Authority to Name
Creation of Adam and Eve, stained glass window in the church of Dinant, Belgium, created in 1821.
A federal appeal court ruled yesterdaythat Prop. 8–our voter-approved definition of real marriage–violated the US Constitution. Fear not: this is but the latest of numerous efforts to overturn the people’s will concerning marriage. Tuesday’s decision will be appealed and most likely ‘fast tracked’ to the US Supreme Court who will decide once and for all the definition of marriage for the USA. (In the meantime, we trust that no ‘gay marriages’ will be allowed in CA.)
Join us at DSM to pray for the high court to quickly and justly uphold what marriage is. As we await that decision, let us overcome our fears of defining marriage rightly. Our authority lies in our capacity to see and say the truth about marriage, for all to hear.
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Authority to Name
In the beginning, God gave humanity the authority to name reality; one of Adam’s first tasks was to define the animals. Men and women, created in God’s image, have the unique, inspired capacity to know the truth and to name it. That is precisely what distinguishes us from the rest of creation, and frees us from being tyrannized by false definitions. We represent Him in naming reality.
That is our authority as human beings. And when we rightly name reality, we extend the rule and reign of the Creator. And wrest reality from those who distort reality by misnaming it. That is precisely what is at stake in the efforts of gay activists to redefine marriage. Consider their efforts to rename reality. And its implications.
Is the sexual union of two men or two women really ‘a marriage’? Can two members of the same gender create the whole that creates and stabilizes life?
Can two same-gendered persons who for myriad reasons refuse the opposite gender as a worthy counterpart help secure little ones in their security as male or female? How can a ‘gay marriage’ prepare them for a life that their two mommies and daddies have actively defied?
Consider the naming of a fetus. Is that growing cluster of cells ‘a life’? The refusal to name a conceived life is what is at stake in abortion. Non-lives can be treated as so much refuse. Will ‘marriage’ meet the same fate in the USA? Will we allow others to take what is true and real and rename it? Renaming marriage as a same gender reality fundamentally distorts its original meaning and intention.
I just returned from a prayer meeting in Washington State where our Living Waters leaders gathered. We asked the Creator to restore our authority as citizens to name reality for Washington, a state poised to become the eighth in the USA to legislate ‘gay marriage.’
Many confessed to having conceded their voice, their naming power, to the drone of activists. They admitted the temptation to not heed their still small voice for fear of being judged as haters or bigots. We repented.
God is restoring our voices, our naming power. May we speak before it is too late.
‘If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me; If you utter worthy, not worthless, words, you will be My spokespeople.’ ( Jeremiah 15:19)
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