SANCTITY OF LIFE: Ultimate Peer Pressure!

A few years ago an Illinois man was sentenced to life in prison for intimidating his wife to suicide … making him what's believed to be the first person convicted under a law which says it's a felony to induce anyone to take their own life.

The teaching of Darwinist evolution and post-modern relativism (combined with abortion, euthanasia, and public exhibitionism) have so cheapened human life it has lost its God given value to mankind.

Christianity, Illustrations,
Religion, Sanctity of Life

ORIGINS: What’s In a Name?

"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
Acts 4:12

John Lang, writing in The Washington Times, says,

“Names are going through some strange transformations … powerful … trends are at play as parents [exercise] their occasionally inspired but often lamented power of naming names into the next millennium.” He adds, “Plain Jane is apt to be … Jeyn or Janne. Today’s Tyrones and Terrells are more likely to have a name like Jamarcus or Jevonte … .”
[November 1-7, 1999, p. 2.]

But Lang is speaking of first names; however, surnames (or last names) have also been affected by trends. My surname (Gillmartin; also Gilmartin, Guilmartin and Kilmartin) is of Scotch-Irish origin and they are pros when it comes to names, both logical and illogical. Up to the tenth century AD, surnames in Ireland were not hereditary.

Those, like mine, beginning with “Gil-“ or “Kil-” (an anglicized version of the Irish Giolla, meaning follower or devotee) reveal the influence of the church: Gillmartin (in Irish Mac Giolla Mhairtin; the prefix Mac meaning “son of”) means “son of a follower of Martin” (in this case St. Martin).

Similarly, the church is the origin of those names starting with “Mul-“, a version of the Irish Maol, meaning bald, applying to monks due to their distinctive hair styling, as well as many others.

The earliest names appear to be those incorporating “Ó” or its earlier form Ua, meaning “descendant of.” So O’Mulrennan (Ó Maoilbhreanainn) means “descendant of a bald-follower of Brendan,” probably a son or grandson of a monk in an order of St. Brendan.

While many of the names appearing in accounts of the time appear similar to modern Irish names, incorporating the prefix “Mac” or “O,” were in fact not hereditary, lasting only one generation. Hence Turlough mac Airt, was Turlough, son of Art; his son would be Conor mac Turlough, Conor son of Turlough.

Although the making of “fixed” hereditary surnames began early, the process was slow, continuing for over six hundred years. As the population grew and new families were formed, each sought to consolidate its identity by adopting hereditary surnames, usually by simply adding “Mac-“ to the first name of the founding ancestor. In the course of this process, then, many surnames were created which are in fact offshoots of more common names.

For example, the MacMahons and the McConsidines are descended from the O'Brien family, the former from Mahon O'Brien, who died in 1129, the latter from Constantine O'Brien, who died in 1193. This continuing division and sub-division of the most powerful Gaelic families almost certainly explains the great proliferation of Gaelic surnames.

[Adapted from “The Origins of Irish Surnames” from www.ireland.com on the Internet]

I’m glad the old ways have given way to more reasonable conventions. Today, under the old system, I might be known as Jion Ua Giolla Mhairtin Giolla Jesu Mac Gaud, or John O’Gillmartin Giljesus MacGod; literally, John a descendant of a follower of Martin, a follower of Jesus, Son of God.

But as names and naming processes go, I much prefer God’s way; for under His eternal system, I am Jion O’Gaud … simply John, child of God. For He has made me His child and written my name in the Book of Life, using the precious blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Son of God.

And I know, “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." [Acts 4:12]

Christianity, Illustrations,
Origins, Religion

JUDGMENT: Good or Evil Twin!

"All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left."

Matthew 25:32-33

Los Angeles County (California) deputies mistook Ray Nugent, for his fraternal twin brother, Jay, a federal fugitive wanted on bank robbery charges.

County supervisors are expected to approve a $150,000 settlement for Nugent, who spent 13 days in jail after being mistakenly identified as his fraternal twin brother, a federal fugitive suspected and bank robber.

“It was an unfortunate mistake,” principal Deputy County Counsel Roger Granbo told a local newspaper. “This was a very unusual case in which the FBI was looking for this guy, and we had his twin brother in custody.” Granbo said that “once the Sheriff’s Department confirmed he was not the person wanted in the warrant, it took them four days to release him, and that’s why we settled the case.”

“I never really got upset with my brother,” Nugent said. “Anybody can see that we don’t look alike. What really got me upset was that they made me a criminal because of what my twin brother did. They said, if I have a twin brother who did that, I must be like him too. It’s that mentality that disturbs me.” [“Good, evil twin: jail mix-up”; MSNBC/KNBC Channel 4 Los Angeles, November 30, 1999 at http://www.msnbc.com/local/knbc/275230.asp]

When we come before the Judge of judges none of God’s deputies will mistake the sheep from the goats.

No one will stand in the wrong line due to a bureaucratic error; no representative of heaven will appear before reporters to say, “It was an unfortunate mistake.”

And, praise be to God, no one will ever find us guilty by association. Just because we have brothers and sisters who’ve never been bathed in the precious blood of the Lamb, no will ever say to those who have, “If they aren’t then must not be either.”

We are in the hands of Almighty God whose Book of Life is written without error and whose Book of the Dead will clearly separate all goats from every sheep.

Christianity, Illustrations,
Judgment, Religion

HYPOCRISY: Not a Fatal Disease But It Ought to Be!

LEANING ON A BROKEN CRUTCH: [James 3:13-17]

A few years ago a sixteen year-old told me he didn’t need God because he was “not that insecure.” What did he mean by that statement? He was implying, “You Christians only go to church and believe in a thing called God because you're insecure and need a crutch to get through life." Where do young people get ideas like this?

First, they see the way some of us live and see that the walk doesn’t agree with the talk, so we’re hypocrites in their mind. As a result, they want nothing to do with what we’re selling.

Second, they lack simple life-experience [aka: common-sense], which breeds selfishness and self-centeredness. As I age, and gain in experience, I’m amazed I survived my own youth.

Much of what we say as young people becomes a hardened belief as an adult. We hear things from others, whom we respect, and accept them as gospel without question. What we don’t know, at that age, is that much of what we hear is what others also heard and accepted without question. The young man I shared my faith with was himself guilty of hypocrisy; however, he lacked sufficient life-experience to discern it.

In repeating, as truth, something acquired from another, without personal knowledge of its truthfulness, we are guilty of using that person as a crutch in the same way Christians are accused of using God ... only we have personal knowledge of the Gospel’s truthfulness.

AGING - All of creation takes this journey!

THE OLDER I GET! [Ecclesiastes 12:1-8; death, faith, life]

The older I get temporally, the more I see things dying … my eyesight, my strength, my memory, my balance, my legs, my marksmanship, my stamina, and much more.

The older I get spiritually, the more I see things coming to life … my faith, my hope, my love, my heart, my spirit, and my insight, my understanding, and much more.

Glory!