Timothy's Thoughts

W hy are we more concerned about the death of a lion named Cecil than we are about seeing a human child separated into parts in a pie plate? Matt Walsh suggests that it is because we’ve built up a reservoir of outrage and someone gets the brunt of it. But why a lion instead of a baby? It starts to make more sense when we see the murderous spirit that runs through both. This isn’t a case where people want to murder children, but they don’t want to murder a lion. This is a case where people want to murder children and they want to murder a lion hunter. Their thought is a fetus gets in the way of a woman’s happiness, so destroy the fetus. Their thought is also a lion hunter kills one country’s national pet, so kill the lion hunter. But along with the people who have that murderous spirit, you also have people who have a love for life. The lion hunter did something he shouldn’t and the lion is one of God’s creatures, so the people who love life end up siding with those with a murderous sp...

T he first time I read The Trail of Blood was when I was still a child. I remember sitting at the kitchen table as I was reading it and talking to my mother about the Christian martyrs and how they refused to deny Jesus Christ, even when facing torture or the killing of their families. She said, “We might face that someday.” At the time, my thought was, “What a great way to die!” About thirty years have passed since that conversation and my thoughts have changed. It’s still a great way to die, to be numbered with those who have shown the world to be unworthy of them by staying true to Jesus, even unto death, and to depart this life in a way similar to the death of our dear Savior. Let’s just say that my previous experiences with pain have caused me not to look forward to a martyr’s death. But if recent events are any indication, it is far more likely today that we will suffer or be killed because of our stand for Jesus than it was thirty years ago. Thirty years ago, you would’ve had t...

J esus said, “Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you.” (Luke 6:27) This is something I struggle with. It isn’t that I don’t desire to follow the command of Jesus. My problem is that I don’t know how to do it. In the past few weeks, I’ve encountered a number of enemies. There’s no question but that they hate me. Why? Because I have voiced my belief in God and his Word, and my belief that homosexuality is a sin. Many of these people were both homosexual and atheists who not only argued against my interpretation of the facts, they wouldn’t accept the facts and they became angry and resorted to profanity and name-calling. How do we love people like that? I encountered these people online. Sometimes, I wonder whether I should engage in online conversations, but the Internet is where people are. If we’re not talking to people on Facebook, we’re ignoring a very large segment of the population that the Lord has sent us to reach. But online conversations are difficult. People read a c...