Traveling

I will be out of the country for the next two weeks, but look forward to seeing you back here then.

Not My Fault

For those of you old enough to remember Mel Brook's movie Young Frankenstein, there is a scene where Igor goes to fetch a brain for Dr. Frankenstein to place in the man he is creating.  Igor is given strict instructions to bring back a specific brain, but drops the container on the laboratory floor, shattering it.  He then selects a container with a brain that says, "Do Not Use This Brain! Abnormal."

 

 

Of course, the abnormal brain is implanted and the Frankenstein creature is deranged from the moment he wakes up.  When Igor is later questioned about which brain he brought back from the laboratory, he says, "Abby someone." Dr. Frankenstein asks, "Abby someone.  Abby who?"  And Igor replies, "Abby...normal."

One of the debates that has raged for centuries is what leads to certain behaviors.  Many of you are familiar with the "nature versus nurture" arguments.  On the one hand, some claim that people are born with genetic predispositions to act in a particular way.  We could refine this description further to look at not only the actual genes that might be responsible for a person's character or behavior, but also the environment in the womb.  For instance, in the case of Down's Syndrome the mental deficiency is related to an extra chromosome 21, but in other cases, there may be malnutrition or oxygen deprivation in the womb leading to brain damage. 

However, some behavior is related to the environment in which one is raised.  It is understood that children raised in a home with violent behavior or sexual abuse are more likely to engage in such behaviors themselves once grown.  There have been decades of studies looking at social factors and the role of society in promoting antisocial behavior.  A prime culprit is assumed to be poverty, and one of the justifications given for the government to solve the poverty problem is that it will correct all manner of social ills as well.

There are many behaviors that are proclaimed to be the result of genes.  Two that immediately come to mind are alcoholism and homosexuality.  As one of my two undergraduate degrees was in psychology, we studied criminal behavior and its supposed genetic origins.  There was a great deal of effort to study people with an extra "Y" chromosome, the so-called "47,XYY Syndrome."  Men with this genetic type are usually taller than others, often have severe acne, and learning disorders.  When I was in college, it was also thought that these men were much more prone to criminal behavior, with the extra "Y" male chromosome making them "supermales" with increased aggression and hostility.  This relationship seems far from certain today.

So, is behavior related to genes, the environment in the womb, the home in which one is raised, or from parents or peers?

An article recently published looked at the results of research using PET scans of normal people and killers.  Here is an example of a normal person's brain PET scan:

 



 This can be compared to that of a murderer's brain PET scan:

 

 

 You can see a dramatic difference.  In fact, there was a convicted murderer who was spared the death penalty because the jury was shown these scans and felt like the killer was not fully responsible for his acts because of his abnormal brain. 

 

So, when someone engages in a behavior, what is their own personal responsibility for this?  According to either the nature or nurture view, it is not their fault.  It is either the fault of the traits with which they were born, or the fault of the environment in which they were raised.  Both arguments are advanced by groups that seek to absolve those individuals of responsibility.  If you can absolve individuals of the responsibility for their behavior, you can then remove stigma associated with the behavior, any consequences for that behavior, and if the behavior cannot be tolerated (as in the case of crime) you can insist on marshaling societal resources (taxpayers' dollars) to correct the societal ills.  Being gay is a normal inherited variant, being an alcoholic or drug addict is an inherited illness that must be treated, and being a violent criminal is either a social problem requiring correction or an inherited brain abnormality over which the criminal has no control. 

 

I could be wrong on this, but after a careful review of the Bible I am unable to find where sin is not coupled with responsibility.  The Commandments and the penalties laid out in the Old Testament don't have qualifying clauses.  Murderers were not to be set free because they had abnormal brain PET scans or abusive parents.  Thieves were not forgiven their theft because they were born poor.  We encounter many instances in the New Testament where Jesus shows compassion on sinners, offers forgiveness of sins, and in the case of the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery, told her, "go and sin no more" (John 8:11).  He didn't say, "It's not your fault." 

 

We read last week of the release of the three women from a decade of captivity and abuse in Cleveland.  Details will emerge in the ensuing weeks about their trials and torments, and I am sure that the graphic descriptions of their bondage will sicken us.  The kidnapper claims to have been abused as a child and sexually abused by a relative as well.  In fact, he places the blame on his kidnapped victims: "They are here against their will because they made a mistake of getting in a car with a total stranger."

 

The Word of God gives him no excuse, no extenuating circumstances, no way to explain his behavior. Regardless of what genes he carries, what his PET scan shows, the environment in his mother's womb, the upbringing he had as child, or the societal circumstances that surrounded him, he is responsible for what he did.  God's definition of sin does not allow for either the nature or nurture excuse.  When we stand before Him, we will not be able to plead either of these arguments.  God does not want our excuses, He wants our repentance.  For He who knew you in the womb also knows your genes, and you do not need to remind him of your childhood or your parents.

 

We might as well blame Adam and Eve for bringing sin into the world, for if it were not for them everything would still be perfect and there would be no sin.  Few of us had perfect childhoods or perfect parents, and almost all of us, myself included, have "Abby...normal brains".  God does not expect us to be sinless, but He does expect us to claim responsibility for our sin.  He does not forgive us of our sin because of our excuses, but because of the work His Son did on the cross.  To deny our responsibility for our sin, to blame our nature or our nurture, is to deny true repentance.  Making an excuse to God is trying to tell Him something you don't think He already knows.  How many things about you do you think He doesn't know already? 

 

 



Calling All Christians

The process of becoming a Christian has been one of the most debated topics in the Christian faith since the earliest days of the church.  The various schools of Augustinianism, Pelagianism, Arminianism, and Calvinism all have had their strong proponents over the centuries.  There are many good books on these topics and I will not go into them here. However, I want to briefly discuss the notion of being called to be a Christian.

There are at least thirty definitions of the word call.  We use the word to describe a phone call, a football play call, a demand to repay a loan, or a visit such as a business call.  As a physician, I am frequently "on-call," meaning I am responsible for taking phone calls for patient care, and may even be "called" in to see them. 

In theology, we use the term call to describe the means by which God reaches the unbeliever to draw him to become a Christian.  There are usually two ways in which this is delineated, the general, or external call, and the effectual, or internal call. The general call is that message of the Gospel and the Word of God to all men.  This is a call that can be resisted and frequently is.  As Jesus said in Matthew 22:14, "For many are called, but few are chosen."

There are many reasons that man resists the general call.  "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh." (Romans 8:5), and "...the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Romans 8:7).  Paul tells us in I Corinthians 2:14 that, "...the natural man does not receive the things of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."  As Christians, we are to participate in the spread of the Gospel, the general call, realizing that many will hear and many will reject.  "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15).

The effectual call is the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of a person that leads them to believe and to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior.  This comes from within, God moving to give the unsaved new birth and fellowship with Him through His Son.  Sadly, this does not happen with all who hear the general call; only through the grace of God do some receive the effectual call and become Christians.

So far we have looked at the word call as a noun.  What happens when we use it as a verb?

We are not to be ashamed to be Christians.  Paul wasn't.  In Romans 1:16 he said, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," and in 2 Timothy 1:8 we hear, "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord."  We are not to deny Christ and our faith.  As Christ Himself said, "Therefore, whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven.  But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33).  Just as we should not be ashamed to be Christians, we should not be ashamed to call ourselves Christians.

Conversely, we should not boast about ourselves as Christians.  As Paul says in Galatians 6:14, "But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."  If you recognize yourself as a sinner, saved by the grace of God, you realize that it is only the work of Christ on the cross that allows you to one day enter Heaven.

It behooves us to remember that our actions and lives as Christians are visible to those who are not yet children of God.  If we boast of being Christians, yet live so that unbelievers see us behaving in ways that contradict the commandments of our Lord, then we have shown them that we are no better in behavior than the unconverted.  (Obviously I myself have never had this problem.)  It is as if we are putting forth our own "call-blocking", a way of contradicting the general call.  We preach that if only they will accept the Gospel, their lives will be changed to become Christ-like, and then demonstrate the opposite. 

The non-Christians are looking at those of us who are Christians, and weighing what they see against the general call of God for them to be saved.  God, through the Holy Spirit, will use an effectual call to change some of their hearts and incline their souls to Him and faith in His Son.  God, all-powerful, can do this despite what our un-Godly example can do to incline them otherwise.  We must pray that when we do fall into sin, as Christians do from time to time, that we will not be seen in a way that gives the unbeliever just one more reason to reject the general call. The saddest thing to be said of a Christian is that,"he calls himself a Christian."   

Land of the Free

I am often asked to speak at different venues about our healthcare system.  Just this last weekend, I was privileged to speak at the Awakening 2013 on the perils of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as "Obamacare."  My efforts in these talks are to show the economic impossibility of adopting such a measure.  Our elected officials have a long history of initiating programs that provide things to the people that never seem to work out exactly the way it was planned.  Our Medicare system, when inaugurated in 1965, was projected to cost nine billion dollars in 1990; the actual cost was over ten times that, at 110 billion dollars.  Currently, the cost is over 500 billion dollars, and the program is rapidly approaching insolvency.  Obamacare then takes this bankrupt system and robs it of another 700 billion dollars.  The real problem here is that politicians can pass legislation now with enormous costs later, when they will no longer be in office.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is now the largest item in the Federal budget;  the politicians who legislated this in 1965 are far removed from the scene.  Likewise, the long-term disastrous consequences of Obamacare will not be experienced by those who pushed the law through. 

So I can show you with math and tables and charts why something like this is unworkable, and I can do it using the government's own numbers.  The harder task is to try and explain to the average American why getting something for free from the government is a bad thing.  They assume that if the government provides it, the government can afford it.  They really aren't concerned about how the government pays for it.  There are really basically only three choices.  The government can raise money through taxes, which takes money now from productive workers.  The government can borrow money, which is a lien on future taxpayers' earnings.  Finally, the government can print money, which leads to inflation and robs every American of their wealth.  These simple concepts seem to be beyond many of the voters who choose to elect politicians who will reward them for their vote with free things, whether it be a health insurance subsidy, food stamps, cell phones, or housing.  For some, they may understand that increased taxation may harm others, but that doesn't change the fact that they are getting something for free. 

As Milton Friedman famously said, "There's no such thing as a free lunch."  For one person to receive something for free, something must be taken from someone else. Only our government has that power, to forcibly take from one to give to another.  The person who is taxed loses the freedom to choose what they would do with their money and what they would spend it on.  The giving of "free" things actually leads to a loss of economic "freedom."  The United States is tenth on the list of economically free countries, behind others such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and even Chile.  Money given to the government for public use must be taken from the hands of those in the private sector, and those people would have used it for other uses, including spending for goods that are produced, thereby creating jobs in other people's businesses, creating jobs in their own businesses, and even giving to charity. 

Eventually the socialized redistribution fails. Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of Britain who passed away earlier this month, stated, "Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess.  They always run out of other people's money."  Over and over again we have seen the failure of socialism.  Yet there is a powerful drive for this redistribution.  A Gallup poll last week showed that over half of Americans would like to see wealth redistributed by governmental taxation.  The history of socialism and redistribution seems to repeat itself endlessly.  The driving forces are a public that demands free things at the expense of others and politicians who provide those things in return for voter support.  Both ignore the economic consequences, either because they do not comprehend them or they disregard them as not affecting them.  The recipient does not feel affected by the higher taxes on another, and the politician will be absent when the redistribution program fails. 

It can be demonstrated that current healthcare policy is already mathematically bankrupt and unsustainable.  It can be reliably shown that socialist redistribution ultimately fails.  Both demonstrations do not convince those would continue these approaches.  What else is left? 

Nowhere in the Word of God is there support for such an approach.  The Bible is full of admonitions to help the poor, the needy, the widows and orphans.  This is to be done with a generous and charitable heart.  Those in need are to pray to God for their needs, and the people of God are to give freely to them. God then blesses both parties.  He blesses those whose needs were met.  As for the giver, Acts 20:35 tells us that Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  Proverbs 22:9 states, "He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he gives of his bread to the poor."  When we turn this business over to the government, this whole three-way relationship is broken, and all the blessings turn into entitlements and obligations.  The radio host Bernard Meltzer said, "Blessed are those who give without remembering.  And blessed are those who take without forgetting."

The socialist redistribution scheme promises free things, but takes freedom away from the giver, the recipient, and the country at large.  The recipient is now in bondage to the state, dependent on it for his needs.  The taxpayer is in bondage, surrendering his economic freedom.  And the government now removes economic choices from all of us, rendering our economy less free.  Most people these days will trade their freedom for security.  The land of free things is not the land of the free.

The Dark Holes

At the conclusion of the Second World War, the Korean peninsula was divided into  the North and South Koreas.  The original leader of North Korea was Kim il-Sung, known as the "Eternal Leader."  He died in 1994, leaving his son to become the next president: Kim Jong-il, who is referred to as the "Dear Leader."  Together, these two men formed the basis for a national pseudo-religion known as Juche, where in effect Kim il-Sung is the Father, Kim Jong-il is the Son, and the third member of their trinity is the Spirit of the People.  Kim Jong-il died in 2011, and now his son, Kim Jong-un has become the president.  He is around thirty years old.

Much has been made in the recent news about two aspects of North Korea and its military capabilities.  The first is its nuclear weapons program.  North Korea has tested three nuclear bombs since 2006.  The second is its missile program.  They have tested both medium and long-range missiles, and are expected to fire off a couple of medium range Musudan missiles soon, perhaps even tomorrow as the country celebrates the birthday of founder Kim il-Sung.  Our Defense Intelligence Agency has determined that it is likely that the North Koreans have developed a nuclear device small enough to fit onto one of their missiles.  The North Koreans have spent the last several years extracting foreign aid from America in return for not developing nuclear weapons, which they did anyway, and now have threatened us with nuclear attacks.  Presumably, they want more money. Which will fund their programs.

North Koreans are shorter than South Koreans.  The North Korean men are 1-1/2 to 3 inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts.  This is seen when a few North Korean refugees manage to slip over the border into South Korea, and is due to widespread malnutrition.  There was a significant famine in the 1990's, and much of the country's money is spent on the military.  Here is a picture of the Korean peninsula at night:

You can see the vast difference in modern light and electrification in the Communist North Korea versus the free South Korea. 

While the world looks at North Korea as a country run by aggressive and not-quite-sane leaders, in that dark hole live probably no more than 200,000 Christians in a country of twenty-five million people.  For eleven years in a row, North Korea has been the most dangerous place to be a Christian.  Because of the nature of the state ideology of Juche, most North Koreans have never heard the name of Jesus Christ.  The few that do believe in Him do so at great risk to themselves.  They hide their Bibles and meet secretly in fellow believers' houses.  Their is no open practice of Christianity.  If you are exposed as a Christian, you may very well be publicly executed.  Three generations of your family will be punished.  In 2010, twenty-three members of a house church were arrested and the three leaders were executed.  The remainder were sent to penal work camps.  In a country that is so secretive, it is difficult to say for sure, but there may be as many as 100,000 Christians in these camps.

In America, we see much erosion of the Judeo-Christian principles that once embodied our highest ideals.  Christianity is often scorned, and Christians are derided as having outdated values.  However pressed we may feel, it is nothing compared to true Christian persecution.  This persecution began with Christ Himself and is nothing new.  The earliest Christians were fed to lions, killed for sport, and used as human torches to light the gardens of Nero according to the Roman historian Tacitus.  For the last two thousand years, Christians have faced persecution and death in various corners of the world.  There is an excellent organization, Voice of the Martyrs (www.Persecution.com) that describes the ongoing tribulations faced by Christians around the world today.  It was founded by a pastor who was imprisoned in Romania for fourteen years for his faith.

This weekend there is a conference in Oviedo, Florida, called The Awakening 2013, "Fighting for the Soul of America".  It is hosted by Liberty Counsel at the First Baptist Church of Oviedo.  The program begins Friday night at six-thirty and runs on Saturday from 9:00 to 5:30.  There are many important speakers there, including Representative Michele Bachmann.  I will be among the lesser-known speakers there, and will be bringing copies of my book, Surviving the Suffering should anyone desire to purchase one.  In that book there is a chapter devoted to Suffering for Christ, for those who are undergoing Christian persecution.  But there is an even better reason to come to the event.  On Friday night one of the speakers is a Liberty Counsel attorney, Harry Mihet.  Like the founder of Voice of the Martyrs, he is from Romania, and his talk is entitled "The American Dream Through the Eyes of a Boy Behind the Iron Curtain."  I have heard his story, and it is powerfully moving.  For more information on the conference, you can go to www.theAwakeningUSA.com.

 So remember, when you read in the news in the next few weeks about the threats against the United States made by North Korea that there are very real threats faced by our Christian brothers and sisters within North Korea.  They are dedicating their lives to being that shining light in a land of darkness, even at the risk of their lives.  They, like so many others around the world, need our prayers.  A good time to offer those prayers would be when you are comfortably and safely seated in church, free from the threat of bondage and death for simply being there.

Tool Time

As cardiac surgeons, we are not people known for patience.  Surgeons, and cardiac surgeons in particular, are people who want to see the results of their work right now.  Often, we can see immediate improvement in someone's heart after we have fixed a valve or restored circulation to blocked arteries.  Sometimes, our patients are so sick that even in the intensive care unit while having the usual postoperative pain, they still feel better than before the surgery.  We can see improvement in their hearts in minutes and in their overall condition within hours. 

Other physicians are the more patient type, often treating chronic illnesses over years.  Improvement is measured in weeks or months.  I myself have a dry eye condition that requires that I use eye drops.  The eye doctor told me that it would take six to nine months before I would see any improvement.  That certainly is too slow for my liking.

One of the rewards of being a Christian and a heart surgeon is that I am a tool.  In our day and time, that concept would repel many people.  We are a culture based on autonomy and self-direction.  People want to be in charge of everything and would never want to be used to achieve someone else's purposes.  However I think that for the Christian, one of the highest rewards in life is for the Lord to use us as one of His tools.  I find it ironic that as a Christian heart surgeon I have my own set of instruments which I use, and God in turn uses me as an instrument.  God is the author of all healing, the Supreme Physician, and he uses sutures and forceps and scalpels and heart surgeons.  This is a temporary necessity; when Christ returns there won't be any need for heart surgeons in the New Jerusalem.

All of us can be used by the Lord in some way.  We are all expected to bear fruit.  For us impatient types, it can be frustrating to not see immediate results in this arena.  God's timetable is not our own.  We do not get to see what He is doing behind the scenes.  We plant a seed, and nothing seems to happen.  What is dangerous about this expectancy is that we translate delay into futility.  Because we do not see an immediate effect, we assume our efforts were a waste of time.  The Bible warns us against this in John 4:36-38 when Jesus instructs His disciples: "And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.  For in this the saying is true: 'One sows and another reaps.'  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."

I was overwhelmingly blessed in the last few weeks by a few people.  About five years ago I met a fellow about my age who needed heart surgery.  I offered to pray with him the day before surgery, as I do with all of my patients.  The majority of people are very receptive and happy to do this.  Yet some are indifferent, and make comments such as, "Well, go ahead if it makes you feel better."  Very, very rarely does someone outright refuse to have a prayer said with them or for them, but it has happened from time to time.  Although this particular patient agreed, I really couldn't tell how he felt about it. 

I see this man from time to time, and was talking to him the other day when he told me that moment five years ago had changed his life.  He had gotten away from his faith, but had returned to it as a sincere Christian.  I was dumbfounded.  I had no idea that our brief prayer together years ago had such an effect.  God had been working in his life for all of that time, but had chosen to reveal it to me only now. 

More blessings occurred when two people tracked me down at different book signings to tell me that my book had profoundly changed their lives for the better.  I didn't even know that these people had gotten the book or read it. There is no amount of money you can earn from writing that would in any way compare to the blessing of knowing you had made such a difference.   

I must be clear with you that I am not writing this to promote myself as a heart surgeon or author.  I am really hoping to encourage you  in your work for the Lord.  The results may take some time, but the efforts are not futile.  You may only see some of your work come to fruition, and many of the seeds you sow will be reaped by others.  But when God does give you a glimpse of the fruits of your labors in the lives of others, you will be tremendously blessed.  Like me, you may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you will be the happiest tool in the toolbox.

Who's Under Whom?

Up in the frigid midwest town of De Pere,Wisconsin lies a small Catholic liberal arts school named St. Norbert's College. A suburb of Green Bay, De Pere has been the home of St. Norbert's since 1898, having been founded by a Norbertine priest.  St. Norbert of Xanten founded a Catholic order called the Premonstratensians, later called Norbertines, in a monastery in Premontre, France, in 1120, so there is a long history to this order. The school named for St. Norbert has around two thousand students.  Although founded to train men for the priesthood, it is today a coeducational college.  If you go to their website, you can see that among their many mission statements is one to, "Fulfill our vocation by embodying Christ's example of loving service."

On the faculty of this small college is a man named James Neuliep, PhD, Professor of Communications and Media Studies.  I certainly don't know much about Dr. Neuliep, but it would seem that he wrote a college textbook called, "Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach."  I don't have access to that book, although with a little time (5-7 business days) and money ($44.49) I suppose I could have a copy to actually peruse.  And it would appear that in this textbook is an exercise for college professors everywhere to use with their students that involves writing JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper, putting the paper on the floor, and then stepping on it.  When most students will refuse to do this, the teacher then asks them why and starts a discussion going.  I find it a little odd that such an exercise would come from a professor at a Christian college.  The textbook is supposed to be a best-seller, so I imagine that the intention is to have college students across the nation being offered the opportunity to step on a piece of paper with Jesus' name on it. 

Anyway, there is another school fifteen hundred miles away in Boca Raton called Florida Atlantic University.  There is another professor there named Deandre Poole, PhD, who teaches Communications and Multimedia Studies.   He took the lesson to heart and tried to implement it in his classroom, with vigor.  The students were not just to step on the paper but to stomp on it.  A Mormon student was deeply offended and complained to the teacher and to the Dr. Poole's supervisor, and was therefore suspended from that class.  The University initially defended Dr. Poole's teaching, but has since recanted and apologized, and assures everyone that no student has been suspended from the University and that the lesson won't be used again. This hasn't finished playing out yet.

I do not know the faith, if any, of Drs. Neuliep or Poole.   Whatever their beliefs, they take a rather casual approach to the name of Jesus.  The Third Commandment given by our Lord is, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."  The Jewish people take this so seriously that they will not pronounce out loud the name of God that they call YHWH (Yahweh).  The Scriptures are replete with descriptions of the holiness of the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ.  Acts 4:12 tells us, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Many in the Christian community were offended by this exercise.  In other countries, we have seen violent demonstrations when the name or image of Mohammed have been used carelessly; as Christians in America we rarely resort to such extremes.  In my new book, Surviving the Suffering, there is a chapter devoted to Christian persecution, which as of yet is really not seen in this country.  We may endure slander of the name of our Saviour, derisive remarks, and offensive language and blasphemous imagery, but rarely is our personal well-being threatened.  Christians are not slain nor churches burned here as they are in other lands.

Such disrespectful behavior for our Lord should not be a surprise.  Jesus was certainly used to it in His time.  God has given His commandment for the use of His name, but His commandments are regularly and routinely disregarded today.  God provides us opportunities such as this to stand up for His name and commandments, and the student at FAU responded admirably and with courage.  We should, however, continue to expect such childish silliness to periodically reveal itself at our Universities.  Our institutions of higher learning have distinguished themselves as bastions of lower morality.

Those who would use lift their leg to place a foot upon the name of Jesus will find that same leg bent against their will when He returns.  As Paul tells us in Philippians 2:9-11, "Therefore God has also highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."   And listen to the author of Hebrews in chapter 10, verses 12-13: "But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool."  Those who would seek to "stomp" on the name of Jesus will be under His foot for all eternity.  Those who seek to be clever teahers will be taught severe lessons themselves, and  having a PhD after your own name will mean nothing to the Man with no degree after His.