We decided to contact her Uncle because he is a devout Christian and a socialist member of the Democrat party. We gave him a call, and his answer to us was, that he is rooting for the left in order to re-strengthen the right.

I really don’t know what he meant by that, and I wasn’t very satisfied with his answer.

He sent me an article a few days later about how Adam Kinzinger was defying both his Republican party and his Church (Kinzinger is a member of a Baptist church).

The article was from The Atlantic and was about how noble Kinzinger was to do the right thing by opposing Trump and how it was causing strife with his membership in the Republican party and in the Church.

My initial reaction was the piece was a bit too dramatic, but I read the entire article and took notes with the intention of responding to Shelly’s Uncle’s gesture of sending me the piece. I assumed he wanted my thoughts on the matter.

One year later, I never wrote the letter back to him, so I’ll write a summary here.

Adam Kinzinger believes the Devil’s ultimate trick for Christianity is to embarrass the church. He is mistaken. The Devil’s ultimate and most powerful tool is distraction. He uses it all the time, both in the Church and in the World. If the Devil can distract you from what you truly need to focus on, you won’t focus on the thing truly needing your attention. According to Kinzinger, Trump is a tool of the Devil to make the church look foolish.

However, The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisest man. Obviously, the impetus to focus on Trump the man is not good for the country, and evangelicals insisting on the man rather than the rule of law isn’t good to see either. But to imply that somehow the devil won’t embarrass the Church at every turn is an absolute fantasy. Logic and reason have been tossed out by our current culture. Merely speaking the truth—merely by speaking the Word of God Himself to the public—will be used as a point of shame against the Church in this current culture, and that can’t be ignored. Consider the problems caused by Max Lucado speaking at the National Cathedral recently.

Kinzinger concludes Christians have lost a lot of moral authority because they supported Trump and spoke of conspiracies. Again, I think his insights are misguided. If he were wise, he would expect the world to destroy the reputation of the Church and strip away “moral authority” from the Christians. It isn’t just the Christians that have lost moral authority, though; it is anyone who espouses any truth as it is taught in the Scriptures.

His conclusion that his Faith and his party have been poisoned by conspiracy theories and lies is a misguided, unwise conclusion as well. I don’t believe the election was stolen. In the end, the federal process played out exactly as it is supposed to according to the rule of law according to the Constitution. The election was not stolen at the federal level, and no right-thinking person really believes it was.

What is being challenged is impropriety and monkey-business at the local level. If a little-league game were scored by a biased electronics technician who rigged the scoreboard to display a score in favor of his child’s team, no one would say “the game was stolen!” Neither would anyone allow the impropriety to go uncorrected, either. Once the final score is entered into the record books, though, it’s entered. I’ve always been struck by Isaac not taking back the blessing from Jacob. Jacob didn’t steal the blessing from Esau. Esau despised the blessing by “selling” it to Jacob and then Jacob received it legitimately and sincerely from Isaac. Once Isaac had blessed Jacob, and he was made aware of what had occurred, he didn’t claim that Jacob stole Esau’s blessing, he merely accepted that it had been received by his younger son.

Rand Paul voted to accept the electoral results while at the same time saying some hanky-pankey was going on at the state level. This isn’t saying the election was stolen. Kinzinger may very well have the same viewpoint as Paul on this matter, but the reporting from The Atlantic doesn’t make that distinction. It goes along with the buzzwords. That’s not a centric approach to what happened, and it is that kind of rhetoric that makes a conservative like me raise an eyebrow at The Atlantic. When you use buzzwords, you have an agenda, and that agenda is not a mere reporting of facts.

Kinzinger and the other Republicans who voted to impeach Trump were treated like some sort of Judas who traded Trump for political 30 pieces of silver. It is true that Trump supporters had set up Trump as an Antichrist. It’s honestly kind of scary. On the other hand, I don’t think the media did a very good job of NOT setting Trump up as an Antichrist. They make him and his supporters more and more powerful with all of the hatred they spew toward him AND his supporters.

The media are the ones who orchestrated Trump’s speech as an insurrection and have held up Kinzinger and his fellow pro-impeachment members as heroes. There was no insurrection; there was no call for violence. Kinzinger, as a Christian and as a Republican, is only being praised by The Atlantic because he doesn’t talk or act like a Christian or a Republican. He acts and talks like a left-leaning, secular moderate.

Kinzinger is bothered by the idea that “… every little political victory that we do that has an impact on an election is actually fighting for God and the truth.” This bothers me as well. The Church would do well to remember that we are united in Christ, and the Church’s business should be about delivering Christ in Word and Sacrament to sinners for the forgiveness of sins. The Church should not be about PACs. This doesn’t mean that members of churches shouldn’t be part of PACs, and their being members of the body of Christ SHOULD influence what decisions they make.

Kinzinger’s decision to encourage Vice President Pence to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and remove Trump from office makes it appear as if Kinzinger cares more about the Republic than he does the truth. A Christian should care more about the truth.

In the article, Kinzinger said, “Our time on earth is not going to be that long compared to eternity.” He’s right, and it is my belief that Christians in places of governmental authority should spend that brief time on earth stopping babies from being murdered and children from being trafficked instead of debating the finer points of how murdering a child vs not murdering a child might be politically expedient.

In the entire article on Kinzinger, his Christianity, and his party, what is never explicitly addressed is that politics and government are NOT the answer to our problem at hand. There is a distinction between the two Kingdoms, and within the kingdom of the left hand, there are many factions, but moving from one faction to another doesn’t mean you are suddenly in the kingdom of the right hand.

Adam Kinzinger is first and foremost a politician. He plays a theatrical game. Just like everyone on “the screen,” he is an actor.

He is not to be trusted, believed, or looked up to by anyone living in the real world like you and me.

The post Adam Kinzinger is Not a Model Christian appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

Congratulations graduating class of 2022. You certainly are finishing your primary education and entering the world of adulthood at a very, very interesting time.

There is an old Chinese blessing, May you live in uninteresting times.

The point of this blessing is: regular, ole, everyday life is busy and exciting and hard enough to get right. Blessed are they who need not contend with unusual, noteworthy, once-in-a-lifetime incidences coinciding.

Hannah asked me to say something to you that would be encouraging and helpful. Specifically, she wanted me to offer some advice on being a godly adult as you continue your Christian life apart from your parents’ constant oversight.

Being a child underneath your parents’ discipline is hard. Being a young adult under your parents’ discipline, once you’ve discovered that you have thoughts and ideas of your own, is even more challenging.

I can assure you, being an adult with only yourself to blame when things go awry is most challenging of all.

I often tell my teenagers, It is my job to discipline you until you are capable of disciplining yourself.

Being a godly, responsible adult is all about self-discipline, and you only get better at being self-disciplined and at being a godly, productive, responsible adult through practice.

You’ve heard the saying, Practice makes perfect.

Well, that’s a lie. Nobody’s perfect except Jesus. Practice merely makes you better at whatever you are practicing.

No one in this room has perfected being an adult, or a parent, or a member of their chosen vocation.

We are all practicing.

Much like the professional vocations are referred to as a practice (and, for that matter, a discipline): Law, medicine, chiropractic, consulting, accounting, architecture; life is a practice.

Practice, in this sense, is a noun. It is defined as a continual exercise of a vocation.

I’m going to share with you a true truth: EVERYTHING you do is practice and whatever discipline (good or bad) you choose to practice; you will get better at that discipline.

If you practice swinging a club and sinking puts, you will get better at golf.

If you practice writing at least 500 words a day, you will become a better writer.

If you practice sketching, you will become a better artist.

If you practice listening, you will become a better listener.

If you practice thinking, you will get better at thinking.

If you practice paying attention to what’s happening around you, you will get better at being observant.

If you practice hating authority and discipline, you will become a better rebel.

If you practice playing video games all day or binge-watching Netflix, you will become a great couch potato.

If you practice having intimate relationships with multiple partners and practice breaking up with them the moment things get a little complicated, you will get better at despising commitment.

You may swear that you want to do the right thing. You may say you want to get up early and make a daily habit of prayer and Bible reading, and physical exercise, but until you take action and start practicing, why should anyone believe you?

Words matter. But actions do speak louder than words.

Everything you do is practice.

I want you, right now, to say, out loud: Everything I do is practice.

So, what are you practicing?

Well, speaking of words, let’s talk about confession.

Confession is the act of admitting, acknowledging, or giving evidence of something.

Every Divine Service, we confess that we are, by nature, sinful and unclean….

We confess that we believe God the Father Almighty created all things. We confess that Jesus, His son, is sinless and died for us, and we need his life, death, and resurrection to give us forgiveness and hope.

We confess that we believe in The Holy Spirit and the Holy Christian Church.

Why do we confess these things?

Because it’s the truth.

You always want your confession to be the truth.

Each one of you are baptized. You are a child of God. You belong to Him. He is your Father. This is the truth.

Each of you has been confirmed, which means you affirm the truth of what you were taught.

How does a godly adult confess the truth in their daily life?

By loving their Heavenly Father and keeping his commandments such as:

• Not taking the Father’s name for granted.
• Remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy.
• Honoring earthly authority; father and mother.
• Not committing murder.
• Not committing adultery.
• Not stealing.
• Not giving false testimony against your neighbor.
• Not coveting.

You confess the truth by daily practicing God’s law.

Here’s another true truth: everything you practice is a confession.

Remember the baker in Colorado whose business was shut down because he didn’t want to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple? Have you heard what his reasons were for that decision? He stated that a wedding cake isn’t merely a desert. It is a confession about what marriage is. If he were to make a wedding cake for a lesbian wedding, he would be confessing something that he didn’t believe to be the truth: namely, that marriage was something other than the joining together of one man and one woman forever.

In our Lutheran tradition, we have a practice called closed or close communion, where we fence the table from anyone who does not share our confession of the Sacrament of the Altar. We aren’t claiming that someone is not a Christian with this practice. We are protecting our confession that Christ’s body and blood are truly present in the bread and the wine.

A godly adult must always confess the truth.

Ask yourself, do you confess the truth?

Here’s another true truth: Confessing the truth is hard.

The world does not confess the truth. The world wants you to confess anything other than the truth.

The truth is, children are a blessing. They don’t always FEEL like a blessing, but the truth is, they are. The world wants you to confess that children are a hindrance.

Have you seen the latest Verizon commercial that advertises, No family needed?

That’s a lie. The truth is, you wouldn’t exist without your family.

The truth is, there is nothing new under the sun.

The world wants you to confess that it’s not the same as it was. At least Harry Stiles does.

Pay attention to the confession being made by the songs that get stuck in your head. Repetition matters.

The truth is, God is in control of all things, and all things work together for good to them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

The world wants you to confess that you are a victim of circumstances. Overbearing parents oppress you and want to hold you back. The only way to make things better is to radically and violently hate and destroy and declare whatever you desire to be the truth.

As you go into this world, disciplining yourself, whether you are going away to college, taking a gap year to travel, or going straight into a job, I want you to have stuck in your head like a mantra:

• Everything I do is practice. And
• Everything I practice is a confession.

My prayer for you is that whatever you decide to do, you continue to practice being a Christian, and you always confess the truth.

Life is getting ready to get busy. It’s going to feel overwhelming at times. You’ll feel like you aren’t accomplishing things you want to achieve. You’re going to feel despair that your plans are not working out the way you had hoped. You’re going to make choices you wish you could take back. You’re going to waste time you wish you could have back.

Just keep practicing being a Christian, and always confess the truth.

The practice of being a godly, Christian adult includes many duties. It includes the listing of household responsibilities found in Colossians 3:8-4:1 and Ephesians 5:22-6:9.

Putting away the old self:

• anger
• wrath
• malice
• slander
• obscene talk
• lying

Practicing the new self:

• compassion
• kindness
• humility
• meekness
• patience

At a minimum, when you find you’ve gone a week forgetting any personal prayer; when a whole month goes by, and you haven’t bothered to crack open God’s Word in your personal time when you can’t seem to go a day without causing chaos and damage and disorder everywhere you go and with everything you say, make it a practice to attend Divine Service every week because that is where God has promised to be, and God never breaks His promises.

God will be there, delivering His word and delivering forgiveness.

Practice receiving God’s Word into your ears and into your mouth. Practice being a Christian by confessing you’re a sinner in need of Jesus and his forgiveness. Practice receiving God’s forgiveness.

Being godly means practicing being a Christian and confessing the truth.

Okay, repeat after me:

Everything I do is practice.

Everything I practice is a confession.

The post Everything You Do is Practice appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

For some reason, I thought he was an academic. He isn’t. Perhaps I thought this due to his membership in a science consortium known as the Santa Fe Institute. I must have just assumed he was an academic. The Santa Fe Institute is a scientific think tank. It is strange that they would have a novelist like Cormac McCarthy as a fellow. They admit as much by claiming that they are not your average scientific think tank.

McCarthy has devoted himself to the craft of writing. He spends all of his time writing. He has been married at least twice over his life, and maybe three times. I can’t remember precisely how many times he has been married. I also can’t remember if he decided he wanted to be an author immediately before, or immediately after his first marriage.

McCarthy dropped out of college twice. He married his first wife. They were very poor and lived in a ramshackle cabin in East Tennessee. In their first year of marriage, he asked his wife if she wouldn’t mind getting a day job to support them while he would quit his job and write full time. This was before he had ever published anything.

That took some guts. It also took some bizarre single-mindedness.

Stunned by his request, she packed up and left him the next day. That wasn’t what she signed up for. On one hand, it’s hard to blame her. A woman wants security, she wants to be taken care of. She wants a man who can get ‘er done in career and home life. McCarthy knew if he wanted to succeed at writing—and it appears he believes his sole purpose in life is to write—then he needed to devote himself to the craft.

In his interview with Oprah, he admitted that he subjected his family to poverty and hardship for the sake of his writing career.

And he is excellent at his craft.

Excellent.

As I said, he will go down as a true modern classic, and my grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be reading his books as examples of American literature.

This morning, I was watching a short interview with Jordan Peterson, and he said when you’re young and impulsive, you have to take “old you” into consideration because you’re going to get old one day. You don’t want the decisions you make as a young person to turn the life of “old you” into a catastrophe.

Respecting your elders can even mean respecting the elder you will one day become. This is fascinating to consider. I return to the Ten Commandments again and again. Honoring your father and mother has always been understood to mean, “respect (and honor) those who are older than you,” and one day, “current you” is going to be “old you.” You should have the consideration and courtesy to care for that old person like any other old person. If you don’t respect yourself—even your old self—why should you expect anyone else to respect you?

McCarthy is an excellent writer. But at what cost?

Also this morning, I watched a video of a young man, living in Paris, who practiced the daily routine of Picasso for two weeks.

Picasso worked every day practicing his craft for hours each day. He would go to bed at 3 AM, he would awake at 11, visit with friends till 3 PM, work into the evening, eat supper at 10 PM, get back to work at 11 PM, repeat. His unwavering routine was kept at the sacrifice of all of his relationships. He even admitted as much. One of his lovers wrote a book about life with Picasso. He told her that art was more important than anything in his life. He would gladly sacrifice any person for the sake of producing his art, including her, including his own self.

He said, when he would enter the studio, he would leave himself at the door like a Muslim leaves his shoes outside the Mosque.

That is a bizarre single-mindedness.

Picasso is certainly remembered, fondly for his contribution to humanity, through his art.

God, obviously has a greater purpose for all of us. We are all going to contribute to this earth and the existence of humanity in some fashion, either big or small.

If McCarthy and Picasso had been celibate monks who devoted themselves to their craft, then there wouldn’t be the wake of destroyed personal relationships behind them, and they would have been remembered only for their positive contribution to humanity.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe the angst created by sacrificing others’ lives for the sake of our craft makes the craft that much more resilient.

Explaining his philosophy, McCarthy said:

There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.

Metaphorically, sacrifice and bloodshed bring life.

Is the art of McCarthy and Picasso and those of their caliber full of life because of the bloodshed of the relationship sacrifices they made?

Choose how you want them all to remember you, and be sure it’s the right choice.

The post Picasso, Cormac McCarthy, Bloodshed and Sacrifice appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

Years ago, Joel Salatin, the owner and operator of The Polyface Farm in Virginia, wrote in his book You Can Farm, if you want to farm, you’re going to have to stay home. No farm was ever successful when there was not anybody on the farm taking care of things.

Jordan Peterson, in one of his talks on marriage said, “Marriage is two imperfect people saying, ‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying put for better or for worse.’”

This theme of staying put has popped up in my life again and again. Hambricks have had a tendency, like most Americans, to be migratory. Patrick Hambrick came to this country in the pre-revolutionary war years with his cousin, Roger Day, from County Claire, Ireland. They were deck-hands on a ship, docked in Virginia. The ship set sail back to England, on Christmas day in 1700, without Patrick and Roger. They both chose to make a home in America.

The Hambricks (also Hambricks) then migrated in two main parties over the generations. One went south and the other went west. The largest concentration of Hambricks and Hamricks to this day resides in West Virginia.

My lineage went south, concentrating in Georgia. After being raised in Georgia, and through military service living in New Jersey, Texas, Korea, and then inter-coastal waterways of the Southeast for short time, I went to Florida, and now, Missouri. We have now lived in Missouri longer than any other place I’ve ever lived. It is only in the last few years I feel as if I am actually growing.

If you never take root, you never flourish.

Berry addresses this tendency to always intending to be somewhere else in the first chapter of The Unsettling of America. Yet, he doesn’t dwell on that tendency, he quickly acknowledges “another tendency: the tendency to stay put, to say, ‘No farther. This is the place.’”

When I suggested this book for the book club, I instructed the other members to watch out for three themes in Berry’s writing: God, blood and land. Embedded within those themes is the overarching theme to stay put. Why? Because, those three themes are our sources and the idea of staying put simply means to stay connected to our sources.

In the information age, there is a longing for connection. The word connection is bandied about like a mystical flail with no chain anchoring it to anything of substance. Recently the creator of the documentary The Social Dilemma was interviewed by Joe Rogan. The discussion was on how messed up we all are with our obsession with social media, and the solution to this social dilemma is connection. We need to reconnect with each other on a human level.

What the heck does that mean? Connect with exactly who, and exactly how?

The answer is nothing new. It’s as old as human civilization itself. Our need for connection is the same now as it has always been. We need to connect with humanity via our sources of God, blood and land. The alternative of connecting around ideology, identity and the environment has led us into the disaster we have suffered through especially in the last two years.

Community used to be built around a people’s common interest in their spiritual beliefs (God), their family (blood), and their place (land). These are the sources of our existence, and they must be cherished, nurtured and defended. Any enemy that might invade and separate us from our God, our blood and our land was to be battled against for the sake our existence and sustenance. No one in their right mind desires to be extinguished, eliminated or forgotten.

God, the creator is the source of all things. Without your family you wouldn’t have come into being. From the dust of the ground you came, to the dust you will go.

In this modern day of remote work, abundant food-stuff, virtual reality, and hypersonic travel, even an avowed atheist can, at minimum, understand and relate to one’s connection to personal, spiritual beliefs Most people, regardless of a history of abuse and neglect can relate to the connection to one’s kin.

But our awareness of a vital connection to the land itself has somehow been successfully wiped from our conscience.

If the devil’s most powerful tool is to distract us from important and real and true things, then he has most certainly been successful at distracting us from our connection to the land.

This is ultimately the theme of Wendell Berry’s body of work.

By “land,” if it hasn’t already been made clear, Berry isn’t referring to patriotism, or nationalism. Land means land, the literal dirt that your feet are standing on and that you call home.

Your land is a gift from God, and it deserves to be taken care of and cherished, and if you do violence to it, there are going to be consequences.

Berry’s argument is not one of environmentalism, and neither is it necessarily and anti-capitalist argument. It is that success is is most successful when it is achieved through natural means.

What has taken place in our world in the last two years is anything but natural. We have been mandated by our rulers to stay home from church because corporate worship and assembly might infect someone or cause us to be infected (separation from God).

We have been instructed and mandated to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas away from our families because preventing a case of COVID is more important than connecting with our loved ones (separation from Blood).

Our work has been categorized as either essential or unessential, and the unessential are cut off from their source of meaningful service to the community, displaced, evicted, foreclosed upon and locked away in a nursing home. In response to this oppression, many have chosen to vacate their home state for a freer state (separation from Land).

The Unsettling of America was a foretelling of what happens to a society when they forget who they are, what they are and even where they are, and it is for these reasons I believed reading this book would be so timely for us and our book club.

The post Stay Put and Hold Fast appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

This ages-old debate is an argument of predestination and election. Did God elect some to be saved and others to be damned?

As a Calvinist, James White argues for, and Michael Brown argues against the concept of predestination.

Today, as I was listening, I realized just how wrong-headed they both are. The question is not, is predestination Biblical? which it is. The question is, How are men saved?

A theology of the cross is so vital to understand the whole of Scripture.

Obviously, God is in control of who believes and who does not, but He did not save his people by a divine decree, which is the argument that White gives.

Neither did He save a people based on their decision, which is Michael Brown’s position (If he’s honest. As James White says, the only intellectually honest Armenian is an Open Theist).

God saved His people through the finished work of His only begotten Son on the cross, 2000 years ago. The cross saves God’s people from their sin and what takes away the sin of the whole world.

It is a Biblical fact that God has predestined some to be saved for all eternity, but the Bible does not teach that God predestined some to hell. You can make logical inferences about whether or not God predestined some to hell and some to heaven (Double Predestination is the official term). Still, when you do, you are putting your reason above Scripture rather than putting Scripture above your reason.

The Bible teaches us that Christ died for all. God so loved the world. Christ died for the sins of the world, especially those who believed. Christ died not for our sins only, but the sins of the whole world.

The text is very plain – Christ’s death atoned for the sins of the whole world.

This universal atonement is what gives us the authority to confidently tell anyone and everyone we meet, “Christ died for you repent and believe for the forgiveness of your sins!”

This is the true Gospel.

The reason for the confusion is, the reformed (Calvinist) doesn’t separate the thing accomplished (the cross) from the thing applied (personal union with Christ).

The finished work of Christ on the cross is how God saved mankind. Salvation is applied individually to men through the means of grace – Word and Sacrament.

This is what the Calvinist doesn’t believe. They give lips service to the Means of Grace, but it is all spiritual, taking place in the spiritual realm. The outward physical elements are unnecessary and inconsequential, even though this belief is unscriptural.

We are unified with Christ by faith. His baptism washes our sins away, regenerates us, gives us the Holy Spirit, and works faith in us unifies us with Christ by making us part of his death, burial, and resurrection. His supper makes his blood and body apart of our being, forgives us our sins, and makes us a part of his body.

As Luther puts it, it works opposite of regular food assimilation. When we eat regular supper, our body assimilates what we eat and makes it apart of us. When we eat the Lord’s Supper, it incorporates us and makes us apart of the body of Christ.

These are real, tangible gifts that can be tasted, touched, seen, felt and believed that they genuinely unify us with the Saving Lord.

The Calvinist has no objective assurance outside of himself of his unification with Christ – that he loves the brethren, that he desires Scripture – these rely on the individual’s state at any given moment.

The Bible tells us that we can know that God saves us because we can believe Christ when he tells us that his death, his righteousness is a gift, and it is for you.

But we can also reject these gifts. Christ died for all, yet not all will be saved. Why? We don’t know why. Scripture doesn’t tell us. Scripture reveals those in hell are in hell because of their unbelief, not because of a decree from God.

What makes hell so awful is that everyone who is there will be there of their own accord. Their debt was paid, and they have rejected the payment.

The debate is not about whether the Bible teaches election and predestination? Of course, it does. The question is, is God responsible for those who are in hell?

The Biblical answer is, No. The sinner is responsible for his eternity in hell.

The post Predestination, Election and How Men are Saved appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

The ideal solution is to educate your child yourself.

I say ideal because I believe that there is no one more qualified to teach a child to be the adult they are destined to be than that child’s own parent.

Who better knows the ins and outs of how your child’s brain works than yourself? Who better understands the idiosyncrasies that makes your child the individual they are? Who better knows what motivates or demotivates your child?

Of all the individuals in the universe, who was miraculously bestowed, by God, of the responsibility of parenting your particular child?

This is not to say there aren’t circumstances where educating your child yourself at home is not ideal. Maybe you’re a single parent, the sole provider for your family and you don’t have time to homeschool. Maybe you and your child butt heads and the conflict is noticeably hindering their educational progress.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of the educational options listed above, depending on your goals for training up your child in the way he should go.

Goals… that’s the key. What are your goals for your children, and does the educational route you’ve chosen for them support those goals and help them achieve those goals, or do they hinder and set back your child?

Our goals for our children are to teach them how to be godly, productive, compassionate adults who know what they believe, why they believe it, and can defend and lead according to their beliefs.

With that in mind, here are the reasons we chose to educate our children ourselves:

We Don’t Like the Goals of the Public School System

The goal of the public education system is to churn out college material, and the goal of the colleges is to churn out workers for the work force.

Not only is this not a path that we necessarily want our children to take, but it is an outdated model founded on the modern industrial revolution, established by the tycoons of old who needed properly trained managers of laborers.

The companies, positions and jobs that most college degrees are preparing people for have all moved overseas or have become automated. The business world has moved on from the industrial age, but the education system is still stuck in the nineteenth century.

If our children choose a career path that requires a college education, then fine. We’re not against higher education, but we don’t want them coerced into believing that a college degree and a job, working for someone else, is their only ticket to a happy life.

Our goal is for our children to have a versatile and useful education that fosters a life-long love of learning and molds them into thinkers and leaders.

We want them to be self-motivated trailblazers, and wise stewards of the life God has given them.

The right kind of home education moves them toward that goal.

Our Children Can Have a Personalized Education

Every child learns differently.

We have six children and each one is unique and has their own way of obtaining and processing information.

George Leonard says in his excellent book Mastery:

The typical school or college classroom, unhappily, is not a very good place to lear. “Frontal teaching,” with one instructor sitting or standing in front of twenty to thirty-five students who are sitting at fixed desks, is primarily an administrative expediency, a way of parceling out and keeping track of the flood of students in mass education. It’s sad that over the past hundred years almost every aspect of our national life – industry, transportation, communication, computation, entertainment – has changed almost beyond recognition, while our schools remain essentially the same.

Educating at home allows us to teach each child according to their strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they are getting the best opportunity to learn, and retain what they learn.

The Disciple Will Become Like the Teacher

Jesus said, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”

This is the main reason we homeschool our kids.

Whoever you hang around is who you become.

I firmly believe you only have about 12–14 years to bend the tree of your child. After that, any attempt to bend them will break them.

Why then should we give over those formative years to someone who does not hold the same values as us, and is not interested in the character development of our children like we are?

Paul Graham published a fantastic post on his website called Why Nerds Are Unpopular. Here is what he has to say about the formative years of children and grouping them together during that period:

Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem to start treating their family as a day job. They create a new world among themselves, and standing in this world is what matters, not standing in their family. Indeed, being in trouble in their family can win them points in the world they care about.

The problem is, the world these kids create for themselves is at first a very crude one. If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn’t get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.

Like I said, you become who you hang around.

We want our children to build solidarity with their siblings and parents. We want them to learn how to be adults and how to interact with their peers from us, and educating them at home drives us toward that goal.

Why We Don’t Homeschool

I wanted to mention one reason that didn’t factor heavily into our decision to homeschool.

Many parents homeschool their children in an effort to merely protect them from harmful influences. While that is a bonus for educating at home, it is not a prime motivating factor behind our decision.

Sin lies in the heart, and we don’t believe it is helpful to shelter our children from all outside influences. We would much rather address issues as they arise and teach our children, “We do not do that because…” or “We do do this because…”

With the church having less and less influence in the world with each passing day, and the ways of the world becoming more and more mainstream, it’s becoming nearly impossible to completely protect our children from carnal knowledge that used to be held from a child until they were more mature.

Even going to the bathroom in public is now a cultural and moral lesson, whether you homeschool or not.

After all, our children may not be of the World, but they certainly live in it, and I think over-sheltering a child can certainly lead to a cultural shock when they are released into it as adults.

Question: Do you educate your child at home? Why or why not?

The post Why We Homeschool Our Kids appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

I have never liked the idea of orthotics. Orthotics are crutches, merely masking symptoms and compensating weaknesses instead of actually fixing a problem.

I have had the fortune of owning and operating two very distinct practices in my career as a chiropractor.

My first practice, in Sarasota, FL, consisted of wealthy people, snow birds, Medicare recipients and vacationing Amish from Pennsylvania and the Ohio valley.

My current practice, in a rural community in the Ozark mountains of Missouri, is filled mostly with country people, farmers, ranchers, the oldest order of Amish (i.e. most conservative) in the country, and a few town-folk from the nearest urban center, who prefer my brand of care and are willing to make the trip.

Chiropractic Maturity

I practice primarily two chiropractic procedures, same as I did in my Florida practice.

One procedure is an upper cervical specialty focusing on the top 2 vertebrae of the spine, the atlas and axis, otherwise known as C1 and C2.

In Florida, I found at least 99% of patients had atlas subluxations (misalignments causing nerve impulse disruption).

Some of this, in retrospect, I freely admit was due to professional bias or confirmation bias. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

However, my desire has been to be completely honest with myself and with my patients, so I developed a discipline of “prove to me your atlas is out, beyond a shadow of a doubt”. I personally would rather miss a subluxation than address something that didn’t need to be corrected.

The longer I practiced, the more common it became to see patients who did not exhibit clear atlas subluxation indicators. I once pointed out this observation to a mentor, and he promptly “found” a slight variation I “… just wasn’t skilled enough…” to see.

Of course I and that mentor have never completely seen eye to eye, but when you are just learning a discipline, it can be very difficult not to abandon critical thinking and just buy into dogma, especially when you have such high regard for the one who is teaching you.

As I matured, I became comfortable with the realization of not everyone needing an upper cervical correction. Some people are lucky and healthy that way, and that’s fine because I also use a procedure which allows me to evaluate the rest of the joints of the body and make corrections as needed.

However, practicing in the Ozarks, I have experienced a striking difference with my Florida practice. Instead of adjusting the atlas vertebrae of 99% of my patients, I only have to adjust around 4%.

Quite a discrepancy!

For the longest time, I couldn’t tell what was different.

Again, some of it was because of my own maturity, recognizing confirmation bias and not being led astray by dogma, but bias doesn’t fully explain such a dramatic difference in the number of misaligned atlas vertebrae.

For a Healthy Body, You Need Healthy Feet

While researching barefoot running and its effects on the structure of the human frame, I learned of a chiropractor in Chapel Hill, NC known as the Sock Doc. Dr. Steve Gangemi makes an excellent case for the connection between the health of the feet and the health of the entire body.

I realized the difference.

People in my current practice were country people and were much more likely to go barefoot than the city folk who made up the bulk of my previous practice.

Amish, english, blue collar, white collar, it didn’t matter. People who live in the country are much more likely to live barefoot lifestyles than people who don’t live in the country.

The patients who didn’t go barefoot were much more likely to have an atlas subluxation and were much more likely to not hold corrections overall than patients who tended to go barefoot.

I didn’t know how to use this new information in my practice, though. I wasn’t comfortable telling my patients to be barefoot hippies in order to be healthy.

While researching minimalist footwear, I discovered the work of Dr. Ray McClanahan.

Dr. McClanahan is a sports podiatrist in Portland, Oregon who determined most people don’t have a foot care problem so much as a foot wear problem. Instead of approaching foot care from a standpoint of the human foot is fundamentally flawed, he began to look at the way modern foot wear deforms the human foot.

Based on the work of his mentor, podiatrist William Rossi, he changed his practice from a traditional orthotics-and-surgery podiatry practice to a natural and holistic foot care practice focusing on patient education and the correction of the toes.

Correct the Toes and You Correct the Feet

The toes were the key to the proper function of the foot. The toes were the missing link I had never properly considered because, unless one is suffering from bunions or hammer toes, the toes never bother most people.

However, it is the position of the toes which determines the architecture, function and health of the entire foot.

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Modern footwear, over time, deforms the feet, reduces blood circulation, alters the biomechanics of the entire kinetic chain of the body and leads to structural problems causing people’s biomechanics to break down.

Most modern footwear companies do not design shoes with correct anatomical function of the foot in mind, but design shoes according to what is fashionable.

Most shoes have a tapered toe box, a heel lift of varying degrees (called heel drop in the shoe industry) and a slight lift at the tip of the toe called toe-spring. This is a form based on the cowboy boot designed as a tool for riding in the saddle with a tapered toe box to make it easier to place your foot in the stirrup and a heel to make it easier to lock your foot in the stirrup. Toe-spring was incorporated to prevent tripping which sometimes occurs when wearing shoes with rigid soles.

A great design for horseback riding but terrible for the health of your foot and a completely un-functional design for the majority of modern humanity since we don’t ride horseback very often.

If you look at a baby’s foot and at cultures that don’t typically wear modern shoes, you will notice the toes are the widest part of their foot.

Top: The foot of a person who doesn’t wear shoes. Bottom: Baby’s footprint. Notice how the toes are the widest part on both examples.

The widest part of most modern shoes, however, is the ball; tapering the toe, pinching the toes together and slowly, over time, deforming the feet.

The average shoe is widest at the ball of the foot. Over time, this deforms the foot into a crippling configuration.

To address this problem, Dr. McClanahan invented a product called Correct Toes, developed to position the toes in an anatomically correct posture, and be worn throughout the day. Correct Toes facilitates proper neurological communication between proprioceptors of the feet and the brain, rehabilitating the muscles and tendons of the feet.

Over time, with regular use of Correct Toes and proper, anatomically correct footwear, the feet correct. Foot problems resolve, arches strengthen, ankle, knee and hip problems diminish and chiropractic subluxation corrections hold.

I found this new information so pertinent to my practice, and patient’s ability to hold chiropractic adjustments, I needed to learn more about how Dr. McClanahan evaluated feet and his natural approach to foot disfunction.

I made arrangements to shadow his practice.

The third week of March, 2016 I flew to Portland and hung out with Dr. McClanahan and his staff at Northwest Foot and Ankle.

They were very gracious, answered my questions about foot structure and proper foot wear recommendations.

I learned a ton and implemented much of what I learned immediately.

Correcting Foot Problems and Holding Subluxation Corrections

My patients are reaping the benefits. One lady told me, correcting her feet has been worth every penny, as she finally feels she is holding corrections, particularly in her hips, much longer than just a few days at a time.

Dr. McClanahan’s approach to natural foot care is a more sustainable and holistic solution for correcting problems in the feet, and subsequent imbalances in the ankle, knee, hip and spine than are the use of orthotics. It is also a truly corrective approach, and not just a crutch, masking or compensating a problem.

One of chiropractic’s founding principles is, the power that made the body, heals the body. It is a philosophical contradiction to then say the human foot is fundamentally flawed and the only solution is orthotics or inserts, and failing that, surgery. As Dr. Patrick Gentempo is fond of saying, quoting Ayn Rand:

Contradiction leads to destruction, and the amount of destruction is level to the amount of the contradiction.

If you are a chiropractor and want your patient’s subluxations and structural misalignments to correct and stabilize more easily and with more consistency, look to their feet, but don’t reach for the orthotic-casting foam.

Check out the work of Dr. Steve Gangemi and Dr. Ray McClanahan.

Question: What is your opinion of orthotics vs. natural/holistic foot correction?

The post Why I Went to Portland appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

Passing the boards is only the first step, though and it’s not really that pivotal of a step in the grand scheme of being a health care provider. Like any education system, exams like national board exams show whether you are a good test taker rather than showing whether or not you are a good, or will be a good and competent chiropractor.

There are some critical lessons I wish I had been taught in school that would have better prepared me for not only being a successful chiropractor, but also being successful at life and living.

Here are 10 lessons I wish I had learned in chiropractic school with a brief description. Going into detail on each point would warrant its own individual article, and I just may do that sometime in the future.

Lesson 1: Chiropractic is a Business

From day one it is drilled into your head that chiropractic is the philosophy, art and science of detecting and correcting spinal subluxations. This is very true, however it is only the explanation of “what” not the explanation of “why.” Why would you want to pursue this venture? Merely and altruistically for the sake of your fellow man?

No! This is how you’re going to feed your family.

If you are going to own your own clinic, you are a business owner first and a chiropractor second. If you’re not interested in business, then what you’re really starting is a ministry, in which case you are going to have a hard row ahead of yourself because running a ministry can be much tougher than running a business.

You are a business owner first. Learn what it takes to own, manage and grow a successful business. Remember this heuristic which has guided me for many years, but took me a while, in the beginning, to grasp:

“The biggest mistake any business makes is assuming it’s different from any other business.”

You will thank me, and your hungry family will thank me.

Lesson 2: You Are a Service Provider

Chiropractic, while a business, is more specifically a service business, and you the chiropractor are a service provider. In terms of pure mechanics of providing a service and being compensated for that service, you are not much different than a plumber or a sheep shearer or a shoe repairman.

People will do business with you for the same reasons they choose to do business with anyone. Any given patient is thinking four things when they enter your office:

• I have a problem.
• Are you qualified to help me with my problem?
• Can I afford to hire you?
• Can you deliver the goods?

Fail to acknowledge their problem and they won’t feel like you’ve listened to them. Fail to assure them you know how to help solve a problem like their’s and they’ll think they’ve come to the wrong place. Fail to demonstrate the value of what you do and they won’t happily give you any money. Fail to satisfy their desires for doing business with you and they won’t ever come back.

Keep the customers happy and you’ll be happy.

Lesson 3: You Must Learn How to Market Your Services

When I first learned about marketing, I couldn’t believe it had never been on my radar before. I felt like a fool. A really naive fool. Marketing is the life blood of any business, and that includes your chiropractic practice.

How is anyone going to know what you can help them with if you never tell them? How is anyone going to know what a subluxation is and how it can be corrected, unless someone tells them?

How is the back pain sufferer with a bulging disc going to know that there is a solution to their problem without requiring drugs or surgery unless someone tells them?

How is anyone going to say, “This guy is the guy I need to consult for my problem,” unless someone tells them that chiropractic may be the answer they are looking for?

Marketing is how they know you’re who they need to call. You can do spinal screenings, health talks, newspaper advertising, ask for referrals, social media, whatever medium you choose, just be sure it reaches the hungry market you’re looking to serve and it addresses the reason why they need to do business with you.

Lesson #4: Patients Are Customers

Patients are your customers and you have to please your customers if you want them to stay, pay and refer. You please them by listening to them, acknowledging their pain, providing a solution to their pain and rewarding their loyalty.

If after listening to your customer’s pain you determine that you can’t give them what they’re looking for with the tools and services you have at your disposal, then refer them to someone who can. They WILL come back because you listened and acknowledged and provided a solution.

Even if you never see them again, they’ll refer others to you that they think you can help.

Lesson #5: Chiropractic is NOT a Religion

Chiropractic has a problem. At least chiropractic vitalism has a problem.

Chiropractic appears to many people on the outside looking in as a religion, or cult.

Let’s look at how religion is defined according to Wikipedia:

Religion is a cultural system of behaviors and practices, world views, ethics, and social organisation that relate humanity to an order of existence.

That final phrase of relating “… humanity to an order of existence” is the clincher.

Certainly chiropractic as it is often practiced by some of the most die-hard vitalistic zealots can be described as a religion. I have discussed this before in my article about vitalistic chiropractic and the First Commandment.

I wish I had known the roots of chiropractic and the Palmers affinity for the occult before I entered school. I’m not saying it would have deterred me from attending, but it would have prepared me for the internal controversies that plague the profession.

Many chiropractic zealots emphasize the philosophy portion of philosophy, art and science, but their treatment of their philosophy as THE driving force behind what they do, makes their philosophy their religion.

A spiritually healthy person lets their theology drive their philosophy rather than letting their philosophy be the ultimate authority in their life.

Lesson #6: Your Market Does NOT Desire Another Chiropractor

Your patients don’t want an adjustment. They could care less about their subluxations being corrected.

They want their head to stop hurting, they want to walk upright again, they want their stomach to calm down, they want to be able to make it to work the next day.

You are not Starbucks. You do not have some national driving force generating interest and desire for what you do. YOU have to create that desire.

That’s a good thing because it means you can be in control of how your market perceives you. It means that as long as you can differentiate yourself and demonstrate your value to the community, you can practice where ever you please, regardless of how many chiropractors are already practicing there.

Lesson #7: Chiropractic is NOT the Only Thing People Need

Now, to be fair, school did not necessarily teach that chiropractic was all that people needed, and it’s not something I have ever believed, and I don’t think most chiropractors believe that chiropractic is the answer to all of life’s problems.

But…

There is a pervasive attitude that chiropractic COULD be the answer to most of life’s problems, including the solution to human suffering.

For example, B.J. Palmer was known to have believed that chiropractic could empty the prisons if the prisoners would just have their subluxations removed. As if chiropractic is the solution to sin, death and the devil.

But, I digress.

This becomes a problem when “straight” chiropractors try to shame other chiropractors for addressing nutrition through supplementation and saying that any external inhibitor or stimulator has no place in chiropractic.

You are first and foremost doctors and “doctor” means teacher. You have been gifted a fantastic education on the function of the human body, and you are primary health care providers, so your patients look to you as experts in all things health.

When you approach life with only one model, or latice-work by which to hang experiences on, you seriously handicap your ability to relate to your world and to the world of your patients (unless of course that model is a Biblical model of vocation, but that’s a topic for another time).

Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s right-hand-man, once said, on the Art of Worldly Wisdom,

…the first rule is that you’ve got to have multiple models—because if you just have one or two that you’re using, the nature of human psychology is such that you’ll torture reality so that it fits your models, or at least you’ll think it does. You become the equivalent of a chiropractor who, of course, is the great boob in medicine.

It’s like the old saying, “To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” And of course, that’s the way the chiropractor goes about practicing medicine. But that’s a perfectly disastrous way to think and a perfectly disastrous way to operate in the world. So you’ve got to have multiple models.

While I would obviously have some issues with the way Mr. Munger views chiropractors as a whole, I totally understand where his sentiments concerning chiropractors and chiropractic comes from.

You do your patients a disservice when you don’t provide them all of the education and building blocks for taking control of their own health that is within your scope of practice as dictated by your state laws.

If you insist that your job is merely to educate your patients on what chiropractic (i.e. adjusting only) is and does for their health and you ignore all of the other aspects of what you can offer and educate them on, then you are just practicing dogma, and you are giving the impression to the patient that you believe all they need is what you offer and all you offer is adjustments, ergo all they need is adjustments.

You are a hammer and everything is a nail.

Lesson #8: Understanding Human Physiology Makes You a Better Clinician

I had a patient named William Coury, founder of American Neutriceuticals, who was the longest surviving victim of primary bone cancer. At the time I knew him he had been in remission for nearly 50 years and he had accomplished this through all of his own research and treating himself through nutrition, alternative and conventional means.

He even developed a surgical procedure to be performed on himself to save the bone that had been infected with the cancer. The hard part was finding a surgeon who was willing to perform the procedure. He had to go out of the country to find a surgeon willing to attempt it, but the procedure was performed and it saved his limb.

Bill Coury was an honest to goodness rocket scientist and inventor, holder of multiple patents. Most importantly, he was a brilliant critical thinker.

I once told him a brief history of a friend of mine who was experiencing a strange fever pattern on a daily basis. He had been to his doctor several times, but they couldn’t find out what was wrong.

He sat and thought about what I had said, and after a few minutes of thinking, told me that my friend was suffering from a bladder infection… and he was right! We’re talking House levels of knowledge here!

Understanding the intricate workings of physiology can help you come to some conclusions about what is actually going on with your patient.

Recurrent low-grade fevers with no other symptoms? Maybe it’s a bladder infection. Unexplained low grade blood pressure? Maybe it’s their kidneys. You get the picture.

Understand human physiology and the way things work together. This could keep you occupied for the rest of your life.

Lesson #9: Evidence Based Techniques are Superior

A process driven life will always be more successful than a discretionary life. Will a proven process give you the results you desire every single time? No, but in the end, you will have a much more successful career if you learn and master a technique that tells you what to do and when to do it rather than a “pop and pray” technique.

Richard Dennis, an astoundingly successful commodities trader well known for following a proven investment trading system said, that rules are always better than judgements.

“The majority of the other things that didn’t work were judgments. It seemed that the better part of the whole thing was rules. You can’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘I want to have an intuition about a market.’ You’re going to have way too many judgments.”

Following rules is always better than making judgements.

I have learned that all of life is better served by finding proven processes to attain your goal rather than just winging it. This includes business and marketing and investing and parenting and spousing and practicing.

I practice two techniques. An upper cervical technique and Activator Methods. Both have distinct before and after tests to tell you when and where to adjust and whether or not you got it after you’ve made the adjustment.

Whatever technique resonates with you, pick the one that is the most objective and is cross-practitioner-repeatable. You will be more confident in knowing what to do with your patients, you will be more fulfilled and your patients will be happier.

Lesson #10: Focus on Releasing People from Care

Although this flies in the face of all that chiropractic coaching programs teach you about being a successful chiropractor, teaching your patients how to not need you is one of the most important and valuable gifts you can give your community and the profession.

Subluxations are not a given in any single person’s life. Subluxations happen for a reason. Teach your patients how to avoid doing things that result in subluxations and they will have less subluxations.

This is the greatest service you can offer your patients. Put them on an as-needed basis as quickly as possible.

Bonus Lesson: After Graduation is When Your Education Really Begins

The truth of the matter is, you never really learn any of the important stuff in school anyway. Real life is the greatest of all teachers as long as you pay attention and stay humble and teachable.

School is designed to give you the foundation you need in order to competently take the tests required to become a licensed professional. There is no way that in 4 years a school can teach you everything you need to know.

Knowing this and knowing the previous 10 lessons, while you’re in school will prepare you for a happier, more productive and successful career as a chiropractor.

*Question*: What lessons do you wish you had learned earlier in life?

The post 10 Lessons I Wish I’d Learned in Chiropractic School appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

The dictionary definition even states that faith is the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. That is neither accurate, nor fair.

“What do you mean by ‘proof’?” would be the next logical question, so let’s look at the definition of ‘proof’ from the same source:

Proof

evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement.

Hmm… evidence OR argument establishing a fact or the truth of a statement.

The Bible is first and foremost a set of truth-claims, or a set of statements that claims to be true. It is the revelation of the hidden God to His creation. The Bible explains the origin of all things, the purpose of creation, why things are so screwed up in this world, and what the solution to the plight of mankind is. Whether or not you accept those truth-claims, or dispute them, is a matter of faith, or the lack thereof, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s plenty of proof available to hang one’s faith on.

Faith, then, must be a gift, and that’s exactly what the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8.

I recently learned of a thought experiment attributed to Útmutató a Léleknek, a Hungarian writer, and I thought I’d share it with you.

“Do you believe in Mother?”

In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”

The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”

The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”

The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”

The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”

Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”

To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”

~ Útmutató a Léleknek

Question: Is your faith backed up by any kind of evidence, or is your faith blind?

The post The Conviction of Things Not Seen appeared first on Dr. Paul F. Hambrick III.

photo credit: abardwell via photopin cc

There are many places Dr. Mohler went off the rails, but the first is when he makes the statement about Ambrose: “His first error was believing in infant baptism, and thus in baptismal regeneration. Baptism does not save, and it is reserved for believers – not for infants.”

Scripture Says, “Baptism Saves”

This is a blatant refutation of Scripture which says Baptism is for sinners and for the forgiveness of sins, and according to 1 Peter 3:21, most certainly does save.

All sinners, including babies, are saved by grace through faith. It is a proud and arrogant stance to say infants can’t have faith, as infant faith is demonstrated multiple places in Scripture (David’s claim he trusted in God while at his mother’s breast; Jeremiah chosen and consecrated in his mother’s womb; John the Baptist filled with the Holy Spirit while in his mother’s womb) and even demonstrated in everyday life, as when an infant stops crying when placed in his loving mother’s arms.

There may even be some scientific evidence that infants are capable of understanding repentance (or at least the difference between good and evil).

God is a God of means, however, and His means of grace are clearly revealed to us in the Scriptures. We are not just given faith like a bolt out of the blue (not that God can’t work that way if He chose).

His means are the preached Word of the Gospel into the ears of sinners, the washing of regeneration with the Word in Baptism, and the Sacrament of the Altar.

Infants can have the Gospel preached into their ears, and obedient, faithful parents present their children to Jesus to be baptized so that their sins are washed away, they are regenerated, given the Holy Spirit, and faith is worked within them.

We can’t know the fate of all infants, Scripture is replete with examples of infants suffering the same fate as their parents (the Amalekites, all the infants in the flood, etc.), but we can believe the promises of God, that his Salvation lies in the finished work of his Son, and that work is applied to us in our baptism.

Objections to Scriptural Baptism

The most common response when faced with this particular truth of Scripture is: “That’s silly. You’ve built an entire doctrine around one verse. What about the thief on the cross?”

The Scriptures don’t say, and neither do I say, that baptism is the only means of grace and the only way of salvation for sinners, but it is most certainly a way, and here’s why: Baptism is nothing more than the application of the saving act of what Christ accomplished on the cross to sinners dead in their trespasses and sin.

You and I were not there on that hill in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago when the sins of the whole world, including all your past and future sins were atoned for. You and I were not on a cross next to the savior hearing him tell you, personally, “This day you will be with me in paradise.”

So, then how does one actually receive the benefits of what was accomplished 2 millenia ago?

The Bible says in Word and Sacrament. Baptism is nothing more than the saving Word of God, and the Word is Jesus and all those found in Christ will spend an eternity with him, and it is Baptism that places us in Christ.

Baptism is a Source of Comfort

God doesn’t need anything from you. Baptism is not, nor has it ever been an act on your part of first time obedience, demonstrating that you are a repentant follower of God. Baptism is a gift, given to you to wash away your sins, make you apart of what Christ accomplished on the cross, and a source of comfort in all of your moments of despair, that no matter how dark and distant you might feel, or how life might seem, you are intimately connected with the Savior of the world.

It is time that we stop believing this 500 year old deception that baptism was merely a suggestion of Christ and meant only for logically cognizant, adults who’ve made a confession of repentance, and start believing in what it truly is: a gift from God given to us for the forgiveness of our sins and a tangible, personal reality in our lives that God keeps His promises and gives us real, tangible, personal gifts for our own sake and comfort.

We can trust that infants baptized into Christ will be with Christ should they die in infancy. When it comes to un-baptized infants of believers, we just have to trust that God is more merciful than we can imagine.

Question: Are you cherishing the gifts of God’s Word and Sacrament?

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