(Editor’s Note: The following two short articles were written by brother Reeves almost 2 years ago. I overlooked them for a while, and wanted to include them now. Though the reports they refer to are dated, the lessons found are timeless.)
Jeans’ Day
According to a televised CBS news report, Aug. 30, 1999, a privately owned Lutheran High School in Michigan demonstrated how it deals with teen violence: a strict dress code! Girls wear modest dresses; boys wear shirts and trousers—no jeans for either sex! One day out of the month both can wear jeans. The Principal reported that it is on that day (Jeans’ Day) that he sees more students in his office needing disciplinary action or lecturing. "You act according to your dress." Additional restrictions presented in the dress code were these: no pierced ears on the boys, no bright nail polish on the girls, no shorts on either sex.
No comment needed! You can’t argue with a demonstration.
The "St. John Bible"
According to the NBC news on television, Oct. 12, 1999, the first hand-written Bible since the days of early manuscripts will make its debut in the year 2000. It is called the St. John’s Bible.
Mr. Matt Lauer, interviewing the author of the new work, commented that it would be a "multicultural" Bible, that in it "women will be given prominence", and that also science would be featured. On page 1 of Matthew, the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus is given "through both Isaac and Ishmael". (Ishmael’s name is even written in Arabic letters, not in Hebrew, we’re told, since he wasn’t a Jew).
This is a classic example of making the Bible to be what we want it to be, rather than letting the Bible make us what God wants us to be! It is a play-thing with the unbelievers who play the role of God in producing a "Bible" that will reflect what they want to believe and how they want to live. The producers of this work, along with all who will buy it because of what it represents, will be spending great sums of money for their toy, while refusing to heed what God has revealed in the inspired Scriptures.
The work has certainly been misnamed, if the "John" of the title has reference to the apostle John. The apostle John exposes such "false prophets who are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). It would more appropriately be named "St. Scoffer’s Bible", or "The Humanistic Version".
