Richard Palazzo has been following Jesus since 1985. He has been married to Theresa since 1978, and they have 5 wonderful, married children and (so far) 5 delightful grandchildren. They happily make their home in Lynchburg, VA. Rich & Terry home-schooled their kids through high school, with Rich teaching mostly Creation studies, World History, American History, Worldview Studies, Government , Economics and Bible (Theresa teaching everything else). Rich also taught classes to other families' children, presented at home-school conventions, and taught various church classes on Creationism, American History, The Bible and American Government, including "Understanding the Times," and "How Should We Then Live?" Rich also was a member of a team that taught "The Essentials of Discipleship." Rich and Terry were part of the Long Island LEAH home-school convention team from 2003-2010.
God – Always Was – the Eternal Self-Existing One. A Trinity. Never alone, Never lonely, needing, lacking nothing.
Yet, You created.
You created everything. There had been nothing but You.
The Universe – its laws, the stars, the planets, their moons – time and space, and matter.
Why? Why did You do it? For the same reason humans have children – to express, to manifest their love.
For all love comes from You.
But love implies care.
The good shepherd lays down his very life for his sheep.
He sees himself as the owner of the sheep, and He is ever watching over His flock. The wolf does not catch Him off-guard, unprepared – ever. He knows that the wolf is out there, and wants to feed on His sheep.
This is love.
It cannot be mustered up. It just flows from within the heart of shepherd. And it manifests as care.
It is God’s will that every ordinary Christian – and therefore, every ordinary Christian couple, and every ordinary Christian family – live a life of hope, joy, and overflow (Romans 15:13).
Hope – What is the hope of every Christian mother and father?
Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).
And Ezekiel wrote:
And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes… And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.
Ezekiel 47:9, 12
Let me ask you a question,
Don’t you want your family to have that kind of effect? Don’t you want your hopes for them to be fulfilled? Don’t you want to experience joy in your parenting?
God wants those things for you too. And the Bible says, “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23).
Say yes to God. Trust Him. Ask Him to take you on the most wonderful journey of your life, and He will.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
So just what does this earthly inheritance look like, and how does it affect our marriage?
The Holy Spirit
A 2017 article in Psychology Todaysays that the number one reason that marriages fail is a “failure to wed,” contrasting that with a healthy marriage:
Two separate and uniquely different people come together to form a whole whose essence is greater than the sum of its parts, and not two individuals who are constantly “hijacking the we” by trying to make their partner become more like them.
What does it mean to “hold fast” or “cling to,” or literally “to be joined to,” another person? Marriage establishes and protects one’s most fundamental human relationship. More fundamental than father and mother. More fundamental than the resulting children, precious as they are. More fundamental than a best friend.
The Bible (Ephesians 5:31-32) says the Christian marriage is a “great mystery,” in the sense that something profound is being revealed.
Meditate on this for a moment.
God, the supernatural Creator of the universe (Genesis 1:1) – the Bible calls Him “Yahweh” (Genesis 22:14), and “I am Who I am” (Exodus 3:14) – has chosen to use the Christian marriage to reveal Himself to this world.
What about the famous statistic that half of all marriages end in divorce? That’s true, but only when it comes to first marriages, half of which are dissolved. Second and third marriages actually fail at a far higher rate
Forbes Advisor, Jan 8, 2024
When a Christian couple weds, they make a covenant (Proverbs 2:17) to stay together for life (Mark 10:9; Romans 7:2-3), and although many will say that is at best improbable (Matthew 19:10), the Bible says, that “he who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the LORD.”
When people hear the word “abundance,” they somehow get the picture of some kind of materialistic obsession with things, with “stuff,” but that’s not what Jesus talked about in John 10:10:
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Are you living that kind of life? Are you living abundantly?
The other day, I heard a scripture that kept repeating itself over and over again in my mind:
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
John 17:3
That kind of “eternal life” doesn’t begin when we die. The Bible uses the word “zoe,” and that means:
"the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical,"
and
"life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous."
The first time the word “hope” (tiqva) is found in Bible is in the book of Ruth, which ironically, is the story of a family that had given up hope. However, it is also a story of how God restored that hope (Ruth 4:13-15).
Tiqva = "hope of deliverance" or "a hoped-for outcome"
What kind of deliverances or outcomes should Christian couples expect as beloved children of God?
“Blessed is the man (whose) delight is in the law of the LORD… He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.”
“The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.”
“(Her husband) praises her: ‘Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.'”
Rightful Hopes ofChristian Couples
Satisfaction
In addition, the Bible makes Christian married couples this promise to look forward to:
The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and strengthen your bones; you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
Those from among you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called the Repairer(s) of the Breach, the Restorer(s) of Streets to Dwell In…
Then you shall delight yourself in the LORD; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth…”
Our thoughts, our actions, our priorities, and how we spend our time and money, are all very good reflections of our worldview.
Below is a list – developed over many years of trial and error and listening to God’s voice – of my own priorities, as I believe God has assigned them.
My relationship with God
My marriage
Our family
Our home and finances
Church
Community
What I am going to attempt to do is to build a biblical foundation for thinking about each of these areas of life, beginning with my relationship with God. I will do the same for each area in subsequent blogposts.
However, fewer understand that long ago, God stepped into history with a new paradigm – a new way of doing things (Jeremiah 31:31; 33:14-15).
And today, we live under what’s called the “New Covenant” (Hebrews 12:24), through which we – for the first time in history– have the power to successfully enter in to a true relationship with God (2 Corinthians 3:7-18).
The primary things I can do do to keep my heart tender before the Lord is to stay in His Word, (Hebrews 4:11-13) and to worship.
My relationship with God, because of my tender heart and clear conscience, will be characterized by boldness–the kind of audacity exhibited by little John-John Kennedy when he barged into the Oval Office to talk with the President of the United States, his father, John F. Kennedy. (Hebrews 4:16; 1 Timothy 1:5; John 15:7; 1 John 3:22; Psalm 37:4)
“The word ‘imputation,’ according to the Scriptural usage, denotes an attributing of something to a person, or a charging of one with anything, or a setting of something to one's account.” (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia)
Now, instead, the Spirit is working in my life, causing good fruit to grow in my life. My holiness is derived from my relationship with God, not my behavior, or even my zeal. Instead, He sets me “apart.” (Galatians 5:22-23; Colossians 1:6)
I am no longer a “sinner;” I am a saint who occasionally sins. (Romans 6:6-9,11-14; 7:17, 20; 12:2) This is not just semantics; I have a new, regenerated nature. (Romans 7:22; 2 Corinthians 5:17) Although I do not now have a “license” to sin (Romans 6:15), I do not want to, because it is no longer my nature to do so. (Romans 6:17-18, 22; 7:6)
Since the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in me, He will also give me resurrection power in every area of my life. (Romans 8:11; Romans 6:4; Isaiah 60:1) I am going to be victorious in any situation in which I find myself. (Romans 8:37; 2 Corinthians 2:14; 1 John 5:4-5)
I believe that God “gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did,” (Romans 4:17) and that marvelous things are in store for me. (Romans 8:28; Ephesians 3:20; Jeremiah 29:11)
Satisfaction – when the end of my life comes, I will not feel as though I had left anything “on the field,” (Romans 12:1-2), but rather, a deep feeling of having lived a fully and satisfying life (Ephesians 6:13; Psalm 91:16).
My relationship with God is the foundation of my Biblical Worldview.
Next week we will consider how a marriage built on that foundation is built to last (Matthew 7:24-27).
People—our relatives and neighbors, seem to disagree about so many things. And, often, they seem to have such strong opinions on subjects I have not thought about, or have not even heard about! How can I–or for that matter, how can anyone–know what to think, or how to think (accurately)?
… We are inviting you to follow along as we attempt to take a long, contemplative look at the world from a biblical worldview.
There’s a famous quote making it’s way around the Internet, about Benjamin Franklin being asked what kind of government the United States was founded to be. It is said that he replied:
“A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Our founding fathers knew that the history of republics was not good, and that they often tended to end in tyranny.
For example, the once very successful Dutch Republic, formed in 1588, had declined and decayed until it had all but disintegrated by the time of the American founding. And in their own history, their ancestors had formed a republic named the English Commonwealth, in 1649, but it had only lasted for 11 years, until 1660.
But the primary example that the founding fathers looked to – which had been the model for all later republics – was the Roman Republic, which lasted 482 years, but it ended tragically in 60 years of civil wars and the rise of the dictator, Julius Caesar.
Julius Caesar
Why do republics fail?
In pondering this question, I was drawn back once again to a study of the world’s very first tyrant, Nimrod (first referenced in Genesis 10:8).
“Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.” (the Hebrew word used here is “gibôr“).
Impetuous = "acting or done quickly and without thought or care," (Bing) marked by impulsive vehemence or passion (or) by force and violence.." (Merriam-Webster)
God had commanded mankind to spread out and take dominion over the earth, but instead the people congregated together in a city and started dominating each other, and Nimrod was the worst of them.
So, why do people follow tyrants?
An article in Psychology Today claims that people hunger for “strongparentalfigures,” and that they are afraid to take responsibility for their own lives, preferring instead to stay on the sidelines, and “let someone else run the show,” even though the people they follow are often “narcissistic,” “calculating,” and “cruel.”
Do you think that is true? That people are afraid to take responsibility for their own lives, and that they would rather follow the directions of someone else, even if they have demonstrated themselves to be narcissistic and cruel?
That’s exactly what the Bible says that the ancient people of Israel did, although they were warned against it.
“‘This is how a king will reign over you,’ Samuel said… ‘He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage… He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves…'”
“They tend to have a blend of narcissistic and antisocial personality disorder traits such as a lack of empathy, grandiosity, thirst for power and control, lying and deceit, indifference to conventional laws or rules or morality, and more.”
Psychology Today, February 2, 2017
It remind us of a warning by one of the Founding Fathers, James Wilson of Pennsylvania:
“Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men, a post of honour that shall be at the same time a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it… And of what kind are the men that will strive for this profitable pre- eminence, through all the bustle of cabal, the heat of contention, the infinite mutual abuse of parties, tearing to pieces the best of characters? It will not be the wise and moderate; the lovers of peace and good order, the men fittest for the trust. It will be the bold and the violent, the men of strong passions and indefatigable activity in their selfish pursuits. These will thrust themselves into your Government and be your rulers.”
In Chapter 3 of our book, we talked about God’s plan for self-government, and the wise advice for doing so from Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, and William Penn.
Back in the 1970’s and 80’s there was an old album cover that was pretty popular.
Keith Green‘s“No Compromise”
The artwork on the cover of the album depicts the scene where Haman, the Prime Minister of the Persian Empire is passing by, and everyone is bowing down to him – everyone but one man named Mordecai, and Haman tried to have him killed.
Some years earlier, another man named Daniel, had to disobey the king of his day, and his political enemies tried to have him killed.
And when that same king went to throw them into a fiery furnace, Daniel’s three friends replied:
“If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, Daniel 3:17-18
William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, once said:
“Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
And in our third chapter, we quoted from Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 Notes on the State of Virginia, where he wrote:
“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”
What is venality?
venality = "openness to bribery or corruption" (dictionary.com)
One thing that Mordecai, Daniel, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego definitely had in common is that they were not open to corruption. They were incorruptible, in the same way that George Washington was incorruptible. If we want to be able to stand against tyranny, and against manipulation – even when your government is telling you otherwise, we have to take responsibility for our own lives.
Second Chronicles 7:14 says:
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
God is ready to heal our land. Are we ready to do our part?
Our second book – The Bible, Christianity & American Government – is still in progress, but chapters are available as a podcast at Podbean and Apple podcasts and on YouTube.
The Bible, Christianity & American Government, Chapter 8
“The Lord raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those who plundered them.”
Judges 2:16
The word translated here as “judge” should be understood in the sense of deliverer (see Judges 3:9 & 3:15)
deliverer = "a person who saves someone from a painful or bad experience" (Cambridge Dictionary)
Based on that definition, you can probably think of times when our country was in trouble, and then someone seemed to be raised up -sometimes out of nowhere – specifically to lead the country through that difficult time.
Between 1776 and 1797 – for example – George Washington led the nation through it’s War for Independence, and became the First President of the United States.
David McCullough, in his famous book – 1776 – wrote this about Washington:
“Without (his) leadership and unrelenting perseverance, the (American) revolution almost certainly would have failed.”
1776: The Illustrated Edition by David McCullough, 2007, p. 230
And in our own century there have been numerous cases of this, most notably John F. Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, when the President of the United States single-handedly “stared down” the Soviet Union when they attempted to to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.
As we, in 2021, look around us, at the trouble our nation is in, we can be tempted to feel hopeless, even desperate. But we can take a lesson from the people of ancient Israel.
“When the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer…”
Judges 3:9
“When the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer for them…”
Judges 3:15
Benjamin Franklin once said:
“Have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we image we no longer need His assistance?”
And the Apostle Paul told us that we have been born in America at this particular moment in time for a reason, so that we would
“Seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him…”
Acts 17:27
Yes, times are difficult, and yes, most of the institutions of our society are failing and falling down around us. It’s time to “cry out” to the Lord for a deliverer, and believe that He will provide one.
Here is the word of the Lord for today:
“God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did…” (Romans 4:17)
“For some were clapped into prison, others had their houses beset and watched, night and day, and hardly escaped their hands. And most were feign to flee and leave their houses and habitations and their means of livelihood.”
William Bradford, Of Plimouth Plantation, 1630
You see, King James believed in something called “the DivineRight of Kings,” and that his power as the King over England was absolute(meaning that it could not be questioned).
“James’s great failure as an English king stemmed from his inability at first to perceive wherein the English assembly differed from the Scottish Parliament, and from his unwillingness to accept the differences when at last he became aware of them.”
In fact though, the problems didn’t end with James I. They went on for many years, with struggles between various kings and Parliament, until the English Bill of Rights was signed into law in 1689. But that only came after the King at that time (James II) fled the country, which became known as The Bloodless Revolution!
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he wasn’t writing it from within the bubble of the current events of his time. He was writing it from within the context of the hundreds of years of history since King James and the Pilgrims. And not only that, he was writing it from within the context of theancientrights of his ancestors going all the way back through history to Magna Charta.
That is the our heritage as American citizens, and we would do well to remember it.
The Bible, Christianity & American Government, Chapter 6:
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims
In 1532, Niccolo Machiavelli published his famous work on political theory, called “The Prince.” He had used Spain’s King Ferdinand (the same one who sent out Christopher Columbus) as a model for perfect governance.
Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that the Spanish Conquistadores who colonized America brought with them Machiavelli’s views that in politics, the end justifies the means and that political and public morality are unnecessary, and even to be avoided.
It is important that we understand that these are the fundamental ideas that the “Spanish Golden Age” was built on.
The Spanish Golden Age (the 1500s-1600s) may be considered to have been contemporaneous with what we often call the Renaissance, and its accompanying zeitgeist.
zeitgeist = "the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of the time." (Bing)
The defining spirit of the Renaissance was “Rebirth,“ which sounds good… But it was actually only the rebirth of pagan Greek and Roman values and ideas that stood in direct contrastto those of Christianity, upon which Medieval Western Civilization had been built.
And it was these same Englishmen who brought that same Bible–and its ideas–to the New World.
In 1607, Captain John Smith was among 100 colonists who planted Jamestown in Virginia. In 1608, Smith became the leader of the community, and established measures to save it from ruin, including an instruction from the Bible.
“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat”
2nd Thessalonians 3:10
This is not to say that Captain John Smith was, necessarily, a Christian–only that the Bible was already starting to affect the way that everyday people chose to live their lives.
But soon after (in 1620) a group of Christian people established Plymouth Plantation as a Christian community–based on the example of the early church (in the book of Acts).
Their Governor, William Bradford (in his book, Of Plimouth Plantation), called the Plymouth settlers pilgrims, referring to the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 13.
“…Those who say such things (calling themselves pilgrims) declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country...”
Hebrews 11:14-16
And that’s the way they lived. They left behind all that England was, and whatever comfort it had been for them, and looked forward to life in this New England, and what they dreamed would be a better world for them and their families.
Other Christians followed them to New England, setting up what they called the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The Governor of the Massachusetts colony, John Winthrop, saw New England prophetically, quoting from Matthew 5:14.
“For, we must consider (he wrote) that we shall be like a City upon a Hill; the eyes of all people are on us.”
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” 1630
And just a few years later, in 1639, Christians from the (then) small towns of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield in Connecticut drew up “the first written constitution known to history...” The “Fundamental Orders” (as they called them) were based on a sermon by Reverend Thomas Hooker on May 31, 1638. The text for his sermon had been Deuteronomy 1:13.
“Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you…”
That idea could not have come out of the Spanish Golden Age. It could not have come out of the Renaissance, or the thought of Machiavelli.
The Bible says that:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
2 Corinthians 3:17
But the Bible also says that:
“The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs (because it has been subjected to corruption) …”
Romans 8:20
That is why the American experience has not matched up with the prophetic voices of Winthrop and Hooker, or all their hopes and dreams for America.
But one day,
America and “the creation itself…will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the (revelation of the) children of God…”
Romans 8:19, 21
It is time for the children of God in America to shake off the chains of corruption, to step out of the grave-clothes of past experience, and to walk in what has been prophesied over this land.
That is our legacy (and America’s legacy), and (as John Winthrop wrote) “the eyes of all people (shall be) upon us.”
