When the Journal of Medical Ethics released the article, “What makes killing wrong?” in January, they set off a mini-storm of outrage and controversy.  The authors, from Duke University and the National Institutes of Health, asserted that ‘universally and irreversibly disabled people’ could be killed for the sake of retrieving their organs for people who are not totally disabled.

On the whole, the issue raised is when it becomes appropriate to retrieve organs from one person for the sake of another. The governing rule that a person must be dead before vital organs can be removed, known as the ‘dead donor rule,’ has many difficult aspects to it that make even its proponents uncomfortable.

But a dry journal article on the philosophical and ethical issues around such an issue would not have been interesting. 

So, these authors created a provocative scenario invol…

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Ramez Atallah, general secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt, spoke at the 2012 Conference for Pastors on ministering with vision, creativity, and courage. Download the audio and video.

Memorable Quotes

• "Obligated, eager and not ashamed — these should characterize a church with the gospel."
• "When I came to understand the gospel for the first time, I knew that this is what my peopled needed."
• "A Christian leader has to have a vision — he must see things other people don't see and empower them to capture it and incarnate it."
• "Faith respects people who are eccentric and marginal."
• "Humility allows us to be mission oriented, rather than gift oriented."

The gospel turns people into pilgrims. It comes with a culture-correcting force that creates aliens and exiles of the world.

Drawing from a 1733 Jonathan Edwards sermon, John Piper offers seven descriptions of what this looks like:

1. Pilgrims are not diverted from their aim.
2. Pilgrims are to hold the things of this world loosely.
3. Pilgrims become like what they hope to attain.
4. Pilgrims will not be satisfied with anything less than God.
5. Pilgrims are not grieved by their arrival at the journey's end.
6. Pilgrims ponder what they pursue.
7. Pilgrims travel together.

Read the entire article, Jonathan Edwards on the Pilgrim Mindset.

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Recent posts from "Piper's Pen" —

• The Pastor's Role in World Evangelization
• Planning for Spiritual Necessities in 2012
• How and Why God Changes People