schwarznegger, who is commonly called the governator.

    There is a funny thing about Christian thinking when it comes to a divine calling. We tend to think of God’s calling solely having to do with church work, or ministry. But is that the right view of the matter? There are two men in the Bible who cause me to think otherwise. They weren’t called to be lawyers, but they were nonetheless called to a surprising vocation. Let me tell you their stories:

    Once upon a time, there was a man named Jacob who had 12 sons. The last was born of the wife that Jacob loved. He was...

  By: Ronald L. Dart

    Years ago, a friend told me that I was an apologist. I would have been flattered, had I known what it meant. It was somewhat later that I encountered one of the greatest of Christian apologists, C. S. Lewis. Recently, I came across a quotation from C. S. Lewis that explained a vague disquiet that follows me around. "Apologists," he concluded, "can be saved only by falling back continually from the web of our own arguments into the reality. From Christian apologetics into Christ himself."

    Now, Lewis was remarkable in this regard. He was an intelligent, highly educated, well-read man, who also had the good sense to doubt himself, to examine himself, which one cannot do without self-doubt. Lewis understood the spiritual...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Searching the Internet a while back, I came across an old item posted by Ravi Zacharias. He said something about the Tower of Babel that I did not quite understand: "In the biblical narrative, when the tower of Babel was being built, we are told that God sent a confusion of languages to stem the tide toward humanity’s self-deification. The implication was that the uniformity of language would inexorably lead to a homogenization of tastes, and a celebration of evil. The human heart, being what it is, moves in a herd instinct, irresistibly drawn to the intrigue and allurements of perversions. The confusion of language was one fence that God put up to limit communication and prevent a moral landslide."

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you really understand the seriousness of envy? Since it’s the Tenth Commandment, is it somehow less than the others? If you see your neighbor driving a new car and you wish you had one like it, is that what the Bible is speaking of when it talks about the destructiveness of envy? How does envy impact the world, the church, and your personal life?

    Of all the vices of man, there is one that its perpetrators never enjoy and rarely ever confess. This opinion was stated by Os Guiness in his book, Steering Through Chaos.When I read it, I wondered why, then, does anyone do this sin? But when I think about it, this sin is one that man does not exactly do.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    What did the First Christians believe about the new covenant? I mean those Christians who were alive in the days when the books of the New Testament were being written—what did they believe?

    I have heard a lot of discussion about the Old and New Covenants. There is something about them that I think very few people seem to have understood. Let me lay a little background.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    One night, I found myself wishing I had something inspirational to read. From time to time I come across a book or an article that has a piece in it that really lifts me, that helps me get my head up and look around, and gets me up out of the rut. One that makes me lift my eyes to the skies, makes me want to be my better self. One that gives me a lift and pushes me on. My problem was, I didn’t have a thing in the house that met my need that I hadn’t already read, or wasn’t already bored with, or something of that nature. And I’ve heard a lot of people express the same concern, the same desire, the same need, as it were, for something inspirational—a CD or a book or something— to give them a lift from time to time.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    If you call yourself a Christian-what can I assume that you believe? If you call yourself a Christian-what can I depend on you to do? One fellow wrote to me and commented that he doesn’t think Mormons are Christians. But, you know, it’s even money that, somewhere, there is someone who wouldn’t think he is a Christian either.

    Oddly, the term "Christian" was not a part of Jesus’ instructions to his disciples. He nowhere mentions the word. "Christian" was a descriptive term applied to the disciples of Jesus by non-Christians in Antioch. Over time, the followers of Jesus seemed to gradually accept the descriptor.

By: Ronald L. Dart
   
    I used to think “pragmatic” was a bad word. I had heard it applied to this or that politician, which almost automatically gives it a bad name. I don’t know why it bothered me, unless it was because I believed (and I still do) that there is an ideal that we should all strive for and that we should not compromise that ideal. I thought pragmatism meant that you were somehow selling out.  But the definition is: “relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters: practical as opposed to idealistic.”

The President can promise the moon, but can barely deliver green cheese.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    From the beginning, Christian Educational Ministries established helping others as a cornerstone of our foundational philosophy. Chances are, helping others is important to you as well. You probably already share your blessings with others by volunteering your time, talents, and by making financial gifts. Protecting your families while assisting those organizations that mean the most to you is important. We at CEM want to help you make the most of your giving.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Any religious organization, be it a television ministry or a local church, depends on donations to survive. And so they all engage in some kind of fund raising effort to make ends meet. They use all kinds of things to raise money from direct mail to bake sales. It may seem a shame, (I don’t think this requirement of God “is a shame.”) in a way, but money is merely a tool that enables a church or ministry to do their necessary work.

    A few years ago, I had reason to research the fund raising methods of a wide range of ministries and what I found was appalling. Only a few ministries took a straightforward, honest approach by telling their readers and listeners what they wanted to do and that they needed their support to do it. The rest engaged in various gimmicks and tricks to meet their budgets. The television ministries were the worst because they have to raise the most money. A few were downright dishonest or unethical.

By: Ronald L. Dart

By: Ronald L. Dart

    As I sit down to my Thanksgiving dinner this year, one of the things I am thankful for is that we still have Thanksgiving Day. And I find myself mildly surprised that we still do. With the ongoing, systematic drive to eradicate God from public life in this country, it is remarkable that Thanksgiving Day has been left alone.

    Even Christmas has been attacked. You can put Santa and his sleigh on the courthouse lawn, but not a nativity scene. The government can formally acknowledge the birth of Martin Luther King, but can’t acknowledge formally, as a government, on government property, the birth of a man who set more people free than Martin Luther King ever saw. And King knew that as well as anyone. He was a minister of the Christian faith, so he knew.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect
(Matthew 5:48 KJV).

    The call for perfection that Jesus included in the Sermon on the Mount seems to ask the impossible of us. How on earth can any man ever achieve perfection? One explanation I’ve heard is that perfection is the goal, and we will only reach it only in the resurrection. We strive for perfection in this life, but there is no way we can achieve it in the flesh. But if that is what Jesus meant, there were many ways he could have said precisely that.

By: Ronald L. Dart

In the world you will have tribulation;
but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world.

    I hope I don’t shock you too much when I say that the Bible is not a particularly comforting book. I know the hope it gives is comforting. I know the relationship with God it offers is comforting. But one night, I was paging through the Bible looking for some comfort and I wasn’t finding much. I wanted to read something to make me feel better, and I wasn’t finding it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

   For over a generation, now, schools, parents and social institutions have been fighting a battle with teen pregnancy. They have tried sex education, and that didn’t work. Pregnancies went up. They tried free condom distribution. Pregnancy went up again. They have tried secret abortions, but that only works after pregnancy. Now some are trying abstinence programs.

    But even if they could have abstinence programs in all the schools, they would only be able to affect the problem at the margins. Some kids are taking chastity vows, and even wearing chastity rings, which Jay Leno thought was really funny.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. "For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:4-5 NKJV)

    It must have been a hard decision for God to make. I don't mean to suggest that anything is really hard for God, but the decision had consequences that even God could not have treated lightly. The decision to put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden had consequences for all of history. By putting that tree there, God effectively created a gate out of the Garden of Eden. He gave man a choice about the kind of a world that he would live in. If Paradise became boring for man, he had an alternative.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Is God everywhere? Is he in every leaf of every tree? Does he permeate the cosmos with his being? Is he in every blade of grass?

    Well, yes and no. God is in every blade of grass in the same way I am in a transceiver I built years ago and later sold. You might even find some of my DNA in that radio, because I got a little careless with my tools. But I am not there. I am here.

    God is in every blade of grass in the same way my wife is in the little painting she did years ago when we were playing with oils. But if you think you can put your foot on God when you walk across the grass, you are badly mistaken.

 

By: Ronald L. Dart

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law (Deuteronomy 29:29). 

    There are things about God that we are never going to understand for the simplest of reasons. They have not been revealed, and theorizing isn’t going to help very much. It is revelation that we need if we are going to understand.

    One of the things that has been revealed, in part, is the work and character of the Spirit of God, and yet even that is not well understood. A troubling set of questions surround the Holy Spirit, and they suggest that we may have taken a wrong turn somewhere and we need to retrace our steps.

 

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you take your faith for granted? Or is it like a lot of married couples. We have been together so long, we can complete sentences for one another. We can take one another for granted, and at some level, that is good. I can take it for granted that my wife will be faithful to me. I can take it for granted that she won’t bust the budget. I do not even need to check on her credit card purchases. I only look at them to be sure there is no fraud. After 51 years of marriage, there aren’t a lot of surprises, nor should there be.

By: Ronald L. Dart

King Solomon once wrote, "Wisdom is the principle thing: therefore get wisdom: and with all your getting, get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote you: she shall bring you to honor, when you do embrace her" (Proverbs 4:7, 8).

    I recently saw a bumper sticker that proclaimed, "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me!" The person who wrote that bumper sticker may consider me an infidel, but that doesn't settle it for me. I want to know why God said it. Because only then can I even begin to claim to understand God.

By: Ronald L. Dart

"Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from you own steadfastness."

By: Ronald L. Dart

   Why did God harden Pharaoh's heart? When I taught Old Testament Survey class, we could never get through this section of Exodus without a lively discussion on this question. Did Pharaoh have a choice in the matter? Was it impossible for him to repent? "I thought all men possessed free moral agency. Did God take that away from Pharaoh?" asked a girl from Glasgow. "Seems like the poor beggar never had a chance," opined an Australian student.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    What do you think about an urban school district that, in the first three months of school, had 19 reports of weapons confiscated and 42 assaults by Kids. That’s awful, you say.

What a shame, you say. Yes it is. But that’s not the half of it: That was in kindergarten and first grade.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When God gave Abraham his great victory over the King of Elam, he was met on his return by an enigmatic figure, a priest, by the name of Melchizedek. What is of special interest about this encounter is that Abraham gave Melchizedek tithes (a tenth) of all the spoil he had taken from the opposing armies–much of it the property of the Kings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 14:20). Why did Abraham do that?

By: Ronald L. Dart

Was it Jesus’ intent to create a hierarchy of human government over the individual Christian? Does the Christian ministry sit in Moses’ seat for the church? This article explains what you always wanted to know about church government but were afraid to ask!

    Paul stood on the beach staring out to sea. This would be his last time in this place. It would have been good to have visited Ephesus once more, but it was not to be. It was just as well. He would not have been in Ephesus one hour before a coalition of Jews and silversmiths would have been plotting murder. There was no point in putting temptation in their way.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Was there something wrong with the Ten Commandments? Were they weak legislation in the first place? Or did they somehow become obsolete with the passage of time? If, as some suppose, the time came for the Ten Commandments to be abolished, there must have been a reason for it. The idea of the abolition of law is not foreign to us. We "abolish" or repeal laws often enough. But when we do repeal laws, why do we do it? There are many reasons. The law may be unenforceable. It may be unpopular with the people, and because of massive disobedience ("They can’t put all of us in jail"), the law simply can’t be maintained. The classic example of this was prohibition.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    If Jesus told you not to think something, would you believe Him? Or would you continue to suppose that something were true when Jesus told you plainly it was not? For example, if Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets," would you assume that Jesus came to do away with the law?

    Surprisingly, many Christians think that Jesus came to destroy the law when He said specifically that He did not. He said: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).

 
By: Ronald L. Dart

    Do you want to live forever? If there were something you could eat that would give you eternal life, would you want it? The search for a magic elixir, a fountain of youth, has preoccupied man ever since Adam was denied access to the tree of life. Legends of the ancient world told of a "Fountain of Youth." Ponce de Leon spent his life searching for it, but all he found was Florida.

    When you think about it, it is all the more strange that when Jesus finally told his disciples that there really was a "bread of life," many of them took that occasion to turn away from Him.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Along with the marvelous teachings of Jesus, we often pick up some very bad ideas from our churches and organizations. One of the worst of these ideas, all too common in churches, is that our church is the sole repository of “God’s Truth.” When you think about it, this is obviously an arrogant assumption. And even when we begin to grow out of the idea, we still become easily confused because of the legacy it leaves behind.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    In the past few months, I have become more and more persuaded of an old truth about human nature--that there is in the heart of every man a need to belong to something, someone or some place. The desire to belong leads us to join clubs, lodges, associations and even churches. What we belong to becomes a part of our identity. In a sense, we can belong to the company we work for ("I owe my soul to the company store"). The one who made man said that it is not good for man to be alone so he gave him a wife. A man belongs to his wife and she to him. They do not belong to anyone else. Most of us have a place we call home--a place where we belong--and we are restless when we’re away from it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

The Second Key

    The best ideas are usually simple and this one is no exception. The idea was conceived long ago and is so simply stated that most of us would read right over it and never grasp its implications. It reads as follows: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22).

    I can hear you saying, “That sounds like a good idea, but a little tough to execute. I have enough trouble making ends meet as it is without worrying about the next generation.”

By: Ronald L. Dart

    They are people of the desert. To the western eye, they appear backward, undeveloped, fanatical, even bizarre. Yet they are the remnants of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. And they are destined to effect your life more directly than you can ever imagine.

By: Ronald L. Dart

And God stepped out on space
And he looked around and said
"I’m lonely, I’ll make me a world." 1

    It is a simple, elegant statement of cosmology. The author, James Weldon Johnson, not only sees God as creator of everything, he imagines a motive for the act of creation. It may seem strange to think of God as lonely. But if we believe that God created all things, then we must believe that there was a time when God was alone and was not content to stay that way. This is true whether you believe God is a Trinity, a Unity, or a family composed of Father and Son. Whatever we call "God" was alone.

By: Ronald L. Dart

God so often disappoints us.

    No, let’s not kid ourselves, we place our hopes in God and those hopes are all to often disappointed. The fault, however, is not with God. The fault is with our expectations, and with what I call, "the God of our imagination." The only reason we could ever be disappointed with God is if He somehow doesn’t meet our expectations.

By: Ronald L. Dart

See "The Christian Woman" by Ronald Dart

    Relatively few Christian sects these days prohibit women from wearing makeup. Most of those that do seem to be holdovers from another era when "respectable" women in society did not wear makeup. Some of these groups still try to find biblical support for their position and quite forcefully forbid women to wear makeup in church; some forbid the wearing of it at any time.

    It is of singular importance to note that nowhere does the Bible specifically forbid women to wear makeup. It is not mentioned at all in the law of God or the teachings of Christ. All of the reasons advanced for not wearing makeup are inferences from prophetic writings. There are four principal scriptures that are advanced.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    There are no women in heaven," chuckled the preacher. "How do I know this? The Lord revealed it in Revelation 8:1 when He said there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour."

    It was all very amusing, and even the ladies enjoyed a little laugh at their own expense. After all, more than one of them had "talked someone’s ear off " sometime in the past 48 hours.

    Still, there was a little hurt in the laughter of some. To them it was just one more "put-down" for women. Only this time it came from an unexpected source, their pastor, from whom they felt they had a right to expect support, not humiliation.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The story of the Bible begins and ends with a tree. In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life held a central place. After the expulsion of man from the garden, we don’t hear of the tree again until the last book of the Bible.¹ There, man is in a very different environment called, "The paradise of God."² Once again the Tree of Life is central. But now there is not one tree of life, but twelve. They are on both sides of the river of life and they bear twelve kinds of fruit. Moreover, the leaves of the tree are for the healing of all people.³ It is those who do God’s commandments who have a right to the Tree of Life, and the permission to enter the City of God.⁴

By: Ronald L. Dart

    It is always gratifying when Science confirms the Bible. And in the nature of things, science will continue to do so, because the Bible is truth and science is in search of what is. But it is a little surprising when social science confirms the Bible, though we should really expect it to. I fear I am a skeptic when it comes to social science, but there may well be some hard science buried in there along with some of the theory.

By: Ronald L. Dart

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter! Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they nurse their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness (Lamentations 4:1-3).

    The high school graduating class of ‘94 was decimated by a terrible plague and no one paid it much mind. If a bus load of them had been killed on the way to a game, it would have made headlines–at least locally. If a school had blown up and killed a few hundred of them it would have made national, even worldwide, news.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    He is twenty years old, but he looks more like sixteen. In blue jeans and sweater, his hair neatly cut, he looks like he should have books under his arm and be headed for class. The district attorney says he is a cold-blooded killer. It seems he held up a convenience store late one night. The clerk offered no resistance and gave him all the money in the cash register. But as he scooped up the money and stuffed it into his pockets, this “student” calmly raised his pistol and shot the clerk squarely between the eyes just to leave no witnesses. Now the district attorney wants you, the jury, to find him guilty and sentence him to death.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    What do you do when you have already done all you can? You are in trouble and there is no way out. You are sick and the doctors have done all they can. You are persecuted and there is no relief. You have made every effort, tried every option, and still see no way out. The matter is out of your hands. What do you do now?

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The Christian faith must seem downright confusing to an onlooker. Even the largest, seemingly the most monolithic Christian denominations are, in reality, composed of many factions. Unless you are an insider, you can remain unaware of the deep divisions that exist among Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and even Catholics.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    It had been a hard three days. David and the handful of young men with him had left in a hurry and had taken no food. By the time they got to a place called Nob, they were in a bad way. They needed food and there was only one place David thought they might get something to eat. The Tabernacle at Nob.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Just what does it mean to "keep the Sabbath?" What should a person do on that day? Or, as some would prefer to ask, what should a person NOT do? Can you work at your normal job? What about emergencies? Can you buy groceries on the Sabbath? What if you have unexpected guests? The Sabbath is indeed a holy day, and to worship God properly requires a right view of His day.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    Is there really an ever–burning hell where sinners are tormented with fire and brimstone throughout all eternity? Is it only for the very wicked? What about the “unsaved”? The Bible tells us there is only one name given in heaven and earth whereby we must be saved–the name of Jesus. What about all those who have never heard that name? Do they go immediately to the torments of a fiery hell at death? What about babies and little children? Surely they don’t go to hell? Churches have an astonishing variety of answers to these questions, but what does the Bible say? How can we really know the truth?

By: Ronald L. Dart

“Let none be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce,
says the Lord the God of Israel.”

    Divorce is painful. If you have been through a divorce, you need no one to tell you that. Not only do the children get hurt, there are the grandparents, the family, the friends. And who can tell of the pain, of the anger that comes in the middle of the night to the two people who once loved each other above all others?

By: Ronald L. Dart

    I have to see my eye doctor three times a year, and I am always left waiting in his examination room. The walls there are covered with pictures and diagrams of the human eye. I often gaze at these pictures with something approaching religious awe. The eyes that I see all around the walls were designed. And surely no one could fail to see that.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

 

"And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Genesis 1:14-19).

    Nothing God gave to man has been used so consistently for the purpose He intended. Every civilization of man has used the sun, the moon, or both for the demarcation of time. They had no choice. Even a hunting society had to take notice of the passage of seasons. When would the animals migrate to the north and when would they return? How soon would the antlered animals make their move down from the high country? No people dependent upon the land could fail to notice that there was a time to plant and a time to harvest. Their problem was the prediction of that time, and that required the observation of the sun. It required a calendar, and some form of calendar has always been a mark of civilization.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    
    It is not a frequent question, but sometimes people ask, “Why do you charge for some of your CDs?” The answer is simple enough. We charge for them so we can make them available. But before I elaborate on that, I really should address two scriptures that are sometimes advanced to suggest that one should not sell biblical materials.

By: Ronald L. Dart

Did Jesus adjust God’s ancient laws of clean and unclean meats? The answer shouldn’t be hard to find. It should be right there in the four gospels.

    Everyone is concerned about health these days. Hundreds of books have been written on the subject, and yet people often neglect to consider what the best selling book of all time has to say about healthful eating habits.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

    The holy days are, to me, an endless source of fascination. Every year I approach them with renewed anticipation. Long ago someone pointed out to me a simple, elegant pattern in the meaning of these days. The Passover, for example, portrays the sacrifice of Christ. The days of Unleavened Bread remind us to put sin out of our lives. Pentecost pictures the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Trumpets looks forward to the return of Christ and the resurrection. Atonement represents the binding of Satan and the whole world being "at one" with God. The Feast of Tabernacles look forward to the millennium, and the eighth day pictures the "Great White Throne" judgment.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

"What our civilization continues to forget is that we have souls, and when souls are not fed, they distort and warp themselves. And souls today go largely unfed. Every day they must soak up the desolation of the contemporary landscape" – Edward Oakes.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    "Master," they asked Jesus, " who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?" The logic behind the question was simple. God's creation was perfect; so for a man to be born handicapped, something must have gone wrong. Jesus' disciples simply wanted to know what had gone wrong. It is an agonizing question–one faced by the parents of every child born handicapped. Yet most of these parents handle the question better than I would have thought.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    It was the last night of the revival. The congregation was softly singing: "Just as I am," and the preacher was standing in front of the pulpit with both arms raised in invitation. He knew there were people present who needed to make a decision for Christ. "Jesus Christ could come tonight," he urged. "Will you be ready for Him?"

By: Ronald L. Dart

    At first, Philip wondered why he was here. It was not a place anyone in his right mind would choose to be. It was hot. It was dry. It was the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

    He had finished his work in Samaria, and an angel of God had told him, "Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert." So, here he was, and there was nothing in sight but a chariot and its travel party. By its markings, the chariot was Ethiopian.

By: Ronald L. Dart

”And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” (Mark 9:24 ).

    Jennifer's husband was going into the hospital on Monday for open heart surgery. He was a little young to be having heart problems, but the surgeon said that his youth was in his favor. There were risks, of course, but they did this surgery several times a week at this hospital. They were good at it.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    The story of the Garden of Eden is a source of endless fascination for me-especially the part about the two trees. Plainly, they are important, but what do they mean? Consider the story.

By: Ronald L. Dart

 

“There are two kinds of people in the world,” intoned the preacher, “the saved and the lost. There is no middle ground with God.”

    Now there is a sobering thought. If indeed there are only two kinds of people in the world, and if I am “people,” I must be either saved or lost. And if I’m not consciously aware of having been saved, then I must be lost. And if I’m lost...

By: Ronald L. Dart

    There are times when events in the modern world and the events written in the Bible converge, and when they do, they often shed light in both directions. The world and the society we live in is very different from the ancient world, But the hearts of men really are not very different. And, of course, God never changes at all. And in these simple truths, we can learn some very important things.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    When we are young, we are a little unsure about funerals. We don't like to think about death and we are uncomfortable being around people who are grieving. We don't know how to feel, and we don't know what to say. As we grow older and mature a little, we come to realize that a funeral is a response to death and that grief is an exactly the right response. And we learn that we really don't have to say very much to a person who is bereaved. Just "I am so sorry," and "I love you." That, along with being there is usually quite enough.

By: Ronald L. Dart 

    In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, there was one question raised that no one really stopped to answer. Is it wrong for the United States to seek vengeance for the murder of the 5000 innocent people who died on September 11? Should we, as a country, turn the other cheek? There were those who thought the criminals who did this act should be brought to justice, but that it was wrong to merely seek revenge on Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

By: Ronald L. Dart

    "What are you going to do about the local churches?" This is probably the most often asked question these days, followed closely by questions about the Feast of Tabernacles and Methods of evangelism. Oddly enough, it is the one question you may be able to act on yourself.

    When Jeremiah walked the streets of Jerusalem after the city had fallen, he wrote with a sad heart about a broken country. He was old but when he had first begun to preach, he was so young he considered himself a mere child. Over the generations, he warned about what was coming. He had been reviled, hated, rejected, thrown in jail, tossed into a dungeon, and left to die. Rescued through the back door, he was in prison until the city fell.

    But now, freed by the Babylonians, he walked the streets and thought about what he had seen and heard. For a long time, as he preached, he had assumed that repentance was possible. But now, as he considered the tragedy of Jerusalem, he had to wonder if the die had been cast long before he first began to preach as a very young man. Now, on this day, it seemed that everything he had preached had been in vain, and there had been no hope from the outset. So why had he been commissioned in the first place?

    I once had a friend who loved to argue the Bible. His favorite line was, "The Bible says what it means and means what it says." Of course, he usually fell back on that when his point was weak, and he didn’t really believe it. Not the way he intended it to be taken. For, in fact, we all interpret the Bible as we read it, and that is exactly what God intends. I will admit, it is not always that simple. But you are allowed to bring common sense to the table and to ask yourself how Jesus, or a prophet, intended us to take his meaning. I will give you an example.

    I used to teach Bible in college, and I often enjoyed dropping a pop quiz on the students. One of my questions related to the assignment to be read for the day: "Cite the Scripture from today’s reading that shows Jesus did not always intend us to take him literally."

    I suppose you know where the term "shotgun wedding" originated. It has been the root of many metaphors, but it arose in a time when we assumed that a man had to take responsibility for his actions. A man seduces a maid (or vice versa), and she turns up expecting a baby. I never heard of a true shotgun wedding, because the man married the girl without the father’s prompting.

    Things happen that shouldn’t, but if we take responsibility, sometimes they can be made to work. This was realized (long before there were any shotguns) in the Law of Moses. "If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife" (Exodus 22:16 NIV). In Moses’ law, this was to be done whether there was a child coming or not.

    With the stench of political corruption filling the air, is it fair to ask how we got to this miserable place? It isn’t hard to see the picture at the immediate level. Power corrupts. Money is merely one form of power. It is as simple as that, and there is nothing especially new about it. I think the founders of our society understood this from history, and perhaps even from the Bible. Power destroys freedom, and it must necessarily be so.

    Let me tell you, as simply and succinctly as I can, exactly how it works. Once upon a time, there was a people who lived free. Their government was a theocracy. God was their King. But God held, as a fundamental value, maximum freedom for the individual. To that end, he had delivered these people out of slavery. He gave them what came to be called "The Law of Liberty." There was very little in this law about enforcement. Only when one man’s actions affected the liberty of others did judges come into play.