VERSES AI ($VERS), a cognitive computing company, is continuing to make big strides in AI. They’ve introduced a research roadmap that outlines the key milestones and benchmarks. This roadmap could revolutionize the development of AI by providing clear goals to measure the progress and importance of $VER's research and development endeavors.
The company plans to use this roadmap this year to monitor its AI progress. Basically, it wants to check whether its approach can be as good as or better than advanced AI models on various industry tests, all while using less data and energy.
By meeting these benchmarks, VERSES can prove that they can create AI that is better, cheaper, and faster. The end goal is to get their AI into more hands through their Genius Platform.
Research Roadmap Highlights:
VERSES’ research roadmap has 3 benchmarks: Classification and generation tasks, Atari 10k Challenge, and NeurIPS 2024 Melting Pot Challenge
The first benchmark, Classification and generation tasks, focuses on proving $VER's approach is better at tasks like recognizing images and creating new ones. By utilizing advanced Bayesian inference techniques, they are trying to show that their method has the ability to outperform traditional deep learning methods. This test is important because it shows whether VERSES can make top-quality AI while being more efficient.
The second benchmark, the Atari 10k Challenge, is all about testing VERSES' AI skills in playing video games. Unlike conventional methods that need a lot of gameplay data, VERSES is trying to play video games almost like a human but with way less practice. $VERS is using active inference to help their AI be super adaptable. And by doing this, they're hoping to raise the bar for how well AI can perform in gaming
Lastly, there’s the NeurIPS 2024 Melting Pot Challenge. This is all about testing how well VERSES' can handle tricky situations where lots of different AI systems need to work together. $VERS wants to show that their AI can understand these complicated situations and work smoothly with other AI systems. Through the use of active inference and explicit representational structures, VERSES aims to become a leader in creating AI systems that can collaborate effectively and tackle complex problems together.
$VERS publicly released this roadmap so the public can track their progress. The roadmap can be accessed here: www.verses.ai/rd-overview
Note: this is not financial advice please do your own research before investing.

VERSES AI ($VERS), a cognitive computing company, is continuing to make big strides in AI. They’ve introduced a research roadmap that outlines the key milestones and benchmarks. This roadmap could revolutionize the development of AI by providing clear goals to measure the progress and importance of $VER's research and development endeavors.
The company plans to use this roadmap this year to monitor its AI progress. Basically, it wants to check whether its approach can be as good as or better than advanced AI models on various industry tests, all while using less data and energy.
By meeting these benchmarks, VERSES can prove that they can create AI that is better, cheaper, and faster. The end goal is to get their AI into more hands through their Genius Platform.
Research Roadmap Highlights:
VERSES’ research roadmap has 3 benchmarks: Classification and generation tasks, Atari 10k Challenge, and NeurIPS 2024 Melting Pot Challenge
The first benchmark, Classification and generation tasks, focuses on proving $VER's approach is better at tasks like recognizing images and creating new ones. By utilizing advanced Bayesian inference techniques, they are trying to show that their method has the ability to outperform traditional deep learning methods. This test is important because it shows whether VERSES can make top-quality AI while being more efficient.
The second benchmark, the Atari 10k Challenge, is all about testing VERSES' AI skills in playing video games. Unlike conventional methods that need a lot of gameplay data, VERSES is trying to play video games almost like a human but with way less practice. $VERS is using active inference to help their AI be super adaptable. And by doing this, they're hoping to raise the bar for how well AI can perform in gaming
Lastly, there’s the NeurIPS 2024 Melting Pot Challenge. This is all about testing how well VERSES' can handle tricky situations where lots of different AI systems need to work together. $VERS wants to show that their AI can understand these complicated situations and work smoothly with other AI systems. Through the use of active inference and explicit representational structures, VERSES aims to become a leader in creating AI systems that can collaborate effectively and tackle complex problems together.
$VERS publicly released this roadmap so the public can track their progress. The roadmap can be accessed here: www.verses.ai/rd-overview
Note: this is not financial advice please do your own research before investing.

Hi all, as the title says Hesychasm has "pushed" me towards leaving the EO Church. It may seem like a minor thing to leave EO over, but for me I've been torn between EO and RC for some time now and this issue is the "smoking gun" (imo). Let me explain my line of thinking and please correct me where/if I'm wrong or misinformed.
EO and RC split around 1054, RC proceeds to introduce some "new" additions to the faith (Purgatory, Immaculate Conception etc.) but nothing that is necessarily that impactful on a day to day basis. (E.g. whether or not Mary was immaculately conceived doesn't weigh on my conscious daily and doesn't really impact my prayer life or spiritual life in a meaningful way). I understand that there are obviously doctrines that do impact RC lives daily (e.g. indulgences) but I still believe this is on a minor scale compared to my next point. EO on the other hand, kept their traditions mostly the same after the split with a few minor additions of their own as well. That was UNTIL the Palamas/Hesychasm debates in the 14th Century. During this era of EO history, the EO monks began to embrace some very odd practices involving breathe work, postures (i.e. yoga), meditation, and supposedly began seeing the "uncreated light of God". These practices very obviously are identical to the pagan practices we see in yoga and Islam etc. and were foreign to The Faith until after the split when the EO embraced them. Barlaam the theologian/monk and scholar proceeds to condemn these practices as unorthodox and Palamas is considered a heretic until that decision is overturned and eventually EO embrace Palamas and his Hesychasm teachings, and I believe Barlaam went on to convert to RC afterward. That's a very abridged version, but all that to say, if EO fully embraced this teaching that by sitting in a certain yoga poses, tucking your chin in, breathing through the diaphragm, and navel gazing will provide Christians with the possible ability to "see God", isn't this a MAJOR erroneous development in our tradition? I get it, RC introducing Purgatory is a tough pill to swallow, but doesn't that at least stay within the parameters of Christian faith comparatively speaking to our "side" that accepted full blown demonically centered yoga? I think at the time in the 1350s all the Christian/Hindu/Buddhist/Islamic monks doing this practice were having experiences, but I think as the science has caught up in the 21st Century, we're kinda left with egg on our face as we now know it isn't "God" they were seeing, but was due to the blood flow and oxygen levels that are manipulated by meditative yoga. If an atheist can reproduce this identical experience as many do through meditation/yoga, then we know it wasn't a supernatural experience as Palamas and ultimately EO doctrinal defined it.
All that to say, if anyone has 15 mins to watch this clip from 2:06-17:26 (Youtub = Eastern "Orthodoxy" Exposed: Their Heretical Doctrine of God - by Vaticancatholic.com) outlining these practices in Hesychams and teachings of Palamas I'd love to hear a thoughtful rebuttal (FYI the content creator is uncharitable and difficult to stomach at times, but his historical account/quotes are spot on according to reputable Orthodox online resources I've found). I don't want to leave EO but feel as though if our fathers got it THIS wrong in this area and embraced full blown pagan demonic yogi practices and affirmed it in our "Spirit lead" synods/councils, then we are in grave error and thus prone to error in other areas as well (i.e. the Papacy perhaps?). Accepting the Pope has spoken infallibly 5-10 times over the last 2000 yrs has been much easier for me to accept then EO fundamentally shifting to a Palamas-ish theology. And honest question, if this has become part of the EO tradition, how many of you actually practice this? Seriously, if we can potentially "see God" tonight through breathwork and special postures, why wouldn't we do this daily? (I have a sneaking suspicion most of us don't participate in this practice because something within us knows better).
Thank you in advance! And if you don't have time to watch the clip, here are the major quotes that I see as being irreconcilable for the EO:
“Striking parallels exist between the physical techniques recommended by the Byzantine Hesychasts and those employed in Hindu Yoga and in Sufism” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“It was Gregory’s achievement to set Hesychasm on a firm dogmatic basis by integrating it into Orthodox theology as a whole. His teaching was confirmed by two councils held at Constantinople in 1341 and 1351, which, although local and not Ecumenical, yet possess a doctrinal authority in Orthodox theology scarcely inferior to the seven general councils themselves.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
“One of the most thoroughgoing attempts in the history of Christian spirituality to ascribe a positive and dynamic role to the body during prayer was made by the fourteenth-century hesychasts. As an accompaniment to the recitation of the Jesus prayer they proposed a physical technique that has obvious parallels in yoga and among the Sufis of Islam.” - Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware
"How should such a one not gain great profit if, instead of letting his eye roam…he should fix it on his breast or on his navel, as a point of concentration?...he will also, by disposing his body in such a position, recall into the interior of the heart a power which is ever flowing outwards…” - Gregory Palamas, The Triads
“By fixing one’s gaze on one’s navel and resting one’s chin on one’s breast, one could make one’s breathing coincide with the repetition of the prayer.”- Hesychast Monk's instructions
“Just as the aspirant in Yoga is taught to concentrate his thought in specific parts of his body, so the Hesychast concentrates his thought in the cardiac centre.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
"Rest your beard on your chest, and focus your physical gaze, together with the whole of your intellect, upon the center of your belly or your navel.” - Hesychast Monk's instructions
EDIT: I am fully aware that Vatican Catholic are sedevacantists and have no intention of being affiliated with them, as I stated in my OP, they are are insufferable and hence why I prefaced it the way I did. BUT that doesn't mean the material presented on this particular topic are inaccurate. I looked up the quotes and confirmed their authenticity. These practices in Hesychasm are confirmed as essentially being dogma in EO.

Considerations on Sexual Immorality, Gender Identity, and my friends Non-Denominational Church.
A good friend of mine from a fairly conservative evangelical background is considering becoming a pastor at his non-denominational church. As part of the evaluation process, they asked him to write a paper on these topics that he is not an expert on.
He asked for my opinion and I offered to share it online to solicit constructive criticism, notes of encouragement, and or reading recommendations on these topics.
I believe his goal is to be faithful to the scriptures, loving to those outside the church, and challenging to those inside the church, as most of us could do better.
What he wrote is in the quotation marks below.
“1: Scope of the Issue
Sexual immorality has become a besetting and ubiquitous issue in our culture and in our churches. While many aspects of it are not novel or unique to this time and have clear scriptural input, there are others that bring challenges to our church for which we don’t have obvious precedent. The main point of these comments is to try and answer three questions with some degree of specificity: (1) how do we make ourselves a place where people who do not know Christ will feel welcome to come and learn of Him regardless of where they come from, (2) how do we pastorally care for people who have come in to the church with pre-existing circumstances related to sexual immorality, and (3) how do we equip our members to represent Christ to those in their lives that are dealing with these issues. We want to do this in a way that does not “walk a tight rope” or compromise to appease, but honors Scripture in its commands to both show compassion and exhort and correct. We must recognize that every individual circumstance is unique, and many will require careful and prayerful consideration, but this is meant to give a framework for that consideration.
2: Scriptural Basis for Corporate Response
There are many references we can point to that discuss and define sexual immorality throughout Scripture and many of these will be used below as we consider specific examples and situations. Let us start, however, by looking at passages that deal with corporate response rather than individual sin. It is clear that the Corinthian church had significant issues in this area, and much of Paul’s first letter was devoted to it. In chapter 5, Paul states that when sexual immorality is discovered in the church we should “mourn” over it and “not to associate with immoral people.” Importantly, he also makes clear in vv. 9-13 that these comments only apply to those “who bears the name of brother.” He explicitly writes, “not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world…for what have I to do with judging outsiders?” This is key in informing our response to those who are not members of the church. If it is our desire to see sinners come through our doors and come to know our Savior through our ministry, then we must be welcoming, accepting them where they are. This is not to say we hide or compromise the biblical position, but it is not an issue on which we want to filter people at the door. There are three categories of people in sexual sin that we need to form a response for. First, those just coming to the church who have not committed to it – these should be treated the same as any we are reaching out to with Christ’s love. They need Jesus, not behavioral change. Next, those who have recently joined the church but have pre-existing sexual sin patterns. This can and should be addressed with patience, dignity, and love. There are often many sin areas in the life of a new believer, and it is prudent to discern how and when to address each of them. Lastly, those who have been members in the church for some amount of time and fall into sexual sin. This is the group that Paul is primarily addressing in 1 Corinthians. While sex within marriage is a private issue, sexual sin cannot be a taboo topic. It needs to be addressed regularly and clearly. We need close enough relationships within the church that such problems do not fester in the dark. We must avoid the typical church pattern to vilify the first group, never see the second group, and pretend the third group doesn’t exist until it all blows up in scandal. May it never be.
3: Consistency Issue
There is a tendency in our Christian culture to treat some sexual sins as worse than others. Like the Corinthians, some things we seem to have accepted as just ubiquitous parts of our culture. Knowing the prevalence of promiscuity and fornication among teens and single adults and usage of pornography even within the church, we tend to address these as issues of indwelling sin, similar to anger or fear of man, with offers of accountability and understanding when someone falls. By contrast, when it comes to homosexuality or adultery, it is often a church discipline issue. We view homosexual marriage as a major problem, but remarriage after a non-biblical divorce is rarely addressed. These inconsistencies lead to stigmatization and polarization and should have no place in the church. The criterion for escalation should be unrepentance, not the nature of the sexual sin. It is clear from 1 Corinthians that all should be taken seriously, but none should be vilified above others.
4: Culture and Identity
The major underlying problem with many of the sexual sin and gender issues is that they have come to be culturally bound up with people’s identities. This is not a new phenomenon and is not unique to this issue. As far back as Acts 19, you see people becoming “enraged” because Paul had threatened the Ephesians’ cultural identity as worshipers of Artemis. People continue to find their primary identities in their employment, hobbies, sports teams, or families rather than Christ. None of these should be accepted, but none should be reviled either. If a person does not know Jesus, they are dead. How they identify themselves is of no concern. Once they have been made alive, they can be taught that “whose” they are is more important than “who” they are. All identity outside of Christ is not sinful, but if it takes paramount importance, it may become so. A person who recognizes a tendency toward same sex attraction may label themselves as gay or lesbian. This should not be considered a sin issue unless it becomes, for them, their defining characteristic or leads to sinful actions. We should recognize the difficulty of this struggle and support such a person rather than get hung up on labels. There must be clear distinction between identifying same sex attraction and engaging in homosexual behavior. These should be the guiding principles underlying everything that follows are regards individual cases.
5: Public Facing Information, Guests, and New Attendees
Considering what we have discussed, and Paul’s assertion in 1 Corinthians 5 that we ought to reserve judgment on sexual immorality to those we call brother, I would submit that public facing information regarding the church (i.e. website, app, etc) should not publish a position on sexual immorality, marriage, and gender identity. Doing so effectively places the filter at the door so that people who do not know Christ may be turned away from it. This is not tantamount to tacit approval. In appropriate contexts within the church, these topics should still be discussed and addressed, but I do not believe it is consistent with a biblical treatment of unbelievers to place it in a public facing forum. If we have guests or new regular attendees who appear to be engaged in a cohabitating or fornicating relationship, a homosexual relationship, or other sexual sin, this should not be a priority to address unless we have discerned that they are believers and join the church. Even then, it is important to draw a distinction between someone who deals with same-sex attraction and someone who engages in homosexual behavior. The next seven points are meant to discuss, in broad terms, how we should address those who join the church with pre-existing relationships or identity issues:
6: Promiscuity, Cohabitation – Hebrews 13:4, 1 Cor 7:1-2, Ex 22:16
Much of the biblical discussion on promiscuity is by inference. Clearly, sex was meant to be inseparably linked to marriage and outside of that context should be considered immoral. For those who join the church already in a sexual relationship who are unmarried we should apply Exodus 22:16 and encourage them to marry as soon as possible. If they do not wish to marry, they should be encouraged to separate. Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 7:2 that marriage is the best remedy for “temptation to sexual immorality.”
7: Adultery, Divorce and Remarriage – Matt 5:32, Matt 19:9, 1 Cor 7:10-11
This issue is given much more explicit biblical instruction but is often glossed over in our Christian culture due to the messy landscape of divorces and remarriages. In cases where non-biblical divorce has occurred, if reconciliation is possible, this should be pursued. If reconciliation is impossible because one or more parties have remarried, it would not be sensible to divorce again in order to achieve reconciliation. The principle to apply here, I believe, is from 1 Cor 7:17-24 summarized in verse 20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” This is not an ideal circumstance, but it is the best way forward in an imperfect world. Of note, polygamy was common in the culture of the early church, and while not ideal, was accepted by the church, as evidenced by the qualifications for elder to be “a husband of but one wife.” We have polygamous cultures even within our local community and if they came to Christ, we should not counsel them to divorce all but one wife and thus disrupt their social structure. It is not ideal and would disqualify them from eldership, but they should remain as they are. Whether marriage after unbiblical divorce in the past disqualifies a man from eldership is a case-by case question for the eldership.
8: Pornography, Sensuality, and Lust – Lev 18:6-18, Matt 5:28
As mentioned above, use of pornography has reached a high saturation point within our culture and within our church. While once thought of as simply a male issue, there is a growing trend toward gender parity in pornography usage. It is an issue that should be discussed with some frequency within our church. For those that join the church and view pornography regularly, it needs to be made clear that while the world has largely destigmatized it, it is still sexual immorality. Furthermore, this isn’t just limited to nudity and pornography, but any sensuality that leads to looking at someone “with lustful intent” is the heart equivalent of adultery according to Matt 5:28. In our culture, it is not possible to avoid such things by just turning away. We need to address the heart issues of idolatry, selfishness, and satisfaction in Christ. Practically, how should we deal with those who have on-going struggles with pornography, sensuality and lust? Should this preclude them from eldership? From deaconship? Taken strictly, this would preclude nearly all men from eldership. These require individual evaluation from the elders, but a guiding principle should be, if the person is repentant and there is evidence of growth in their life, we should consider more responsibility and continued discipleship.
9: Homosexuality – Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:8-11
From the above references and others, it is evident that homosexual behavior is sexual sin. We cannot equivocate on that point. As we have discussed above, if a person who is already a believer and in the church and struggles with same sex attraction, we should approach them as we would handle anyone who is sexually attracted to someone to whom they are not married. If such a person decides that homosexuality is not sinful and begins sexually immoral activity, we should deal with them in the same way as any member who falls into unrepentant sin and go through the processes of correction and, if necessary, of church discipline. It is important that we draw a distinction between same sex attraction and homosexual behavior. We can do tremendous harm by demonizing same sex attraction and creating a taboo around it. A person who is struggling to abstain from homosexual behavior should be supported and encouraged. I believe Paul’s strong statements about not associating with sexually immoral people applies to those who remain unrepentant. Much more nuanced is the issue of how we address those that join the church already in a homosexual relationship. What about the married homosexual couple who join the church with their adopted child? Should we break up their family? I believe, in this case, the same principle should apply as to those who have gone through an unbiblical divorce in the past. We should apply 1 Cor 7:20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” We can recognize that this is not ideal, but it is the best we can do in a fallen world just as we do with someone who is married after unbiblical divorce. Whether should apply to a homosexual couple in a long term committed relationship who are not legally married would be an individual discussion with the elders. Again, these are nuanced cases that will need individual prayer, discussion, and discernment. I believe a great deal more patience is called for when a new believer joins the church that has a history or present reality of homosexuality, even if they are unrepentant at first, believing that homosexuality is not sinful, than we would demonstrate to a person who has been in the church for a period of time and then decides to pursue a homosexual relationship.
10: Bisexuality – Heb 13:4
Bisexual attraction is no more or less of an issue than anyone who finds that they are sexually attracted to someone other than their spouse. This is not a rare or unique circumstance, even within the church. Someone who is practicing bisexuality is, by definition, not confining sex to the marriage bed, and this, therefore, qualifies as sexual immorality. The issue, here again, is one of identity and cultural acceptance. If a person “identifies as bisexual,” the real issue is not the bisexuality, but the fact that they identify themselves primarily by their sexual desires, and not by Christ. It would be equally a problem if they “identified as heterosexual” and that was seen as their defining characteristic. If such a person were to join the church, our priority should be in helping them see their identity in Christ rather than focusing on renouncing their sexual preference.
11: Transgenderism/Non-binarism – Psalm 139: 13-15
It should be noted that the next two points should not be considered in the category of sexual immorality, but as they are connected to the same cultural moment will be discussed here. It should further be remarked that transgenderism is a modern issue with no direct reference in Scripture. It is a challenging issue that often falls prey to oversimplification and scapegoating. It is not sufficient to simply state that a person should identify with their born gender. There are those born with ambiguous genitalia and those born with sex chromosome abnormalities such that “born gender” is not necessarily accurate. These occur with a frequency of 1 in 448 births on average which is not particularly rare. The majority of people who consider themselves to be transgender do not fall into these categories, but the fact remains that these categories exist. Unless we plan to embark on genetic testing, we must be careful how we assert someone’s gender assignment. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that much of the gender confusion in our culture is due to a distortion of biblically accurate masculinity and femininity in our culture of which the church has been widely supportive for generations. Many transgender and non-binary individuals consider themselves so because they do not fit into the traditional boxes our culture has created for the genders. The church can start by recognizing that these boxes are incorrect. We can also acknowledge that gender differences and roles are far less important than most human cultures perceive. Christ himself challenged many gender norms in his ministry and Paul maintains “…there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28b) It is much more difficult to recognize this issue as a sin issue than many of the above concerns. If someone wishes to be addressed by different pronouns than they once did or dress differently than they once did, this does not amount to immorality. Once again, this can be an idolatrous identity issue if the person sees it as the central characteristic of their lives. There is often an inherent pride in asserting that such a person does not feel they fit in the body created for them, but if they come to love Jesus and understand and believe that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” then this issue may become moot. Whether or not they revert to dressing differently or using pronouns they did when they were younger is largely immaterial. This also addresses the issue of people who may have undergone permanent physical changes. While we should not endorse such modification if it is being considered, there is no reason to reverse such a thing in order to return to a base state. We must recognize that this is a group that has a high propensity toward mental health concerns, instability, and suicidality. They need love, support and prayer, not scapegoating and extra-biblical expectations of conforming to a cultural norm. We must further note that this group as well as the homosexual group have often experienced psychological and even physical harm from others in our culture, sometimes in the name of Christ. We must foster an environment of champions physical and psychological safety for these people.
12: Asexuality – 1 Cor 7:25-38
Asexuality also should not be considered sexual immorality. There is, in fact, wide support in Paul’s letters such as in 1 Cor 7 for people, if they are able, to remain unmarried and be “anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” We tend to champion the model of the nuclear family in our Christian culture, but Paul sees chaste singleness as a better way. There should be no pressure from the church to make sure that single people pair off and get married because it is expected of them. As this state has been culturally identified with the LGBTQIA movement, it is seen on the same spectrum as the sexual immorality and gender issues discussed above, but it is not. It can still fall prey to the same issue of an idolatrous identity as some of the above issues, but it need not be so.
13: Glass Ceiling
In the event that God sees fit to bring people from these subgroups into our church, there would inevitably be a glass ceiling. The question is at what point. The four logical points are: regular attender, member, deacon, and elder. Regardless of their background or position, all should be welcome to be a regular attender. It is also clear, from the biblical requirements for eldership, that on-going problems or engagement in any of the sexual sins would disqualify them from that post. The middle two are less clear. I would submit that the bar for membership should be very low. This step, in my opinion, is when they would “bear the name of brother” and not before. Even if they disagree about the sinful nature of homosexuality, this should not disallow them from becoming members as long as they agree to submit to the churches position and not cause division. Allowing them to become members gives us the pastoral authority to speak into their lives, and we would hope that over time the Spirit would work in their hearts to convince them of the truth. Putting such a person in a deacon role would probably not be wise but would need to be evaluated prayerfully on a case-by-case basis. The difficulty here is that, while a position on homosexuality is not a salvific issue and should not be considered a core doctrine in the same way as the deity of Christ, for example, it is a sin issue. There is a limit to how far we can “agree to disagree” and still uphold our duty to root out sin in our midst. Once again, we should also distinguish between a struggle with same sex attraction and engagement in homosexual behavior when we consider our response. There is also a glass ceiling when it comes to marriage. While I believe we should not break up existing homosexual marriages, we should not participate in creating them. The marriage covenant between a man and woman was created, in part, to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph 5). This should not be co-opted to excuse or normalize immorality.
14: Nuance and Edge Cases
The above outline is by no means meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is meant to provide a lens, supported by scripture, through which we can view these issues and consider corporate and pastoral responses. It should inform how we view the people that walk through the door from a wide range of backgrounds and how we equip those in our church to be Christ’s ambassadors to those in our community. Every person and circumstance, history and baggage will be different, and any non-nuanced position would be inherently evil. I pray we have many opportunities to talk, think and pray through specific situations that God would bless us with the chance to be a part of. What an honor it would be to be used to reach into broken lives like these with the Gospel of Grace.
15: Action Steps
As we consider practical and philosophical ways of responding to the above, I believe we should start from a position of corporate repentance. If we wish to truly reach out and touch the lives of broken people in need of a Savior who live a life of same sex attraction or gender dysphoria, we need to begin by recognizing that a great deal of harm, emotional and physical, has been inflicted on this group by the Church for generations. There are homeless people living in our area who were kicked out of their homes by parents holding a Bible. There are those who have been subjected to horrific methods that amount to torture under the guise of “Conversion Therapy” from Christian organizations. The only “conversion” we should concern ourselves with is to a regenerate heart. Attempting to change someone’s sexual attraction is very much beside the point. We cannot hope to be a place where such people can hear about Jesus unless they feel safe to enter our doors. We must also fight the tendency to consider sin in this area as something worse than others, even in non-Christians. James 2 says “…For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it….So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” As we consider corporate and pastoral responses to the argument above, we must start by removing our own planks and repenting for the historical actions of the Church.
Practical steps that we could consider taking would include: removing the statements from the website about marriage and sexuality, especially directly under our Core Beliefs. Again, this is not meant to hide or equivocate on the truth, but not to set such a barrier before someone even walks through our door. Secondly, we should consider how to address these topics within the church. A Sunday morning sermon is not ideal as it is time limited and a unidirectional conversation. A small group course format would be a consideration. We need to equip parents and family members of adolescents, teens, and adults with language to talk about these things in loving, humble, God-honoring ways. In the longer term, we need to consider how we can make our church a place where people would feel comfortable inviting friends and family who look, think and act differently than we do. We need to find a way of projecting safety and inclusion even in our public facing information. This isn’t a balancing act where we must make it clear early and often that we “love the sinner but hate the sin” as the saying goes. We just need to love the sinner. Dealing with the sin can come later God-willing. A third application point is to be mindful of what we say and what we allow to be said without being checked. Certainly, joking at the expense of those who are dealing with these issues is unacceptable, but we also need to work to avoid getting dragged in to pseudo-political discussions on bathroom issues, sports issues or other divisive concerns that have no bearing on the church.
I recognize that these proposals have the potential to divide the church. There are some who may leave the body over these sorts of changes. I would argue that it is our responsibility to them as well as to the unreached in our community to have those discussions and risk some of them leaving over it. These are not all things we should change overnight but after ample opportunities for discussions and prayer.
16: Conclusion – Mark 2:15-17
At its core, these are not issues of who someone loves, sexual attraction, or even specific sex acts. The core is idolatry and identity. When acceptance by others, self-determination, or physical pleasure become the central force driving our lives then we have become idolators. Though our idols take on different shapes, the struggles in this space are shared by all. Whether you are identified by your profession, your family, or your gender identity, you are not being identified by your Master. Building fences around or within the church because someone sins in a different way than us cannot be allowed. Making the excuse that we are somehow “protecting our children” by shielding them from people in our community who desperately need a Savior will not show our children who Jesus is. Within the church, we cannot be afraid to “speak the truth in love.” We need not and cannot shy away from sin in the church, but we must recognize that the Spirit works in each of our lives. Often this happens over a period of time. We should be prepared to walk alongside our brothers and sisters in this journey for as long as they need.
There is a significant correlation between this community and their relationship with religious groups, and the “tax collectors and sinners” that Jesus sought out in His ministry and their relationship with the religious leaders of the day. Our heart should reflect His. Jesus responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) If our church was filled with transgender people and gay families that loved Jesus, God would be glorified.”
Thank you in advance for any constructive criticism, notes of encouragement to and or reading recommendations on these topics that I can pass along.

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How to Measure Floor Plan Area with Precision
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Accurately measuring floor plan area is a crucial step in various endeavors, from renovations to real estate transactions. Whether you're a homeowner planning a remodel or a real estate professional assessing property values, knowing how to measure floor plan area is essential. In this guide, we'll explore methods and techniques for precise measurements.
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Why Accurate Floor Plan Measurements Matter
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Before delving into the how-to aspect, it's crucial to understand why accurate floor plan measurements are vital. Inaccurate measurements can lead to costly mistakes, delays, and even legal issues. Whether buying, selling, or renovating, precise dimensions inform informed decisions.
Key Terms and Concepts
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Before proceeding, let's familiarize ourselves with key terms:
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- *Square Footage*: Area measured in square feet or square meters.
- *Floor Plan*: A scaled diagram illustrating room arrangement.
- *Scale*: Ratio of floor plan measurement to actual space.
- *Boundary*: Perimeter of the floor plan area.
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Simple Technique for Calculating Floor Areas of Unique Shapes
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For unconventional shapes like circles, understanding basic geometry is essential. Let's tackle circular rooms:
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1. *Measure Diameter*: Across the middle from one side to the other.
2. *Find Radius*: Half the diameter.
3. *Apply Formula*: πR² (π ≈ 3.14, R = radius).
4. *Example*: Diameter 7 feet → Radius 3.5 feet → Area ≈ 38.5 square feet.

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Understanding House Plans
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House plans involve multiple rooms. To measure the entire plan, sum up individual room areas, accounting for openings like doors and windows.
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Modern Tools for Floor Plan Calculations
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Software and apps streamline measurements. For square or rectangular rooms, multiply length by width. For triangles, use 0.5 * base * height.
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Effortless Open Space Floor Plan Measurement
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1. *Sketch Outline*: Draw room's outline.
2. *Segment Shapes*: Divide into squares, rectangles, etc.
3. *Calculate Areas*: Find area for each shape.
4. *Sum Up Areas*: Total room square footage.

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Steps for Measuring Floor Plan Area
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1. *Gather Tools*: Measuring tape, laser device, or smartphone app.
2. *Prepare Space*: Clear clutter, remove furniture.
3. *Start Measuring*: Measure length and width, record.
4. *Calculate Area*: Multiply length by width for each room, sum up.
5. *Verify Accuracy*: Double-check measurements and calculations.

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Tips for Accuracy
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- *Level Surface*: Ensure floor is level.
- *Account for Irregularities*: Alcoves, closets, etc.
- *Check Obstructions*: Pillars, built-ins.
- *Take Multiple Measurements*: Minimize errors.
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Conclusion
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Accurate floor plan measurements are crucial for construction, renovation, and real estate. Whether using traditional methods or digital tools, attention to detail is key. Mastering measurement empowers informed decisions and desired outcomes in home improvement or property evaluation. Remember, precision ensures success in any project or transaction.

A good friend of mine from a fairly conservative evangelical background is considering becoming a pastor at his non-denominational church. As part of the evaluation process, they asked him to write a paper on these topics that he is not an expert on.
He asked for my opinion and I offered to share it online to solicit constructive criticism, notes of encouragement, and or reading recommendations on these topics.
I believe his goal is to be faithful to the scriptures, loving to those outside the church, and challenging to those inside the church, as most of us could do better.
What he wrote is in the quotation marks below.
“1: Scope of the Issue
Sexual immorality has become a besetting and ubiquitous issue in our culture and in our churches. While many aspects of it are not novel or unique to this time and have clear scriptural input, there are others that bring challenges to our church for which we don’t have obvious precedent. The main point of these comments is to try and answer three questions with some degree of specificity: (1) how do we make ourselves a place where people who do not know Christ will feel welcome to come and learn of Him regardless of where they come from, (2) how do we pastorally care for people who have come in to the church with pre-existing circumstances related to sexual immorality, and (3) how do we equip our members to represent Christ to those in their lives that are dealing with these issues. We want to do this in a way that does not “walk a tight rope” or compromise to appease, but honors Scripture in its commands to both show compassion and exhort and correct. We must recognize that every individual circumstance is unique, and many will require careful and prayerful consideration, but this is meant to give a framework for that consideration.
2: Scriptural Basis for Corporate Response
There are many references we can point to that discuss and define sexual immorality throughout Scripture and many of these will be used below as we consider specific examples and situations. Let us start, however, by looking at passages that deal with corporate response rather than individual sin. It is clear that the Corinthian church had significant issues in this area, and much of Paul’s first letter was devoted to it. In chapter 5, Paul states that when sexual immorality is discovered in the church we should “mourn” over it and “not to associate with immoral people.” Importantly, he also makes clear in vv. 9-13 that these comments only apply to those “who bears the name of brother.” He explicitly writes, “not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world…for what have I to do with judging outsiders?” This is key in informing our response to those who are not members of the church. If it is our desire to see sinners come through our doors and come to know our Savior through our ministry, then we must be welcoming, accepting them where they are. This is not to say we hide or compromise the biblical position, but it is not an issue on which we want to filter people at the door. There are three categories of people in sexual sin that we need to form a response for. First, those just coming to the church who have not committed to it – these should be treated the same as any we are reaching out to with Christ’s love. They need Jesus, not behavioral change. Next, those who have recently joined the church but have pre-existing sexual sin patterns. This can and should be addressed with patience, dignity, and love. There are often many sin areas in the life of a new believer, and it is prudent to discern how and when to address each of them. Lastly, those who have been members in the church for some amount of time and fall into sexual sin. This is the group that Paul is primarily addressing in 1 Corinthians. While sex within marriage is a private issue, sexual sin cannot be a taboo topic. It needs to be addressed regularly and clearly. We need close enough relationships within the church that such problems do not fester in the dark. We must avoid the typical church pattern to vilify the first group, never see the second group, and pretend the third group doesn’t exist until it all blows up in scandal. May it never be.
3: Consistency Issue
There is a tendency in our Christian culture to treat some sexual sins as worse than others. Like the Corinthians, some things we seem to have accepted as just ubiquitous parts of our culture. Knowing the prevalence of promiscuity and fornication among teens and single adults and usage of pornography even within the church, we tend to address these as issues of indwelling sin, similar to anger or fear of man, with offers of accountability and understanding when someone falls. By contrast, when it comes to homosexuality or adultery, it is often a church discipline issue. We view homosexual marriage as a major problem, but remarriage after a non-biblical divorce is rarely addressed. These inconsistencies lead to stigmatization and polarization and should have no place in the church. The criterion for escalation should be unrepentance, not the nature of the sexual sin. It is clear from 1 Corinthians that all should be taken seriously, but none should be vilified above others.
4: Culture and Identity
The major underlying problem with many of the sexual sin and gender issues is that they have come to be culturally bound up with people’s identities. This is not a new phenomenon and is not unique to this issue. As far back as Acts 19, you see people becoming “enraged” because Paul had threatened the Ephesians’ cultural identity as worshipers of Artemis. People continue to find their primary identities in their employment, hobbies, sports teams, or families rather than Christ. None of these should be accepted, but none should be reviled either. If a person does not know Jesus, they are dead. How they identify themselves is of no concern. Once they have been made alive, they can be taught that “whose” they are is more important than “who” they are. All identity outside of Christ is not sinful, but if it takes paramount importance, it may become so. A person who recognizes a tendency toward same sex attraction may label themselves as gay or lesbian. This should not be considered a sin issue unless it becomes, for them, their defining characteristic or leads to sinful actions. We should recognize the difficulty of this struggle and support such a person rather than get hung up on labels. There must be clear distinction between identifying same sex attraction and engaging in homosexual behavior. These should be the guiding principles underlying everything that follows are regards individual cases.
5: Public Facing Information, Guests, and New Attendees
Considering what we have discussed, and Paul’s assertion in 1 Corinthians 5 that we ought to reserve judgment on sexual immorality to those we call brother, I would submit that public facing information regarding the church (i.e. website, app, etc) should not publish a position on sexual immorality, marriage, and gender identity. Doing so effectively places the filter at the door so that people who do not know Christ may be turned away from it. This is not tantamount to tacit approval. In appropriate contexts within the church, these topics should still be discussed and addressed, but I do not believe it is consistent with a biblical treatment of unbelievers to place it in a public facing forum. If we have guests or new regular attendees who appear to be engaged in a cohabitating or fornicating relationship, a homosexual relationship, or other sexual sin, this should not be a priority to address unless we have discerned that they are believers and join the church. Even then, it is important to draw a distinction between someone who deals with same-sex attraction and someone who engages in homosexual behavior. The next seven points are meant to discuss, in broad terms, how we should address those who join the church with pre-existing relationships or identity issues:
6: Promiscuity, Cohabitation – Hebrews 13:4, 1 Cor 7:1-2, Ex 22:16
Much of the biblical discussion on promiscuity is by inference. Clearly, sex was meant to be inseparably linked to marriage and outside of that context should be considered immoral. For those who join the church already in a sexual relationship who are unmarried we should apply Exodus 22:16 and encourage them to marry as soon as possible. If they do not wish to marry, they should be encouraged to separate. Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 7:2 that marriage is the best remedy for “temptation to sexual immorality.”
7: Adultery, Divorce and Remarriage – Matt 5:32, Matt 19:9, 1 Cor 7:10-11
This issue is given much more explicit biblical instruction but is often glossed over in our Christian culture due to the messy landscape of divorces and remarriages. In cases where non-biblical divorce has occurred, if reconciliation is possible, this should be pursued. If reconciliation is impossible because one or more parties have remarried, it would not be sensible to divorce again in order to achieve reconciliation. The principle to apply here, I believe, is from 1 Cor 7:17-24 summarized in verse 20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” This is not an ideal circumstance, but it is the best way forward in an imperfect world. Of note, polygamy was common in the culture of the early church, and while not ideal, was accepted by the church, as evidenced by the qualifications for elder to be “a husband of but one wife.” We have polygamous cultures even within our local community and if they came to Christ, we should not counsel them to divorce all but one wife and thus disrupt their social structure. It is not ideal and would disqualify them from eldership, but they should remain as they are. Whether marriage after unbiblical divorce in the past disqualifies a man from eldership is a case-by case question for the eldership.
8: Pornography, Sensuality, and Lust – Lev 18:6-18, Matt 5:28
As mentioned above, use of pornography has reached a high saturation point within our culture and within our church. While once thought of as simply a male issue, there is a growing trend toward gender parity in pornography usage. It is an issue that should be discussed with some frequency within our church. For those that join the church and view pornography regularly, it needs to be made clear that while the world has largely destigmatized it, it is still sexual immorality. Furthermore, this isn’t just limited to nudity and pornography, but any sensuality that leads to looking at someone “with lustful intent” is the heart equivalent of adultery according to Matt 5:28. In our culture, it is not possible to avoid such things by just turning away. We need to address the heart issues of idolatry, selfishness, and satisfaction in Christ. Practically, how should we deal with those who have on-going struggles with pornography, sensuality and lust? Should this preclude them from eldership? From deaconship? Taken strictly, this would preclude nearly all men from eldership. These require individual evaluation from the elders, but a guiding principle should be, if the person is repentant and there is evidence of growth in their life, we should consider more responsibility and continued discipleship.
9: Homosexuality – Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:8-11
From the above references and others, it is evident that homosexual behavior is sexual sin. We cannot equivocate on that point. As we have discussed above, if a person who is already a believer and in the church and struggles with same sex attraction, we should approach them as we would handle anyone who is sexually attracted to someone to whom they are not married. If such a person decides that homosexuality is not sinful and begins sexually immoral activity, we should deal with them in the same way as any member who falls into unrepentant sin and go through the processes of correction and, if necessary, of church discipline. It is important that we draw a distinction between same sex attraction and homosexual behavior. We can do tremendous harm by demonizing same sex attraction and creating a taboo around it. A person who is struggling to abstain from homosexual behavior should be supported and encouraged. I believe Paul’s strong statements about not associating with sexually immoral people applies to those who remain unrepentant. Much more nuanced is the issue of how we address those that join the church already in a homosexual relationship. What about the married homosexual couple who join the church with their adopted child? Should we break up their family? I believe, in this case, the same principle should apply as to those who have gone through an unbiblical divorce in the past. We should apply 1 Cor 7:20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” We can recognize that this is not ideal, but it is the best we can do in a fallen world just as we do with someone who is married after unbiblical divorce. Whether should apply to a homosexual couple in a long term committed relationship who are not legally married would be an individual discussion with the elders. Again, these are nuanced cases that will need individual prayer, discussion, and discernment. I believe a great deal more patience is called for when a new believer joins the church that has a history or present reality of homosexuality, even if they are unrepentant at first, believing that homosexuality is not sinful, than we would demonstrate to a person who has been in the church for a period of time and then decides to pursue a homosexual relationship.
10: Bisexuality – Heb 13:4
Bisexual attraction is no more or less of an issue than anyone who finds that they are sexually attracted to someone other than their spouse. This is not a rare or unique circumstance, even within the church. Someone who is practicing bisexuality is, by definition, not confining sex to the marriage bed, and this, therefore, qualifies as sexual immorality. The issue, here again, is one of identity and cultural acceptance. If a person “identifies as bisexual,” the real issue is not the bisexuality, but the fact that they identify themselves primarily by their sexual desires, and not by Christ. It would be equally a problem if they “identified as heterosexual” and that was seen as their defining characteristic. If such a person were to join the church, our priority should be in helping them see their identity in Christ rather than focusing on renouncing their sexual preference.
11: Transgenderism/Non-binarism – Psalm 139: 13-15
It should be noted that the next two points should not be considered in the category of sexual immorality, but as they are connected to the same cultural moment will be discussed here. It should further be remarked that transgenderism is a modern issue with no direct reference in Scripture. It is a challenging issue that often falls prey to oversimplification and scapegoating. It is not sufficient to simply state that a person should identify with their born gender. There are those born with ambiguous genitalia and those born with sex chromosome abnormalities such that “born gender” is not necessarily accurate. These occur with a frequency of 1 in 448 births on average which is not particularly rare. The majority of people who consider themselves to be transgender do not fall into these categories, but the fact remains that these categories exist. Unless we plan to embark on genetic testing, we must be careful how we assert someone’s gender assignment. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that much of the gender confusion in our culture is due to a distortion of biblically accurate masculinity and femininity in our culture of which the church has been widely supportive for generations. Many transgender and non-binary individuals consider themselves so because they do not fit into the traditional boxes our culture has created for the genders. The church can start by recognizing that these boxes are incorrect. We can also acknowledge that gender differences and roles are far less important than most human cultures perceive. Christ himself challenged many gender norms in his ministry and Paul maintains “…there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28b) It is much more difficult to recognize this issue as a sin issue than many of the above concerns. If someone wishes to be addressed by different pronouns than they once did or dress differently than they once did, this does not amount to immorality. Once again, this can be an idolatrous identity issue if the person sees it as the central characteristic of their lives. There is often an inherent pride in asserting that such a person does not feel they fit in the body created for them, but if they come to love Jesus and understand and believe that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” then this issue may become moot. Whether or not they revert to dressing differently or using pronouns they did when they were younger is largely immaterial. This also addresses the issue of people who may have undergone permanent physical changes. While we should not endorse such modification if it is being considered, there is no reason to reverse such a thing in order to return to a base state. We must recognize that this is a group that has a high propensity toward mental health concerns, instability, and suicidality. They need love, support and prayer, not scapegoating and extra-biblical expectations of conforming to a cultural norm. We must further note that this group as well as the homosexual group have often experienced psychological and even physical harm from others in our culture, sometimes in the name of Christ. We must foster an environment of champions physical and psychological safety for these people.
12: Asexuality – 1 Cor 7:25-38
Asexuality also should not be considered sexual immorality. There is, in fact, wide support in Paul’s letters such as in 1 Cor 7 for people, if they are able, to remain unmarried and be “anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” We tend to champion the model of the nuclear family in our Christian culture, but Paul sees chaste singleness as a better way. There should be no pressure from the church to make sure that single people pair off and get married because it is expected of them. As this state has been culturally identified with the LGBTQIA movement, it is seen on the same spectrum as the sexual immorality and gender issues discussed above, but it is not. It can still fall prey to the same issue of an idolatrous identity as some of the above issues, but it need not be so.
13: Glass Ceiling
In the event that God sees fit to bring people from these subgroups into our church, there would inevitably be a glass ceiling. The question is at what point. The four logical points are: regular attender, member, deacon, and elder. Regardless of their background or position, all should be welcome to be a regular attender. It is also clear, from the biblical requirements for eldership, that on-going problems or engagement in any of the sexual sins would disqualify them from that post. The middle two are less clear. I would submit that the bar for membership should be very low. This step, in my opinion, is when they would “bear the name of brother” and not before. Even if they disagree about the sinful nature of homosexuality, this should not disallow them from becoming members as long as they agree to submit to the churches position and not cause division. Allowing them to become members gives us the pastoral authority to speak into their lives, and we would hope that over time the Spirit would work in their hearts to convince them of the truth. Putting such a person in a deacon role would probably not be wise but would need to be evaluated prayerfully on a case-by-case basis. The difficulty here is that, while a position on homosexuality is not a salvific issue and should not be considered a core doctrine in the same way as the deity of Christ, for example, it is a sin issue. There is a limit to how far we can “agree to disagree” and still uphold our duty to root out sin in our midst. Once again, we should also distinguish between a struggle with same sex attraction and engagement in homosexual behavior when we consider our response. There is also a glass ceiling when it comes to marriage. While I believe we should not break up existing homosexual marriages, we should not participate in creating them. The marriage covenant between a man and woman was created, in part, to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph 5). This should not be co-opted to excuse or normalize immorality.
14: Nuance and Edge Cases
The above outline is by no means meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is meant to provide a lens, supported by scripture, through which we can view these issues and consider corporate and pastoral responses. It should inform how we view the people that walk through the door from a wide range of backgrounds and how we equip those in our church to be Christ’s ambassadors to those in our community. Every person and circumstance, history and baggage will be different, and any non-nuanced position would be inherently evil. I pray we have many opportunities to talk, think and pray through specific situations that God would bless us with the chance to be a part of. What an honor it would be to be used to reach into broken lives like these with the Gospel of Grace.
15: Action Steps
As we consider practical and philosophical ways of responding to the above, I believe we should start from a position of corporate repentance. If we wish to truly reach out and touch the lives of broken people in need of a Savior who live a life of same sex attraction or gender dysphoria, we need to begin by recognizing that a great deal of harm, emotional and physical, has been inflicted on this group by the Church for generations. There are homeless people living in our area who were kicked out of their homes by parents holding a Bible. There are those who have been subjected to horrific methods that amount to torture under the guise of “Conversion Therapy” from Christian organizations. The only “conversion” we should concern ourselves with is to a regenerate heart. Attempting to change someone’s sexual attraction is very much beside the point. We cannot hope to be a place where such people can hear about Jesus unless they feel safe to enter our doors. We must also fight the tendency to consider sin in this area as something worse than others, even in non-Christians. James 2 says “…For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it….So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” As we consider corporate and pastoral responses to the argument above, we must start by removing our own planks and repenting for the historical actions of the Church.
Practical steps that we could consider taking would include: removing the statements from the website about marriage and sexuality, especially directly under our Core Beliefs. Again, this is not meant to hide or equivocate on the truth, but not to set such a barrier before someone even walks through our door. Secondly, we should consider how to address these topics within the church. A Sunday morning sermon is not ideal as it is time limited and a unidirectional conversation. A small group course format would be a consideration. We need to equip parents and family members of adolescents, teens, and adults with language to talk about these things in loving, humble, God-honoring ways. In the longer term, we need to consider how we can make our church a place where people would feel comfortable inviting friends and family who look, think and act differently than we do. We need to find a way of projecting safety and inclusion even in our public facing information. This isn’t a balancing act where we must make it clear early and often that we “love the sinner but hate the sin” as the saying goes. We just need to love the sinner. Dealing with the sin can come later God-willing. A third application point is to be mindful of what we say and what we allow to be said without being checked. Certainly, joking at the expense of those who are dealing with these issues is unacceptable, but we also need to work to avoid getting dragged in to pseudo-political discussions on bathroom issues, sports issues or other divisive concerns that have no bearing on the church.
I recognize that these proposals have the potential to divide the church. There are some who may leave the body over these sorts of changes. I would argue that it is our responsibility to them as well as to the unreached in our community to have those discussions and risk some of them leaving over it. These are not all things we should change overnight but after ample opportunities for discussions and prayer.
16: Conclusion – Mark 2:15-17
At its core, these are not issues of who someone loves, sexual attraction, or even specific sex acts. The core is idolatry and identity. When acceptance by others, self-determination, or physical pleasure become the central force driving our lives then we have become idolators. Though our idols take on different shapes, the struggles in this space are shared by all. Whether you are identified by your profession, your family, or your gender identity, you are not being identified by your Master. Building fences around or within the church because someone sins in a different way than us cannot be allowed. Making the excuse that we are somehow “protecting our children” by shielding them from people in our community who desperately need a Savior will not show our children who Jesus is. Within the church, we cannot be afraid to “speak the truth in love.” We need not and cannot shy away from sin in the church, but we must recognize that the Spirit works in each of our lives. Often this happens over a period of time. We should be prepared to walk alongside our brothers and sisters in this journey for as long as they need.
There is a significant correlation between this community and their relationship with religious groups, and the “tax collectors and sinners” that Jesus sought out in His ministry and their relationship with the religious leaders of the day. Our heart should reflect His. Jesus responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) If our church was filled with transgender people and gay families that loved Jesus, God would be glorified.”
Thank you in advance for any constructive criticism, notes of encouragement and or reading recommendations on these topics that I can pass along.

A good friend of mine from a fairly conservative evangelical background is considering becoming a pastor at his non-denominational church. As part of the evaluation process, they asked him to write a paper on these topics that he is not an expert on.
He asked for my opinion and I offered to share it online to solicit constructive criticism, notes of encouragement, and or reading recommendations on these topics.
I believe his goal is to be faithful to the scriptures, loving to those outside the church, and challenging to those inside the church, as most of us could do better.
What he wrote is in the quotation marks below.
“1: Scope of the Issue
Sexual immorality has become a besetting and ubiquitous issue in our culture and in our churches. While many aspects of it are not novel or unique to this time and have clear scriptural input, there are others that bring challenges to our church for which we don’t have obvious precedent. The main point of these comments is to try and answer three questions with some degree of specificity: (1) how do we make ourselves a place where people who do not know Christ will feel welcome to come and learn of Him regardless of where they come from, (2) how do we pastorally care for people who have come in to the church with pre-existing circumstances related to sexual immorality, and (3) how do we equip our members to represent Christ to those in their lives that are dealing with these issues. We want to do this in a way that does not “walk a tight rope” or compromise to appease, but honors Scripture in its commands to both show compassion and exhort and correct. We must recognize that every individual circumstance is unique, and many will require careful and prayerful consideration, but this is meant to give a framework for that consideration.
2: Scriptural Basis for Corporate Response
There are many references we can point to that discuss and define sexual immorality throughout Scripture and many of these will be used below as we consider specific examples and situations. Let us start, however, by looking at passages that deal with corporate response rather than individual sin. It is clear that the Corinthian church had significant issues in this area, and much of Paul’s first letter was devoted to it. In chapter 5, Paul states that when sexual immorality is discovered in the church we should “mourn” over it and “not to associate with immoral people.” Importantly, he also makes clear in vv. 9-13 that these comments only apply to those “who bears the name of brother.” He explicitly writes, “not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world…for what have I to do with judging outsiders?” This is key in informing our response to those who are not members of the church. If it is our desire to see sinners come through our doors and come to know our Savior through our ministry, then we must be welcoming, accepting them where they are. This is not to say we hide or compromise the biblical position, but it is not an issue on which we want to filter people at the door. There are three categories of people in sexual sin that we need to form a response for. First, those just coming to the church who have not committed to it – these should be treated the same as any we are reaching out to with Christ’s love. They need Jesus, not behavioral change. Next, those who have recently joined the church but have pre-existing sexual sin patterns. This can and should be addressed with patience, dignity, and love. There are often many sin areas in the life of a new believer, and it is prudent to discern how and when to address each of them. Lastly, those who have been members in the church for some amount of time and fall into sexual sin. This is the group that Paul is primarily addressing in 1 Corinthians. While sex within marriage is a private issue, sexual sin cannot be a taboo topic. It needs to be addressed regularly and clearly. We need close enough relationships within the church that such problems do not fester in the dark. We must avoid the typical church pattern to vilify the first group, never see the second group, and pretend the third group doesn’t exist until it all blows up in scandal. May it never be.
3: Consistency Issue
There is a tendency in our Christian culture to treat some sexual sins as worse than others. Like the Corinthians, some things we seem to have accepted as just ubiquitous parts of our culture. Knowing the prevalence of promiscuity and fornication among teens and single adults and usage of pornography even within the church, we tend to address these as issues of indwelling sin, similar to anger or fear of man, with offers of accountability and understanding when someone falls. By contrast, when it comes to homosexuality or adultery, it is often a church discipline issue. We view homosexual marriage as a major problem, but remarriage after a non-biblical divorce is rarely addressed. These inconsistencies lead to stigmatization and polarization and should have no place in the church. The criterion for escalation should be unrepentance, not the nature of the sexual sin. It is clear from 1 Corinthians that all should be taken seriously, but none should be vilified above others.
4: Culture and Identity
The major underlying problem with many of the sexual sin and gender issues is that they have come to be culturally bound up with people’s identities. This is not a new phenomenon and is not unique to this issue. As far back as Acts 19, you see people becoming “enraged” because Paul had threatened the Ephesians’ cultural identity as worshipers of Artemis. People continue to find their primary identities in their employment, hobbies, sports teams, or families rather than Christ. None of these should be accepted, but none should be reviled either. If a person does not know Jesus, they are dead. How they identify themselves is of no concern. Once they have been made alive, they can be taught that “whose” they are is more important than “who” they are. All identity outside of Christ is not sinful, but if it takes paramount importance, it may become so. A person who recognizes a tendency toward same sex attraction may label themselves as gay or lesbian. This should not be considered a sin issue unless it becomes, for them, their defining characteristic or leads to sinful actions. We should recognize the difficulty of this struggle and support such a person rather than get hung up on labels. There must be clear distinction between identifying same sex attraction and engaging in homosexual behavior. These should be the guiding principles underlying everything that follows are regards individual cases.
5: Public Facing Information, Guests, and New Attendees
Considering what we have discussed, and Paul’s assertion in 1 Corinthians 5 that we ought to reserve judgment on sexual immorality to those we call brother, I would submit that public facing information regarding the church (i.e. website, app, etc) should not publish a position on sexual immorality, marriage, and gender identity. Doing so effectively places the filter at the door so that people who do not know Christ may be turned away from it. This is not tantamount to tacit approval. In appropriate contexts within the church, these topics should still be discussed and addressed, but I do not believe it is consistent with a biblical treatment of unbelievers to place it in a public facing forum. If we have guests or new regular attendees who appear to be engaged in a cohabitating or fornicating relationship, a homosexual relationship, or other sexual sin, this should not be a priority to address unless we have discerned that they are believers and join the church. Even then, it is important to draw a distinction between someone who deals with same-sex attraction and someone who engages in homosexual behavior. The next seven points are meant to discuss, in broad terms, how we should address those who join the church with pre-existing relationships or identity issues:
6: Promiscuity, Cohabitation – Hebrews 13:4, 1 Cor 7:1-2, Ex 22:16
Much of the biblical discussion on promiscuity is by inference. Clearly, sex was meant to be inseparably linked to marriage and outside of that context should be considered immoral. For those who join the church already in a sexual relationship who are unmarried we should apply Exodus 22:16 and encourage them to marry as soon as possible. If they do not wish to marry, they should be encouraged to separate. Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 7:2 that marriage is the best remedy for “temptation to sexual immorality.”
7: Adultery, Divorce and Remarriage – Matt 5:32, Matt 19:9, 1 Cor 7:10-11
This issue is given much more explicit biblical instruction but is often glossed over in our Christian culture due to the messy landscape of divorces and remarriages. In cases where non-biblical divorce has occurred, if reconciliation is possible, this should be pursued. If reconciliation is impossible because one or more parties have remarried, it would not be sensible to divorce again in order to achieve reconciliation. The principle to apply here, I believe, is from 1 Cor 7:17-24 summarized in verse 20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” This is not an ideal circumstance, but it is the best way forward in an imperfect world. Of note, polygamy was common in the culture of the early church, and while not ideal, was accepted by the church, as evidenced by the qualifications for elder to be “a husband of but one wife.” We have polygamous cultures even within our local community and if they came to Christ, we should not counsel them to divorce all but one wife and thus disrupt their social structure. It is not ideal and would disqualify them from eldership, but they should remain as they are. Whether marriage after unbiblical divorce in the past disqualifies a man from eldership is a case-by case question for the eldership.
8: Pornography, Sensuality, and Lust – Lev 18:6-18, Matt 5:28
As mentioned above, use of pornography has reached a high saturation point within our culture and within our church. While once thought of as simply a male issue, there is a growing trend toward gender parity in pornography usage. It is an issue that should be discussed with some frequency within our church. For those that join the church and view pornography regularly, it needs to be made clear that while the world has largely destigmatized it, it is still sexual immorality. Furthermore, this isn’t just limited to nudity and pornography, but any sensuality that leads to looking at someone “with lustful intent” is the heart equivalent of adultery according to Matt 5:28. In our culture, it is not possible to avoid such things by just turning away. We need to address the heart issues of idolatry, selfishness, and satisfaction in Christ. Practically, how should we deal with those who have on-going struggles with pornography, sensuality and lust? Should this preclude them from eldership? From deaconship? Taken strictly, this would preclude nearly all men from eldership. These require individual evaluation from the elders, but a guiding principle should be, if the person is repentant and there is evidence of growth in their life, we should consider more responsibility and continued discipleship.
9: Homosexuality – Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:8-11
From the above references and others, it is evident that homosexual behavior is sexual sin. We cannot equivocate on that point. As we have discussed above, if a person who is already a believer and in the church and struggles with same sex attraction, we should approach them as we would handle anyone who is sexually attracted to someone to whom they are not married. If such a person decides that homosexuality is not sinful and begins sexually immoral activity, we should deal with them in the same way as any member who falls into unrepentant sin and go through the processes of correction and, if necessary, of church discipline. It is important that we draw a distinction between same sex attraction and homosexual behavior. We can do tremendous harm by demonizing same sex attraction and creating a taboo around it. A person who is struggling to abstain from homosexual behavior should be supported and encouraged. I believe Paul’s strong statements about not associating with sexually immoral people applies to those who remain unrepentant. Much more nuanced is the issue of how we address those that join the church already in a homosexual relationship. What about the married homosexual couple who join the church with their adopted child? Should we break up their family? I believe, in this case, the same principle should apply as to those who have gone through an unbiblical divorce in the past. We should apply 1 Cor 7:20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” We can recognize that this is not ideal, but it is the best we can do in a fallen world just as we do with someone who is married after unbiblical divorce. Whether should apply to a homosexual couple in a long term committed relationship who are not legally married would be an individual discussion with the elders. Again, these are nuanced cases that will need individual prayer, discussion, and discernment. I believe a great deal more patience is called for when a new believer joins the church that has a history or present reality of homosexuality, even if they are unrepentant at first, believing that homosexuality is not sinful, than we would demonstrate to a person who has been in the church for a period of time and then decides to pursue a homosexual relationship.
10: Bisexuality – Heb 13:4
Bisexual attraction is no more or less of an issue than anyone who finds that they are sexually attracted to someone other than their spouse. This is not a rare or unique circumstance, even within the church. Someone who is practicing bisexuality is, by definition, not confining sex to the marriage bed, and this, therefore, qualifies as sexual immorality. The issue, here again, is one of identity and cultural acceptance. If a person “identifies as bisexual,” the real issue is not the bisexuality, but the fact that they identify themselves primarily by their sexual desires, and not by Christ. It would be equally a problem if they “identified as heterosexual” and that was seen as their defining characteristic. If such a person were to join the church, our priority should be in helping them see their identity in Christ rather than focusing on renouncing their sexual preference.
11: Transgenderism/Non-binarism – Psalm 139: 13-15
It should be noted that the next two points should not be considered in the category of sexual immorality, but as they are connected to the same cultural moment will be discussed here. It should further be remarked that transgenderism is a modern issue with no direct reference in Scripture. It is a challenging issue that often falls prey to oversimplification and scapegoating. It is not sufficient to simply state that a person should identify with their born gender. There are those born with ambiguous genitalia and those born with sex chromosome abnormalities such that “born gender” is not necessarily accurate. These occur with a frequency of 1 in 448 births on average which is not particularly rare. The majority of people who consider themselves to be transgender do not fall into these categories, but the fact remains that these categories exist. Unless we plan to embark on genetic testing, we must be careful how we assert someone’s gender assignment. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that much of the gender confusion in our culture is due to a distortion of biblically accurate masculinity and femininity in our culture of which the church has been widely supportive for generations. Many transgender and non-binary individuals consider themselves so because they do not fit into the traditional boxes our culture has created for the genders. The church can start by recognizing that these boxes are incorrect. We can also acknowledge that gender differences and roles are far less important than most human cultures perceive. Christ himself challenged many gender norms in his ministry and Paul maintains “…there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28b) It is much more difficult to recognize this issue as a sin issue than many of the above concerns. If someone wishes to be addressed by different pronouns than they once did or dress differently than they once did, this does not amount to immorality. Once again, this can be an idolatrous identity issue if the person sees it as the central characteristic of their lives. There is often an inherent pride in asserting that such a person does not feel they fit in the body created for them, but if they come to love Jesus and understand and believe that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” then this issue may become moot. Whether or not they revert to dressing differently or using pronouns they did when they were younger is largely immaterial. This also addresses the issue of people who may have undergone permanent physical changes. While we should not endorse such modification if it is being considered, there is no reason to reverse such a thing in order to return to a base state. We must recognize that this is a group that has a high propensity toward mental health concerns, instability, and suicidality. They need love, support and prayer, not scapegoating and extra-biblical expectations of conforming to a cultural norm. We must further note that this group as well as the homosexual group have often experienced psychological and even physical harm from others in our culture, sometimes in the name of Christ. We must foster an environment of champions physical and psychological safety for these people.
12: Asexuality – 1 Cor 7:25-38
Asexuality also should not be considered sexual immorality. There is, in fact, wide support in Paul’s letters such as in 1 Cor 7 for people, if they are able, to remain unmarried and be “anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” We tend to champion the model of the nuclear family in our Christian culture, but Paul sees chaste singleness as a better way. There should be no pressure from the church to make sure that single people pair off and get married because it is expected of them. As this state has been culturally identified with the LGBTQIA movement, it is seen on the same spectrum as the sexual immorality and gender issues discussed above, but it is not. It can still fall prey to the same issue of an idolatrous identity as some of the above issues, but it need not be so.
13: Glass Ceiling
In the event that God sees fit to bring people from these subgroups into our church, there would inevitably be a glass ceiling. The question is at what point. The four logical points are: regular attender, member, deacon, and elder. Regardless of their background or position, all should be welcome to be a regular attender. It is also clear, from the biblical requirements for eldership, that on-going problems or engagement in any of the sexual sins would disqualify them from that post. The middle two are less clear. I would submit that the bar for membership should be very low. This step, in my opinion, is when they would “bear the name of brother” and not before. Even if they disagree about the sinful nature of homosexuality, this should not disallow them from becoming members as long as they agree to submit to the churches position and not cause division. Allowing them to become members gives us the pastoral authority to speak into their lives, and we would hope that over time the Spirit would work in their hearts to convince them of the truth. Putting such a person in a deacon role would probably not be wise but would need to be evaluated prayerfully on a case-by-case basis. The difficulty here is that, while a position on homosexuality is not a salvific issue and should not be considered a core doctrine in the same way as the deity of Christ, for example, it is a sin issue. There is a limit to how far we can “agree to disagree” and still uphold our duty to root out sin in our midst. Once again, we should also distinguish between a struggle with same sex attraction and engagement in homosexual behavior when we consider our response. There is also a glass ceiling when it comes to marriage. While I believe we should not break up existing homosexual marriages, we should not participate in creating them. The marriage covenant between a man and woman was created, in part, to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph 5). This should not be co-opted to excuse or normalize immorality.
14: Nuance and Edge Cases
The above outline is by no means meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is meant to provide a lens, supported by scripture, through which we can view these issues and consider corporate and pastoral responses. It should inform how we view the people that walk through the door from a wide range of backgrounds and how we equip those in our church to be Christ’s ambassadors to those in our community. Every person and circumstance, history and baggage will be different, and any non-nuanced position would be inherently evil. I pray we have many opportunities to talk, think and pray through specific situations that God would bless us with the chance to be a part of. What an honor it would be to be used to reach into broken lives like these with the Gospel of Grace.
15: Action Steps
As we consider practical and philosophical ways of responding to the above, I believe we should start from a position of corporate repentance. If we wish to truly reach out and touch the lives of broken people in need of a Savior who live a life of same sex attraction or gender dysphoria, we need to begin by recognizing that a great deal of harm, emotional and physical, has been inflicted on this group by the Church for generations. There are homeless people living in our area who were kicked out of their homes by parents holding a Bible. There are those who have been subjected to horrific methods that amount to torture under the guise of “Conversion Therapy” from Christian organizations. The only “conversion” we should concern ourselves with is to a regenerate heart. Attempting to change someone’s sexual attraction is very much beside the point. We cannot hope to be a place where such people can hear about Jesus unless they feel safe to enter our doors. We must also fight the tendency to consider sin in this area as something worse than others, even in non-Christians. James 2 says “…For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it….So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” As we consider corporate and pastoral responses to the argument above, we must start by removing our own planks and repenting for the historical actions of the Church.
Practical steps that we could consider taking would include: removing the statements from the website about marriage and sexuality, especially directly under our Core Beliefs. Again, this is not meant to hide or equivocate on the truth, but not to set such a barrier before someone even walks through our door. Secondly, we should consider how to address these topics within the church. A Sunday morning sermon is not ideal as it is time limited and a unidirectional conversation. A small group course format would be a consideration. We need to equip parents and family members of adolescents, teens, and adults with language to talk about these things in loving, humble, God-honoring ways. In the longer term, we need to consider how we can make our church a place where people would feel comfortable inviting friends and family who look, think and act differently than we do. We need to find a way of projecting safety and inclusion even in our public facing information. This isn’t a balancing act where we must make it clear early and often that we “love the sinner but hate the sin” as the saying goes. We just need to love the sinner. Dealing with the sin can come later God-willing. A third application point is to be mindful of what we say and what we allow to be said without being checked. Certainly, joking at the expense of those who are dealing with these issues is unacceptable, but we also need to work to avoid getting dragged in to pseudo-political discussions on bathroom issues, sports issues or other divisive concerns that have no bearing on the church.
I recognize that these proposals have the potential to divide the church. There are some who may leave the body over these sorts of changes. I would argue that it is our responsibility to them as well as to the unreached in our community to have those discussions and risk some of them leaving over it. These are not all things we should change overnight but after ample opportunities for discussions and prayer.
16: Conclusion – Mark 2:15-17
At its core, these are not issues of who someone loves, sexual attraction, or even specific sex acts. The core is idolatry and identity. When acceptance by others, self-determination, or physical pleasure become the central force driving our lives then we have become idolators. Though our idols take on different shapes, the struggles in this space are shared by all. Whether you are identified by your profession, your family, or your gender identity, you are not being identified by your Master. Building fences around or within the church because someone sins in a different way than us cannot be allowed. Making the excuse that we are somehow “protecting our children” by shielding them from people in our community who desperately need a Savior will not show our children who Jesus is. Within the church, we cannot be afraid to “speak the truth in love.” We need not and cannot shy away from sin in the church, but we must recognize that the Spirit works in each of our lives. Often this happens over a period of time. We should be prepared to walk alongside our brothers and sisters in this journey for as long as they need.
There is a significant correlation between this community and their relationship with religious groups, and the “tax collectors and sinners” that Jesus sought out in His ministry and their relationship with the religious leaders of the day. Our heart should reflect His. Jesus responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) If our church was filled with transgender people and gay families that loved Jesus, God would be glorified.”
Thank you in advance for any constructive criticism, notes of encouragement and or reading recommendations on these topics that I can pass along.

A good friend of mine from a fairly conservative evangelical background is considering becoming a pastor at his non-denominational church. As part of the evaluation process, they asked him to write a paper on these topics that he is not an expert on.
He asked for my opinion and I offered to share it online to solicit constructive criticism, notes of encouragement, and or reading recommendations on these topics.
I believe his goal is to be faithful to the scriptures, loving to those outside the church, and challenging to those inside the church, as most of us could do better.
What he wrote is in the quotation marks below.
“1: Scope of the Issue
Sexual immorality has become a besetting and ubiquitous issue in our culture and in our churches. While many aspects of it are not novel or unique to this time and have clear scriptural input, there are others that bring challenges to our church for which we don’t have obvious precedent. The main point of these comments is to try and answer three questions with some degree of specificity: (1) how do we make ourselves a place where people who do not know Christ will feel welcome to come and learn of Him regardless of where they come from, (2) how do we pastorally care for people who have come in to the church with pre-existing circumstances related to sexual immorality, and (3) how do we equip our members to represent Christ to those in their lives that are dealing with these issues. We want to do this in a way that does not “walk a tight rope” or compromise to appease, but honors Scripture in its commands to both show compassion and exhort and correct. We must recognize that every individual circumstance is unique, and many will require careful and prayerful consideration, but this is meant to give a framework for that consideration.
2: Scriptural Basis for Corporate Response
There are many references we can point to that discuss and define sexual immorality throughout Scripture and many of these will be used below as we consider specific examples and situations. Let us start, however, by looking at passages that deal with corporate response rather than individual sin. It is clear that the Corinthian church had significant issues in this area, and much of Paul’s first letter was devoted to it. In chapter 5, Paul states that when sexual immorality is discovered in the church we should “mourn” over it and “not to associate with immoral people.” Importantly, he also makes clear in vv. 9-13 that these comments only apply to those “who bears the name of brother.” He explicitly writes, “not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world…for what have I to do with judging outsiders?” This is key in informing our response to those who are not members of the church. If it is our desire to see sinners come through our doors and come to know our Savior through our ministry, then we must be welcoming, accepting them where they are. This is not to say we hide or compromise the biblical position, but it is not an issue on which we want to filter people at the door. There are three categories of people in sexual sin that we need to form a response for. First, those just coming to the church who have not committed to it – these should be treated the same as any we are reaching out to with Christ’s love. They need Jesus, not behavioral change. Next, those who have recently joined the church but have pre-existing sexual sin patterns. This can and should be addressed with patience, dignity, and love. There are often many sin areas in the life of a new believer, and it is prudent to discern how and when to address each of them. Lastly, those who have been members in the church for some amount of time and fall into sexual sin. This is the group that Paul is primarily addressing in 1 Corinthians. While sex within marriage is a private issue, sexual sin cannot be a taboo topic. It needs to be addressed regularly and clearly. We need close enough relationships within the church that such problems do not fester in the dark. We must avoid the typical church pattern to vilify the first group, never see the second group, and pretend the third group doesn’t exist until it all blows up in scandal. May it never be.
3: Consistency Issue
There is a tendency in our Christian culture to treat some sexual sins as worse than others. Like the Corinthians, some things we seem to have accepted as just ubiquitous parts of our culture. Knowing the prevalence of promiscuity and fornication among teens and single adults and usage of pornography even within the church, we tend to address these as issues of indwelling sin, similar to anger or fear of man, with offers of accountability and understanding when someone falls. By contrast, when it comes to homosexuality or adultery, it is often a church discipline issue. We view homosexual marriage as a major problem, but remarriage after a non-biblical divorce is rarely addressed. These inconsistencies lead to stigmatization and polarization and should have no place in the church. The criterion for escalation should be unrepentance, not the nature of the sexual sin. It is clear from 1 Corinthians that all should be taken seriously, but none should be vilified above others.
4: Culture and Identity
The major underlying problem with many of the sexual sin and gender issues is that they have come to be culturally bound up with people’s identities. This is not a new phenomenon and is not unique to this issue. As far back as Acts 19, you see people becoming “enraged” because Paul had threatened the Ephesians’ cultural identity as worshipers of Artemis. People continue to find their primary identities in their employment, hobbies, sports teams, or families rather than Christ. None of these should be accepted, but none should be reviled either. If a person does not know Jesus, they are dead. How they identify themselves is of no concern. Once they have been made alive, they can be taught that “whose” they are is more important than “who” they are. All identity outside of Christ is not sinful, but if it takes paramount importance, it may become so. A person who recognizes a tendency toward same sex attraction may label themselves as gay or lesbian. This should not be considered a sin issue unless it becomes, for them, their defining characteristic or leads to sinful actions. We should recognize the difficulty of this struggle and support such a person rather than get hung up on labels. There must be clear distinction between identifying same sex attraction and engaging in homosexual behavior. These should be the guiding principles underlying everything that follows are regards individual cases.
5: Public Facing Information, Guests, and New Attendees
Considering what we have discussed, and Paul’s assertion in 1 Corinthians 5 that we ought to reserve judgment on sexual immorality to those we call brother, I would submit that public facing information regarding the church (i.e. website, app, etc) should not publish a position on sexual immorality, marriage, and gender identity. Doing so effectively places the filter at the door so that people who do not know Christ may be turned away from it. This is not tantamount to tacit approval. In appropriate contexts within the church, these topics should still be discussed and addressed, but I do not believe it is consistent with a biblical treatment of unbelievers to place it in a public facing forum. If we have guests or new regular attendees who appear to be engaged in a cohabitating or fornicating relationship, a homosexual relationship, or other sexual sin, this should not be a priority to address unless we have discerned that they are believers and join the church. Even then, it is important to draw a distinction between someone who deals with same-sex attraction and someone who engages in homosexual behavior. The next seven points are meant to discuss, in broad terms, how we should address those who join the church with pre-existing relationships or identity issues:
6: Promiscuity, Cohabitation – Hebrews 13:4, 1 Cor 7:1-2, Ex 22:16
Much of the biblical discussion on promiscuity is by inference. Clearly, sex was meant to be inseparably linked to marriage and outside of that context should be considered immoral. For those who join the church already in a sexual relationship who are unmarried we should apply Exodus 22:16 and encourage them to marry as soon as possible. If they do not wish to marry, they should be encouraged to separate. Paul acknowledges in 1 Cor 7:2 that marriage is the best remedy for “temptation to sexual immorality.”
7: Adultery, Divorce and Remarriage – Matt 5:32, Matt 19:9, 1 Cor 7:10-11
This issue is given much more explicit biblical instruction but is often glossed over in our Christian culture due to the messy landscape of divorces and remarriages. In cases where non-biblical divorce has occurred, if reconciliation is possible, this should be pursued. If reconciliation is impossible because one or more parties have remarried, it would not be sensible to divorce again in order to achieve reconciliation. The principle to apply here, I believe, is from 1 Cor 7:17-24 summarized in verse 20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” This is not an ideal circumstance, but it is the best way forward in an imperfect world. Of note, polygamy was common in the culture of the early church, and while not ideal, was accepted by the church, as evidenced by the qualifications for elder to be “a husband of but one wife.” We have polygamous cultures even within our local community and if they came to Christ, we should not counsel them to divorce all but one wife and thus disrupt their social structure. It is not ideal and would disqualify them from eldership, but they should remain as they are. Whether marriage after unbiblical divorce in the past disqualifies a man from eldership is a case-by case question for the eldership.
8: Pornography, Sensuality, and Lust – Lev 18:6-18, Matt 5:28
As mentioned above, use of pornography has reached a high saturation point within our culture and within our church. While once thought of as simply a male issue, there is a growing trend toward gender parity in pornography usage. It is an issue that should be discussed with some frequency within our church. For those that join the church and view pornography regularly, it needs to be made clear that while the world has largely destigmatized it, it is still sexual immorality. Furthermore, this isn’t just limited to nudity and pornography, but any sensuality that leads to looking at someone “with lustful intent” is the heart equivalent of adultery according to Matt 5:28. In our culture, it is not possible to avoid such things by just turning away. We need to address the heart issues of idolatry, selfishness, and satisfaction in Christ. Practically, how should we deal with those who have on-going struggles with pornography, sensuality and lust? Should this preclude them from eldership? From deaconship? Taken strictly, this would preclude nearly all men from eldership. These require individual evaluation from the elders, but a guiding principle should be, if the person is repentant and there is evidence of growth in their life, we should consider more responsibility and continued discipleship.
9: Homosexuality – Lev 18:22, Lev 20:13, 1 Cor 6:9, 1 Tim 1:8-11
From the above references and others, it is evident that homosexual behavior is sexual sin. We cannot equivocate on that point. As we have discussed above, if a person who is already a believer and in the church and struggles with same sex attraction, we should approach them as we would handle anyone who is sexually attracted to someone to whom they are not married. If such a person decides that homosexuality is not sinful and begins sexually immoral activity, we should deal with them in the same way as any member who falls into unrepentant sin and go through the processes of correction and, if necessary, of church discipline. It is important that we draw a distinction between same sex attraction and homosexual behavior. We can do tremendous harm by demonizing same sex attraction and creating a taboo around it. A person who is struggling to abstain from homosexual behavior should be supported and encouraged. I believe Paul’s strong statements about not associating with sexually immoral people applies to those who remain unrepentant. Much more nuanced is the issue of how we address those that join the church already in a homosexual relationship. What about the married homosexual couple who join the church with their adopted child? Should we break up their family? I believe, in this case, the same principle should apply as to those who have gone through an unbiblical divorce in the past. We should apply 1 Cor 7:20: “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.” We can recognize that this is not ideal, but it is the best we can do in a fallen world just as we do with someone who is married after unbiblical divorce. Whether should apply to a homosexual couple in a long term committed relationship who are not legally married would be an individual discussion with the elders. Again, these are nuanced cases that will need individual prayer, discussion, and discernment. I believe a great deal more patience is called for when a new believer joins the church that has a history or present reality of homosexuality, even if they are unrepentant at first, believing that homosexuality is not sinful, than we would demonstrate to a person who has been in the church for a period of time and then decides to pursue a homosexual relationship.
10: Bisexuality – Heb 13:4
Bisexual attraction is no more or less of an issue than anyone who finds that they are sexually attracted to someone other than their spouse. This is not a rare or unique circumstance, even within the church. Someone who is practicing bisexuality is, by definition, not confining sex to the marriage bed, and this, therefore, qualifies as sexual immorality. The issue, here again, is one of identity and cultural acceptance. If a person “identifies as bisexual,” the real issue is not the bisexuality, but the fact that they identify themselves primarily by their sexual desires, and not by Christ. It would be equally a problem if they “identified as heterosexual” and that was seen as their defining characteristic. If such a person were to join the church, our priority should be in helping them see their identity in Christ rather than focusing on renouncing their sexual preference.
11: Transgenderism/Non-binarism – Psalm 139: 13-15
It should be noted that the next two points should not be considered in the category of sexual immorality, but as they are connected to the same cultural moment will be discussed here. It should further be remarked that transgenderism is a modern issue with no direct reference in Scripture. It is a challenging issue that often falls prey to oversimplification and scapegoating. It is not sufficient to simply state that a person should identify with their born gender. There are those born with ambiguous genitalia and those born with sex chromosome abnormalities such that “born gender” is not necessarily accurate. These occur with a frequency of 1 in 448 births on average which is not particularly rare. The majority of people who consider themselves to be transgender do not fall into these categories, but the fact remains that these categories exist. Unless we plan to embark on genetic testing, we must be careful how we assert someone’s gender assignment. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that much of the gender confusion in our culture is due to a distortion of biblically accurate masculinity and femininity in our culture of which the church has been widely supportive for generations. Many transgender and non-binary individuals consider themselves so because they do not fit into the traditional boxes our culture has created for the genders. The church can start by recognizing that these boxes are incorrect. We can also acknowledge that gender differences and roles are far less important than most human cultures perceive. Christ himself challenged many gender norms in his ministry and Paul maintains “…there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:28b) It is much more difficult to recognize this issue as a sin issue than many of the above concerns. If someone wishes to be addressed by different pronouns than they once did or dress differently than they once did, this does not amount to immorality. Once again, this can be an idolatrous identity issue if the person sees it as the central characteristic of their lives. There is often an inherent pride in asserting that such a person does not feel they fit in the body created for them, but if they come to love Jesus and understand and believe that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made” then this issue may become moot. Whether or not they revert to dressing differently or using pronouns they did when they were younger is largely immaterial. This also addresses the issue of people who may have undergone permanent physical changes. While we should not endorse such modification if it is being considered, there is no reason to reverse such a thing in order to return to a base state. We must recognize that this is a group that has a high propensity toward mental health concerns, instability, and suicidality. They need love, support and prayer, not scapegoating and extra-biblical expectations of conforming to a cultural norm. We must further note that this group as well as the homosexual group have often experienced psychological and even physical harm from others in our culture, sometimes in the name of Christ. We must foster an environment of champions physical and psychological safety for these people.
12: Asexuality – 1 Cor 7:25-38
Asexuality also should not be considered sexual immorality. There is, in fact, wide support in Paul’s letters such as in 1 Cor 7 for people, if they are able, to remain unmarried and be “anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord.” We tend to champion the model of the nuclear family in our Christian culture, but Paul sees chaste singleness as a better way. There should be no pressure from the church to make sure that single people pair off and get married because it is expected of them. As this state has been culturally identified with the LGBTQIA movement, it is seen on the same spectrum as the sexual immorality and gender issues discussed above, but it is not. It can still fall prey to the same issue of an idolatrous identity as some of the above issues, but it need not be so.
13: Glass Ceiling
In the event that God sees fit to bring people from these subgroups into our church, there would inevitably be a glass ceiling. The question is at what point. The four logical points are: regular attender, member, deacon, and elder. Regardless of their background or position, all should be welcome to be a regular attender. It is also clear, from the biblical requirements for eldership, that on-going problems or engagement in any of the sexual sins would disqualify them from that post. The middle two are less clear. I would submit that the bar for membership should be very low. This step, in my opinion, is when they would “bear the name of brother” and not before. Even if they disagree about the sinful nature of homosexuality, this should not disallow them from becoming members as long as they agree to submit to the churches position and not cause division. Allowing them to become members gives us the pastoral authority to speak into their lives, and we would hope that over time the Spirit would work in their hearts to convince them of the truth. Putting such a person in a deacon role would probably not be wise but would need to be evaluated prayerfully on a case-by-case basis. The difficulty here is that, while a position on homosexuality is not a salvific issue and should not be considered a core doctrine in the same way as the deity of Christ, for example, it is a sin issue. There is a limit to how far we can “agree to disagree” and still uphold our duty to root out sin in our midst. Once again, we should also distinguish between a struggle with same sex attraction and engagement in homosexual behavior when we consider our response. There is also a glass ceiling when it comes to marriage. While I believe we should not break up existing homosexual marriages, we should not participate in creating them. The marriage covenant between a man and woman was created, in part, to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph 5). This should not be co-opted to excuse or normalize immorality.
14: Nuance and Edge Cases
The above outline is by no means meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is meant to provide a lens, supported by scripture, through which we can view these issues and consider corporate and pastoral responses. It should inform how we view the people that walk through the door from a wide range of backgrounds and how we equip those in our church to be Christ’s ambassadors to those in our community. Every person and circumstance, history and baggage will be different, and any non-nuanced position would be inherently evil. I pray we have many opportunities to talk, think and pray through specific situations that God would bless us with the chance to be a part of. What an honor it would be to be used to reach into broken lives like these with the Gospel of Grace.
15: Action Steps
As we consider practical and philosophical ways of responding to the above, I believe we should start from a position of corporate repentance. If we wish to truly reach out and touch the lives of broken people in need of a Savior who live a life of same sex attraction or gender dysphoria, we need to begin by recognizing that a great deal of harm, emotional and physical, has been inflicted on this group by the Church for generations. There are homeless people living in our area who were kicked out of their homes by parents holding a Bible. There are those who have been subjected to horrific methods that amount to torture under the guise of “Conversion Therapy” from Christian organizations. The only “conversion” we should concern ourselves with is to a regenerate heart. Attempting to change someone’s sexual attraction is very much beside the point. We cannot hope to be a place where such people can hear about Jesus unless they feel safe to enter our doors. We must also fight the tendency to consider sin in this area as something worse than others, even in non-Christians. James 2 says “…For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it….So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.” As we consider corporate and pastoral responses to the argument above, we must start by removing our own planks and repenting for the historical actions of the Church.
Practical steps that we could consider taking would include: removing the statements from the website about marriage and sexuality, especially directly under our Core Beliefs. Again, this is not meant to hide or equivocate on the truth, but not to set such a barrier before someone even walks through our door. Secondly, we should consider how to address these topics within the church. A Sunday morning sermon is not ideal as it is time limited and a unidirectional conversation. A small group course format would be a consideration. We need to equip parents and family members of adolescents, teens, and adults with language to talk about these things in loving, humble, God-honoring ways. In the longer term, we need to consider how we can make our church a place where people would feel comfortable inviting friends and family who look, think and act differently than we do. We need to find a way of projecting safety and inclusion even in our public facing information. This isn’t a balancing act where we must make it clear early and often that we “love the sinner but hate the sin” as the saying goes. We just need to love the sinner. Dealing with the sin can come later God-willing. A third application point is to be mindful of what we say and what we allow to be said without being checked. Certainly, joking at the expense of those who are dealing with these issues is unacceptable, but we also need to work to avoid getting dragged in to pseudo-political discussions on bathroom issues, sports issues or other divisive concerns that have no bearing on the church.
I recognize that these proposals have the potential to divide the church. There are some who may leave the body over these sorts of changes. I would argue that it is our responsibility to them as well as to the unreached in our community to have those discussions and risk some of them leaving over it. These are not all things we should change overnight but after ample opportunities for discussions and prayer.
16: Conclusion – Mark 2:15-17
At its core, these are not issues of who someone loves, sexual attraction, or even specific sex acts. The core is idolatry and identity. When acceptance by others, self-determination, or physical pleasure become the central force driving our lives then we have become idolators. Though our idols take on different shapes, the struggles in this space are shared by all. Whether you are identified by your profession, your family, or your gender identity, you are not being identified by your Master. Building fences around or within the church because someone sins in a different way than us cannot be allowed. Making the excuse that we are somehow “protecting our children” by shielding them from people in our community who desperately need a Savior will not show our children who Jesus is. Within the church, we cannot be afraid to “speak the truth in love.” We need not and cannot shy away from sin in the church, but we must recognize that the Spirit works in each of our lives. Often this happens over a period of time. We should be prepared to walk alongside our brothers and sisters in this journey for as long as they need.
There is a significant correlation between this community and their relationship with religious groups, and the “tax collectors and sinners” that Jesus sought out in His ministry and their relationship with the religious leaders of the day. Our heart should reflect His. Jesus responded: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) If our church was filled with transgender people and gay families that loved Jesus, God would be glorified.”
Thank you in advance for any constructive criticism, notes of encouragement and or reading recommendations on these topics that I can pass along.

Homeowners Association (HOA) management involves numerous responsibilities, including tax filing, which can be complex and time-consuming. Fortunately, integrating HOA software with TaxBandits API can streamline the tax filing process, ensuring accuracy and compliance. In this article, we'll walk you through the steps to achieve this integration, highlight the benefits, and provide tips for a smooth implementation.
Understanding the Basics
What is HOA Software?
HOA software helps manage various aspects of homeowners associations, including accounting, communications, and compliance.
What is TaxBandits API?
TaxBandits is an online tax filing solution that offers APIs for seamless integration with other software. The API allows you to electronically file various tax forms, including 1099s and W-2s, directly from your application.
Benefits of TaxBandits API Integration
Efficiency: Automate tax filing processes, reducing manual data entry.
Accuracy: Minimize errors by syncing data directly from your HOA software.
Compliance: Ensure timely and accurate filings with up-to-date tax regulations
Automating Traditional Tax Filing Process:
W-9 Collection and Validation: W9 Automation involves the collection of W-9 forms from vendors, It also includes TIN Matching to ensure accuracy and compliance with IRS records​.
1099 Form Processing: Automates the generation, validation, and e-filing of various 1099 forms based on the collected W-9 data and recorded payouts. TaxBandits also offers options for distributing these forms via postal mail or secure online access​
Conclusion
Integrating your HOA software with TaxBandits API can significantly streamline your tax filing process, saving time and reducing errors. By following the steps outlined in this guide and leveraging the benefits of 1099 Automation and W9 tax filing, you can ensure your HOA remains compliant with tax regulations.

HOASoftware #TaxFiling #TaxBandits #APIIntegration #HomeownersAssociation #SoftwareIntegration #TaxCompliance #Automation

• Element79 unveils compelling assay results from its Lucero property, showcasing significant gold and silver grades alongside high concentrations of base metals.
• The data from these assays not only lays the groundwork for resource development but also guides the Company’s 2024 drill program, utilizing comprehensive 3D modeling for precision and efficiency.
• Through strategic meetings with artisanal miners and swift responses to community needs like the Chachas landslide, Element79 underscores its commitment to responsible mining practices and meaningful community integration.

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Element79 (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0), a prominent player in the mining industry, is redefining the gold and silver market with its robust portfolio and innovative strategies. With its focus primarily on gold and silver, Element79 stands as a beacon in the mining industry, committed to delivering impressive results while adhering to the highest environmental and social standards. This article sheds light on Element79’s journey, its flagship projects, recent developments, and future prospects.
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About Element79
Element79 (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0), a leading figure in the mining industry, has established itself as a pioneer in responsible mining practices. Its commitment to sustainable development and strategic acquisitions highlight Element79’s dedication to maximizing shareholder value. The company’s impressive portfolio features two flagship projects, the Lucero Property in Peru and the Maverick Springs Project in Nevada, both of which exhibit significant potential for high-grade operations.
Lucero Property: The Goldmine in Peru
Nestled in Arequipa, Peru, the Lucero Property is a high-grade gold and silver mine that stands as one of Element79’s flagship projects. With a rich history and immense potential for future development, Lucero is a testament to Element79’s commitment to mining excellence.
Historically, the Lucero mine boasted impressive grades, with an average of 19.0g/t Au Equivalent (Au Eq) during its five years of production ending in 2005. Recent assays from underground workings in March 2023 have further validated the potential for a significant high-grade future operation. These assays yielded up to 11.7 ounces per ton of gold and 247 ounces per ton of silver, indicating a promising future for high-grade operations.
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Additional Assay Results
Element79 Gold Corp. (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0) unveils additional findings from its recent underground and surface sampling efforts at the Lucero property, the cornerstone of its endeavors.
James Tworek, CEO of Element79, underscores the significance of these results: “This data isn’t just promising; it’s pivotal. It forms the bedrock upon which we build our future at Lucero.”
Out of 97 samples analyzed, 56 returned notable gold grades, with peaks at 8.55 g/t gold and 523 g/t silver, as shown in Table 1. Additionally, high concentrations of base metals were detected, affirming the project’s richness and reinforcing the Company’s confidence in its resource potential.
These assay results serve dual purposes for Element79. Firstly, they lay the groundwork for resource development and future mine planning, marking essential milestones in the project’s evaluation process.
Secondly, this data will steer the Company’s 2024 drill program, informed by comprehensive 3D modeling of geology and historic mine workings. This approach aims for precision and efficiency, utilizing a wealth of data including historical records dating back to 2005, current geochemistry data, underground mapping, and geophysical surveys.
Tworek emphasizes the significance of this data in guiding future exploration efforts: “It delineates areas of economic strength and directs our focus for ore extraction, leveraging both past data and current findings.”
Maverick Springs Project: A Silver Lining in Nevada
Another gem in Element79’s portfolio is the Maverick Springs Project, located in the renowned gold mining district of northeastern Nevada, USA. With its proximity to the prolific Carlin Trend, Maverick Springs presents an exciting opportunity for Element79. The project is a silver-rich sediment/carbonate-hosted deposit, similar to the renowned silver-rich epithermal deposits found in Nevada.
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Elevating Community Relations
In its ongoing commitment to community engagement, Element79 (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0) orchestrated a strategic meeting with artisanal miners from Lomas Doradas. The goal? To cultivate collaborative ties, ensuring mutual support as the Company embarks on exploration efforts on surface land. Seeking exclusive agreements, Element79 aims for a unified approach to mineral extraction and sales, benefitting both parties.
In a bid to solidify this partnership, Element79 proposed draft contracts. These agreements outline a decade-long surface access arrangement for exploration at the Lucero mine site, reciprocated by granting local miners access to defined locations for their operations. Additionally, Element79 pledges to facilitate optimal market pricing for Lomas Doradas’ ore, ensuring a steady revenue stream for both sides.
In March, Element79’s swift response to a landslide in Chachas exemplified its dedication to community assistance. The team provided vital support, aiding in the transfer of stranded community members until roads were cleared.
Embracing local traditions, Element79’s (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0) community relations team joined in a traditional Water Ceremony alongside local authorities and leaders. This culturally rich event, steeped in Chachas tradition, underscores the Company’s commitment to meaningful engagement and integration.
Throughout the year, Element79’s engagement in social awareness remains steadfast. Site visits and consultations with annex leaders bolster community support for ongoing exploration efforts. The Company advocates for a progressive approach, aligning with sustainable development goals and community interests.
Conclusion
Element79’s (CSE: ELEM) (OTC: ELMGF) (FSE: 7YS0) commitment to responsible mining practices, coupled with its robust portfolio, positions it as a leader in the mining industry. The company’s dedication to sustainable development, strategic acquisitions, and community relations exemplify its commitment to maximizing shareholder value.
As Element79 continues its exploration and development efforts, it remains steadfast in its commitment to responsible and sustainable mining practices. By leveraging its expertise and strategic acquisitions, Element79 is well-positioned to deliver value to its shareholders while contributing to the responsible development of the mining industry.

Hey Redditors,
I’m diving into writing a research paper and thought I’d share some tips that have helped me along the way. Whether you’re a newbie or looking to refine your skills, these pointers can guide you through the process.

1. Choose a Clear, Focused Topic: Start with a broad area of interest, then narrow it down to a specific question or hypothesis. A well-defined topic helps you stay on track and makes your research more manageable.
2. Conduct Thorough Research: Use a variety of sources—books, academic journals, reputable websites. Take detailed notes and organize them by theme or argument. Don’t forget to keep track of your sources for citations!
3. Develop a Strong Thesis Statement: Your thesis is the backbone of your paper. It should be clear, concise, and reflect the main argument or finding of your research. Everything in your paper should support or relate to this statement.
4. Create an Outline: Organize your thoughts and structure your paper before you start writing. An outline helps you see the big picture and ensures a logical flow of ideas.
5. Write a Compelling Introduction: Grab your reader’s attention with a strong opening. Provide background information and clearly state your thesis. Your introduction should set the stage for the rest of the paper.
6. Craft Clear, Coherent Body Paragraphs: Each paragraph should focus on a single idea that supports your thesis. Start with a topic sentence, provide evidence or examples, and explain how it relates to your argument. Use transitions to maintain flow.
7. Use Credible Sources: Back up your arguments with evidence from credible sources. Peer-reviewed journals, books by experts, and official statistics are generally reliable. Avoid questionable websites and outdated materials.
8. Analyze, Don’t Just Describe: Go beyond summarizing your sources. Critically analyze the information, compare different viewpoints, and explain the significance of your findings. Show how your research contributes to the field.
9. Write a Strong Conclusion: Summarize your main points and restate your thesis (in a new way). Discuss the implications of your findings and suggest areas for future research. Your conclusion should leave a lasting impression.
10. Revise and Edit: Don’t submit your first draft. Take time to revise for clarity, coherence, and consistency. Check for grammar, punctuation, and formatting errors. Consider getting feedback from peers or mentors.
11. Properly Cite Your Sources: Avoid plagiarism by correctly citing all sources. Follow the required citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) consistently. Proper citations add credibility to your paper and acknowledge the work of other researchers.
12. Stay Organized and Manage Your Time: Break down the writing process into manageable steps and set deadlines for each. Use tools like reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley) to keep your sources organized. Staying on schedule reduces stress and improves the quality of your work.

Remember, writing a research paper is a process. Don’t rush it, and give yourself time to think, write, and revise. Good luck, and happy writing!

Discover the 7 techniques essential for early childhood reading success. Explore expert tips and strategies to empower your child's literacy journey.

Introduction

In today's fast-paced world, literacy is a cornerstone of success. As parents, nurturing our children's reading abilities early sets a strong foundation for their future achievements. This comprehensive guide dives deep into the top strategies and techniques to foster early reading skills in children. From interactive storytelling to language-rich environments, discover how you can unlock your child's potential and pave the way for lifelong learning.

Use These 7 Techniques to Help Your Child Become an Early Reader

1. Immersive Storytelling Adventures

Immerse your child in captivating narratives that ignite their imagination and curiosity. Explore a myriad of storybooks ranging from classic fairy tales to educational adventures. Incorporate interactive elements like sound effects and role-playing to make reading sessions engaging and memorable.

2. Phonics Fun: Mastering Letter Sounds

Delve into the world of phonics to help your child grasp letter sounds effortlessly. Utilize interactive games and apps designed to reinforce phonemic awareness. Practice blending and segmenting sounds through playful activities, ensuring a strong foundation in phonics principles.

3. Building Vocabulary Brilliance

Expand your child's vocabulary through daily word exploration activities. Create word walls adorned with colorful visuals to reinforce new words. Encourage conversations and storytelling, providing ample opportunities for your child to use and understand diverse vocabulary in context.

4. Sight Word Mastery Made Simple

Empower your child with sight word mastery strategies for fluent reading. Incorporate flashcards, games, and repetition to reinforce high-frequency words. Celebrate milestones as your child confidently recognizes and reads sight words independently.

5. Engaging Literacy Environments

Craft literacy-rich environments at home and in educational settings. Create cozy reading nooks filled with a variety of books catering to your child's interests. Foster a love for reading through frequent library visits and participation in reading-themed events.

6. Interactive Read-Aloud Sessions

Enhance reading comprehension and critical thinking skills through interactive read-aloud sessions. Encourage active participation by asking open-ended questions and prompting discussions. Explore diverse genres and themes, nurturing a well-rounded approach to literature appreciation.

7. Empowering Parent-Child Partnerships

Cultivate strong parent-child partnerships centered around reading and learning. Engage in joint reading activities, modeling fluency and expression. Provide positive reinforcement and encouragement, fostering a supportive environment conducive to reading success.
Also Read: Exploring the Best Preschool Franchise Opportunities in India

FAQs: Your Burning Questions Answered

How can I motivate my child to read regularly?
Encourage reading as a fun and rewarding activity by incorporating incentives such as sticker charts or reading challenges.
What role does technology play in early literacy?
Technology can complement traditional methods by offering interactive learning platforms and digital libraries tailored to young readers.
Are audiobooks beneficial for developing reading skills?
Audiobooks can enhance listening comprehension and pronunciation while instilling a love for storytelling.
How can I identify my child's reading level?
Consult with educators or utilize reading assessment tools to determine your child's current reading proficiency and tailor activities accordingly.
What if my child shows reluctance towards reading?
Address underlying concerns or challenges by exploring alternative reading materials or seeking guidance from literacy specialists.
How do I create a literacy-friendly home environment?
Establish a dedicated reading space, stock it with age-appropriate books, and integrate reading into daily routines like bedtime stories.
Is it normal for children to progress at different rates in reading?
Yes, children develop reading skills at varying paces. Focus on providing individualized support and celebrating each milestone achieved.

Conclusion: Empowering Early Readers for Lifelong Success

In conclusion, nurturing early reading skills in children is a transformative journey filled with joy and discovery. By implementing the seven techniques outlined in this guide and fostering a nurturing reading environment, you're laying a solid foundation for your child's academic and personal growth. Embrace the power of literacy and watch as your child blossoms into a confident and enthusiastic reader, ready to embrace the world of knowledge and imagination.

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

Saturday 18 May 2024
Today in Philosophy of History
Further Elaborations on the Coming Coeval Age
My essay “The Coming Coeval Age” has appeared in Isonomia Quarterly for summer 2024. Last year I contributed an essay to the initial number of the journal. As with my recent paper in the Journal of Big History, “A Complexity Ladder for Big History,” this most recent essay isn’t narrowly about philosophy of history, but there are many philosophy of history themes in it.
The journal’s interest in the theme of isonomia was my point of departure for considering the institutional structure of civilization at the largest conceivable scales. What is isonomia? There is a passage in Book III of Herodotus known as the constitutional debate in which three speakers argue for the best form of government, with these three being monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. Here is the first of three speakers in Herodotus advocating for isonomia:

“Otanes urged that they should resign the government into the hands of the whole body of the Persians, and his words were as follows: ‘To me it seems best that no single one of us should henceforth be ruler, for that is neither pleasant nor profitable. Ye saw the insolent temper of Cambyses, to what lengths it went, and ye have had experience also of the insolence of the Magian: and how should the rule of one alone be a well-ordered thing, seeing that the monarch may do what he desires without rendering any account of his acts? Even the best of all men, if he were placed in this disposition, would be caused by it to change from his wonted disposition: for insolence is engendered in him by the good things which he possesses, and envy is implanted in man from the beginning; and having these two things, he has all vice: for he does many deeds of reckless wrong, partly moved by insolence proceeding from satiety, and partly by envy. And yet a despot at least ought to have been free from envy, seeing that he has all manner of good things. He is however naturally in just the opposite temper towards his subjects; for he grudges to the nobles that they should survive and live, but delights in the basest of citizens, and he is more ready than any other man to receive calumnies. Then of all things he is the most inconsistent; for if you express admiration of him moderately, he is offended that no very great court is paid to him, whereas if you pay court to him extravagantly, he is offended with you for being a flatterer. And the most important matter of all is that which I am about to say:—he disturbs the customs handed down from our fathers, he is a ravisher of women, and he puts men to death without trial. On the other hand the rule of many has first a name attaching to it which is the fairest of all names, that is to say “Equality”; next, the multitude does none of those things which the monarch does: offices of state are exercised by lot, and the magistrates are compelled to render account of their action: and finally all matters of deliberation are referred to the public assembly. I therefore give as my opinion that we let monarchy go and increase the power of the multitude; for in the many is contained everything’.”

The three forms of government—monarchical, oligarchical, and democratic—are a perennial theme of Greek political thought that continues to echo through the history of Western civilization. Book III of Aristotle’s Politics goes into this in some detail.
After sending my essay off to Isonomia Quarterly I realized that one of the fundamental ambiguities about the idea of isonomia—and I would have included a footnote on this if I had thought of it sooner—is the ambiguity implicit in speaking in terms of the same law. What is it that is “the same” when we speak of the same law? “The same law” could mean that every particular law would apply to every particular person, or “the same law” could mean that the totality of the law, that is, the whole body of law, applies to the totality of the population. A body of law might involve different laws that apply differently to different persons, so that the second of the two senses does not entail the first of the two senses. If you read my essay you’ll find that I argue that the Greeks understood isonomia in the latter sense, so I won’t repeat that argument or the sources I cite for it here. But the fact that we might interpret a fundamental political idea in different ways poses the question of how these fundamental ideas outlined in antiquity apply to us today, if they do apply, and how they ought to apply now and in the future.
How will these traditional ideas be interpreted in future iterations of human society that might differ quite considerably from the world that we inhabit? How are we to understand isonomia within the context of a spacefaring civilization? For that matter, how are we to understand any classical Greek political theory in the context of future changes to society? For Westerners, this is our heritage, and how this tradition adapts or is adapted to changed conditions will give shape to the ongoing tradition of Western civilization.
In my essay I suggest that, on Earth to date, the expansion of political regimes has constituted what I call synchronic isonomia, when societies are distributed synchronically, that is to say, when they interact in the present across geographical distances. In a specifically legal context, this means the iteration of a body of law across a region of space. The possibility of what Frank White calls Large-Scale Space Migration would initially constitute synchronic expansion on a scale greater than that possible on Earth, but, if continued, it would eventually cross a threshold of diachronic isonomia, that is to say, when societies are distributed diachronically over time. In a specifically legal context, again, this means the iteration of a body of law, the same law, over a period of time. The strange, seemingly paradoxical aspect of this way of thinking is that the human scale of time could be distributed over a much larger cosmological scale of time while retaining its character as distinctively human history. I will try to explain how this could come about, but first I want to point out a peculiarity of terrestrial history that we haven’t seen as a peculiarity.
We are familiar with the idea that we see the universe form a peculiar point of view because we see it from the surface of a planet. Our planetary perspective has been the focus of the Copernican revolution, which has taught us that our apparently centrality in the universe is an artifact of our limited and parochial perspective. The Copernican revolution taught us to transcend our planetary perspective and to see the universe from a non-terrestrial perspective, but there is another aspect of the Copernican revolution that we haven’t yet explored, and that is seeing history from a non-terrestrial perspective. Part of this non-terrestrial perspective is simply to understand that, just as we are not in the center of space, we are also not in the center of time. But there’s more to it than this.
Einstein’s theory of relativity has made it possible for us to see time in a new way, and this can change the way we see history. In many of my episodes I have talked about the need to address the disconnect between philosophies of time and philosophies of history. History is constructed out of time, so a radical reconceptualization of time suggests a radical reconceptualization of history. The theory of relativity is such a radical reconceptualization of time, but many of the influences of relativity and gravity upon time are usually not noticed on a terrestrial scale, and all human history to date has occurred on terrestrial scale.
We can see the effects of relativity when we look out into the cosmos and use instruments to observe cosmological distances over which relatively is relevant, and to observe bodies so dense that they change the structure of spacetime. To date, our technologies have allowed us to measure the relativity of time under the influence of acceleration and gravitation, but we may, at some point in our history, develop technologies that allow us to interact with the universe at a scale at which relativity will change our history. When this eventuality comes to pass, we will eventually be forced to notice things about our history that hadn’t previously been problematic.
Our history to date has been the simplest possible history because it has all transpired on Earth. Earth is our sole inertial frame of reference for all historical events. There are relativistic effects within this inertial frame of reference, but they can only be detected by instruments of extreme precision because the influence of relativity lies below the threshold of human perception. For example, every planet drags its spacetime around with it as it rotates, which is known as frame-dragging. And even the relatively crude instruments of the nineteenth century could detect the perihelion precession of Mercury, which is an observable relativistic perturbation of the orbit of Mercury. This was first observed and noted to diverge from Newtonian predictions in 1859. These relativistic effects are, however, well below the threshold of impacting human history.
Technologies could change this. Relativistic space travel would be such a technology. This has been made famous by the so-called “twins paradox.” The twins paradox is invoked with greatest effect by the use of individuals to illustrate the difference between two clocks in different inertial frames of reference—usually a set of twins. This was called a paradox because it was initially thought to be impossible. We also saw this use of individuals to demonstrate the poignancy of time dilation in the film Interstellar. Here it is a father and daughter who are separated, with the father experiencing an accelerated inertial frame of reference, so that he returns, still a young man, to find his daughter dying as an old woman. This is great for drama, but this isn’t how any relativistic space settlement effort is going to play out, unless someone purposefully arranges something like this as a stunt.
Let us consider a simple example of what is more likely to occur. Suppose a settlement on another world established by several thousands of individuals, maybe tens or hundreds of thousands, like a small city, who travel to another planetary system, tens or hundreds or thousands of light years from Earth. The passengers on the starship in their accelerated inertial framework will experience time dilation, and they will preserve the cultural milieu of Earth has it was upon their launch. When they establish their settlement, there will be two human histories that bifurcate at the point in time when the interstellar settlement initiative was inaugurated.
However, the larger population on Earth will continue to drive cultural evolution at a far faster rate than in the settlement, while, in the settlement, human beings will be subjected to radically different selection pressures than prevailed on Earth, and they will also be a small community likely to retain the cultural milieu they possessed when they left Earth. We would then have two human histories, offset in time by the discontinuity of the relativistic travel time from Earth to the location of the settlement. For example, if the Earth and the settlement are a hundred light years apart, there would be a temporal discontinuity of a century. Life would go on at Earth, and a century later things would be different, but a century later the settlement would just be founded on the basis of Earth’s culture of a century before. This is a kind of historical complexity that we do not have today, but which could happen in the future.
Now imagine not one settlement, but a hundred or a thousand such settlements, each representing a temporal discontinuity from Earth’s history. A hundred settlements of ten thousand persons each would be an effort involving only a million persons, which is a very small proportion of the total human population; Earth wouldn’t even notice the absence of a million persons. Further, imagine travel among these settlements by relativistic spacecraft, and then the history of those who travel between settlements will be even more complex. In this context, depending upon the location of settlements relative to each other, and the date at which the settlement initiative was undertaken, an individual could effectively time travel into the past by traveling outward from Earth to a settlement that preserves the historical milieu at Earth at the time of its departure. You could not return to Earth without finding yourself accelerated into the future, but you could travel further outward to a settlement established from earlier in Earth’s history.
We get a similar, if slower result, if we substitute sub-relativistic spacecraft in conjunction with artificially induced torpor or hibernation—space arks, if you will. A slow boat to the stars would likewise preserve the culture of Earth from the time of its departure, with settlers being roused and resuming their lives once they reached the end of their journey, effectively cut off from a return to their familiar terrestrial milieu, but they would be able to visit other historical peer milieux if they take another slow boat further out into the cosmos.
The kind of distributed temporality that I am describing would achieve its greatest extent, and its greatest historical complexity, in the case of interstellar expansion. However, something similar could be realized on Earth at a smaller scale. Imagine a large scale hibernation project on Earth, such that about 10,000 persons are involved, enough so that there could be a rotating crew of a dozen or so that stays awake to tend the rest to make sure this continues to operate as intended. At some appointed time in the future, the whole community could be brought out of their hibernation and they would bring with them the culture of Earth from their date when they entered into hibernation, now displaced into the future. This would make it possible for temporally distributed communities to appear on Earth, without travel to other worlds or the use of relativistic technology. There are several science fiction stories with something like this as their approximate premise.
Whether through relativistic travel or human hibernation, historical communities could be preserved from all eras into some indefinite future, and in that indefinite future, these distinct historical communities would be synchronically present. This is what I call coevalism, when all ages of history are equally accessible. The idea of coevalism occurred to me many years ago, and not in connection with relativistic travel; I was thinking about the increasing fidelity of recording technologies. Written language is the most rudimentary form of recording technology, and is allows us the most rudimentary form of time travel, by being able to share the thoughts of those long dead. Since the industrial revolution, technologies have become much more sophisticated, with photographs, film, and sound recordings, with always-increasing fidelity to the original.
The rapid growth of computer technology and telecommunications in recent decades has made us aware that, if this arc of technological development continues, we will have nearly-perfect fidelity recordings. But in addition to recordings, we could generate states-of-affairs that never existed in fact, as in fantasy and science fiction, or we could generate the milieux of the past, both with a degree of fidelity equal to that of the present. Computers are already sufficiently sophisticated to generate simple films, and the reconstruction of past milieux can be done without computers as well.
In the original Westworld film on 1973, a past milieu was re-created using robots. Robotics hasn’t yet achieved this level of realism, but we could do this today with human actors, and we may yet do so someday with robots. In fact, we do this in a limited way. Theme parks re-create fantasy worlds populated with actors who make fantasy characters come to life. So coevalism can be realized at smaller scales than sparefaring civilizations, but it would be in a spacefaring civilizations with relativistic space travel in which the possibilities of coevalism would come to their fullest expression, and in which history would achieve its greatest complexity.
History is already extraordinarily complex, but I said earlier than our terrestrial history is the simplest history possible given the spacetime structure of the universe. It is when we begin distributing our civilization in cosmological time that historical complexity will cease to be a single linear continuum. The possibilities of spacefaring histories will be both facilitated and limited by our technology. These possibilities will also be facilitated and limited by the actual spacetime structure of the universe, which is a function of the distribution of matter in the universe. Just as terrestrial history has been shaped by oceans, mountain ranges, and rivers, cosmological history is shaped by stars, gravitation, and expansion, and human history that takes place within this cosmological context will be shaped by these forces. The point I want to make is that, while human history is complex, we are not necessarily limited by the complexity of the single inertial frame of reference of our homeworld.
When multiple inertial frames of reference are available to us, and travel between then is possible, the possible structures of history will dramatically expand, and with these possibilities human experience will dramatically expand, and I hope you can see how this can give a whole new meaning to the idea of speculative philosophy of history. In the conventional distinction between analytical philosophy of history and substantive philosophy of history, analytical philosophy of history is, according to Danto, “…philosophy applied to the special conceptual problems which arise out of the practice of history,” while substantive philosophy of history is a philosophical account of the historical process itself. This same distinction has also been called the distinction between critical and speculative philosophy of history by William Dray, and the distinction between formal and material philosophy of history by Maurice Mandelbaum. Here I emphasize speculative philosophy of history as that which reflects uon the actual historical process.
In addition to the speculative philosophy of history that considers the historical process, we can also imagine a speculative philosophy of history that concerns itself with the implications of speculative states-of-affairs upon history yet to come—historical processes not yet realized, but which may be realized someday. Many of the speculative states-of-affairs I can imagine involve human exploration and expansion into the cosmos. The speculative states-of-affairs we might encounter in the wider universe could involve scientific discoveries not yet made and technologies not yet constructed, the histories of life on other worlds and the histories of alien civilizations, as well as the histories that we will create for ourselves. It’s a big universe, and we might discover any number of unlikely or unprecedented existents.
In my episode on a complexity ladder for big history I argued that there may be distinctive emergents from historical knowledge, that is to say, the quantitative growth of historical knowledge may pass a threshold to become a qualitative change in historical understanding. What kind of emergents could these be? For example, an increase in the knowledge of our own history can change our understanding of ourselves. We are seeing this with the use of the genetic record to reconstruct the sequence by which human beings distributed themselves across Earth. In this way, epistemic emergents reshape our past and our understanding of ourselves.
In addition to these emergents from knowledge of our past, there may yet come emergents that arise from a temporally distributed civilization and the advent of coevalism. A temporally distributed civilization could also give rise to emergents in historical knowledge. The dawning realization of epistemic emergents yet to come in the future will shape our conception of what we can become (in contradistinction to increased knowledge of the past shaping what we are), reshaping our future, and we will need these epistemic emergents from a history of a greater order of complexity so as to understand the more complex world coming into being, and which our descendants will inhabit. Without these epistemic emergents we would not be able to understand the more complex world arising out of these novel technologies and the world they will bring into being. The future of philosophy of history has never been brighter, as we see that it will come to grappled with ever-larger and more complex problems.

Video Presentation

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Podcast Edition

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Vaping has become a popular hobby and a lifestyle choice for many, providing an alternative to traditional smoking methods. One common issue that can dampen the vaping experience is the rapid depletion of vape batteries. Why does this happen, and what can you do about it? This article aims to demystify the reasons behind quick battery drain and provide actionable tips to help you maximize your vaping sessions.

Understanding Vape Batteries

Before delving into the reasons behind your vape battery draining rapidly, it's vital to grasp the source of power for your device. Vape batteries serve not only as a power supply but also as the core of your vaping styles. Usually, these comprise lithium-ion batteries, recognized for their superior energy density and recharge capabilities.

Common Reasons for Quick Drain

Have you ever wondered why sometimes your vape loses charge faster than usual? Several factors contribute to this issue:

The Role of Device Type

The type of device you use plays a significant role in how quickly your battery drains. More advanced devices with larger tanks and more powerful coils require more power, thus draining batteries faster.

Impact of Vaping Habits

Your vaping habits also affect battery life. Frequent, heavy usage puts more strain on the battery. If you're a cloud chaser, producing large clouds of vapor, you're likely using your battery at higher wattages, which can deplete it more quickly.

Temperature Effects

Did you know that extreme temperatures can affect your battery’s performance? Cold conditions can cause batteries to drain faster because the chemical process in lithium-ion cells is slowed down, reducing efficiency.

Battery Age and Health

Just like any rechargeable battery, vape batteries wear out over time. An older battery will hold less charge than a new one, leading to frustrations if not monitored.

Importance of Proper Charging

Proper charging is pivotal to battery longevity. Using the correct charger and not leaving your battery to charge overnight are small steps that can extend its life.

Choosing the Right Battery

When selecting a battery, consider your device's requirements. Using a battery that isn’t suited for your device can lead to quicker depletion and potential safety issues.

Maintenance Tips

Regular maintenance can prolong the life of your battery. This includes cleaning the battery contacts and keeping the battery at a nominal charge level when unused.

Innovations in Battery Technology

Advancements in battery technology continue to improve the efficiency and longevity of vape batteries. Keeping up-to-date with these innovations can help you choose the best options available.

When to Replace Your Battery

Knowing when to replace your battery can prevent unexpected power losses. Typical signs include a noticeable decrease in performance and longer charging times.

Best Practices for Longevity

Implementing best practices for battery care can significantly extend your battery’s useful life. These include proper storage, regular calibration, and avoiding exposure to extreme temperatures.

To Wrap It Up

Understanding the factors that affect vape battery life and how to mitigate them can significantly enhance your vaping experience. By following the tips outlined in this article, you can ensure that your vape is always ready when you are.

Situation 1: Michelle, an international student, will be studying in Hualien County to obtain her degree and hopes to gain a better understanding of the National Health Insurance.
Q1: How and when can I obtain the NHI (National Health Insurance) card? A1: NHI stands for National Health Insurance, which is necessary for all individuals living in Taiwan. Of course, the process of obtaining NHI depends on your residency status as a foreigner living in Taiwan. Let's break down how and when you can get NHI!
Foreign Students If you've come to Taiwan to study at a university, getting NHI is quite straightforward. It's important to remember that foreigners can obtain NHI only after living continuously in Taiwan for six months on an ARC (Alien Resident Certificate), but you are allowed to leave the country once for up to 30 days during this 6-month period. After these six months, your university will collect insurance fees for each semester upon registration. As a student, you'll only need to pay the insurance fee, which is 826 NTD as of 2024, and then wait for notification from the university that your card is ready for collection. Insurance fees are collected from September to February in the first semester and from March to August in the second semester.
International students can be employed part-time in Taiwan. In this case, students with a steady part-time job should be registered in the program as employees through their employers. Don't forget to inform your university about this. The university will reimburse you a portion of the insurance fee you've already paid.
If you are seasonally employed, meaning you are a full-time student who only works during summer and winter vacations for fewer than 3 months and returns to school when classes resume, you do not need to change your enrollment status during the period of employment.
Foreign Workers A foreign worker must be registered in the National Health Insurance Program from the first day of employment. Therefore, those working in Taiwan are not subject to the six-month waiting period. Your employer should register you and be responsible for paying your insurance (formerly known as the "insurance registration organization").
If you're a company chairperson or owner, you need to set up your own insurance registration unit. If you have another primary job, you can be insured through that company or agency without enrolling as a responsible person.
If you're employed but don't have a fixed employer, like being a member of an occupational union, a farmers' or fishermen's association, or are actively involved in farming or fishing, you should enroll in the National Health Insurance through your respective union or association.
If you are working two jobs at the same time, then you should be registered in the NHI program through your main employer. Your main employer is the one where you work more hours; if the hours are similar, then income can be the deciding factor.
Unemployed foreigners If you are unemployed and qualify as a dependent, you should be registered in the NHI program through your employed spouse or direct blood relatives.
If you cannot be enrolled through your spouse or direct blood relatives, you are required to enroll in the program at the local administrative office where your household is registered, under the identity of a "regional citizen."
If you are an unemployed veteran or a dependent of a deceased veteran, then you can enroll in the program through the administrative office where your household is registered under the identity of "veteran."
For more information, please feel free to ask or refer to the NHI handbook (click the specific link below).
Q2: What medical services are covered by the NHI? A2: The National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan covers a wide range of medical services, such as: Outpatient services Inpatient services Emergency care Surgery Laboratory tests Prescription drugs Dental care Mental health services Traditional Chinese Medicine Rehabilitation services The medical payments include diagnosis, assessment, laboratory tests, consultations, surgical procedures, anesthesia, prescriptions, supplies, therapies, nursing care, and covered hospital accommodations. Essentially, all essential healthcare services are included in the system.
Q3: How can I understand the cost of services under NHI in advance? A3: Under Taiwan's National Health Insurance (NHI), patients are required to make co-payments for medical services, including hospital visits, outpatient care, prescription drugs, and various medical procedures.
Let's see a breakdown of typical co-payments for various medical services under NHI! Visiting a hospital or clinic with a referral: Co-payment for Medical Center with referral is fixed at 170 NTD. For Regional Hospital it is 100 NTD. For District Hospital it is 50 NTD. And for Clinic it is 50 NTD. Visiting a hospital directly without a referral costs more: Co-payment for Medical Center without referral is fixed at 420 NTD. For Regional Hospital it is 240 NTD. For District Hospital it is 80 NTD. And for Clinic co-payment remains fixed at 50 NTD. For visiting dentist and traditional Chinese clinics, the co-payment is fixed at 50 NTD regardless of the level of medical institution.
Important to know For patients with a disability identification, the basic co-payment is charged at the Clinic rate (NT$50) regardless of the level of medical institution visited by the patient.
The following situations are regarded as visits with referral: Follow-up visits within one month of a medical visit with a referral sheet, limited to a maximum of four times. The first follow-up visit after outpatient surgery, emergency surgery, or discharge from the hospital. The first follow-up visit within six weeks after childbirth. Therefore, the co-payment for such visits is charged according to the standards of medical visits with referral, and hospitals may issue relevant certificates for patients. During a course of treatment, patients only need to pay the co-payment for their initial visit (excluding rehabilitative physical therapy and Traditional Chinese Medicine traumatology).
Emergency Care Co-payment Standard: Medical Center: 740 NTD Regional Hospital: 400 NTD District Hospital: 150 NTD Clinic: 150 NTD Near-poor Households/Individuals with Disabilities: Medical Center: 550 NTD Regional Hospital: 300 NTD District Hospital: 150 NTD Clinic: 150 NTD
Co-payment cost for outpatient prescribed drugs
Regular prescriptions: If the cost of the medication is equal to or less than 100 NTD: In Clinics and District Hospitals: Patients are exempt from co-payment (no co-payment). In Regional Hospitals and Medical Centers: The co-payment is 10 NTD. If the cost of the medication is equal to or greater than 101 NTD:
In all levels of medical institutions, an additional 20% will be charged for every 100 NTD. For example, if the price of medication is in the 101-200 NTD range, then the co-payment is 20 NTD; if in the 201-300 NTD range, then the co-payment is 40 NTD. In Clinics and District Hospitals: If the medication cost starts from 1001 NTD, the upper limit for co-payment is reached, and the co-payment is fixed at 200 NTD. In Regional Hospitals and Medical Centers: If the medication cost is in the range from 1001-1500 NTD, the co-payment is fixed at 200 NTD.If the medication cost starts from 1501 NTD, the upper limit of co-payment is reached at 300 NTD.
Refillable prescriptions: In Clinics: Patients are exempted from the co-payment. In District Hospitals, Regional Hospitals, and Medical Centers: The first time filling a refillable prescription follows the same rules as outlined above for regular prescriptions. From the second refill onwards, patients are exempted from the co-payment.
Important to know For Traditional Chinese medication co-payment, the same system as that of Clinics is used. Costs under 100 NTD are exempt; for costs equal to or greater than 101 NTD, an additional 20% will be charged for every 100 NTD. At Dental Clinics, outpatient prescription drug expenses are exempted from co-payment. Emergency Care Prescription: For Clinics and District Hospitals: 150 NTD For Regional Hospitals: 400 NTD. For Medical Centers: 750 NTD. I hope now you have a better understanding of how to calculate the cost of medical services under NHI. Feel free to ask more questions or refer to this webpage (click the specific link below).
Q4: What services are completely free under NHI? A4: With NHI, you can access a wide range of medical services at very affordable prices, and some services are fully covered! However, it's always a good idea to ask your doctor or a consultant at the hospital/clinic about which services will be covered.
Let's break down what kind of services can be fully covered under NHI: Basic Medical Examinations: These are routine tests to check your health, like measuring blood pressure, checking cholesterol levels, and assessing kidney function through urine tests. Preventive Services like Vaccinations and Screenings: This includes vaccines to protect against diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella, as well as screenings for diseases like cancer or diabetes. These screenings aim to catch health problems early for easier treatment. Essential Surgeries: These surgeries are necessary to treat a medical condition and improve health or save lives. For example, removing an appendix, fixing a broken bone, or treating a serious infection. Hospital Stays in General Rooms: This means staying in a hospital room shared with other patients (one room with 3 beds or more) and having basic facilities. General rooms provide standard care for conditions that don't require intensive monitoring or specialized equipment. Some Prescription Medications: Certain medicines prescribed by doctors are fully covered by NHI, so patients can get them from the pharmacy without paying anything. These often include essential medications for common conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and infections. Medications with a cost below 100 NTD will be fully covered or will require a 10 NTD co-payment. Dental care: Most medications prescribed by dentists are fully covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI). However, it's important to note that full-mouth anesthesia is not covered. Also, you have the right to receive two dental cleanings per year fully covered, allowing the general public to get dental calculus removal. People with tooth decay may be eligible, depending on a dentist's evaluation, for fluoride varnish treatment. As long as the cavity does not reach the pulp (where the tooth's nerves and blood vessels are located), it can be fully covered by the National Health Insurance (NHI). Generally, the National Health Insurance (NHI) will cover the extraction of wisdom teeth, supernumerary teeth, and impacted teeth. However, extractions for corrective purposes (teeth that are intact and without decay problems) will not be covered by NHI.
Medical expenses in Taiwan are relatively inexpensive, so don't worry about spending a lot of money when seeing a doctor. Therefore, don't be afraid to go to the hospital.
Q5: In which hospitals can I utilize NHI services, specifically at Hualien hospitals? A5: Here is the list of hospitals in Hualien in Chinese (the English version will be posted and updated later). But if we talk about the most popular hospitals in Hualien where you can definitely get assistance in English, then we can list these hospitals: Mennonite Christian Hospital Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital Hualien Hospital Smiles-Dental
Q6: Is it possible to receive NHI consultation in English? A6: Yes! It is possible to receive NHI consultation in English! The back of the NHI card has a hotline number for inquiries: 0800-030-598, or by mobile phone call 02-412-8678. Calling the number is free of charge.