Our Moral Foundations

 For centuries Western Civilization has embraced the Ten Commandments as the bedrock for law and conduct. But, in the twenty-first century, such an assumption no longer holds true. Bit by bit the Ten Commandments are being chiseled from their central position in our culture.

 In 2001, after a two-year legal battle, a 5,280 lb. granite Ten Commandments monument was removed from the rotunda of the Alabama State Capital.

 In 2004 the Sixth District Court of Appeals in Kentucky ruled that the Ten Commandments could no longer be displayed in public schools and courthouses. To do so, the court ruled, would be an endorsement of religion.

 In 2014, followers of the pagan faith, Wicca, sued the city of Bloomfield, N.M. over a 3,000 pound Ten Commandments monument that stood in front of the City Hall. The court ruled the monument had to be removed as a violation of First Amendment rights.

 In June 2015 the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the presence of the Ten Commandments on the capitol grounds was unconstitutional. On October 5, under cover of darkness, the 4,800 lb. slab of stone was moved from the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds to a private location.

 

In 2025 at least 3 states passed laws requiring the Commandments be displayed in school classrooms. District courts ruled the laws unconstitutional. The issue appears headed to the Supreme Court.

 

These reflect sensitive legal issues in our nation that values freedom of religion and separation of church and state. But what is more disturbing than the removal of monuments is the removal of the Ten Commandments from our consciousness.  Few can name them. Stop for a minute and see if you can recall all ten of the commandments?  Can our children or grandchildren quote them?   If we don’t know the Ten Commandments, how can they guide us in our values and action?

 Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mathew 5:17-19). He went on to apply the Commandments at a deeper level than anyone imagined.

 The first four of the Ten Commandments tell us how to have a healthy relationship with God.  The next six tell us how to have healthy relationships with each other. 

 Zhao Xiao, a leading economist in China, researched America’s secret to prosperity. He concluded, “... the key to America’s commercial success is not its natural resources, its financial system or its technology but its churches.  ... The market economy is efficient because it discourages idleness, but it can also encourage people to lie and injure others.  It thus needs a moral underpinning.”  Xiao’s conclusions are remarkably similar to Alexis de Tocqueville’s in 1840. Democracy survives and thrives where moral values prevail.

Tinsley's book, The Jesus Encounter is FREE Jan 6-8 as an eBook on Amazon.  Stories of people in the Bible who met Jesus: Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, etc. 

Remembering Those Who Help Us Face the Future

 A year ago we welcomed 2025 as a bouncing baby boy, wearing nothing but a diaper, a top hat and a sash.  In these final days, we are watching 2025 shuffle off the stage, beaten, bruised and battered, with shaggy hair and slumped shoulders, his sash tattered and torn. 

 Along the way we said goodbye to celebrities who shaped our landscape: Pope Francis, who inspired us to live out our faith in simplicity and love for the poorest among us.  Robert Redford who entertained us as the Sundance Kid, Roy Hobbs, and Bob Woodward in All the President’s Men. Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Gene Hackman, George Foreman, Rob Reiner, JFK's granddaughter, Tatiana Schlossberg. There are many others.

.More importantly, we remember those whose names few others know. We remember those who, in quiet ways with little fanfare, inspired us with courage, faith and love, family and friends who left legacies of faith and courage. 

 I think of my brother, Richard, who remained optimistic and cheerful through five years as a diabetic double amputee. He died in March at the age of 81. My wife’s sister, Barbara, lived a life of faith seeking to bless others. She died in 2022 surrounded by her children, grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. I still see the smile on her face when we visited on the beautiful edge of eternity.

 I remember my father.  When he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1974 he volunteered for experimental drugs, knowing the risk. He died 2 years later at age 53 leaving a legacy of courage, faith and friendship.  The day before he died, he sent a get-well card to a friend on another floor of the hospital where he was fighting for his life. My mother lived as a widow for 35 years and, like my father, left a legacy of faith, courage and love.  The day before she died she visited with her grandchildren, prayed with them and blessed them.  She was 89.

I could list many more, but you get the idea.  You have family and friends who have gone on before who can inspire and encourage you! 

 The Bible teaches us to look back and remember people who can inspire us.  Hebrews 11 gives a long list of those who left a legacy of faith: Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets. 

 As we turn our eyes toward 2026, we can draw from those who have blessed our lives. We can face our challenges with courage and hope. As the Hebrews writer concludes, “Seeing we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Christmas Every Day

 It is the Christmas season!  Entire streets sparkle with multi-colored lights.  Christmas music echoes in the malls.  Traditional performances inspire us: The Messiah, The Nutcracker; A Christmas Carol; White Christmas along with children’s pageants at school and church.  What would Christmas be without 6 and 7 year-old magi, shepherds and angels retelling the story while parents capture it all on video?   

 Holiday movies dominate our screens, big and small: It’s A Wonderful Life!; Miracle on 34^th Street; The Grinch Who Stole Christmas; The Santa Clause and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever which I watched with my grandchildren.  The Herdmans got it right.

 We search for Christmas in the spectacular: the spectacular event, spectacular lights, the spectacular gift. We want to re-create the perfect Christmas moment that we wish exemplified our lives. 

 The first Christmas had little resemblance to our contemporary traditions. The birth of Christ occurred in the chaos of the common and the ordinary: a common stable surrounded by common animals in a common village.  Few took notice. There was no extravaganza staged in the cities. The angels’ announcement occurred in a remote region with only a few simple shepherds present.  The Magi, who observed the star in the east, came and went almost unnoticed.  

 It was for the common and the ordinary that Christ came.  He grew up in a carpenter’s shop in the remote village of Nazareth.  He owned no house and had no possessions.  He had no place to lay his head.  And, after a brief public ministry in which he healed and taught thousands, he died upon a common cross outside Jerusalem and was buried in a borrowed tomb.  In birth, life and death, Jesus redeemed the common and the ordinary and elevated each of us to an extraordinary relationship with God. 

 The first Christmas was an “out of control” event for Mary and Joseph.  The tax summons that took them to Bethlehem could not have come at a worse time.  The baby was due.  She was in no condition for such a long and arduous journey. When they arrived, the town was a bedlam of people.  No one wanted to be there.  They had come because they were obligated under Roman law. Of course, it was not out of God’s control. What appeared to be an onerous obligation and an inconvenient time was actually a fulfillment of prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. 

 Perhaps God planned it this way to teach us that His intervention must be experienced in the common and the ordinary chaos of life. When we look for Christmas in the spectacular, we can only experience it once a year. But when we discover Christmas in the common and the chaotic, it can change our life every day.

Marriage - A Journey

 Next week my wife and I will celebrate our 57th anniversary. I always thought people who reached their 50^th were old.  Why aren’t we?  I still feel young when I look in her eyes. We blew past our 50^th.  

  December 21, 1968 we exchanged vows.  I lifted her veil, kissed her and we left the altar hand-in-hand to start a journey that has spanned more than half a century.  We left the church in my 1960 Chevy Impala, the kind with fins. I opened her door, she took her seat, and we started our journey.  No seatbelts! Apollo 8 launched the day we were married, the first manned flight to leave earth’s orbit.  Neither of us imagined the journey we started that day would take us “to the moon and back.”  Or so it seems.

 We have embraced orphans in Brazil and watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace; viewed Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel and visited St Peter’s Basilica; walked along the canals of Venice; stood on the mountains overlooking Salzburg; watched the striking of the clock in Prague; spent a summer in  Nuremburg and rode the trains across Bavaria;  visited Luther’s House in Wittenburg and Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s home in Berlin; toured the DMZ between North and South Korea, met at 6 am to pray with believers at a Korean church in Seoul.  We stood where Jesus stood on he shore of the Sea of Galilee and walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem.

 You can go a lot of places and see a lot of things in 50 years.

 We have experienced sorrow and loss, the death of parents and loved ones. We have wept beside their caskets, said our goodbyes and comforted one another.  We have known discouragement and disappointment.  We have celebrated victory and accomplishment. We have wondered in awe at the miracle of children and grandchildren.  We have experienced God’s presence, seen His glory and worshipped in many languages.

 At our wedding my college roommate sang Savior Like A Shepherd Lead Us.  It is still our song.

Savior, like a shepherd lead us, much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, for our use Thy folds prepare.
We are Thine, Thou dost befriend us, be the Guardian of our way;
Keep Thy flock, from sin defend us, seek us when we go astray.
Thou hast promised to receive us, poor and sinful though we be;
Thou hast mercy to relieve us, grace to cleanse and pow’r to free.
Early let us seek Thy favor, early let us do Thy will;
Blessed Lord and only Savior, with Thy love our bosoms fill.

Our faith, our gratitude and our love for one another is far deeper than it was on the day we climbed into my ’60 Chevy.  We know that old age will come, dying will come and our parting will come.  But we know better than we knew in our youth that His grace is sufficient.  His promise is true.  “You who have been borne by Me from birth and have been carried from the womb; even to your old age I will be the same, and even to your graying years I will bear you! I have done it, and I will carry you; and I will bear you and I will deliver you,” (Isaiah 46:3-5)

My book, The Jesus Encounter, is FREE as an eBook on Amazon this week, Dec. 16-20.

Christmas and Prejudice

 We are entering the Christmas season, for many a season for fairies, elves and fantasy.  But the Christmas of history is much more than that.  It is full of undercurrents that speak to issues we face daily.  Increasingly we must deal with prejudice, suspicion, resentment that is often fueled by politicians. These issues are intertwined with the Christmas story and the life of Jesus.

 The presence of the Magi at Bethlehem is not an afterthought.  They are integral to the larger purposes of God at the nativity.  They represent the fulfillment of prophecy that the newborn babe was sent, “at the fulness of time,” for all peoples. Isaiah wrote: “I will appoint You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison,” (Isaiah 42:6-7).

 The record of Herod’s slaughter of Bethlehem’s male children two years and younger reminds us that rulers have always found a way to inflict violence on the innocent.  Jesus was spared only because Joseph, warned in a dream, took his wife and child to Egypt.  They became refugees seeking safety like the Somalians and many others who seek safety in the United States.

 Jesus’ family returned to Nazareth when the danger dissipated with Herod’s death.  It was there that Jesus matured into manhood.  After launching his public ministry those who had known him as a young adult rejected him.  “ Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are His sisters not here with us?” And they took offense at Him,” (Mark 6:3). 

  Their offense was heightened when he attacked their prejudice, reminding them that Elijah ministered to a Sidonian widow rather than an Israelite, and that Elisha did not heal lepers in Israel, but Naaman, a Syrian.  As a result, Luke says “ they got up and drove Him out of the city, and brought Him to the crest of the hill on which their city had been built, so that they could throw Him down from the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went on His way,” (Luke 4:29-30).

 He ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, made friends with Samaritans, healed the servant of a Roman centurion.  In Jerusalem the religious leaders were incensed because Jesus violated their prejudices and undercut their traditions. Consequently, they crucified him.

 We want to reject those who are not like us.  We are threatened by those who hold different beliefs, speak different languages, observe different customs.  We must always be on guard for the dark shadow of prejudice that stalks us all.  Jesus taught us to embrace all people of every nationality and every ethnicity.  During this Christmas season, and any season, we must not dismiss anyone as “garbage.”

Tinsley's novel, Bold Springs, is free on Amazon eBook Dec. 9-13.  Reader's Favorite chose it as Best Christian Historical Fiction, 2022. 

Putting Jesus' Words Into Practice

 Twelve years ago, world leaders including then President Obama and former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter traveled to South Africa for Nelson Mandela’s funeral.  Mandela died December 1, 2013.  

 As a young black lawyer in South Africa, Mandela became the leader in the movement to eliminate apartheid, the South African set of laws that discriminated against Blacks and Asians.  When his influence became a threat to those in power, he was imprisoned at Robben Island for 27 years. Mandela emerged from prison unbroken, taking up his earlier mantra to live for freedom or to die for it.  He was swept to power as President of South Africa four years after his release.

 Mandela’s story would be remarkable simply because he was able to rise from rural obscurity to national and international prominence.  It is more remarkable given his election as President of South Africa after spending 27 years in prison as an enemy of the government.  But it is most remarkable because when he was bestowed with power as President, he refused retaliation and chose forgiveness and reconciliation.

 How did he come to this position?  How did he rise above the natural passions of vengeance, hatred and corruption that control most men, especially those who come to power?

 

In his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela states that he early became a member of the Methodist church, like his mother, and started his education in a Methodist school run by missionaries.  Later, when he was a young man he “became a member of the Students Christian Association and taught Bible classes on Sundays in neighboring villages.”  Perhaps in those early beginnings the seeds of his ultimate success were sown. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote, “ I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come about through the missionary work of the Church."

 But the record of Christian influence in South Africa, as elsewhere, has its issues. In South Africa as in the American pre-Civil War South, the systems of racial subjugation and prejudice found support in the churches.  Speaking of Apartheid, Mandela wrote, “The policy was supported by the Dutch Reformed Church, which furnished apartheid with its religious underpinnings … In the Afrikaner’s worldview, apartheid and the church went hand in hand.” 

 Many who profess faith in Christ are prone to adopt the world’s systems with its prejudices and presumptions rather than follow the teachings of Christ. It is, in the end, the degree that we implement the teachings of Jesus, regardless of denomination or affiliation, that makes the greatest difference. Jesus set the example by which we are to forgive as we have been forgiven, to love our enemies and do good for them.

 In 1994, Mandela addressed an Easter conference and spoke of "… the Good News borne by our risen Messiah who chose not one race, who chose not one country, who chose not one language, who chose not one tribe, who chose all of humankind!”

 Nelson Mandela is a reminder that when one man is willing to put into practice the radical teaching of Jesus, he can change the world.  In our families, our jobs, our schools and our communities, we can, every one of us, practice forgiveness, acceptance, respect and faith that transforms the world.

The Weight of Glory

 I started writing this column 16 years ago in 2009 when I was a young man of 62. It has been published in newspapers from Texas to California, Washington, Pennsylvania, Florida and states in between.  Online it has received over 400,000 views.  I reached my seventies without spending a night in the hospital.  In the last 6 years I have been hospitalized twice.  Both were emergencies that would have been fatal without exceptional medical care.  I am grateful. Next week, I will celebrate my 79^th birthday.  I am bumping up on 80!

 Aging is inevitable.  The Apostle Paul expressed his view of aging like this. “Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer person is decaying, yet our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal,” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

 Two months ago, my high school graduating class met for our 60^th year reunion.  About two thirds of our class still survive, but we hardly recognize one another.  For the last 10 years 4 of us who were classmates in first grade meet annually with a few others who attended the same high school.  Next year we hope to add a fifth person from our first-grade class. As Paul put it, our outer man is decaying.  We cannot replace the friends of our childhood, and we cannot hide old age.

 Regardless of our aging outer man, we all have an “inner man.”  Most of us don’t think of ourselves as old, until we try move, especially when we try to move fast.  For some the inner man is decaying along with the outer man, becoming more cynical, bitter, resentful, isolated and alone.  But for those who have faith in Christ, the opposite happens.  Our inner man is being renewed daily so that, in spite of whatever afflictions we endure, an eternal weight of glory continues to grow. 

 I have a best friend whom I have known for 50 years.  He is 91. I performed weddings for all his children and his granddaughter.  Eight years ago I preached his wife’s funeral.  We visit almost daily.  Increasingly he spends his days in prayer for others, looking forward to that day when the weight of glory that is within will be realized in heaven.

 Putting aside the ambitions, doubts and uncertainties of youth, we find increasing contentment in the small things … watching grandchildren grow, encouraging the younger generation, looking forward to eternal life in another dimension whose beauty far exceeds the majesty of mountains, forests, rivers lakes and oceans.  Science constantly reminds us that all that is seen is temporary, including not only the earth and our solar system, but the universe as well.  As Paul affirms, it is the unseen that sustains and inspires us.