What Is New in Nutrition? Answer - We Have Been Doing It All Wrong, Based on the Food Media

 

I continue to learn a lot from the Dr. Joel Fuhrman and Dr. Michael Greger. The best and quickest source is Greger's enormous website of articles and videos at NutritionFacts.org.

 For example - 

Eggs and chicken, which have lots of fat and choline are bad for men.

Here is another view:

We can also take the positive side of nutrition - What works the best for us?

The best things we can eat on a daily basis are:

I am working on several of Greger's books right now, and I use his website.
He is a lot of fun and cannot resist  medical jokes.

1. Leafy greens - Kale, spinach, turnip greens, collards. Two of them are crucifers and therefore the best for our health. 
2. Beans - (read the sodium label) - Beans provide protein and fiber, satisfying and very good for our gut. 
3. Fresh fruit and berries (frozen counts) - They are a medicine cabinet full of ways to keep us healthy and to heal us from grease, salt, and sugar.
4. Nuts - walnuts and almonds (uncooked, best unsalted) are powerful sources for additional healing. A few walnuts a day keeps my cholesterol perfect. A handful can easily replace a meal. Salted, cooked, and sugared nuts are not a smart move.
5. Seeds and spices. Some seeds, like anise, have a great flavor and nutritious ingredients. Ground mustard seed energizes crucifers (especially good for blanched frozen crucifers which are neutered unless mustarded). Scientists do not know what all the hundreds of plant/seed/fruit/nuts create in their cells for us. They are way behind the Lord of Creation, who fashioned all this from the beginning - Genesis 1, John 1. 

I recently stopped eating eggs altogether, just as I stopped with butter. Both are in the fridge - as a reminder - and I am down roughly 40 pounds. More importantly, the change made my blood sugar, kidney, cholesterol, and other tests perfect, except for blood pressure. 

I slowly improved in many areas. We all love eating good food, even bad and horrible food, but the bulk of the body's use of food is in the stomach, liver, kidneys, and gut. 

The liver is a massive chemical factory that breaks down ingredients and even addresses new things never invented before (drugs). Drug addiction and alcoholism come from the liver's ability to get better and better at breaking down the ingredients. The more we smoke and drink, the more we want, because the essential organs get better and faster at breaking them down. 

Our livers and kidneys do not complain openly for a long time, from breaking down toxic combinations. One problem is that the food industry portrays all their fat-sugar-salt foods as nutritious because - hey - they taste good. The Nutritious Five all taste delicious when eaten on a regular schedule. Hint - junk food gets worse and worse when neglected. I have put gift food out for the birds, who refuse to eat it, and that food sold retail!

Think of the Nutritious Five as the pharmacy - and the pharmacy as good primarily for addressing symptoms, one at a time. I had to tell doctors not to give Christina statins because they were horrible for her. One specialist even said, "But if we can get rashes from the new one, that will help the study." I lit a few fires on that attempt and the doctor, a 350 pound cardiologist, retaliated.

Even if we avoid the pharmacy window itself, the pharmacy area is filled with shams, scams, and sugar-coated poison. Anything food related - often milk based - is sold at fantastic prices in relation to its basic ingredient, with sugar, salt, and fat added. All the protein they need is from the Big Five above. Many long-term and short-term maladies are fixed fruits and vegetables. Most vitamin pills are priced for millionaires but almost worthless and probably badly mixed. Grab four vitamin bottles in two hands - add up the cost, then put them down and go to produce and frozen vegetables/greens (no seasoning please).

Please do not laugh. I love shopping for groceries because I prepare an economic and delicious feast for Charlie and me. When I got home today, I realized the former Ice Cream Freezer was already filled with greens, mushrooms, and vegetables. 

Gone were the frozen pizzas. Gone were the drumsticks (sundae cones). Gone were the vanilla and chocolate ice cream containers. Gone were the specialty ice creams. Gone were the push-up ice cream, the chocolate covered ice cream bars, and the fudge bars. Gone were the ice cream bon-bons. 

Most ice creams are not ice cream. They cheapen the product and make it seem like ice cream, making it up with extra sugar and using oil to imitate cream. I learned that on a documentary about ice cream wars. Soon after that I bought one last chocolate ice cream half-gallon - so bad the squirrels ignored it. Squirrels!  They eat anything but not that name-brand "ice cream." Iced milk and fake chocolate.

Gone were the prepared meals, Schwan and Marie Calendar. I read sodium for all foods. I gave the last Marie Calendar chicken pot pie to the birds because the serving was 500 mgs of salt. No regrets.

Fuhrman's Eat To Live got me going on this topic, and Greger's books, website, articles, and videos are giving me even more information. Charlie Sue and I eat some sausage every day for lunch, in the stew I fix for both of us. The best answer to all this is to know as much as possible.

Most doctors know very little about nutrition. 

Eat To Live woke me up, after my blood panel showed I was diabetic, but no more.
Body fat feeds diabetes, and insulin makes diabetes progressively worse.

I would start with this Fuhrman book, because the information is more stream-lined and easy to follow. I began with almost no appreciation for nutrition.

Remember, WELS Treats Its Pastors and Laity Like Dirt. The Intrepid Pastor Steve Spencer Was the First To Bail Out From the Group He Started.

 

Above -WELS Pastor Paul Rydecki left ELDONA.
WELS Pastor Steve Spencer stayed with WELS and Objective Faithless Justification.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2013

Changes on the Horizon

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Since "nobody reads Ichabod," it may come as a surprise for some of our readers to hear that there are some changes in the works for Intrepid Lutherans. Then again, it may not. Likewise, if everyone reads Ichabod, it may come as a surprise for some to learn that the changes being considered are not nearly so dramatic as is rumoured. Then again, it may not.

The past year or so has seen some significant changes for us, personally, professionally and as a group. It is no secret that Rev. Rydecki, after making independent study of the Doctrine of Justification and having publicly raised some simple questions of exegesis from the floor of a Pastors conference in his District, was eventually labeled by his Brothers a heretic and cast out from among them without the honest review of his concerns for which he pleaded at length. No longer WELS, he has since colloquized into the ELDoNA, which was concerned and objective enough to give him an honest hearing, and to carefully consider and deliberate his arguments before receiving him. But this is not the extent of the personal changes many of us at IL have faced. I, for one, have been in the midst of some fairly significant business changes over the past several months, that have altered my availability to write with the frequency to which many may have become accustomed. And I know that shifting responsibilities and personal circumstances have impacted the others, as well.

But there have been other changes – changes in attitude toward our initial "objectives." In our recent, and very popular post, What on Earth could the CoP possibly have meant by THIS?, we identified two "primary precipitating situations behind [the] formation" of Intrepid Lutherans in 2010:

(1) the appalling treatment of the layman, Mr. Rick Techlin, by his pastor and congregation, and the incomprehensible support publicly granted them by the praesidium of the Northern Wisconsin District; and

(2) the continuing existence of "Time of Grace Ministry" as a manifestly non-denominational and unionistic evangelism Ministry conducted by WELS and other Lutherans, and the continuing support of the praesidium of the Southeastern Wisconsin District enjoyed by "Time of Grace Ministry."

Regarding the first situation, it concluded most unsatisfactorily, while related issues either pre-existing or descending directly from it seem to continue unabated. Regarding the second situation... that liberalizing juggernaut continues – with an endless supply of independent funding and a multitude of supporting voices both within Synod, especially among its leadership, and among the laity as well.

The result is no small level of disenfranchisement among a majority of Intrepid Lutheran editors, and a resulting shift in personal interest and priority. Of all the friends they thought they had, very few have stood with them publicly. With no significant public voice to oppose the abuses that brought us all together in 2010, such abuses are now normative in WELS. There is no stopping it, there is no changing it, indeed, there is no referring to it as somehow "wrong" anymore. That is because WELS has changed. If, three and a half years ago, we very naïvely thought such things could have been stopped, curtailed or at least turned toward reformation (and some of us did think such could happen), that naiveté has been sucked from us as the hot desert sun draws moisture from a naked body; publicly deserted by those who privately supported us, we, along with our remaining stalwart public supporters, have baked alone in the sun.

For these and a variety of other reasons, the majority of Intrepid Lutheran editors have found that their enthusiasm with respect to our purpose regarding these precipitating situations has left them, that current circumstances have driven them to focus on other priorities.

The only two who are willing to continue are myself and Rev. Rydecki – although going forward neither of us will have the time to publish as frequently as we have in the past, with Rev. Rydecki's involvement reducing to moderator and occasional blog posts.

This leaves us with a dilemma of sorts. Currently, Intrepid Lutherans is incorporated as a non-profit religious and educational institution, so that we can collect revenue in the form of donations and use it to host conferences. Believe it or not, we were in the midst of planning such a conference for next Spring, a conference that would have included not only the results of a systematic study of Church Growth trends in the WELS, but an in depth examination of translation ideology – of Dynamic Equivalence versus Formal Equivalence – of the "Critical Text" Greek apparatus that stands behind DE, and the "Historical Critical Method" that props it up. In addition, this conference would have provided an academic defense for the adoption of the "New King James Translation" of the Bible. There were other topics on the docket for exploration as well. If Intrepid Lutherans were to continue with such endeavors, it would need to remain incorporated. But it would also need qualified Board Members. Though Rev. Rydecki is willing to continue as an author, he simply does not have the time to devote to the duties of a corporate officer. And corporations require at least two officers.

Likewise, even if Intrepid Lutherans were to continue as just a Blog, we simply need more qualified writers. Between Rev. Rydecki and myself, maybe two or three entries a month are all that could be expected, which is not nearly enough to maintain a dedicated readership.

If we were to continue in either case, the purpose of Intrepid Lutherans would necessarily change. First and foremost, we would entirely cease to be a "WELS blog", or an organization that defines its existence or purpose with reference to ANY Lutheran synod or church body. We have very definitely entered a post-Synodical Era, and it will do the scattered remnant of genuine Lutherans little good for Intrepid Lutherans, or for any Lutheran group, to conduct itself with an imbalanced and unrealistic devotion to earthly organizations. In order to provide a balance of Lutheran perspectives, the hope would be to attract regular contributors and/or leadership candidates from additional sources in American Lutheranism.

Second, since it would not be defining itself relative to any Lutheran synod or church body, Intrepid Lutherans would end that aspect of its mission which continually addressed itself to the political issues of WELS, or those of any Lutheran synod or church body. That isn't to say that such issues won't be pointedly discussed from time to time, particularly as Intrepid Lutherans continues to warn of growing corruption in, and encroaching worldliness upon broad segments of American Lutheranism – a warning that is relevant to all Lutheran church bodies in America, even if they (think they) have separated themselves from the rest of Christianity, or even if they (think they) have sequestered themselves from the rest of the World.

Third, rather than addressing ourselves to Lutheran clergy and laity, we would be focusing on primarily equipping and engaging Lutheran laity. We would do this not by insulting them with condescending "bubble-gum," but by providing what seems be disappearing from the main Lutheran publishing houses: the highest quality writing we can muster, sufficiently sourced so that the layman can continue to investigate as interest would lead him, and have confidence in what he passes on to others. The equipping we would hope to offer Lutheran laity would be a preparation, not to stand as confessional Lutherans before similarly confessing "brothers" and family members who don't really want to live up to the label they apply to themselves, but to stand as confessing Christians in a Western Society that has swiftly grown shockingly and openly hostile to Christianity.

Fourth, there would be a more deliberate effort to cover Lutheran teaching and practice from a more broadly and historically orthodox perspective, rather than elevate peculiarities of recent American innovation that have supplanted those perspectives. To this end, and in the interest of equipping the laity, there would also be a more deliberate effort to cover Lutheran teaching and practice not only as current issues in American Christianity give rise to questions regarding, or a need to defend, historic and orthodox Christianity, but from the standpoint of balance from the four categories of preparation in the Christian religion: Exegetical & Historical Theology (the so-called "historic" disciplines), and Systematic & Practical Theology (the so-called "constructive" disciplines) – where we would also recognize that Systematic Theology is more than just dogmatics, but also includes apologetics and ethics. In other words, our goals would be set so that there could be no mistaking – on our part or anyone else's – that rather than set out to "achieve" any particular result (impossible, since these goals include no arrival point), we are merely proceeding in a direction that we are convinced it is proper to go, trusting that the Lord will make fitting use of our "going."

What would not be changing? Our "What we Believe" statement would not be changed. We would continue to be a forum in which friendly and productive discussion on the article of Justification may be engaged by genuinely interested and concerned Lutherans. We will continue to herald confessional Lutheran practice – historic, liturgical and catholic practice, that is – as the proper form of worship for confessing Lutherans, and we will continue to vigorously oppose all forms of sectarian worship which boasts of its separation from the Church catholic and heralds its union with worldliness, and which disparages the Holy Spirit who works exclusively through the Means of Grace and arrogantly augments or even supplants His work with the efforts of man. We will continue to oppose the encroachments of Truth-killing post-Modern thought upon our pre-Modern system of theology, we will continue to oppose post-Modernism as a foundation for contemporary translations of the Bible, and we will continue to reject the NIV as a viable translation for the serious Christian. All posts would remain as they are – without editing or removal. The efforts of editors and Board members would continue to be rendered gratis.

We have given ourselves until the end of the year. It's up to our readers, now. If there are those who would be interested in becoming a regular essayist, or in having more substantial involvement with IL, please make yourselves known to us (privately, if you desire). If we don't know you, we may ask you to submit a CV and provide references. If, by the end of the year, we have not made any progress toward increasing our number of active authors, or in acquiring additional qualified leadership candidates, we will de-incorporate and mothball the blog. In this event, all blog posts will remain as they are and continue to be available for public access into the foreseeable future, for as long as we are able to maintain our domain name.

Seminex Started at the Dinky Little College Called Northwestern - Post from 2007.Jungkuntz Chaired the Seminex Fiasco And Partnered with the New Gay Seminary, 50 Years Ago!

Richard Jungkuntz taught many future pastors of WELS at Northwestern College, Watertown, before moving to Concordia, Springfield, and finally to the ALC. Each time he was bumped up, from college instructor in Watertown, to seminary professor in Springfield, to Provost at Pacific Lutheran University, 1972. He was even acting president of PLU in 1974!

The Wisconsin sect is far more radical than most people realize. Trying to look more retro than the other synods, WELS has pursued a radical apostate streak for many decades.

Two packages brought that home to me. One was from a woman who was excommunicated for objecting to their new budgeting plan, many years ago. She thinks the plan preceded the LCA plan, which was similar in its manipulative schemes. Anyone can recognize today how abused the fudge-it figures are. One minute the sect is in receivership and needs to sell Michigan Lutheran Seminary for $1. The next day they are building a $7 million chapel at MLC (nee Dr. Martin Luther College), sending a new team of missionaries to Africa, and building a new student center in Madison, Wisconsin for $6 million or so.

The other package came from another state, another person (Grey Goose). That contained material for the congregational self-study, another man-centered Fuller-inspired stunt. The details are too tedious to list. Organizational navel-gazing is a sure sign of decline.

As I mentioned months ago, WELS was the birthplace of Seminex. My friend, a WELS pastor, tells me that Northwestern College reunions often have cars with Seminex stickers on them. When the break with Missouri came, a number of Northwestern graduates joined the Seminex faction.

Richard Jungkuntz, PhD, was teaching the historical-critical method (HCM) to the future WELS and LCMS pastors. No one knew this until the student submitted papers they wrote for Jungkuntz to another instructor, I believe at Mequon. The instructor raised holy heck and Jungkuntz was ousted. WELS pastors laugh, "They only found out by accident." That confirms the legend of WELS: sniffing out false doctrine everywhere but never seeing it under their own noses.

At some point another Watertown instructor left for supporting HCM. According to a favorite student of Jungkuntz, Richard egged on his partner in crime (Gehrke) and left him hanging on a limb. Clever man, that Jungkuntz.

So the two apostate instructors influenced a number of classes of WELS pastors, whose bone-breaks and secret ritual humiliations united them by the time they were graduated from the Sausage Factory at Mequon. Those are the same classes in control of the Love Shack's machinery today. I can pick them out easily from my source (not a friend, but a CG fan) who got tears in his eyes over Jungkuntz being the best teacher he ever had. All I have to do is locate the Jungkuntz fan and look over the Mequon classes below him. That is where the Church Growth stars shine brightest.

Jungkuntz went on to become divisive at Concordia Seminary, Springfield, when Jack Preus was the president. According to legend, Jack supported the apostates and also the conservatives, depending on who was talking to him in his office. One famous Jack Preus quote: "Help me gut Jungkuntz." Nevertheless, Preus eventually finessed Missouri into a temporary return to basics. Preus' style was to ease people out of positions, which launched Jungkuntz into a higher orbit. It pays to apostacize, in the short run.

The introduction of the fraudulent historical-critical method of Biblical interpretation as the essential groundwork for Church Growth in WELS, Missouri, the Little Sect on the Prairie, and ELCA. HCM teaches that the Bible is just another book, to be eviscerated like Homer's Iliad, Marco Polo's Journals, and Moby Dick. The difference is that Melville argued for the Book of Jonah being accurate in Moby Dick, while the HCM professors made fun of the same book of the Bible. The difference is that Melville knew whales while the HCM gurus memorized lecture notes from skeptics. (Nonetheless, Jonah reveals God constantly at work in fulfilling His will, whale anatomy aside.)

The historical-critical method is sterile and fading away, but its damage will not pass away so quickly. The nexus with Church Growth is simple. HCM thinking was foundational for Fuller Seminary's repudiation of its former (albeit weak) inerrancy stance. Once pastors and theologians think of the Bible as another book, a pretty good book but still just a human creation, then every other error can pour in unabated.

The Jungkuntz classes from Northwestern College had no problem going to Fuller Seminary, where Church Growth started after inerrancy was repudiated. Church Growth is sociology and marketing, not neutral but anti-Christian in substance.

***

Read this from the New York Times

EDUCATION: LESSONS
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LEAD: Richard Jungkuntz flew across country this week to sit in conference with some of higher education's most powerful leaders. It is the last time this provost of a small Lutheran college will formally attend such a gathering. This spring, at the age of 70, he plans to end his 30-year career as an educator and retire to the tennis courts.

Richard Jungkuntz flew across country this week to sit in conference with some of higher education's most powerful leaders. It is the last time this provost of a small Lutheran college will formally attend such a gathering. This spring, at the age of 70, he plans to end his 30-year career as an educator and retire to the tennis courts.

Mr Jungkuntz is a self-described conservative, a minister and educator who holds, as he put it, ''old-fashioned ideas.'' In an age and at a conference where the expression of some of those ideas might be misconstrued as, say, sexist or otherwise offensive, the provost decided to ''hold my darn tongue.'' Often, hearing something that seemed nonsense to him, he would just slip out of the meeting rooms into the corridors for a smoke.

But at one point here at the 70th annual meeting of the American Council on Education, a gathering of presidents, chancellors and deans from academies across the country, Mr. Jungkuntz listened to a panel debate the difficulties of training teachers and he could no longer maintain his silence.

Psychometrics, budget shortfalls, poverty and social structure aside, the failure of American education, the argument goes, begins with the hand that puts the lesson on the blackboard. Thus, in a room full of college administrators, many from schools with teacher education programs, the subject was bound to raise professional passions.

Robert Corrigan, Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, said, ''We still see teachers as if they were members of a blue-collar profession. They have no control of the classroom, the curriculum or their working conditions. They are treated like people in a factory milieu.''

A dean from San Antonio complained that his State Legislature changed teacher certification requirements so often, that professors of pedagogy could not figure out where they were ''supposed to go or how to get there.''

Another insisted that the problem was ''content versus process.'' That is, too much emphasis on the methods of teaching and not enough on what teachers were supposed to be learning.

A third voice suggested that bad teachers, in all likelihood, were once bad students, so the solution was to attract bright people to the profession. To lure such candidates, Joan Straumanis, dean of the faculty at Rollins College in Winter Park, Fla., had in mind ''a huge Federal loan program'' in which the brightest students in the country would be guaranteed low-cost loans if they they became teachers.

There also was talk of ''turfism,'' institutional ''musical chairs,'' ''flawed paradigms'' and, in the words of one administrator, ''that wonderful piece of heresy that there is indeed a relationship between the way students learn and the way faculty teach.''

It was about this time that Mr. Jungkuntz, from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., raised his hand, cleared his throat and asked for the floor.

''We haven't taken a historical look at the problem,'' he began. ''Let me put it this way: What would you say was the quality of elementary and secondary schooling in the first quarter of our century and before that? I think it was an age in which the quality was superior. What were the incentives to going into teaching in those days? Lousy. Salaries were worse than the worst salaries are now. But what was the communities' preception of the teaching profession? Relatively high.

''My father in 1921 was addressed as professor by people. He was a grade-school teacher and a good one and he was regarded highly, at the same level as the clergy in town and perhaps somewhat higher than the mayor.''

The place was Jefferson, Wis., and the classroom was in a three-room Lutheran school, where teachers went heavy on the basics, the classics and homework. The provost knew that for a fact. He, after all, had been one of his father's students.

***
Books by Jungkuntz:

The gospel of baptism by Richard Jungkuntz (Unknown Binding - 1986)
12 Used & new from $9.85
Other Editions: Unknown Binding

2.
El Evangelio del Bautismo / The Gospel of Baptism by Richard Jungkuntz (Paperback - Sep 2001)
2 Used & new from $4.88

3.
A project in Biblical hermeneutics by Richard Jungkuntz (Unknown Binding - 1969)
5 Used & new from $7.00

4.
Christian approval of Epicureanism by Richard Jungkuntz (Unknown Binding - 1962)

Currently unavailable

5.
The analogy of faith: A historical study by Richard Jungkuntz (Unknown Binding - 1963)

Ralph David Gehrke was born on October 4, 1919 In New London, Wisconsin and died on January 4, 2011 in Tacoma, Washington. He was preceded in death by his parents, Rudolph and Alma, and his brother, Howard. He is survived by 'his sister, Lois Mae Hannewald (Norman), his sister-in-law, Ruth Gehrke and nieces, Betty Geiger (Roger) and Irene Hintz (Darwin). Ralph earned a B. A. from Northwestern College (Wisconsin) in 1941, a B. D. from Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary in 1944 and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1959. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, he was awarded the prestigious Shorey Fellowship in Classics. Ralph was ordained as a Lutheran Pastor in 1944 and recently celebrated the 65th Anniversary of his ordination. He served in the Wisconsin Synod, Lutheran Church---Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Dr. Gehrke came to PLU in 1975 after teaching for 24 years at Northwestern College in Wisconsin and Concordia Teachers College in Illinois. At PLU, he was as a professor in the Religion Department until his retirement in 1990. His most noteworthy scholarship stemmed from his knowledge of multiple languages and cultures as well as his lifelong study of the Old Testament. In particular, his research and teaching were informed by extensive travel in Biblically referenced lands. In his years at PLU, he taught regularly in the academic program currently identified as the Honors Program.

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Lent 2 Epistle Lesson - "Those who have received the Spirit are they from whom obedience is due; but those not inclined to a willing performance, we should leave to themselves."

 

 Enchanted Peace Rose

Complete Luther Sermon Here->Reminiscere. Second Sunday in Lent. Exhortation to Holiness. 1 Thessalonians 4:1-7. 

SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT
   

TEXT: 1 THESSALONIANS 4:1-7.

1. Finally then, brethren, we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that, as ye received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, even as ye do walk, — that ye abound more and more. 2 For ye know what charge we gave you through the Lord Jesus. 3 For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye abstain from fornication; 4 that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust, even as the Gentiles who know not God; 6 that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in the matter: because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as also we forewarned you and testified. 7 For God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification.

EXHORTATION TO HOLINESS.

1. This lesson is easy of interpretation. It is a general and earnest admonition on the part of Paul, enjoining us to an increasing degree of perfection in the doctrine we have received. This admonition, this exhortation, is one incumbent upon an evangelical teacher to give, for he is urging us to observe a doctrine commanded of God. He says, “For ye know what charge [commandments] we gave you through the Lord Jesus.”

Whatever Christians do, it should be willing service, not compulsory; but when a command is given, it should be in the form of exhortation or entreaty. Those who have received the Spirit are they from whom obedience is due; but those not inclined to a willing performance, we should leave to themselves.

2. But mark you this: Paul places much value upon the gift bestowed upon us, the gift of knowing how we are “to walk and to please God.” In the world this gift is as great as it is rare. Though the offer is made to the whole world and publicly proclaimed, further exhortation is indispensable, and Paul is painstaking and diligent in administering it. The trouble is, we are in danger of becoming indolent and negligent, forgetful and ungrateful — vices menacing and great, and which, alas, are altogether too frequent.

Let us look back and note to what depths of darkness, of delusion and abomination, we had sunk when we knew not how we ought to walk, how to please God. Alas, we have forgotten all about it; we have become indolent and ungrateful, and are dealt with accordingly. Well does the apostle say in the lesson for the Sunday preceding this (2 Corinthians 6:1): “And working together with him we entreat also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain, for he saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, and in a day of salvation did I succor thee.”

3. In our present lesson he treats chiefly of two vices: unchastity, which is a sin against oneself and destructive of the fruits of faith; and fraud in business, which is a sin against the neighbor and likewise destructive of faith and charity. Paul would have every man keep himself chaste and free from wrong against every man, pronouncing the wrath of God on offenses of this character.

4. It was a fact reflecting much credit and honor on the Thessalonians in contrast to the Corinthians and the Galatians, that they continued upright in doctrine and true in the knowledge of the faith, though perhaps deficient in the above-mentioned two self-evident features of Christian life. While it is true that if sins of immorality are not renounced God will punish, yet punishment in such cases is for the most part temporal, these sins being less pernicious than such gross offenses as error in faith and doctrine.

5. Paul, however, threatens such sins with the wrath of God, lest anyone become remiss and indolent, imagining the kingdom of Christ a kingdom to tolerate with impunity such offenses. As Paul expresses it, “God called us not for uncleanness, but in sanctification [holiness].” The thought is:

Unchastity does not come within the limits of Christian liberty and privilege, nor does God treat the offender with indulgence and impunity.

No, indeed. In fact, he will more rigorously punish this sin among Christians than among heathen. Paul tells us (1 Corinthians 11:30) that many were sickly and many had succumbed to the sleep of death in consequence of eating and drinking unworthily. And Psalm 89:32 testifies, “Then will I visit their transgression with the rod.”

6. True, they who sin through infirmity, who, conscious of their transgressions, suffer themselves to be reproved, repenting at once — for these the kingdom of Christ has ready pity and forbearance, commending them to acceptance and toleration (Romans 15; Galatians 6:1; Corinthians 13:7); but that such vices be regarded generally lawful and normal — this will not do! Paul declares, “This is the will of God, even your sanctification.” And he speaks of “how ye ought to... please God.”

His thought is: Some consider these sins a matter of little moment, treat them as if the wind blew them away and God rather had pleasure in them as trivial affairs. But this is not true. While God really bears with the fallen sinner, he would have us perceive our errors and strive to mend our lives and to abound more and more in righteousness. His grace is not intended to cloak our shame, nor should the licentious abuse the kingdom of Christ as a shield for their knavery. Paul commands (Galatians 5:13), “Use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh”; and Peter (1 Peter 2:16), “As free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.”

7. Paul, following the Hebrew way of speaking, has reference to chastity where he says “your sanctification.” He terms the body “holy” when it is chaste, chastity being, in God’s sight, equivalent to holiness. “Holiness,” in the Old Testament, is a synonym for “purity.” Again, “holiness” and “purity” are regarded as the same thing in 1 Corinthians 7:14: “Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy.”