By the Numbers

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

How Jesus Gave Human Life Value

How Jesus Gave Human Life Value

Few people realize that Jesus has transformed human life in every area His influence is felt. Jesus brought the West out of barbarianism. But, it’s not mentioned in revised history. It’s attacked by the liberal media, and scoffed at by atheists and skeptics. It’s not valued in cold backslidden churches, and hardly known or realized even by true believing Christians. Let’s look at the many areas where Jesus has lifted humanity out of barbarianism giving human life value.
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Jesus saved the life of children. Jesus said whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me (Matt. 18:5). 
Child sacrifice was common in the ancient world. We read in the Bible of the Baal and Ashtoreth worshippers who practiced child sacrificed. Archaeologists digging up a cemetery a few feet from their temple uncovered jars containing remains of infants. Human life was cheap in the East as in classical Greece, Rome, Europe, India, Japan and China so that abortion, infanticide, abandonment, and exposure were commonplace.
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Infirm and unwanted babies would be taken to the forest or the mountainside to be eaten by wild animals, or starved, or picked up by strange people who crept around at night for whatever suited their desires. Then as now, it was more often the human life of female babies considered inferior. Of course, many children were born since men of all ages slept with their slaves. And due to famine, illness, and exposure, only about half of the many children born lived past the age of eight. In ancient Rome, a father held absolute authority over his children. He could kill them, sell them as slaves, marry them off, divorce them, or confiscate their property. It was indeed dangerous to be born in ancient times. Human life was so cheap in the ancient world.
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When the Son of God took on the nature and body of a human child, he established human dignity created in God’s image. So, Christian believers in Rome saved many of the castaway babies to bring them up in the Christian faith. Abortion and abandonment disappeared in the early Church. Christians began foundling homes and orphanages to save children. When Jesus said God was our Father that radically altered the attitudes fathers should have toward their children. Based on the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, it laid the foundation and brought about our laws of child protection in the West we today call normal and natural. The church fought and overcame abortion repeatedly to save human life but it always returns when Christian influence wanes.
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The only choice today’s Planned Parenthood gives pregnant girls is killing their baby on Wednesday or on Friday, and of cutting their helpless screaming infant in pieces, burning them with acid, or sticking a stake in the back of their head. Who knows but that that murdered human life might have become a genius making great contributions to our world. And the girls experience trauma, guilt and regret the rest of their lives.
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Jesus elevated the position of women. The men who caught the woman in the act of adultery were shamed and walked away unable to caste a stone at her. Jesus asked her where her accusers were. When she replied there were none, Jesus said, “neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more” (John 8:9-11). The woman of Samaria said to Jesus, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans (John 4:9). Since the woman was caught in the act of adultery, so was the man. But nothing was done about him. Why? If the woman deserved stoning, so did the man according to Jewish law and being guilty of the same sin. Isn’t this an unfair double standard? Also, notice that Jesus didn’t treat the Samaritan woman with contempt as his fellow Jews, but with respect even though a sinner. Jesus is to be the Christian’s example.
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Women have always been abused throughout the world. And it can’t be blamed on Eve’s sin. Since Adam was to be head of the family and God specifically warned him about eating the forbidden fruit, he should have stopped Eve from eating. Moreover, the husband being bigger and stronger and the wife being helpless in pregnancy, shows he is to protect and provide for his family and she is to nurture it. Except for gender, both receive genes from both parents so neither is inferior to the other but made for essential rolls that happen to be different. Men abusers are without excuse.
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Aristotle thought a woman’s status somewhere between a free man and a slave. Plato believed cowardly men would be reincarnated as a woman. In ancient times, women were the property of their husbands. The Quran of Islam says women can be denied sex, beaten, and divorced, but wives can’t divorce husbands. Some Muslim countries degrade women requiring them to wear a black gown with only their eyes showing. Often they aren’t permitted to drive a vehicle or go to school. In Christ all persons are to be shown respect and the dividing wall is broken down (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11; Eph. 2;14). Jesus elevates human life everywhere his teachings are believed and practiced.
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Modern missionaries were shocked and horrified by the treatment of women in Eastern countries. In India, Hindus practiced suttee that meant that a wife was to be burned to death on her husband’s funeral pyre. Young girls could be killed or made temple prostitutes. In Africa, the chieftain’s wives and concubines (sex slaves) were killed when he died. Men may even use a woman hitched with an ox to plow a field. It’s hard to understand why modern feminists berate Christianity when historically it freed and ennobled womanhood.
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Jesus’ influence overtime eradicates slavery. Slavery came about through people captured in wars, inheritance, or voluntarily submission to pay a dept. Slavery was common in all the ancient world but Jews gave them rights, had humane laws, and freed them if injured and in the year of Jubilee. It’s estimated a third to half of the Roman Empire was slaves and the slave owner could kill his slave at whim. Slaves had no dignity and no rights in society or the state. They could be beaten, sold, or murdered. If their master was murdered, all his slaves were put to death maybe fed to alligators.
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Aristotle referred to slaves as a “living tool.” Female slaves were given for nightly convenience of guests. People of the same race enslaved each other and the gods had no pity on them. Gladiators were slaves who hacked themselves to pieces in the coliseum until the fifth century monk Telemachus jumped into the arena pleading for them to stop. He was stoned for interfering with the crowd’s amusement but the emperor then put a stop to it and made him a Christian martyr. Muslims still take slaves in Africa today.
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Skeptics of Christianity criticize it for not abolishing slavery. Biblical Christianity laid the basis of abolishing slavery but it was slow to take root in our depraved prideful hearts. Plantation owners in the southern states of America argued that slavery existed in Bible times so it was justified. But the real reason was that slaves make their owners rich. Had the civil war not occurred, slavery might have died out. Many Christians and ministers helped runaway slaves escape through the underground railroad. Had the apostles told Christian slave owners to free their slaves, the Roman Caesars would have crucified both the Christians and the slaves just as the Spartacus slave rebellion was crushed and thousands of slaves crucified. Those skeptics seem to ignore all this and give Jesus no credit for giving dignity to human life.
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The Bible argues against slavery and for human freedom. All persons are created in God’s image, descended from the same parents, have the same blood, thus have the same rights to dignity, respect, and fair treatment (Gen. 1:27; Acts 17:26). God’s apostle Paul told Philemon to treat his runaway now Christian slave Onesimus as a beloved brother (Phil. 15-16). In Christ, masters are to treat slaves, as they would want the Lord to treat them. We’re to show no difference among peoples (Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:8-10; Eph. 6:5-9). All this was unthinkable in the ancient world. The great evangelical statesman, William Wilberforce, fought in the English parliament to free the slaves and on his deathbed-received word the bill was passed and 700,000 British Empire slaves were freed.
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The Christian biblical faith alone frees us from slavery to every sin. It gives us motives and power to live Godly lives in this wicked world. Jesus’ teaching eliminates barbarianism and establishes human dignity, rights, and ethical standards. Human babies were dumped outside ancient city walls so the poorest people could find something to cook for food. Aztecs and others killed thousands of their enemies as offerings to their gods. People too believed that killing their enemies gave them their enemy’s strength. Where the gospel has not penetrated and leaders know nothing of God’s love and grace, they may take their own lives rather than face the shame and disgrace of failure. Pontius Pilate, the Emperors Nero and Hadrian, the Stoic philosopher Seneca and others did this. The ancient Stoic philosophy was that suicide was a person’s choice. The Japanese thought it an honor to show how a Samurai could die with a sword in his belly.
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Human life had little value until the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ came to dwell in human hearts and lives. Few persons today realize conditions prevalent in ancient times. They have little or no idea of the impact Jesus and the Bible have had on the western world. In ancient cultures, it was common to have human sacrifice, cannibalism, head hunting, suicide. If we human beings are of little worth, what could be wrong with such things? If cows or pigs are worth more to you than babies or women, or slaves, why be concerned with what happens to them? If killing another person brings you his power, then that’s to your advantage. If we are all just another kind of animal that returns to the dirt, why care? If gaining power and control is your only concern, then why not lie, steal, or murder to gain it? And, if evolution is true, then your murderer is the fittest. With Christian influence waning in the West, we are once again returning to this way of thinking and acting which will have disastrous consequences.  Tyranny and slavery will be the result. Our lives will mean nothing.
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Jesus and the Bible lifted us out of this to a higher plane but that has not been passed on to following generations. We have succumbed to evolutionary naturalism. The Bible warns, “He who sins against me (God) wrongs his own soul’; All those who hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36).
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The Christian worldview teaches we are created in the mental moral immortal image of God. We will answer to God for how we obeyed his moral law. This gives us all dignity, rights and a moral standard to uphold. We cannot long enjoy the fruits of Christianity by cutting ourselves off from their roots in Jesus and the Bible. Thinking ourselves wise in rejecting Jesus and God’s Word, we are descending into darkness. The value of human life will diminish, and all the evils of pre-Christian influence will return.
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There is still time if we will turn to real faith in the Lord and forsake our sin. Commitment of life to the Savior of sinners will restore our Godly heritage, human value, and avert disaster. Won’t you make an honest commitment to trust in the Savior, have Him for your life Guide, and tell others about His deliverance from sin and Hell?
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These researched books further substantiate other articles showing the benefits of Jesus & the Bible.
Dr. D. James Kennedy & Jerry Newcombe. What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?
Dr. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe. What if the Bible Had Never Been Written?
Jerry Newcombe. The Book That Made America.
Earle E. Cairns. Christianity In The United States.
John W. Whitehead. The Stealing Of America.
Erwin W. Lutzer. When A Nation Forgets God.
Newt Gingrich. Rediscovering God in America.
Mike Huckabee. Do the Right Thing.
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