Genocide & The White Boer … So Much For Social Justice

Why isn’t the world media covering the genocide of the Boer in South Africa as it covered Apartheid in the 80’s and 90’s? The White Boer Farmer is being raped, pillaged, and murdered and we hear next to nothing about it in our traditional media outlets. Could it be the reason that we hear so little about this crime is because the South African Boer Farmer is white?

Here we have all this noise and fury about the Belhar confession and the need for racial justice all the while the white Boer Farmer is being attacked at every turn. The Belhar confession, coming from South Africa as it does, is supposed to be this great statement about unity and social justice and yet the very country that it comes from is pursuing genocide of the White Boer Farmer.

Something doesn’t add up here.

War threats, hate crimes soar against SA Whites: June 2012

http://www.neo-genocide.com/farmitracker/

Evading The Title Of Cultural Warrior

Over at,

http://matthewtuininga.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/how-to-be-aware-of-a-culture-war-without-becoming-a-culture-warrior-thoughts-on-acton-university/

Matthew Tuininga strikes again.

He titles his piece,

How to be aware of a culture war without becoming a culture warrior: thoughts on Acton University

I might subtitle it …

How to be aware of a culture war without becoming a cultural warrior, or, how to become a cultural warrior without admitting you’re a cultural warrior.

For those who want the whole article, I direct your attention to the link above. I’m interacting with only the bits I found curious.

Mr. Tuininga wrote,

But is not the work of the Acton Institute simply a culture war in reverse? Do not many Christians simply seek to impose their own agenda and ideology by means of the power of the state? To be sure, I did hear some people at the Acton University talk in this way. While the speakers and attendees were very sensitive to liberal accretions on state power, there was less criticism of the ways in which conservatives have sought to use the state to advance their own ideology. In general, however, this was not the spirit of the conference. In general the speakers and lecturers recognized that it is vital for both freedom and virtue for government to be kept in its place.

The problem here, of course, is that the Obama administration does believe that it is keeping to its place when it desires to force Christian institutions to provide abortifacient measures. The Obama administration believes that people like Mr. Tuininga are being reactionary conservatives by desiring to limit the Government from a place it believes it has a right to enter. Now, in this example, I agree with Mr. Tuininga that the Government is overstepping its bounds in seeking to make Christian institutions a arm of the State. What I don’t agree with Mr. Tuininga on is that somehow the State can remain in some realm designated as “neutral.” If the Obama administration doesn’t get its way on this matter then the Christian agenda of more limited more decentralized government will have won the day. If the Obama administration does get its way on this matter then the progressive pagan agenda of a Centralized top down system will have won the day. There is no neutrality. Whoever wins on this battlefront moves the culture war in one direction or another.

Mr. Tuininga offers,

As one speaker pointed out, Christians should not argue for a free market or capitalist society because Scripture or the Church has given us such a system. Rather, the moral case for a free market and for capitalism depends to a significant degree on the fact that it works. Principle, in that sense, is inseparable from pragmatism. If you want to help the poor, why would you support any system other than that which has done more to create economic growth and has lifted more people out of poverty than any other institution or force in the history of the world? If you value freedom, why not maximize it as much as is possible consistent with general prosperity, peace, and order?

However the reason that free markets and Biblical capitalism (as opposed to evolutionary capitalism or Corporatism Capitalism) work is because those economic orders are consistent with what is taught in Scripture. With the Eight Commandment we find the idea of private property, which is the foundation of Biblical capitalism. The problem with appealing to pragmatics is that it tends to peel the ethic away from the theology that creates the ethic. Biblical Capitalism works because it is informed by a Biblical theology that then gets into Biblical economics. I’m all for free markets (though I am a little enamored with the ideas of the Distributists — man is, after all, more than a economic being) but I’m also for free markets remembering that freedom only has any possible sustainable meaning inside of a Biblical worldview.

Mr. Tuininga ends with,

(1)That does not mean our arguments for a free economy should not be fundamentally moral. Human beings are fundamentally moral creatures and must always be addressed as such. (2) That said, however, the arguments we make should not be designed to advance a particular ideological or religious agenda, but to appeal to human beings’ basic understanding of morality and truth in light of experience and sound scholarship. (3) In short, while we may recognize that there are those who are launching a culture war on American society, our response should not be to launch a culture war of our own. (4) On the contrary, our response should be to work as thoughtful, loving citizens, urging and convincing our fellow citizens of the best ideals, policies, and practices conducive to our prosperity as moral human beings. (5)To put it another way, our aim should not be to conquer, but to win hearts and minds with the truth.

The second sentence in that paragraph convinces me that I’ve fallen into Alice’s Rabbit hole.

If we make arguments that are not designed to advance a particular ideological or religious agenda, haven’t we at that point designed arguments to advance the ideological and religious agenda of not making arguments that advance a particular ideological or religious agenda? My point is that ideological and religious agendas are inescapable and Matt doesn’t escape them by insisting that he does escape them. The whole idea that an appeal to human beings’ basic understanding of morality and truth in light of experience and sound scholarship can be done absent of either religion and / or ideology is a howler of the first order. What is the interpretation of human experience based upon except for religious and ideological a-priori’s informing the interpretation? What is sound scholarship based upon except for some pre-commitment to a religion or ideology that is informing the scholarship? Has Matt forgot that both facts and a philosophy of fact must be considered simultaneously? Human beings are fallen creatures and it is a dangerous game to appeal to the basic understanding of morality and truth of creatures that are fallen as some kind of foundation for social order truths. What good was Stalin’s basic understanding of morality and truth in light of experience and sound scholarship? What good was Chairman Mao’s? Felix Dzerzhinsky’s? Pol Pot’s? One does begin to quickly get my point.

Sentence (3) is yet another curio. If someone is attacking me, is it war if I resist? If the cultural Marxist are continuing with their long march through the Institutions is it culture war on my part if I start my own counter long march through the Institutions to return them to what they were before the Cultural Marxists started marching? In sentences (4) and (5) we have a whopper of a false dichotomy. We are not to try and conquer but we are to win hearts and minds with the truth … which of course would mean that if successful we would (shh … don’t say it to loudly) C-O-N-Q-U-E-R.

Liberals Continue To Give Back-Handed Support To The Belhar

Over here

What about the Belhar Confession?

There is a backhanded appeal to the support of the Belhar Confession. I normally wouldn’t comment on this but the blogger linked to my analysis of the Belhar and opinionated that I dismissed it “derisively.” Personally, I was hoping to have dismissed it “scornfully,” but I’ll take derisive.

Mr. Tuininga offered,

That said, is the problem really with the document itself? If DeYoung, Mouw, and others can agree with virtually everything the document says, is it possible that the misuses to which it is being put are the result of factors not pertaining to the confession itself? To be sure, in a liberal context the Belhar Confession is easily put to disastrous use. But if it is adopted in the context of strong confessional allegiances to the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt, or the Westminster Confession, is it really so dangerous or is it more of a corrective?

Yes, the problem is with the document itself. The document, as I exhaustively exposed in my previous posts on the Belhar is a document that grows out of the soil of Marxist liberation theology. Second, anybody (and I do mean anybody) who can agree with virtually everything that document says is either a Marxist, a proto-Marxist, or a useful idiot. Thirdly, the reason that the Belhar, in a liberal context could be used to disastrous use is because the Belhar is a liberal document. If a Liberal context can put the Bible, which is a historically non progressive document, to a disastrous use how much more a progressive document such as the Belhar? Fourthly, just exactly what is it in the Belgic Confession, the Canons of Dordt, the Heidelberg catechism, or the Westminster Confession that needs to have a corrective as young liberal Mr. Tuininga offers the Belhar as a solution? I’d really like to know what Mr. Tuininga believes the Belhar can do that these confessions don’t already do. Finally, yes, in point of fact it really is so dangerous Mr. Tuininga. To add the Belhar to the Westminster or the Three Forms of Unity is like adding the Communist Manifesto to the US Constitution as a “corrective.” The fact that Mr. Tuininga can’t see that says more about Mr. Tuininga then it does about the relative safety of the Belhar.

Second, I’m not sure Young and Mouw are really representative of “conservative voices,” on this issue. They might be “more conservative,” but that would only mean that they represent, perhaps, the right side of the left as opposed to representing the right.

Tuininga goes on,

DeYoung argues that the Belhar Confession’s statement that God is “in a special way the God of the poor, the destitute, and the wronged” cannot be supported from Scripture. He believes that this statement contradicts the Scriptural teaching regarding God’s covenant with his people. But I would argue that DeYoung is reading too much into that statement, and that he is underselling what Scripture says about God’s concern for the poor. It is Luke, after all, who records Jesus’ proclamation Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God, and woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation (Luke 6:20, 24). It was Jesus who described his calling as requiring him to proclaim good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). DeYoung has argued in his What is the Mission of the Church? that the material significance of these statements is exaggerated, but I find his insistence on downplaying the implications of the gospel regarding poverty quite troubling. It does not go beyond Scripture to say that God is in a special way the God of the poor and the oppressed.

Yes indeed it does go beyond Scripture to say that God is in a special way the God of the poor and oppressed. Was God more God to David when he was a shepherd boy then he was God to David when David was King? Was God more God to the oppressed Israelites in Egypt than he was to Rich Abraham? Was God more God outcast Moses than He was God to Moses the leader of the Israelite Nation? Was God more God to the woman with the blood issue who had spent all her money on many Doctors than He was God to rich Zacchaeus? Was God more God to the woman caught in adultery than he was to Joseph of Arimathea? The Luke passage must be read in light of the Matthew passage which adds to “poor,” the idea of “in spirit,” in order to understand what Jesus was saying. When Scripture portrays God as hearing the cry of the poor and needy no one really believes that means that God hears the cry of the poor and needy who are wicked as well. It is past ridiculous for someone to suggest that God prioritizes the poor simply because they are poor, absent of any consideration of their relation to Christ. If Mr. Tuininga really believes that the poor qua poor are special to God I would look for him to impoverish himself instantly, take a vow of poverty, and become a mendicant monk. Now of course, God is not the God, in a special way, to the rich either. God is the God of those, rich or poor, who are united to Jesus Christ. Mr. Tuininga’s words belie his liberal leanings.

Mr. Tuininga offers,

In fact, if the Belhar Confession (or something like it) is worth adopting in our churches, I would argue that it is precisely for the reason that it challenges conservatives in their reactionary stance on matters of justice. Conservative Christians love to downplay (or ignore) the teachings of Scripture regarding the gospel’s implications for race or poverty. But they are in severe danger of allowing liberal extremes on these issues to curb their own fidelity to the biblical witness. For those who read older theologians like Calvin on these issues, the contrast is quite stark.

I wonder if Mr. Tuininga would terribly mind to much giving some examples of “conservative reactionary stances on matters of justice.” It would be good if he could provide names as well as examples. Secondly, just exactly what are the Scripture’s teaching on race and poverty that conservative Christians love to downplay? Names and examples please.

You see, I believe that it is liberal reactionary stances on matters of justice that create more poverty then what already exist. Liberals are full of good intentions that when implemented make matters worse then they were prior to their implementation. Perhaps Mr. Tuininga and I agree on the Churches and Christians role in relieving poverty.

The Power Of Unrelieved Guilt

“In fact, one might say that all modernity, all the creators of the intellectual artifice that is the modern age, were bent on nothing more than rationalization of apostasy, with sexual rebellion as its vehicle. What do Margaret Mead, and Bloomsbury, and Picasso, and Sartre and Freud, and the various forms of socialism, and Paul Tillich, and any number of lesser lights have in common? Precisely that: rationalized sexual misbehavior construed as liberation. In reality it was nothing more than an attack on God in general and the Christian sexual morality in particular….

Add to apostasy the sexual sin that follows almost automatically therefrom — modernity, as I said, is nothing but rationalized sexual misbehavior anyway — and then add the abortion that follows naturally from the sexual revolution, and you have, after a while, a pretty impressive pool of guilt, one big enough to form the basis for a political movement…. Guilt has not only become endemic; it has become a powerful political tool. Liberalism, as currently practiced, is the politics of guilt. Guilt is the engine that pulls the Liberal train… what we are interested in here is the political grammar of those ostensibly involved in righting these wrongs. All the liberal causes are orchestrations, in one way or another, of the pool of guilt that has been building throughout this century.

The Democratic party is a good example of how this all gets brokered. The women blackmail the Liberals, who feel guilty about the sexual revolution, and the feminist power block comes into existence. The homosexuals blackmail the feminists, who feel guilty about abortion and so compensate by allowing the homosexuals to become officially designated victims, so that the feminists won’t have to face the real victims — their own aborted children. Guilt becomes the power base for each of these movements. It becomes the medium of exchange in the political marketplace. In order to play, you must first get yourself designated as a victim…. It works in direct proportion to the number of people in our society who turn away from Jesus Christ, the one and only effective antidote to guilt. It is simple enough to be reduced to an equation: the politics of guilt and blackmail will increase in inverse proportion to the number of people who follow Jesus Christ and — we might add, as he would — do his will. All of this only makes sense because the need to escape from guilt remains a constant in the life of human beings. If people deliberately turn away from Jesus Christ … they will be forced to seek release from guilt by ritual actions … ”

E. Michael Jones
Degenerate Moderns – pp. 121-122

“The reality of man apart from Christ is guilt and masochism. And guilt and masochism involve an unshakable inner slavery which governs the total life of the non-Christian. The politics of the anti-Christian will thus inescapably be the politics of guilt, man is perpetually drained of his social energy and cultural activity by his overriding sense of guilt and his masochistic activity. He will progressively demand of the state a redemptive role. What he cannot do personally, i.e., to save himself, he demands that the state do for him, so that the state, as man enlarged, becomes the human savior of man. The politics of guilt, therefore is not directed, as the Christian politics of liberty, to the creation of a godly justice and order, but to the creation of a redeeming order, a saving state. Guilt must be projected, therefore, on all those who oppose this new order and new age.”

R. J. Rushdoony
The Politics of Guilt and Pity — p. 9

1.) Rejection of God and His Law word as incarnated in Jesus Christ brings guilt. Guilt is objective and will always require some attempt at being assuaged. For Biblical Christians our guilt is assuaged in the blood atonement of Jesus Christ and the following assurance that “if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The modern does not have this means to relieve themselves of guilt and so much of their behavior and life is spent as a means to find a relief valve for their personal inescapable guilt.

2.) Since those outside of Christ do not have the only proper means to deal with their guilt they only have one of two options in order to find a temporary release of guilt. Those two options are either sadism in some degree or another or masochism is one degree or another. This is just another way of saying that either they will punish themselves (masochism) for their guilt or they will punish others for their guilt (sadism). If they punish others for their guilt often it will be those who are closest to them in their personal relationships. The attempt at removing guilt by means of self atonement can be seen in history by the religious flagellants as they whipped themselves bloody in order to relieve their sense of guilt. However, this means of relieving guilt can also be as comparatively benign as some small form of self sabotage that insures that one can not succeed in some effort. Sadistic attempts at removing guilt are sometimes as blood drenched as abortion where living human beings are made the guilt sacrifice of their parent’s sins or it can be simply the work of a parent shoving their guilt off on their child or a spouse placing their guilt upon their husband or wife.

3.) Guilt becomes a tool whereby whole cultures and social orders are manipulated. For example, White people are made to feel guilty for their success and they are manipulated, by false guilt, to support policies (quotas, educational set asides, manipulated SAT scores, etc.) that work to insure that they, as a people group, no longer can be successful. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false masochistic atonement. For example, women are made to feel guilty for being a wife and homemaker and they are manipulated, by false guilt, to take up careers and to place their children into day care centers. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false atonement. For example, heterosexuals are made to feel guilty for rightly finding sodomy and perverseness disgusting, and they are manipulated, by false guilt, into believing that their natural abhorrence is unnatural and worthy of being sanctioned. False guilt over a false sin, as named by a false god, can only be paid for by a false atonement. Guilt, as Jones notes, is a powerful political tool.

4.) When guilt is allowed to be the train that pulls the body politic, then the weak rule over the strong. When guilt is allowed to be the ruling motif of any social order then it is only those who can somehow claim victim status who are prioritized in import over non-victims. When this happens (and it has happened in our culture) then whole pecking orders of “more victimized than thou” are created. Women more victim then men. Lesbian women more victim then straight women. Handicapped Lesbian women more victim them non handicapped Lesbian women… and on and on it goes. In such a culture the weak dominate the strong so that the strong must continually brought down to the level of the weak.

5.) The blackmailing that happens that Jones mentions I suspect takes place in the following way. In return for homosexuals not mentioning the abortion issue to guilt laden feminists the feminists lend the weight of their support for the homosexual movement. In such a way guilt over abortion is used as a muting factor that allows a large power bloc that was itself created by guilt (feminists) to turn a blind eye to the creation of another large power bloc that is created by guilt (homosexuals).

6.) Blood is still often connected with this pagan relieving of guilt. The blood sacrifice of abortion provides relief of the guilt that comes from violating God’s 7th word.

Prohibition Against Porneia Man

One thing we should keep in mind here when approaching this text is that St. Paul was writing to Saints (3). The issues he touches upon were issues within the Church. If they had not been issues within the Church he would have had no need to touch upon them. It is interesting that he brings this subject matter up not only for the Ephesian Church but also for the Church in Colosse.

3 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. 5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to [c] immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come [e]upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

To the Saints in Corinth St. Paul could write,

1 Cor.6:18 Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. 1 Cor.6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 1 Cor.6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

And so it is to the Saints that these injunctions are made and they are consistently made in light of the fact that the people of God have been translated from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son.

In the Ephesians passage the Saints have just been reminded that Christ gave Himself for the Church. The injunction to walk in this new morality is connected to the new reality established by the fact that Christ gave Himself for us. In the Colossians passages the Saints were reminded that they were raised with Christ. This being raised with Christ is connected elsewhere with being raised to newness of life. In the Corinthians passage the Saints are called to purity in light of the fact that they have been purchased by God. The thought being, having been purchased by God we now have a responsibility to walk in light of His ownership.

So, these moral injunctions are not given absent of the objective realities of the Gospel of Christ for sinners. These moral injunctions are given in light of both these objective realities of what Christ has accomplished for us — outside of us — and the effect of the Gospel in the lives of Believers. Before the negative prohibitions are stated the positive is set forth. The positive is that we are a freely Redeemed people. We have been won and wooed by Christ. All of our acting, thinking, and living is now done in light of He who hath freely reconciled us with the Father. This is no moralism for the sake of moralism that the inspired Apostle is pursuing. This is morality in light of the fact that we are a people set free from the dead traditions of those who have the Devil as their Father.

But we circle back to the idea that these words were written to saints. Saints have a need to be reminded of these things for Saints are sinners also. The Church is a hospital and the Christian message, in the broadest sense of that idea, provides the elixir and the therapy whereby we go from renewal unto renewal. And so St. Paul reminds these Saints that because of who they have been declared to be in Christ Jesus they now have the mission of increasingly becoming. And this means that certain behavioral sins (Fornication, etc.) are not to be even named among the Saints.

That St. Paul would had to have written the several Churches about these matters is not surprising given the backdrop of the 1st century world.

The Greco-Roman culture in the 1st Century was devoid of the kind of moral standards that once characterized nations that had been leavened with the Christian faith. The moral life of the Graeco-Roman world had sunk so low that, while protests against the prevailing corruption were never entirely wanting, fornication had long come to be regarded as a matter of indifference, and was indulged in w/o shame or scruple, not only by the mass, but by philosophers and men of distinction who in other respects led exemplary lives.

As one example, in Corinth, the Chambers of Commerce maintained regularly around 2000 prostitutes for all visiting businessmen. Corinth was a manufacturing town and so had numbers of visiting businessmen and nobody thought that there was anything immoral with men having relations with prostitutes. This was all taken for granted. So, in the Gentile Churches the moral standard could be pretty low.

Everett Ferguson, whose scholarly work deserves high regard, writes:

“All kinds of immoralities were associated with the [Greco-Roman] gods. Not only was prostitution a recognized institution, but through the influence of the fertility cults of Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia it became a part of the religious rites at certain temples. Thus there were one thousand “sacred prostitutes” at the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth.”

This first matter that is not even be named among the Saints is “porneia.”

The term “porneia” (fornication) is to be taken in its proper sense and is not to be restricted to any one particular form — the license practiced at heathen festivals, concubinage, marriage within prohibited degrees, serial intimate relationships, unnatural physical affections or the like. Porneia thus while inclusive of adultery, and uncleanness, might be considered broader in significance so as to include what has been mentioned.

Fornication then, like adultery, is an attack upon Biblical marriage and Family.

Where you find a culture characterized by porneia you will find the family on the rocks. But understand that porneia is a symptom and not a cause. Porneia and the disintegration it brings to the family is caused by a turning from the God of the Bible so that we should say that the cure to porneia will only come secondarily by laws legislating against it. There will no laws that can successfully legislate against the flood of porneia we see in our own times without a return to the Christian faith. Laws in general, and laws against porneia specifically arise and are successful only when men are affected by the Gospel.

And so we who are affected by the Gospel must live lives such as that which is called for by God. Among us porneia should not even be named. We should flee from it. If this becomes increasingly true in our assemblies then one of two consequences will arise.

1.) Either those outside of Christ will be attracted to the Gospel that makes for porneia free living

The Christian life is the abundant life. Our lives are set free from all the real dark drama that accompanies those caught in the net of porneia. Imagine how attractive Christianity might be to someone living with the consequences of porneia to witness a healthy Christian family. As our unbelieving culture spins further and further into dark night and old chaos the ability to function well as a Family unit based upon Christian truth will serve as salt and light for those wanting out of the darkness created, in part, by porneia.

2.) or those outside of Christ will attack us for the standing rebuke we are to their ongoing dissipation.

Harvard Sociological expert Carle Zimmerman could say,

“When familism is distinctly weak in a society, all the cultural elements take on anti-family tinge.”

And I would add that as familism can only be produced by Christianity the anti-family tinge will also be a anti-Christian tinge.

As porneia comes more and more out of the closet the expectation will be that those who are chaste will have to go into the closet.

When St. Paul reminds them that porneia is not even to be named among them we are reminded that to allow porneia to be named among our assemblies is to turn our assemblies into synagogues of Satan. When we turn a blind eye to unrepentant and indifferent unchasteness in our membership we do our Lord Christ, our congregations, our denominations and those persons a grave disservice.

The Heidelberg Catechism reinforces what we are teaching when it teaches

Question 109. Does God forbid in the 7th commandment, only adultery, and such like gross sins?

Answer: Since both our body and soul are temples of the holy Ghost, he commands us to preserve them pure and holy: therefore he forbids all unchaste actions, gestures, words, (a) thoughts, desires, (b) and whatever can entice men thereto.

And here we pause to consider those last 6 words. This 7th commandment forbids whatever can entice men to the violation of the 7th commandment.

These are difficult words in our information age that so easily conveys the sensual. In our information age it seems as if it is almost impossible to escape the enticing. Listen to the radio. Watch the television. Go to the movies or plays. Drive down the highway being exposed to the billboards. Listen to music. Read a magazine or a novel. Surf the web. Attend your sex education class. Is it really possible to escape whatever can entice men to uncleanness?

Still, we must seek to cut out as much as we can in order to be innocent regarding evil.

Of course all of this will work to make us a peculiar people. This not naming porneia among us will distinguish us and make us different.

When we turn to Ephesians 5 again we notice this list of sins that are not to be named among us and I would like to suggest that this list is not random.

The prohibition to porneia, which by the Greek language construction is a prohibition expressed in the strongest of terms, suggests to me that the other sins listed are somehow connected to the prohibition against porneia. The connection between Uncleanness and porneia is rather more obvious but the idea of covetousness might not be. Porneia is pursued by people who want something that is not their’s to have. Behind porneia is a covetous disposition seeking to seize what is not rightfully to be had. And so, after forbidding porneia God can forbid that which drives porneia and that is illicit desire …. covetousness. So here we see a natural connection between the 7th commandment and the 10th commandment so that we might say that it is impossible to break the 7th without also breaking the 10th.

Further, I would suggest the foolish talking or coarse jesting is likewise related to porneia. That is to say that the speaking that is being forbidden here is connected to illicit intimacy. We sometimes call this “Potty talk,” or “Locker room humor.”

And finally the Apostle connects the 7th word and the 10th word with the 1st word. The Apostle says that the kind of man he is describing is an Idolater. Of course this fits. The porneia man who is driven by his illicit covetous desires is a man who is prioritizing himself above God. Depending on how one looks at it the porneia man has made a god above God out of whatever it is he is wrongly desiring or he has made himself, with his unnatural desires, his own God.

Well, then can we understand why the Apostle would say that such a thing is not to be named among God’s people. Should those who serve false gods be named among those who serve the true God?

As we end we are reminded that the reason we take seriously the 7th word is because of the love of the Father we have and the gratitude for all that He has freely given to us in Christ. We take the 7th word seriously because we can’t help but to take it seriously since we have been given the Spirit so that we might walk in the newness of life with God’s law as the standard of what that life looks like.