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| Volume 23 Number 10 October 2021 |
Page 11 |
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| Volume 23 Number 10 October 2021 |
Page 11 |
Ralph Clevinger
How many times have people hurt our feelings or treated us wrongfully? This number may seem to be too many to count. How many times has the person who mistreated you repeatedly done so? This number may also be a huge number. How many times were you the one needing forgiveness? The question may not seem as large as the other answers. Why? We seem to be forgetful when it comes to our wrongdoings. We can become just as forgetful about the wrongdoings of others.
God practices true forgiveness. Listen to the writer of Hebrews, “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Hebrews 8:12 NKJV). The phrase translated “remember no more” means “not to recall,” “not to call to mind” and “not to mention.” The Almighty God of the universe chooses not to keep a record of wrongs committed by His children. Why can God choose not to recall the wrongdoings? It is because love “thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:5). The New American Standard Bible translates this phrase “does not keep an account of a wrong suffered.” God does not focus on the wrong committed but on His love for the individual child of God. He is faithful toward us even when we are faithless toward Him (2 Timothy 2:13).
We can practice this type of love toward other individuals. Proverb 10:12 states, “Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all sins.” Peter points to this proverb when he encouraged Christians by writing, “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). The word “fervent” describes a zealous, constant and intense love. The extent of this love is not for a short period of time but is of a permanent nature. This type of love looks past the wrongdoings and inconveniences of life and focuses on the individual.
When we love others with this type of love, the wrongdoings of life seem like minor incidences. This love is not always easy but helps us get through even the darkest of times. May we love one another with a fervent love desiring the best for one another!
Celibacy and Sin
Cecil May, Jr.
Everyone is saddened by the thousands of young people, devout altar boys and female seminarians, sexually abused by priests, those who should have been their spiritual mentors representing Christ to them. The Roman Church hierarchy is corrupt both in doctrine and in morals. Corruption of doctrine leads to corruption in morality.
The sexual drive is one of the strongest human urges, right alongside self-preservation, thirst and hunger, all implanted in us by our Creator. God speaks to this in Scripture.
But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (1 Corinthians 7:2-5 ESV)
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:8-9)
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. (Hebrews 13:4).
The Roman Church teaches that conceiving children is the only legitimate reason for sex, even for a married couple. For that reason, it forbids mechanical birth control. Since even marital sex, according to them, is less than holy, they found it necessary to concoct the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary. It is also the reason for the commandment of celibacy for priests and nuns. All of that clearly contradicts 1 Corinthians 7 and Hebrews 13, cited above.
The Douay version of the Bible, the Roman Catholic approved translation comparable to the KJV, expressly says, “The bishop must be married only once” (1 Timothy 3:2). A footnote explains, “Priestly celibacy is of later ecclesiastical origin.” In other words, the Bible says one thing, but the Roman church changed it. To require celibacy of a large number of men with ordinary sex drives and to put them in close proximity to young boys and nubile [sexually attractive] female seminarians is asking for trouble, which they have received in great abundance. The Bible calls “forbidding to marry” the “teaching of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).
“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” “But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.”