Today, I’m going to talk about “A Biblical Perspective on the Stem Cell Debate.” This issue has been around for a while, but has come to Missouri in the form of a ballot initiative called Missouri Amendment 2 : The Stem Cell Initiative. If you’ve been following the news or just the World Series, you’ve heard from actors, politicians and doctors giving you their 30-second take on the issue. It’s a controversial issue and confusing for many people, in fact I really didn’t understand what was at stake until I attended a pastor’s meeting several months ago. At that meeting a Christian PhD scientist explained what Amendment 2 was all about from a biblical perspective.
I began to study the issues in more depth. For those who don’t know my background, besides my theological degree, I also have a PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and so have the background to understand the issues. Several weeks ago I wrote a blog article on the issue entitled “Missouri Amendment 2 and the Stem Cell Debate – A Biblical Perspective.” To date over 5000 people have read the blog, spending on average 5 minutes on the page. People can comment on the blog and there were so many comments that I could only publish some of them, but I will refer to some comments this morning.
Note that my title this morning is called “A Biblical Perspective.” Here at Life Church, we believe that the Bible is to be our authority on the decisions we make in life. NIV Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. Not everyone agrees, here is part of a comment to my blog, misspellings included. “You are an idiot. You must realize that religeon can never be part of politics and it should never be. You, like so many like you, take liberties with your alledged interpretation of the bible, a fictional book at best.” This person has a religion, it’s just not based on the Bible or on God’s truth Here’s another comment from another person, “Reading 2000 year old scripture and applying it to today’s problems with health is stupid.” Is applying the Bible to today’s moral issues involving life and death stupid? I don’t think so. If we don’t use the Bible as our standard, then there is no standard.
NIV Romans 8:7 The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. As a believer, I submit my life to God’s Word. As a church, we submit our lives to God’s Word. As you will see this morning, the issues involved in this debate, although seemingly complex at first, are actually quite simple to understand. The Biblical teaching in this area is also very clear for those who take it seriously. There is no disagreement among evangelical Bible-believing denominations, churches and ministries on this issue. Why should Life Church get involved in the debate at all?
To hear more about this topic, listen to my November 5, 2006 message entitled A Biblical Perspective On The Stem Cell Debate