Know Your Enemy (Eph. 6:10-13)
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
July 23, 2023 AM
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15. Know Your Enemy (Eph. 6:10-13) Audio
15. Know Your Enemy (Eph. 6:10-13) Video
Know Your Enemy (Eph. 6:10-13)
Bethel Church | Jackson, Michigan
Pastor Ken Pierpont
July 23, 2023 AM
On Purity Culture
It’s becoming vogue to attack “purity culture.” I suspect many who are caustic and critical about what they label “purity culture” are really resisting God’s commands to live holy, pure lives.
We are created by God. Marriage and married love are created by God. God is devoted to human flourishing and has given us truth to guide us to the highest possible experience of human joy and pleasure. When we reject or resist his ways and his laws we diminish our own joy and well-being.
Conversely, creating a culture of adding to God’s law is a distortion of God’s law. It is a subte form of sin. Manipulating behavior is damaging to people, not helpful. It does not produce purity and holiness it disfigures holiness into something shallow and powerless and ugly. If that is what you mean by purity culture, you are right. It is not helpful. It is harmful.
When we sin sexually and we are not shown the way of the gospel, the good news of cleansing and forgiveness, and the way out of shame—great damage comes to the soul. When we try to manipulate behavior and not motivate genuine godliness we do great harm even when we label it with high-sounding religious terms and biblical words.
But those who worship God in the beautify of holiness, avoiding sexual sins or confessing them at the foot of hte cross are healthy, happy, and whole.
Teaching in the 90’s on Christian betrothal and “courtship” mixed biblical teaching and extra-biblical prohibitions. When we went beyond Scripture we erred and that was not helpful. For some it was harmful, as it always is when we add to Scripture. But when we faithfully teach what the scriptures commend and forbid we are blessed by God.
Hear what Jesus said, “…whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teachers other to do the same will be called least in the kindgdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19)
Every church and every Christian family should be a culture of love, joy, peace, holiness and purity.
A book I found sound and balanced and helpful as we were raising our own children was this somewhat autobiographical book by the late Elisabeth Eliot.
Ken Pierpont
July 19, 2023
July 19, 2023
Sunlight in the Woods
Across the road south of the house is a woods wrapped over a hill. Every morning I pull back the curtain and look out my window into that woods.
Some mornings in winter it looks like an army of brown pencils standing sentinel. For a few mornings in spring it is carpeted with Trillium or purple wildflowers. Some mornings it is snowy as Narnia. Through the summertime from mid May to late August it is dark and cool and green. In early October it blushes with color and then late in the month it turns bright yellow and red and gold and orange and flames with glorious hues that draw me like a powerful magnet in my soul. In November it is muted gold and brown and finally gray pencils again.
This morning a bright shaft of sunlight beams at an angle down to the forest floor and reminds me of the power of contemplating the glories of God in the things he created.
I remind myself never to speed past blue water and sparkling sunlight. Never ignore the antics of songbirds, or the banter of children, or the music or water over rocks or the heart-pounding rumble of thunder and the arresting flash of lightning or the charming little lights hovering over the meadow when fireflies are courting on a summer evening. Never allow your soul to be deadened to wonder and the beauty around you but let it ever draw your very soul upward to God.
“Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.” ? C.S.
P.S. The Japanese have a word for sunlight filtered by trees. https://www.awatrees.com/2017/02/16/komorebi-sunshine-through-trees
Dangerous Times | Part 2
If you are going to be a factor in resisting evil and bringing glory to God's name in your life, marriage, parenting, church and family, you are going to have to have a robust theology of God's sovereignty. This must be a practical working theology of the providence of God.
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Cobbler on the Porch | Bittersweet Farm Journal | July 16, 2023
Cobbler on the Porch
At the risk of leaving you with the false impression that my life is perfect I need to give you a report on today. It’s the Lord’s Day and the sky was blue all day out on Bittersweet Farm and all over the whole Mitten State today.
Yesterday was the exact beginning of the last half of summer. After a good day at church and a satisfying lunch with Lois and Hope (Hope joins us when Tim has to work. He is a nurse) I came home and enjoyed a nice, long uninterrupted nap.
When I woke up I discovered that the temperatures had dropped and I spent some time out on the porch and playing my guitar and harmonica while evening settled in.
While I was there Lois came out and said, “You want to eat out there or come inside?”
Music to my ears. “Let’s eat out there,” I said.
She came out with big bowls of fresh blackberry cobbler, with globs of vanilla ice cream melting over it. (Thank you Diane Layman for picking and cleaning them and bringing them to church for us). I am unashamed to admit I had a second bowl. Hey it was supper and I skipped the donuts in Sunday School today.
I didn’t make any of this up. It was not a dream. This really happened today. I’m just reporting the bare facts.
In the evening I took a slow roll on my bike “Happy,” and then settled into my desk in the corner of the upstairs by the open window to enjoy the night air and write to you.
Bad things sometimes happen to me and bad things happen all around me. Sometimes my heart is heavy and things grieve me. There is brokenness around me, against me and within me, but today was a sweet day and I had hot blackberry cobbler on the porch on a quiet, cool Michigan summer Sunday evening. I wanted to tell somebody.
Paul told the Romans, “Rejoice with those who rejoice…”
I hope you had a beautiful day and you feel loved. I hope you enjoyed good weather, good worship, good music, good food, and good friends today, but if you didn’t and there was sadness or anxiety or hardship or shame or guilt or grief or remorse or fear, or pain or brokenness, remember the God who created sunshine, puppies and black raspberries and inspired people to create bicycles and hot air balloons and bluegrass music is alive and well and still he rewards those who diligently seek him. There will be a day here on earth when heaven will come down and he will make everything new and that should put joy in your heart even when you don’t have any blackberry cobbler out on the porch.
Bittersweet Farm
July 16, 2023
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