¹Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul. ²While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” ³Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

⁴So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. ⁵When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John also to assist them. ⁶When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. ⁷He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. ⁸But the magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. ⁹But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him ¹⁰and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? ¹¹And now listen – the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun.” Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. ¹²When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

This is not what much of the evangelicals preach at present. They preach niceness — which they see as acquiescence to the whims of one’s wife (as if she is without sin, which is clearly false). It is seen in a blind and non critical assent to the fashionable causes of this world — from that false meme of global warming to the ideology of feminism, which has been embraced despite its clearly documented track record of death and destruction. There is another example today — a mother decapitate her two year old, after persuading social welfare to let her have custody. As Bill Price comments.

As a man, a father, and cultural critic, it’s hard to get really upset about this sort of thing anymore. I don’t know how many times the same observation can be made: The same system that systematically removes men from the family home, largely based on the happiness-seeking wants of the mother, the same system that underwrites out-of-wedlock motherhood, a system embedded in a wider culture that condones the death of nearly 60% of black babies in utero (and 23% of all babies nationwide), is the same one that re-inserts a vulnerable boy-child into the custody of a clearly troubled choice mommy. Then, as if the outcome has no relationship to preceding events, wrings its hands about the child’s “unfortunate” end.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again.  The safest place for a child is in the arms of  his biological father, in an intact home.

I cannot see a current preacher turning to the false prophets and occult practitioners of this age and telling them that they are the children of Satan, and that their eyes may give signals, but their sight does not allow them to have true vision. I cannot see people applying the word to the hard things, the places of power.

It reminds me of a comment Grant made… the old blog would nicely stop me from being promoted. It offends the ideologies of this age. As does any serious Christian.

I am not nice. But neither was Paul. Niceness, in today’s environment, means you have no spine.