Tag Archives: Bible

Lessons single Christians can learn from the life of Whitney Houston.

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Whitney HoustonFor the last couple of weeks we have seen news story after news story about the life and death of legendary singer Whitney Houston. We have seen and heard the good, the bad, and the ugly about Whitney Houston. We have seen and heard the good news regarding her singing career. We have seen and heard the bad news of her failed marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown and all that was involved in it. We sadly have seen and heard the ugly news of Whitney Houston’s last days which included a lot of drinking, boisterous partying, and unseeming behavior. As I followed the news of Whitney Houston’s life and death, one thing particularly stood out to me which explains, at least in part, the reason for the downfall of Whitney Houston. This reason is connected, I think, to her marriage to Bobby Brown. If Whitney Houston was in fact a Christian, her downfall could have been avoided simply from heeding Scripture. If Whitney Houston was not in fact a Christian, then her downfall is only explainable as being due to sin and wrong choices. In this blog I will deal with the argument of if Whitney Houston was a Christian, then her downfall could have been avoided by simply heeding to the Bible she quoted from (especially in her last days of life).

On July 18, 1992 Whitney Houston married singer Bobby Brown. The wedding was conducted by Pastor Marvin L. Winans of Perfecting Church in Detroit, Michigan. Now if you the reader are a discerning Bible believer you should already know where I am going with this; but if you are not, then let us go through this argument together.

If Whitney Houston was in fact a Christian, then this marriage should have never happened to begin with. The Bible itself tells us the reason why. In 2nd Corinthians 6:14a, “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” This passage of Scripture applies to all types of relationships including dating and marriage. To my knowledge, I don’t know of a time when Bobby Brown ever claimed to be a Christian. By knowing how drinking and drugs was a regular part of the marriage, I believe it is safe to conclude that Bobby Brown was probably doing the same thing before and during his dating period with Whitney Houston. If this is the case, then by Whitney Houston dating and ultimately marrying Bobby Brown she failed to heed the command of 2nd Corinthians 6:14a. In disobeying any command of God found in the Bible, there are consequences and in this case it isn’t any different. The consequences that Whitney ended up facing goes with another passage of Scripture Whitney Houston failed to heed.

In 1st Corinthians 15:33 it reads, “Do not be deceived: ‘Evil company corrupts good habits.'” Prior to marrying Bobby Brown, I think most, if not all, would agree that Whitney Houston had a decent moral reputation. There were no reports of any sort of immorality whatsoever. After Whitney married Bobby, however, we soon began to hear and read the reports of her drug problem with crack and marijuana. We began to hear of her drinking problems. We began to see her behavior turn from the music industry’s sweetheart to a person of wild and immoral behavior. This change of behavior clearly began after her marriage to Bobby Brown. As Whitney openly admitted in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, she wouldn’t drink or do drugs without Bobby. Sadly after Whitney and Bobby divorced in 2007, Whitney never fully recovered and returned to the moral kind of woman she was before her marriage.

Many fans blame Bobby Brown for Whitney’s moral decline and downfall which eventually lead to her death. Whitney’s failure to heed these Scriptures plus Amos 3:3, however, plays a vital role as well. Whitney’s bad choices led her down an immoral and godless path of living which she was unable to recover from.

Consequently if Whitney Houston was a Christian, then single Christians need to take serious notes on what can happen if they date and marry an unbeliever by looking back at what happened to Whitney Houston. Marrying an unbeliever can cause good habits and moral godly behavior to die and decay while evil, immoral, and ungodly habits grow in its place. I haven’t read of Whitney Houston ever going to the Church for help after her divorce, but for the Christian who does fall into this situation, they must run to the Church for the spiritual help he/she needs in order to recover. It is far better, however, to heed the commands in God’s Word when it comes to marriage so that the single Christian can avoid unnecessary pain and spiritual entrapment due to a sinful marriage with an unrepentant sinful mate.

On a different but brief note, it is to bad Pastor Marvin L. Winans didn’t heed to the Scriptures himself as a suppose “Man of God”. For if he would have done so, he wouldn’t have approved of Whitney and Bobby getting married and would have refused to marry them. If Whitney Houston was in fact a Christian, then Pastor Marvin L. Winans is partly responsible for Whitney’s moral and possible spiritual downfall by willingly marrying them. I hope and pray he sees the tragic mistake he made by conducting and joining Whitney and Bobby in marriage and the tragic outcome that followed through the rest of Whitney Houston’s life.

What Translation are you reading from?

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On a cold Monday morning I was picked up by my future mother-in-law so I could do my laundry at her house. As we was talking about current events like the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong II, she switched to how church went this past Sunday. As she shared with me these things, she told me that her pastor read from the New World Translation…from the pulpit! I was shocked to hear this! A Christian minister reading from the bible of the Jehovah’s Witnesses? But you may be asking the question, “What is wrong with the New World Translation? Is it just another version of the Bible?” To answer that question and to understand how tragic it was for a Christian minister to preach from it before his congregation on a Sunday morning, let us examine The New World Translation to see if it is just another version of the Holy Scriptures or a translation to be shun from the pulpit of the Christian Church.

The New World Translation was first published in 1950 by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society under its president Nathan Norr. In the years following the New World Translation would be revised several times in 1961, 1970, 1971, and presently its 1984 translation. But why so many revisions? The reason for so many revisions was because of essential doctrinal issues the Christian Church had and still have with the Jehovah’s Witnesses–such as the deity of Jesus and whether or not Jesus should be given worship like one gives worship to God. The Christian Church from its inception has held to the divinity of Jesus and the belief that He is to be worshiped because He is God in human flesh–the second person of the Triune Godhead. Not so, however, for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witnesses deny that Jesus is God and they deny that Jesus is to be worshiped. According to Jehovah’s Witnesses Jesus is “a god”(John 1:1, NWT) the first creation of Jehovah God. So since God alone is to be worshiped (Exodus 20:5), then Jesus, a created being, cannot be worshiped.

There was a huge problem for the Jehovah’s Witnesses when they held to these doctrinal views such as the rejection of Jesus being worshiped–they contradicted their own bible! In the 1961 and 1970 New World Translation in Hebrews 1:6 it renders the verse as saying, ” But when he again brings his First-born into the inhabited earth, he says: ‘ And let all God’s angels worship him'”. Now if the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that their bible is the inspired Word of God–and they do–why then did they contradict the teaching of God Almighty as presented in His own Word? The answer to the question is simple and easy: The New World Translation is not the Word of God. This became evident when the 1971 New World Translation was released. In Hebrews 1:6 it now reads, ” But when he again brings his First-born into the inhabited earth, he says: ‘ And let all God’s angels do obeisance to him.'” Obeisance means, “A bow made to show respect or submission(Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus).” This word in no way implies worship in any way. If the New World Translation is the Word of God, has God changed His mind about what He told His angels to do? Did God have an “oops” moment or a short mental relapse and is now correcting His mistakes which is a huge theological one at that? If we believe God is perfect by nature then we must reject such reasons. We must therefore conclude that either the god of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is a finite being who is subject to making mistakes and changes or the New World Translation is the word of The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. These two reasons are the only reasons for such a radical change in Hebrews 1:6 from the 1970 to the 1971 New World Translation.

Therefore the pastor at my future mother-in-law’s church should have never preached from the New World Translation because it is not the Word of God. It is the word of the Watchtower organization and ultimately the words of Satan himself.The New World Translation is a defiled and corrupt translation of God’s holy Word and no Christian pastor should ever preach from anything other than the Word of the Lord. To preach from such a corrupt book is to usher in the demonic and satanic into the House of God. How sickening is the thought of such a thing! It is my prayer that this pastor and others who have done so will get on their knees before God and repent because the job of the pastor is to be a shepherd of the flock–his congregation–and protect them with the infallible and inerrant Word of God.

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