Revealing Christ In The Old Testament XIII (Job II): A Crucible of Pain and A Ransom

Witness of the Struggle

As any learned reader of the Book of Job can see, God has a deeper purpose in the suffering of His children than even their personal perfection. If we miss this point we miss the point of Job completely. Paul's words clue us into this also.

Ephesians 3:10-13 ~"His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory."

This passages show us that God is unfolding to the angels of light and to the hosts of darkness for His "eternal purposes" because of His grace in His dealings with His redeemed humanity. In Job, Satan challenged the integrity of Job in the council of heaven thereby putting God's honor is in question. This is absolutely over the top in terms of questioning God. But it is Jobs very reaction of steadfast faithfulness to God that actually vindicates and brings the justice to fruition in this story. What does Job say? "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."

What does this say to us today? What do our actions mean and how do they reflect on God's character as we are parts of His Body, the Church. What issues or plans of a divine and sovereign God depend on out proper Christian responses. How momentous of a pivot point in history will or would one of our decisions be? What would've happen had we been Martin Luther or Dietrich Bonheoffer?

The Book of Job not just theory of suffering, it is the application of if in space and time. Like Job we are often allowed to be placed directly in the crucible or pain before being saved from it. We saw the same with Daniel and the Lion's Den and Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego in the furnace. God does not save them from the dilemma, He first lets them enter it before acting. We see this in Christ's Crucifixion too. Christ is not saved from the Resurrection but glory is clearly gained by it in the aftermath. Bottom-line: God must be trusted. Sometimes our ministry is suffering and pain and it is that ministry of pain that is given to us because God loves us, not hates us.

Every refiner of valuable metals realizes that it is the heat of the flame that purifies. The heat of the flame can be suffering, trials...and even death on a Cross.

A Redeemer

Job's future had been incomprehensible at first, but with his affliction his faith grows, and he goes on to say:

Job 19:25-27 "I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes —I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!"

However dimly Job himself may have understood these words as I suspect they were not inspired from within himself. Job sees God as the a Redeemer—not a stranger. We see Jesus in Job's question, " How shall man be just before God ? " A question answered only in Jesus who was the only man that could stand before God just and has also justified us "by His blood " (Romans 5:9).

A Ransom

Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all...one more time we see Christ again in the

words of Elihu.

Job 33:24 ~ "to be gracious to him and say, 'Spare him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom for him'-- then his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth.

This is a prophecy from Elihu and the ransom prophesied by and declare by Paul are one. "Job had seen his Redeemer as the living One who would vindicate him in the day of His coming, but at the time of Elihu's vision or prophecy he sees Him as the ransom.  The "Ransom" who would be gracious to him, and deliver him from going down into the pit. The next verse gives the result of this ransom. "...his flesh is renewed like a child's; it is restored as in the days of his youth." Purification and communion rest firmly in this premise and they both rest solidly on the ground of full atonement fulfilled in Jesus. The foreshadow of the Cross rest over all in the story of Job's sufferings. Even though Job's suffering were because of Satan's antagonism. The suffering upright man points a rigid straight arrow to the suffering sinless Man." Although Job was wounded first by the world system and Satan and secondarily by his friends we must see Jesus all over this. In the suffering we see strengthening of faith. We also must ask: How close is all this suffering in Jobs life to the description of the suffering of Christ. Meanwhile, Job complained and justified himself, Christ on the other hand remained silent before His captors. The lamb did not bleat when He went before the shearer and the slaughterhouse. Therein lies a main difference between Job ad Christ. Job's suffering taught people lessons but saved no one, Jesus' taught people lessons and saved all would come to Him and believe.

Evanjellyfishism [ih-van-jel-ē-fish-iz-uhm]

I imagine this won't win me many friends...and frankly, I don't care. My job is to teach people from Scripture and rebuke when necessary. Even those that think they don't need to be taught or those that know everything. Sometimes the hardest people to save are the Saved.

It has quickly become my experience that those claiming that we should not confront people about their bad theology because it offends them and causes divisiveness within the body are themselves adhering to bad theology. It is beginning to grate on me as I have tried to be polite to these people and even bought into this nonsensical philosophy but I am weaning myself off of this weak-willed unbiblical approach to evangelism. We should be men (or women), or go home and hide in our collective evangelical closets.

It is quickly becoming my experience that those tell me that I should not rebuke people for fear of offending them or “making a scene” has missed the point of a rebuke.

I have long bought into the mainline church philosophy that if it is not directly affecting my loved ones I should “live and let live” or consider it a minor offense that doesn’t detract from the church but is essentially harmless. "Be like Jesus" they tell me, "just love people and be nice." Judge not lest ye be judged. You can't know what's in a person's heart only God does so we shouldn't make mean statements and tell people they're wrong.

Nonsense. The Bible says we'll know them by their fruits. Out of the abundance of their hearts, their mouths will speak. It has become obvious to me that those who do not speak up are themselves unsure of Scripture or its principles or do not have a firm grasp on Scripture and the underlying principles. The claim that those that do speak up - "end up causing divisiveness for all to see" - are themselves causing more divisiveness by their docile approach and this can be potentially damning to the one that is errant and all those that follow their errant philosophy. A rebuke may cause temporary division in a Christian setting but if the rebuke is founded in Scripture and the division remains then it is the errant Christian that is to blame for not coming around to the truth of Scripture. Therefore they are to be given over to the world so that they might return all the wiser. If not...they are condemned by their own actions and choices.

To passively allow error and not speak truth into the situation is foolishness. A failure to act in these situations knowing something is wrong or theologically unsound is the equivalent of moral apathy or complete ambivalence. It is the moral / theological equivalent of watching a murder unfold and saying nothing knowing you can stop it. We are told that by being “caustic” or “abrasive” in this type of an approach we are being unloving. We need to be loving and not be confrontational with the rogue agents in the Church. Really? What is more unloving, allowing someone to pursue errant theology that condemns and damns them (and others) or correcting their errant philosophies and saving them from the fact that they are not as biblical as they thought they were. Perhaps they were so unbiblical in their beliefs that they were not even Christian? Sorry folks, I’ll err on the side of caution here and rebuke 100 times over rather than let some damn themselves. I’d rather be perceived as harsh and help save someone with a harsh truth rather then be polite to them and damn them to Hell. To me, being unloving is not telling someone they are wrong when it is a potential error, especially in a salvation-based issue. If I hated them I would remain silent. My rebuke shows my love. Many members within churches have this one completely backwards. I rebuke you because I love you, not because I don’t.

I fear we missed the boat on this one with few exceptions. The cultural mindset and complacency has poisoned our minds.  In a so-called attempt to save Evangelical Christianity from itself, church members are trying to rescue Christianity from irrelevance by putting it on a Procrustean bed and proceeding to amputate the the Faith and pull the teeth of the Gospel until it became invalid theologically and has no bite whatsoever. What remains when we are done barely resembles Christianity but rather a politically-correct “Christianized” New Age feel-good pantheism that relies on reason, rationalism and most annoyingly...how people feel. The poor theology and mindsets within many, many churches is predominately based on what they want to hear....not what they need to hear. They want their ears tickled and they want to feel good about their poor theology.

2 Timothy 4: 2 "...preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

For those of my brethren that will continue to cling to the idea of formula-driven mainline evangelicalism that says: "We can’t yell at people for being wrong, that’s the job of the Holy Spirit!" or some other banality...this is wrong. The Bible condones “division” when the "division" means that we are to be matching up errant teaching with Scripture and subsequently rebuking or correcting based on Scripture which is often the case when aforementioned situations arise. If someone is wrong and they are corrected in accordance with Scripture and this causes a division...this is a necessary fallout from the rebuke to show the break or inconsistency between the person in error and the Bible's truth. If this person "comes around" to the proper way of thinking, this "division" or incompatibility or clash disappears since they are then in aligned with Scripture. Straight with Scripture or  ὀρθός / orthos a.k.a.: orthodox(y) 

Now, read the next very closely.

2 Timothy 3:16 ~ “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness”

This is a verse that is in many church mission statements and statements of faith when they are justifying the Inerrancy of Scripture. Two words in this verse alone speak directly to reproof or correction. When matched up against Scripture, division is allowed in an effort to correct errant belief as it is usually an effect of the correction. The word reproof here should be better understood as exposing falsity or deceptiveness. The root of this word reproof in the Greek: ἐλεγμόν / elegmon literally means “to rebuke another with the truth so that the person confesses, or at least is convicted of his sin. Although convicted, he may not be convinced.” To verbally rebuke with the truth (a.k.a.: Scripture). It is expected that we will call people to task if they are out-of-bounds in terms of Scripture or unorthodox.

Now…following logic directly from Scripture we arrive at a deductive conclusion. By rebuking, you most likely will cause a division but you would be doing it with truth in the same manner Jesus Christ did when here on Earth in His own ministry. Jesus used Scripture to correct people and that is the exact next phrase in our verse above, “for correction”. Once you have reproved an errant person you then need to correct them or as the Greek implies, you need to ἐπανόρθωσιν /epanorthosin “straighten them out”.

1 Timothy 5:19-20 ~ “Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning you are to reprove before everyone, so that the others may take warning.”

In the case of elders or perceived leaders in error this needs to be done publically. So here we see that not only are laity to be reproved for being rogue of Scripture but there is even a contingency for leaders or perceived leaders in the Church.

By not doing as Scripture has told us above we’ve now allow falsehood to creep in innocuously into the Body and society in general by taking a passive and nearly submissive approach to dealing with it. We now care more about how we will be perceived by other brethren and by the outside unbelieving world. Many will claim they don’t but their actions speak louder than their words. Why should this matter over the accuracy and truth of Scripture? Why should these superficial surface judgments trump correction by the Word?

Answer: They shouldn’t.

Political-correctness is demonic as it subscribes to the underlying unbiblical philosophy that no one can be wrong. This is where I believe we are in serious error in the Church. Inadvertently, in an attempt not to appear divisive and confrontational we have become afterthoughts to the world and the culture because of our spinelessness. We are spineless not only because we don't tell the world it is wrong but we even shy away from telling our own they are clearly wrong. We have literally given into the postmodern PC culture that allows all truth claims to be true. By trying to offend no one we lose nearly everyone. By offending no one we attract few to our cause. In the attempt to win people to Christ by using the PC method or inoffensiveness like the world does, we fail to be champions for Christ and become doormats for the world. Even the non-believer can see a lack of conviction. When there is a failure to act on one’s conviction (such as knowing someone is wrong and saying so) what does this say about what we believe? It says we either don’t really believe what we say we believe or we do not have enough spinal column to act on it.

If we as believers don’t have enough conviction to call out people when they’re wrong, why would others be interested in what we believe or what we have to say?

This is faulty thinking. The world system scores a point against us for the cleverness at which it has managed to erroneously manipulate the Church in this situation. When you stand for nothing, you then have nothing to say that is of interest to other people. When you have nothing to say…no one will listen to you. In a knee-jerk reaction to the abuses of the past by the Church, the Church has now tried way too hard to accommodate itself to the culture to win the culture. In so doing the Church has ceased being the Church and has become the culture. For any that cannot follow that logic, it means the Church is no longer the Church but is in actuality the world…therefore it is of the world system…the Devil. Poor company if you ask me. If we continue down this path we will be in for a stinging and painful awakening when we realize it is a wide path we are on and it is the preferred path of the world.

We truly need to stop allowing people with a poor grasp of the Bible dictate how we behave within the Church. Even the ones that have been given positions of leadership and are not qualified. Sometimes we allow the Biblically illiterate (or partially illiterate) to dictate our behavior so much that we can hardly be perceived as being Christian since we look so much like the culture. Frankly, I am tired of the evanjellyfishism and seeker-sensitive approach to ministry…its literally killing the Church from the inside-out. Instead of being fortified by the Word we are becoming devoid of substance. It is doing more damage than any division I could possibly cause by Biblically rebuking someone.

If you don’t stand for something and show the conviction of what you believe…people will step and stand on you.

I personally will stand straight for Scripture and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Better a door to Christ than a doormat to the system of the world. For those that clearly feel I am wrong for having typed this and posted this, please explain to me from Scripture where I am incorrect and I will take heed of you words.

For all that take offense to this and feel I am being unloving in my stance, please consider this a stinging rebuke for embodying spiritless and fainthearted behavior where we have been called to be bold and stand firm. If we love God, we obey his commandments and obey Scripture. By not calling people out when they are clearly wrong for fear of being perceived as divisive, we are not doing as we've been commanded and we are being disobedient. We are to be strong in not only our defense of the Gospel but also diligent to rebuke and correct when necessary regardless of who it is that is in error. We've grown too comfortable in our isolated non-evangelizing, non-confrontational lives and have become too cushy in our failure to promote the truths of Scripture. The truths that people want to hear and even the truths they don't want to hear but dearly need to. In an effort to not offend the goats we have mislead the sheep.

2 Timothy 1:7-8 ~ For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord ...

Paul goes on later to add...

2 Timothy 1:13-14 ~ What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

We need to stop worrying about what other people think of us and worry more about what God thinks of us.

God Said: Then, Now and Forever...

God speaks. God does not usually sustain a monologue unless it is specifically directed at humanity telling them how "things" are gonna be.  Because of the nature of the Trinity the words of God are always dialogue within the Godhead Themselves (Psalm 2). They are council (Acts 4:23,28; 1 Corinthians 2:7-8, Ephesians 1:11-14) . God spoke things into creation. Faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). Intelligible verbalization is a characteristic unique to God…and man. The relationship between man and God is maintained through speaking…through prayer (Acts 1:14, 2:42, Colossians 4:2). Spoken words are waveform or sound waves. The very nature of matter and creation is waveform. Matter is made of energy as all matter is essentially compressed energy or compressed light-a light which is both particle and wave. God is light (1 John 1:5). God is the light of the world (John 8:12).

Words are a means of relational communication and social exchange or interaction. Speaking allows the inner person to be revealed. The words that emanate from the mouth find their source in the heart or the core of one's being. What a person speaks comes from the seat of their conscience. What God speaks comes from the mind and seat of God’s being, His pathos and His ethos. God speaks things into creation. God speaks righteousness. God speaks holiness. God speaks perfection. God’s Word is eternal since the Word is God (John 1). Therefore, to reciprocate and use speech properly is to speak properly of God and His Word. To praise Him, to worship Him, to put Him first in everything. To speak properly of God in His being and speak of His Son, His Spirit, and to speak of the work of God which is to speak of the Cross. To speak of the Cross is to speak the Gospel and to speak the Gospel is to evangelize and fulfill the Great Commission which Jesus commanded…verbally with words.

Jesus prayed to the Father, and at times the Father responded in action or sometimes...verbally. We pray to the Father like Jesus did and the Father responds to us also in like manner. When we pray to the Son, God responds. When we pray to the Spirit or through the Spirit, God responds. When we cannot even speak, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groaning and murmurings too deep for words. When we ask with faith God answers. Perhaps not the way we expect but He responds in kind to our communication to Him.

As with love we see the relational attributes of the Godhead when we view that God speaks. Just like love requires another or others, so too does the act of communication. Speech and love are intrinsic to one another. Again we see one of the deeper true essences of God and the relational aspects He has with humanity. Not only can we share words and communication with Him, so too we share the very attribute with God that allows the reciprocal action or relational action to take place with one another at the horizontal human-to-human level. Love and communication through speech, specifically speech that conveys emotion or ideas seems to be part of the Imago Dei or Image of God that God bestowed on man in Genesis.

It is clearly Jesus’ chosen method to convey His message - vocally and often quoting profusely from a worded source (Old Testament) but sometimes on His own authority (You've heard it said to you, but I say to you...). Jesus’ life, deeds and words are then documented first vocally through an aural/oral Jewish tradition and then through writing (New Testament).

Philippians interestingly tells us something else:

Philippians 2:9-11 ~ “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Why is Christ given a name, a name for what? I posit it is for verbally identifying Jesus to others (through evangelism-which we are commanded as true believers to do). In this case man identifying God. Once identified every one that has acknowledged or identified Jesus as Lord will then verbally confess that Jesus is Lord. Why? What did I say earlier? The words that emanate from the mouth find their source in the heart or the core of being. What man speaks comes from the seat of conscience. To speak the intent of the heart is to verbally articulate exactly what is in a person. Out of the wellspring of the heart [conscience] the mouth speaks. It is the same reason we are to confess our sins. If God knows what’s in a person’s heart why will people need to speak the truth?  So that other’s bear witness. Thereby they bear witness to a person’s conversion and salvation or admittance of their sinfulness and depravity and possibly a failure to repent and be saved.

The words or conversation also reinforce the relational aspects of the relationship which invariably and inevitably reinforce the idea and the intent of the Kingdom. There can be no Kingdom without interaction and interdependence of people under a King. Kingdom is where the King is but without willing inhabitants in the Kingdom…there is only the King and a Kingdom in rebellion. Perhaps this is also why lying and being deceitful in our conversations and interactions is such an evil thing. In communicating lies and deceit we are destroying the very relationship that our communication is meant to strengthen and build. Lying and a lack of truth lead to devastated relationships. In particular it destroys relationships totally dependent on trust like families - families which form small church units - small church units that form large church units and Christian societies – Christian societies that form the Kingdom of God. So by something as simple as deception at the individual level or division in small churches, the Devil can disrupt the trusting and communal nature needed to create the Kingdom of God. Speaking the Truth by Christ, through Christ starts with the individual.

So why are love and speech so integral to the Godhead? I suppose it is because love drives the speech. When you love someone…you wish to communicate with them, or there is no relationship…therefore there is no love. So is the Godhead, so is the relationship between God and man…and man and man. It is why we are called so vehemently to love God with all our hearts, souls and minds and to love our neighbor as ourselves. They are all inter-relational…just like the Trinity.

When we visit the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 which contains the command to love the Lord our God with all our strength, we see even more of the same. Deuteronomy 6:3-9 tells us to hear and obey spoken words, from God through Moses based in a promise given verbally to ancestors such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob:

Deuteronomy 6:3 ~ “Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

This is reinforced again and is further compounded by the plural version of God- אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ Elohim indicating a plurality in the Godhead which we have already said dialogues with one another in love. Love which is exactly what is being commanded of humanity.

Deuteronomy 6:4-7 ~ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Man is further told to impress, speak words or talk about God’s commands with their children when they sit at home and in the course of ordinary life and even when the go to sleep and arise in the morning.

So as a man thinks, so is he…for out of the abundance of the heart a person’s mouth speaks. So if God is love, what God has spoken into existence is an outpouring of God’s love. The Heaven’s, the Earth, our families, our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our friends…and yes, even those we perceive as our enemies.

Now you know why you are told to love your enemies.

“…and God said” and continues to say things as He continues to uphold and hold together all He has created in love. (Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29)

Hebrews 1:1-3 ~ “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

The above verse from Hebrews even tells us that God even spoke dramatically and at times harshly through the Prophets of the Old Testament...because man refused to listen. Finally, we learn that at the end of time God will summarize the end of all things in speech also...

Revelation 21:5-8 ~ He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars —they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” 

Love From Beyond The Vanishing Point

God is Love. 

It is said so many times I fear it is often used or misused in a cliché manner and many people miss its true importance and the depth of its meaning. It is a depth of love that finds its source in a limitless, bottomless and infinite God. It is a limitless eternal love. It is a love that is from before vanishing point or the foundations of the world until beyond the vanishing point ahead of us moving forward. Our minds cannot get a full hold on it.

Since I am prone to focus a lot on the wrath of God, I decided this morning to do the opposite. I am focusing on the love and relational attributes of God. In so doing I sort of ended up driving in a circle because to best see the love of God one needs to witness the wrath of God also: In the Crucifixion of His Son. To best see the love of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father we must correctly view the most heinous miscarriage of justice in the history of man. It is the murder of an innocent man to appease the wrath of God that we so clearly deserved. While I studied God the last few days I have come across some of the most interesting thoughts I had never had before.

First, we see God speaks of Israel as His firstborn in Exodus.

Exodus 4:21-23 ~ “…and the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.’”

We see God call David his son also (2 Samuel 7:14) and of course we see the advent of Jesus Christ. Israel then is not the last, only the first. We see a foreshadowing of not only Christ here we also see a foreshadowing of the Gentile nation. Israel being only the first shows the missional nature of God’s plan to evangelize. So we see God in His capacity as Father, Son and Creator of man in a familial capacity.

Second, we as humans nearly always approach reality or images of reality from the anthropomorphic or man-centered view. When dealing with God this rarely does reality justice. When we refer to God as Father and Jesus as His son we absolutely view this from a human perspective. We do it so much so that postmodern politically correct philosophy says that we should remove the male gender distinctions in the Bible to make it more female-friendly. Nearly 100% of the time we approach the text from a human angle with the idea of a human family in our head. This just will not do for the purpose of this essay. We must step back here and expand our narrow-minded point of view and realize that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is not metaphor but ontological or “that which is in its very being”. This is not an analogy to make things understandable to humans. The relationship between the Father and Son is the original prototype from which we get the idea of the family, not the other way around. God, the Trinity is the archetype/prototype; humans in our relationships like marriage, parents, child, etc are only an analogy or copy of the real thing.  The true relationship qualities for relational or familial type relationships reside solely in Godhead. This is why, when humans begin to move away from God and the intended order God has established, relations become convoluted and begin to disintegrate and fall apart. Based on varying degrees of sin in a person’s life this disintegration can be halted, slowed or eradicated. The ideal would be to move towards God and eliminate the sin but as humans...we all have our baggage and this ideal will never be met here except through Christ. Although human relations are analogous, they are not perfect and therefore not the same as the Father and the Son.

Third, the tying, cohesive and intrinsic nature of God is love. A love that at its core perfect but from a human vantage point is understood as ἀγάπην or agape. As John states:

1 John 4:16 ~ “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Here we see the familial and love, we see the relationship aspect and the pathos. We see an unselfish, giving, sacrificial behavior in the love, specifically in Christ. This love, Father to Son and Son to Father has been around since before the foundations of the world. A love that finds it impetus in life and a life in the impetus of love. Perfect love and life of the Godhead. The Father gives life to the Son:

John 5:26 ~ “For as the Father has life in Himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in Himself.”

This is also the life that God the Father used to raise Christ from the dead through the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:11 ~ “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

So in His relationship with His children, Jesus attempts to explain this relational quality between the Father and Son and how it is a giving of life from the Father to the Son and thereby from the Son to the Disciples. After Jesus’ Crucifixion we will then see this giving from the Disciples to a new generation of spiritual brethren in the form of discipleship up until the modern day and to us. All through the medium of the Holy Spirit: life eternal because of eternal love, through love by relationship in belief by faith.

John 5:36-40” ~ “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”

We also read:

John 14:10-11 ~ “The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”

We therefore see relational love and life right in the works (Fruits of the Spirit) of Christ and are the evidences of the intimate nature of the Father’s relationship with the Son. This is also why we can see the intimate relationship between the believer indwelt by the Spirit and God also…they manifest the same Fruit of God’s presence: self-sacrificing love (among other things).

This is where we begin to see there is a radical departure from all other religions including Islam and even Judaism. Jesus tells us that the greatest love is the selfless, self-sacrificing kind.

John 15:13 ~ “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

We read that Jesus delighted in doing the will of the Father…

John 4:34 ~ “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

Jesus also said:

John 5:30 ~ “…can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

This is truly what Israel missed out on when they rejected their Messiah Jesus Christ. For love to exist there must be at least two otherwise the love becomes selfish and self-serving. There has to be another or other, otherwise there is only singularity. Self-giving love akin to agape has to have a plurality. God in the Trinity is indeed a plurality. There is “other” in Their Oneness and therefore the ability to love distinct from everything else--self-contained. God can therefore be Love and this is the only way it is possible in the true Agape, selfless sense. Agape…as in the greatest love which Jesus has already told us is, “that someone lay down his life for his friends”.

God the Father granted or gave this life of Himself to the Son (John 5:26). We then have the actual event in history on display for all of humanity for all time to witness in terms of this love: The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Son of God. These are the most obvious proofs of God’s love to mankind. God the Father gave life to the Son and the Son responded in love to the will of the Father by giving it back in return. In doing so he saves all of humanity who will believe in the very thing that He has done and understand that is was indeed a selfless act of love not only in obedience to the will of the Father but also a self-sacrifice because of His love of humanity and his desire to save all those from damnation that would believe it. It is a love that is Salvation. Riddled through all of this we see the familial and relational quality of the Godhead.

It is a love that is defined by the very nature of the Being who is doing the loving (God). It is not a love defined by the thing being loved (man). It is a love that only gets its full depth when it is viewed properly. It can only be seen in perspective when viewed from the position of the Godhead through Jesus Christ What makes this love even more profound is that it is not driven by what it can do for the One loving. From a human standpoint love is nearly always driven by what it can do for the one loving. In its very nature it is selfish. People generally do not love unless there is something to be gained by doing so. It is what it does for the self that impels us to do so. Not so for God. God needs nothing. God is self-sufficient and self-contained. Therefore, His love is by choice. He loves us because He wants to. His love is giving (agape) and it is also steadfast or faithful as understood in the Old Testament: חֶ֫סֶד or hesed. This Hebrew word expresses God's faithfulness to His covenant and also blessings and mercy.There is nothing more from His point of view that is needed from a covenant standpoint. He has given all and upheld His end of the relationship eternally-vanishing point to vanishing point. He knew He would, He did it and He will continue to...forever. He needs nothing from us. As a matter of fact (and ironically), it is we that desperately need something from Him and it is only through His mercy and grace that we get it. We receive His love in the form of His Son…hanging on a Cross.

John 3:16 ~ “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Love eternal, love from everlasting to everlasting.

Islam: FAIL

Islam – FAIL

The Qur'an is clear: Allah has no son. Allah reigns supreme and is worthy of total submission. 

It is not befitting to (the majesty of) Allah that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! when He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be", and it is. Verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord: therefore serve Him; this is the Straight Way. [The Holy Qur'an, Surah 19:35-36]

Christianity – WIN

The Holy Bible is clear, God has a Son and His name is Jesus, the name above all other names.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." [The Holy Bible, John 3:16]

Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. [The Holy Bible, John 12:28]

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. [The Holy Bible, John 17:4]

Confrontational or truthful?

Revealing Christ In The Old Testament XII (Job I): Have You Considered My Servant?

Job

Christ In The Suffering

Job is the oldest book in the Bible in terms of the scene it illustrates. It is set in the time of the patriarchs. We see in Ezekiel 14:14,20 that he was indeed a real person.

Ezekiel 14:14 ~"even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign LORD."

Ezekiel 14:20 ~"as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, even if Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they could save neither son nor daughter. They would save only themselves by their righteousness."

It teaches us both the scope and the boundary of the power of Satan. It is revealing in the fact of the resurrection, and in shadowing the mystery of redemption. Although it is not the purpose of the Bible to teach science, its language is accurate to describe scientific facts or recent discoveries.

Job 26:7-8 ~"He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weigh"

The book of Job though is most known of how it speaks to the mystery of suffering especially the suffering of the righteous. Job's friends made the fraudulent assumption that his sin against God must be exceptionally great to account for such exceptional suffering. Job's attitude towards God through all of this barely registered a blip on an EKG meter. Job still paid Him the honor and respect God deserved. This is not to say that he wasn't troubled. He at still had enough sense to rebuke his wife who added insult to injury.

Job 2: 9-10 ~"Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips."

Most of his reflection ended up being on himself. Here we see one of the images of Christ. God's own testimony of Job was, "Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job was a pattern of what was to come. Job like Jesus knew that his heart was true to God, and he could not accept the accusations of his friends. Job himself first shows his "friends" that their conclusion is false, and that the wicked often prosper in the world at least temporarily. We will see this again in Jesus. At first even the disciples on the Road to Emmaus do not understand or see the permanent divine turning of tables over the system of the world. It seems to them as if the authorities or powers of the world have defeated Jesus when just the opposite has occurred. Worldly victory is actually a defeat for the world and what the world perceives as a defeat is actually divine victory.

Luke 24:13-21 ~"Now that same day two of them [disciples] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles e from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place."

Suffering for a Christian refines the Christian. The very thing that makes unbelievers run even farther from the faith is the very thing that tempers and steels the faith of believers: Suffering. What does Jesus say right in the narrative on the Road to Emmaus?

Luke 24:26 ~"  Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”

 If the Messiah had to suffer, how do we as his followers expected to do any less or evade the model laid out for us?

Christ In The Reprimand

Elihu, who had been listening to the argument of Job and his friends, sums up their discussion in two abrupt sentences : " Against Job was his wrath aroused, because Job justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends was his wrath ignited, because they had found no answer and persisted to condemn Job". Although Elihu was anything but easy on the ears and delicate, he appears closest to the truth of the message by bringing out God's grace in the purpose of the discipline of His children. The book of Job should not be seen so much as a book of suffering but that of chastisement on the grand scale of things. We must never forget that the Bible and all the books it contains is a book about getting back to a proper position of holiness in front of a holy God. If mankind does not attain the righteous necessary in front of The Judge of the Universe He must judge them and/or punish them. This is why man often times needs to suffer. One, as chastisement and two, as a process of character building that will aid us in our quest of sanctification (made more holy). The Salvation aspect of this was conquered and settled by Christ at the Cross but the sanctifying effort still sees us stumble and fail in our sin...so we are reprimanded. there is no such thing as a person who is sinless and does not deserve a reprimand or punishment.

Hebrews 12:7-11 "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it"

Suffering in the story of Job paves the way for the approach to God or His approach to us. It is in the  aftermath of Job's suffering that he encounters God head-on in the latter portions of the Book of Job. It is in our greatest suffering, even that of death that we as believers will encounter presence of God in glory. If we are non-believers we will encounter it too...as wrath eternal. The dividing line? Jesus Christ.

Hate Is A Two-Way Street

Ah yes...the deafening silence from the anti-hate organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in the wake of the hate-filled shooting at the offices of a Christian lobbyist organization named the Family Research Council.

You could hear a pin drop at the SPLC.

It is interesting that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has posted nothing about the most recent attempted shooting at the Family Research Council (FRC) building in Washington D.C. early yesterday. It is also interesting that the SPLC and pro-abortion and gay rights groups consider groups like the FRC (shot up two days ago) as a hate group because it opposes abortion, gay marriage and also pornography and divorce. All these opinions are legal and biblical to have and the sins they oppose are right to oppose on moral grounds. Just because a small morally ambiguous group or their ilk do not like them does not make them illegal. 

I suspect SPLC is now in a conundrum of defining what "hate" truly is and when or if they say it is. If they do not come out and condemn this act as terroristic and driven by anger or even hate they have themselves created a double-standard of what hate is, what tolerance is and what is generally morally acceptable and what is not. They are then effectively redefining or deconstructing the meaning of the word hate (not to mention the words tolerance and justice). The unstated but implied intent from this unbiblical organization right now screams duplicity. Within a 24 hour period the SPLC was quick to point out the “alleged” shooter at the Sikh Temple was a hate crime by a skinhead but two days after the FRC event, still nothing on the shooting at the FRC offices...absolutely nothing. All of a sudden the definitive anti-hate organization in the United States has no opinion and remains mute.

In most recent act of hateful violence, Floyd Lee Corkins II posed deceitfully as an intern and eventually shot a security guard in the arm at the FRC office around 10:45 on August 15th. The security guard subdued the shooter. The gunman was observed carrying a gun, ammo and sandwiches from Chick-fil-A and was quoted as screaming to the security guard one of the following depending on your sources: “It was not about you, it was what this place stands for" or " "I don't like your politics". He has now admittedly been tied to LGBT organizations as even a precursory perusal of the internet news sites will verify.

So here we have an act of violence driven by an ideology. The FRC is a Christian organization that stands for Biblical ideals and therefore Biblical morality at least to outward observation. The shooter is therefore stating indirectly that he is shooting and committing an act of overt violence because it was because the FRC stood for Biblical morality which is "what they stand for" or their "politics".

...and this is the very reason I believe we will see and hear little from the SPLC. Its because their ideals and ideologies fall along the same lines as the shooter's. Although the SPLC does not explicitly call the FRC a hate group, they categorize it as such as they have included it on a list of potential candidates for Hate Group classification. It is through the power of suggestion being the first step in propaganda that the FRC will eventually be considered just that: A Hate Group. For what? Having Biblical values and the Scriptures as a basis for their existence and motives.      

So this presents a problem for the SPLC. They either view this shooting (attempted shooting) as motivated by similar malicious hateful motives as they did as the shooter in Aurora and the Sikh Temple or they have "categorically" denied this being a hate crime which it clearly was motivate by. The duplicitous double-standard of the SPLC is then on full display along with blatant hypocrisy.

In this situation, for something to have been hypocritical, the person of group that is hypocritical has to have complained about something being wrong or as being an infraction to another but then condone the exact same behavior committed by someone with their same ideology or they themselves doing it. Compound this with the added insult of not finding said behavior wrong when done by those within their own ideology makes a potent hypocritical witch's brew. Hypocrites by their very nature: Usually engage in the same behaviors they condemn others for, professes certain ideals, but fails to live up to them, or hold other people to higher standards than he holds themselves. It is the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess.

It is a condition of a person or group pretending to be something they are not, especially in the area of morality. Therefore they present a false or prejudiced presentation of belief or feeling.

Enter SPLC and those with similar ideologies.

What is truly ironic is that accusation of prejudiced or intolerant beliefs is the very same gauge by which they have categorized the FRC. The SPLC's very statement on their web sites about the FRC hateful ideology is that they are "anti-gay". This is a horribly disingenuous statement and an incorrect reframing of the argument to make the homosexuals themselves look like the enemy to Christian eyes (or as they are referred to in error in the SPLC website: The Religious Right). The FRC is not anti-gay, they are pro-Biblical and therefore adhere to Scriptural or Biblical mandates or Biblical morality. Therefore they hate sin, not the sinner. It is no different than hating the drugs and their misuse (also a sin), not the addict.

Another disingenuous statement from the SPLC is: "...the Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians."

Can someone please tell me what the correlation is between these two statements and where is the backing citations for the accusations that FRC defames gays as there are none included in this false caricature and misrepresentation of the FRC? Why are apples being compared to oranges? Families and supposed defamation are two distinct and separate issues. A  Red Herring fallacy not to mention a faulty generalization that these to groups are completely incompatible from a Scriptural standpoint. There are also many other fallacies put forth on SPLC's Family Research Council page that include Appeal to Fear, Appeal to Pity, Arguments from Silence, Straw man, etc. I will quote and match up these fallacies if pressed to do so but for the sake of time I did not mention them here. Leave a comment and I will gather them up.

What a reader ends up sadly and ironically realizing having read much of the misrepresenting rhetoric on the Southern Poverty Law Center's page about the FRC is that it is heavily biased and, well, hateful (or at least rancorous). These facts in themselves make the site high hypocritical. Compound these obvious facts with the additional damning and noticeable absence of any mention of hate perpetrated by their own "protect groups" like the most recent shooting at the FRC...and it makes their "hate" rhetoric absurdly laughable and one-sided.

Conversely, what I will say is that many within the media have properly reported this as a hate crime or terrorist act (although at times with a definitive bias). Perhaps this is so because it also flows along the lines of other ideologies that the media also propagates such as gun control? Regardless, even the bias media outlets realize that few arguments are won through militant and or violent means. As such there have been a coalition of 25 gay rights groups that have released a statement through GLAAD condemning the shooting and are smartly backing away from any direct association with this nutty individual and labeling him as the terrorist and violent person that he is. They have classified him as a rogue agent and are sacrificing one for the good of the whole. There is no deontological ethics here, only teleological. The ends justifies the means. Throw him to wolves so he does not derail all the positive aspects of the parent group and prime directive of getting unbiblical behaviors normalized in society. Did all of them LGBT groups do this? No. If I said that, I would be making sweeping generalizations like the SBLC. What is for certain though is that a majority of them did. They tossed one of their own under the bus. 

On the other hand, I have not seen a similar distancing from the issue by the SPLC and don't expect that I will. I suspect that it is because by taking a stand against anyone from their "protected groups", they will undermine some of the very tenants and beliefs that they have struggled so hard to redefine and deconstruct over the last 40 years.

Hate is a two-way street. Hate can most certainly be reciprocal. To think it can only go one way defies logic or is at least incredibly naive. The difference between naive and hypocritical is intent and thought processes (or lack of them). I am nearly certain that because the SPLC has now painted themselves into a rhetorical corner they will not be decrying the anger, bitterness and intolerance that enabled the violent and hateful action towards the FRC. Nor will they broad stroke the entire LGBT community because of one loose cannon (and rightfully so). Conversely, the SPLC are all too quick to make sweeping generalization about vocal Christians that stand by a biblical worldview labeling them the "Christian Right" thereby linking them synonymously into the "Radical Right" politically. If someone reads the SPLC website closely enough they will see the menacing and misleading nature of the organization. This is especially true when they make sweeping generalizations about Christians in combination the "Right" or "Religious Right" in general. In their "Anti-gay" category they then try to make tenuous connections between the Christian Right/Religious Right which is a mischaracterization as I am not Right or Left and then stretch this even further and group or associate the wingnut Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Maniacs in the same group (guilt by association) through clever manipulation and placement of pictures of Fred adjacent to the article. 

The SPLC makes little effort in differentiating the above categorizations leaving it open for broad and loose interpretation. They have openly mischaracterized an otherwise decent Christian lobbying organization that good Christians donate to by stating that they their "intentions" are to, and I quote: "denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy". I seriously doubt that is so based on some of the people that have been involved with FRC and Focus on the Family including Dr. James Dobson himself who is as close to a decent Christian as this generation is bound to see (Focus on the Family is also considered a "Religious Right" organization by the  SPLC also which they have likened to other unsavory groups elsewhere in their site). The FRC and FotF's intention is to preserve Biblical behavior in society not propagate an unbiblical one. They are trying to show the LGBT lifestyle for what it is...sin. They are not purposely maligning the sinner but trying to establish what is Biblical behavior for society and lobbying for it before immorality steamrolls all of us.

The SPLC make no attempts at differentiation between regular Christians and the likes of Fred Phelps and radicals of other faiths as they are all grouped together on one website. This thereby allows for casual readers readers of the site to accidentally make the leap that, "If one's guilty, they're all guilty" or a  fallacy of composition and fallacy of affirming the consequent. At their base they are also making  logical inference based on fake arguments or fabricated scenarios that do not exist in reality. Straw man arguments. This ironically is the very same thing liberal-minded media doesn't want others doing with this most recent shooting at the FRC...making sweeping generalizations and false misrepresentations. For an organization mostly manned by lawyers, this is pretty sloppy rhetorical language and poor or inconstant logic.

Nor is the sin ever differentiated from the sinner on the SPLC's website when it comes to homosexuality. If you speak out against the sin you are immediately labeled a hater of the person. Any true Christian knows this is not true. It is a shame that there is such unmistakable and obvious double-standard when it comes to biblical morality which is the underlying and mitigating factor in all this. The perpetrators own words condemn him in this situation as it came directly out of his mouth, “it was not about you, it was what this place stands for" or " "I don't like your politics". The very same politics or ideologies the shooter hated...the SPLC hates too. The only difference between the shooter and the SPLC and similar groups is the methodology to silence their opposition. One tried to do it with a bullet, the other does it through strategic rhetoric and the legal system. Both can destroy lives when the mediums or vehicles that they use are misappropriated and misused.

Addendum: 

I have revisited the SPLC web site as of August 18th, days after the event and I do indeed see a post concerning the shooting at the FRC. As I suspected, in a token manner they only generically state that the shooting is a tragedy and in a casually generalized manner denounced "all violence" before launching into the real intent of their article. Their intent was to malign the comments made by the FRC after the shooting which specifically blame the half-truths and mischaracterizations by the SPLC as the mitigating factor for the shooting. The very type of thing I tried to initially explain when I originally most this article...that hate is indeed a two-way street and can spur individuals to violence. The SPLC has again attempted to re-frame the argument and make this an "anti-gay" issue. The response from the SPLC wasn't so much a denunciation of the violence as it was another purposeful mischaracterization of the FRC as being haters of homosexuals themselves which is patently not true (while simultaneously loosely grouping all Christian groups together on their web site as the "religious right". This in liht of the fact that the FRC has repeatedly stated that they do not support the hate crime tactic because it is pro-homosexual but rather on the grounds that the FRC opposes all hate crime laws on principle, calling them "Thought Crime laws," and has singled out the sexual orientation portion of hate crime laws as particularly objectionable from a biblical point of view.

The SPLC is still doing what it does best with its entourage of unbiblcial lawyers. They purposely twist words, decontextualize statements, dilute ideas and misuse tragedies to benefit their views.  Sadly, this is exactly what the SPLC is accusing the FRC of doing as is clear in their most recent post about this incident:

"Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC’s criticisms of the FRC and the FRC’s criticisms of LGBT people. The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse — claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.

Right within SPLC's own closing statement they are attempting to fraudulently reframe the argument to be about the supposed wrong-doing of the FRC as being anit-gay. They then use incendiary comments like "demonize" to solicit emotional reaction. In terms of rhetoric fallacies they are Appealing to Pity and Appealing to Fear, Appealing to Ignorance, among others. The SPLC also states that the FRC's claims are "provably false". They have decontextualized and taken quotes from an Executive Summary written by Peter Sprigg of the FRC that links homosexuality to other sinful behavior such as pedaphila. In removing it from its context is paints Sprigg in a negative light. What the SPLC completely fails to tell its readership is that the data Sprigg uses...comes directly from the Pentagon therefore from a reliable source. Ironically, the SPLC cites none of their sources unlike Sprigg and the FRC who do so and if they did it is not readily available. Shoddy and unschooled work from supposedly educated lawyers. Sadly, the SPLC having little to defend their position on revert to ad hominim attacks on the members of the FRC itself and when they dredge the waters all they find is men defending biblical views through protest such as anti-abortion outside abortion clinics and the like. They also try to draw false connections between members of the FRC and other unsavory groups such as White Supremacists, just as they do elsewhere in their site.

To conclude this addendum,  this shooter of the FRC is a terrorist even in the eyes of the US government who defines terrorism as:

"... as a dangerous action that is intended to intimidate or coerce a "civilian population," influence government policy by intimidation or affect a government's actions by "mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." Terrorism can be the work of one isolated individual, or a larger network of criminals.

"Anti-Gay | Southern Poverty Law Center." Southern Poverty Law Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/anti-gay>.

Tucker, Eric. "News from The Associated Press." News from The Associated Press. N.p., 16 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. 

"Family Research Council | Southern Poverty Law Center." Southern Poverty Law Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2012. <http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/family-research-council>.