text:
Should Gay Men Be Allowed to Donate Blood?
When the Red Cross arrived at the Library of Congress in 1998 for its annual blood donation drive, gay library employee Charles McMoore registered, then rolled up his sleeve to perform what he felt was a civic duty. As he sat before the nurse who was to take his blood, he was asked several dozen routine questions about his medical and personal history.
Among the intimate questions asked of Mr. McMoore by the Red Cross, and posed to all prospective donors by all blood banks in the land, were these: Had he been diagnosed or treated for a sexually transmitted disease in the last year? Had he had an organ transplant in the last five years? Had he visited a prostitute in the last year? And then the one question that struck him like a brick: Had he ever had sex with another man, even once, since 1977?
As an openly gay man in a committed relationship, Mr. McMoore answered yes. As a result, he was denied permission to donate blood. Since Mr. McMoore is not infected with HIV, and had no other reason for being denied permission to donate, he filed a sexual orientation discrimination complaint against the Red Cross with the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission. The complaint against the Red Cross by Mr. McMoore was eventually settled privately. Although his pursuit of legal redress is unusual, his experience is familiar to any gay man who has tried to participate in a volunteer blood drive.
Gay men, in all practical senses, are prohibited from donating blood in the United States because of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) policy first formulated in the mid-1980s, when the HIV epidemic was new, the nation gripped in panic, and HIV testing still in development. In recent years, this policy has come into sharper focus because individual gay men, but not, notably, major gay or HIV organizations, have raised objections to local blood drives as discriminatory. The debate has become so heated at many universities that several now prohibit the Red Cross or other blood banks from organizing blood drives on their campuses.
Is the policy a discriminatory relic of an earlier era? Is the policy based on the nasty ideas that gay blood is "dirty" or that all gay men have HIV? Since the nation faces a severe shortage of blood, why are otherwise healthy gay men prohibited from blood donation? What is the basis of this policy, and what, if anything, is the FDA willing to do about it?
The answers to these questions require taking a look back at the early years of the epidemic, understanding current patterns of HIV transmission, estimating the numbers of gay men in the United States, and examining how the nation's blood supply is collected and regulated.
The Blood Safety System
Shortly after an epidemic was first recognized in gay men in 1981, persons with hemophilia and others who received blood transfusions also began developing the strange new illness that would become known as AIDS. At that time, no one knew what caused the new disease, and agreement about how it spread was still several years away. It soon became apparent, however, that the mystery illness was transmissible through blood products and transfusions, and blood safety officials had no way to identify who might be capable of spreading it.
In this information vacuum, blood safety officials at the FDA decided to exclude from blood donation those emerging as the first "risk groups" for the new illness: gay men and Haitians foremost among them. Because of a high rate of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection among gay men, blood safety officials started screening donated blood for antibodies to HBV, using it as a surrogate to identify individuals who might have the new illness. After HIV was identified as the cause of AIDS in 1983 and an HIV test developed over the next year, blood safety officials at the FDA finally mandated HIV screening for the blood supply in 1985.
During this early period, the nation's blood supply's safety systems were revealed to be inadequate and overly influenced by the commercial interests of major blood products companies. Tens of thousands of blood transfusion recipients and persons with hemophilia became infected with HIV during this period, many unnecessarily so -- because of corporate and institutional inertia, indecision, and perhaps darker reasons. Several years, many lawsuits, research studies and millions of dollars later, the FDA eventually developed a redundant safety process to protect the integrity of the blood supply.
Today, blood safety is assured by a three-stage safety system. The system has redundancy built in because the FDA assumes that mistakes may be, and indeed are, made at any step of the process. The first step is "donor deferral" -- that is, a policy of restricting those who are most likely to introduce HIV or other infectious agents into the blood supply. Donor deferral is meant to minimize the chance that an HIV-infected unit of blood is ever drawn in the first place. The policy is most evident in the intimate questions asked of all who donate blood. It is the most visible step in the blood safety process, and the point when gay men confront the fact that their blood is unwanted.
Donor deferral is a complex process. Each question asked can lead to different restrictions. A person who recently received a tattoo cannot donate blood for twelve months after being inked, nor can a person who's visited a prostitute. Pregnant women cannot donate until six weeks after delivery. A person who has had tuberculosis must wait two years after successful curative therapy to give blood. The list of restrictions is long and complex and not all seem obviously justified. (See box: The Top 52 Reasons for Not Being Able to Donate Blood.)
What rankles gay men the most is that any homosexual activity since 1977 results in, what is essentially, a lifetime ban on blood donation. Homosexuality is placed in the same class as prostitution and intravenous drug use, practices that also result in a permanent ban on giving. For a well-adjusted, HIV-negative, upper middle-class, homosexual college student, this seems like a smear and smells discriminatory. The only other permanent restrictions are for people with medical conditions like cancer and heart disease. The contradiction for gay men becomes apparent when one considers that a heterosexual man can have unprotected anal sex with female prostitutes for years, stop, and then donate blood twelve months later, while a gay man in a monogamous relationship who practices safe sex is forever barred from donation.
Obviously many men lie when questioned on these touchy topics. The questionnaire is carefully worded, of course. It does not inquire if a man identifies himself as gay, but rather asks the more general question if he "has had sex with another man." Who is more likely to answer this honestly -- an openly gay man, a closeted but married man, or a bonafide heterosexual who had sex a few times in 1983 with his college roommate? Blood safety officials assume some fraction of prospective donors will fib on this question, which leads to the next stage of the process.
The second stage of the blood safety system involves testing all donated blood for infectious agents, including hepatitis viruses, HIV, HTLV (a cancer-causing virus), and syphilis. Many people erroneously believe this is the full extent of the blood safety process. The tests for HIV and other infectious agents are very good, and every day, units of infected blood are identified and discarded at this stage. However, testing all blood for HIV is not, by itself, an adequate safety measure.
Most may be familiar with the concept of a "window period" with new HIV infections -- that is, a time of weeks to months when a recent HIV infection may not be detected by standard HIV tests. Because the tests spot antibodies to the virus, and antibodies take time to develop in a newly infected person, there is a period when one can test "HIV negative" yet still transmit the virus to others. This "infectious window" remains open due to the current limitations of testing technology. When HIV testing first became available, the tests were not very refined -- they often left open as much as a six-month window for HIV to slip through. Improvements in testing technology have narrowed the window period to no more than a few weeks. But the testing technologies in place cannot close the window entirely because of the way HIV establishes an infection in a new host.
We have to assume that some people who have recently been infected with HIV donate blood and that a few of these infected units get into the blood supply despite HIV testing. The present risk of acquiring HIV from an infected blood transfusion is about one in every million units of blood, with almost every infected unit having slipped through during the window period.
To help close the window, the U.S. government has invested in a variety of technologies to detect fragments of HIV itself, rather than the delayed antibody response. p24 testing is used by blood banks to detect HIV antigens that appear in blood before antibodies develop. The FDA estimates that HIV p24 antigen testing can detect HIV-infected blood donations, on average, five days before antibodies are detectable by standard screening tests.
To improve this performance further, the FDA and others have invested in a new HIV testing technology called Nucleic Acid Testing (NAT). NAT testing is in advanced stages of evaluation for use in blood screening. It has the potential to shave a few extra days off the window period, and could, in practical effect, close the window almost completely. However, the FDA has not yet licensed this test for blood screening purposes, and more research remains ahead.
"HIV RNA viral load" testing -- familiar to anyone who is HIV infected and receiving health care in the United States -- is a technology that not only quantifies the amount of HIV in a person's blood but also has the potential to detect HIV infection sooner than any other technology available. "It wins hands down," said FDA blood expert Michael Busch at a recent public hearing. But cost and technological complexity have raised objections from the blood industry and others. In any event, the window remains slightly open, and although a technological fix is possible, it is expensive and not quite ready for general use.
The third stage of blood safety in the United States is the regulation and quality control of the blood banks themselves. The collection, processing, and distribution of blood is a big business in the United States. The FDA ensures that blood banks operate according to good manufacturing practices. These include having automated systems and making sure HIV-infected units of blood are properly labeled and separated from the usable blood when they are identified. This is perhaps the messiest part of the blood safety system.
Recently the FDA filed a lawsuit against the American Red Cross, which collects about half the blood in the United States. The FDA filings maintained the Red Cross has "a long-standing and ongoing failure to comply with good manufacturing practice standards in collecting, processing and distributing blood used in medical procedures." The Red Cross "has not been in compliance since at least 1985," the FDA maintains, and increasingly tough action by the government has failed to correct these problems. Over the past decade, the FDA has taken similar steps against other blood banks, including the New York Blood Center, the major source of blood for the New York region.
In summary, the blood safety system in the United States has three parts:
Keeping potentially HIV-infected people out of the donor pool so the fewest number of possibly infected units of blood move on to the next stage of the process. Restricting gay men from donating blood is a direct consequence of this part of the blood safety system.
Testing all blood donations for a range of infectious diseases, including HIV, so that if an infected person does donate, the blood is identified. This involves using standard HIV antibody screening tests, p24 tests, and researching new technologies to close the small "window period" that remains.
Regulating and inspecting the blood banks themselves to ensure they implement procedures correctly and have safety measures in place to identify HIV-infected units of blood and ensure that none enter the blood supply. Yet, despite this three-step process, every year about ten people in the United States acquire HIV due to a contaminated unit of blood that slipped through the window period undetected.
What to Do About Gay Men
Knowing how the blood supply is protected, the problem with allowing gay men to donate blood can be considered in a simple arithmetical way: Gay men continue to be at very high risk for HIV and there are relatively few gay men. Depending on which study you believe, gay men comprise certainly no more than 10 percent of the population and probably less than 5 percent.
Of course safe sex works, and many gay men are in monogamous relationships. But HIV prevention is not perfect. Gay men continue to become infected with HIV in substantial numbers, despite the best prevention efforts. Researchers put the annual infection rate for urban gay men in their teens or twenties as 1 to 3 percent annually. This number sounds small, but it is cumulative. In some major cities, like New York, around 15 to 20 percent of gay men are now infected with HIV -- and the prevalence is higher in some regions and ethnic groups. Furthermore, gay men in monogamous relationships still become infected. People cheat on their lovers, whether gay or straight, but the risks of such cheating, especially if unsafe sex is involved, are increased for gay men because of the high prevalence of HIV in the pool of potential sex partners.
The official thinking for why gay men should not be allowed to donate, therefore, goes something like this: If the blood donor pool is opened to healthy gay men, not many more potential donors are included given the small numbers of gay men overall. Assume 5 percent of the 130 million American males are gay, which gives a rough estimate of 6.5 million gay men in the United States. Assume at least 85 percent of these men are healthy, HIV-uninfected, with no other exclusions and that they would donate blood at roughly the same rate as the rest of the population (less than 5 percent). This results in an expansion of the donor pool by only about 250,000 people. At the same time the donor pool is opened up to a much larger number of potentially HIV-infected people. The risk of allowing gay men to donate is therefore disproportionate to the benefit of a relatively small increase in the donor pool.
This cold calculation gives a sense of the underlying argument for a level of caution when considering the issue but does not answer why all gay men, or at least any man who has had sex with a man since 1977, should be permanently barred from blood donation. Why not expand the donor pool by 250,000 when the nation faces a blood shortage? Is there some other way to formulate a policy based on science that recognizes epidemiological reality but also feels less discriminatory and stigmatizing to healthy gay men?
A recent meeting of the Blood Products Advisory Committee of the FDA addressed this question. At the start of the meeting, the committee agreed that the permanent ban on gay men seemed discriminatory, lacked a firm foundation in science, and should be changed. A majority of committee members indicated they would vote to change the policy. Public statements from the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the Human Rights Campaign, various hemophilia groups, and the American Association of Blood Banks all urged a change in the policy. Only the American Red Cross urged no change be made. But, what should the policy be changed to?
The FDA proposed changing the lifetime ban to five years, bringing the gay ban in line with the length of time organ or tissue transplant recipients are barred from blood donation. In other words, any man who has had sex with another man during the last five years would be barred from donating. The blood bank association urged a one-year ban, putting the gay ban in line with that for visiting a prostitute, and the gay doctors made a similar proposal. Any of these approaches are unlikely to feel less discriminatory, and are unlikely to have much practical effect for the majority of gay-identified men. The only men who may be included in the donor pool as a result of such a change would be those who had their last homosexual experience five or more years ago.
The committee seemed poised to recommend a change in the gay donation policy, but then the slides on herpes virus 8 were presented. Human herpes virus 8 (HHV-8) is a newly discovered virus thought to be the cause of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). HHV-8 is also widespread among gay men, which helps explain the early, baffling concentration of KS among gay AIDS patients but not heterosexual ones. Although KS in gay men is almost always the result of infection with both HIV and HHV-8, there have been a few isolated cases of KS in gay men with HHV-8 alone. Data emerging on HHV-8 show that it shares a similar epidemiological profile with HIV. Gay men begin acquiring HHV-8 during late adolescence when sexual activity begins, and its incidence accelerates through early adulthood. By age 40, about one-third of gay men seem to be infected with HHV-8. The virus appears rarely in the U.S. heterosexual population.
HHV-8 is most likely transmitted orally, but no blood test is routinely available to detect those who have it. In Africa, where HHV-8 is endemic, the virus seems to be acquired in childhood. HHV-8 has also been transmitted through kidney transplants and dialysis procedures. Can HHV-8 be transmitted through a blood transfusion? No one knows. Faced with this uncertainty, the committee changed its mood, and declined to recommend a specific revision of the gay blood donation policy.
After deciding not to alter the policy, the committee outlined a series of research questions for the FDA that may help the agency revisit the issue at a later date:
How many gay men abstain from sex for one, two and five years?
How many gay men are there in the United States?
How does HIV incidence vary among sub-groups of gay men?
How is HHV-8 transmitted?
Can gay men with a higher risk of having HIV be identified more precisely in the screening questionnaires?
All of these are fascinating and important questions, and answers to each could have a broader use in fighting the epidemic. However, given the paucity of epidemiological data generated about gay men after 15 years of research, these questions are unlikely to be answered soon, if ever. So what can gay men do now?
Surviving the Blood Drive
One easily addressed sore point for excluded donors arises from the manner in which blood is collected in this country. The stigma and discrimination gay men and others feel when asked to donate is more directly related to how blood drives are conducted rather than to the exclusion policy. In our high-tech world, awash in fabulous commodities, life-giving blood has only one low-tech source: People. Collecting blood is laborious, messy, and invasive, and most banked blood is collected in public during school and office blood drives.
During a blood drive, coworkers and fellow students are rounded up and exhorted to donate. But, as we've seen, some people shouldn't give blood. When asked, "Why didn't you donate?" awkward, embarrassing moments can ensue if people feel compelled to discuss sensitive behaviors or personal medical conditions in an insecure social setting. What male employee at an auto plant, for example, wants to say to a fellow mechanic, "I can't give blood 'cause I fool around with guys?"
Members of other risk groups blacklisted by donor deferral may feel the insult and anxiety experienced by gay men when pressured to donate even more acutely. While a gay man who knows his HIV-negative status may fib and donate without causing harm, individuals with HIV do not have that option. People with HIV or hepatitis C virus (HCV), to name only two, face a difficult choice of either revealing their status (and certain presumed behaviors) or appearing selfish and unwilling to volunteer for a good cause. Either way they face stigma. These problems are compounded when there is a risk that a person can be fired or even meet physical violence if they are discovered to be gay or HIV positive.
A search of the medical literature, and interviews with blood supply experts, yielded virtually no insights into better blood collection strategies. Given the shortage of blood nationwide, this seems like a major oversight. Clearly new blood collection initiatives are needed, and hopefully methods can be found that will not place people in uncomfortable situations.
A review of "blood drive organizing kits" illustrates the problem. The packets, available from any local blood bank, help a civic-minded person organize a blood drive in his or her school or work place. The packets advise organizers to "be persistent!" "Ask every employee personally, and confirm their participation." "Involve management and give managers updates on who is participating!" Of twenty-three blood drive packets reviewed, only one from the New York Blood Center advised organizers to respect the privacy of employees who decline to donate. One easy and immediate improvement would be to train blood drive organizers -- obviously well intentioned people -- to understand that some people cannot donate blood, and that their privacy must be protected. Another tactic to preserve one's privacy might be to become familiar with the myriad reasons why people can't donate, then toss out a plausible excuse when the blood drive organizer pounces. Or, if you must, simply call in sick when the blood mobile pulls up.
p24 or HIV RNA?
A report in the Annals of Internal Medicine (Jan 2, 2001) makes clear some of the differences between early detection with HIV RNA assays and with p24 tests. While HIV RNA testing detected all early infections in their study, p24 detected only 88.7%. For the purposes of blood screening, this obviously leaves the window slightly open. For clinical use, the cost of an HIV RNA test is $100 compared to $20 for p24. More significantly, for the clinic and for blood screening, is that HIV RNA, while highly sensitive, is less specific about what it detects than the p24 assay. This means that a greater number of people tested for HIV RNA will have falsely positive results. Individuals who test positive for HIV RNA will need to be counseled and tested again before they can be correctly diagnosed. The authors comment, ". . . false-positive results on HIV RNA assays require follow-up testing and extensive post-test counseling and are associated with substantial psychological distress." As it stands, the extra counseling burden, additional assay costs and an unacceptable risk of mistakenly telling people they might be infected keep us from closing the blood-safety window entirely.
-- Daar ES, et al. Diagnosis of Primary HIV-1 Infection. Ann Intern Med. 2001;134:25-9.
|The Top 52 Reasons for Not Being Able to Donate Blood
|Temporary Restrictions
|Length of time (before you can give blood)
|Not feeling well for any reason
|Until symptoms are over
|Difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, asthma
|No difficulty breathing on day of donation
|Ears, nose, or skin pierced, acupuncture
|One year after procedure unless done under sterile conditions
|Blood transfusion
|One year after receiving blood
|Abortion or miscarriage
|Six weeks if after the first trimester (12 weeks)
|Dental work
|Seventy-two hours after root canal or after tooth is pulled
|Have had sex with a male or female prostitute within the past 12 months, even once
|Twelve months after last incident
|Measles, mumps, chicken pox
|Three weeks from day of exposure (can give blood if vaccinated or had disease in past) and no signs or symptoms
|Tuberculosis (T.B.)
|Two years after completion of treatment
|Have been an inmate of a correctional institution for more than 72 consecutive hours
|One year from date of release
|Sniffed cocaine within last 12 months or had sex with someone who sniffed cocaine in last 12 months
|Twelve months after last incident
|Cold, sore throat, respiratory infection, flu
|Until symptoms are over
|Antibiotics (except antibiotics for acne)
|Two days after treatment is over if taken for infection
|Twelve months after procedure
|Full-term pregnancy
|Six weeks after delivery
|Surgery, serious injury
|When healing is completed
|Sexually transmitted disease: venereal disease, chlamydia, genital herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea
|Twelve months following diagnosis and treatment
|Open-heart surgery (except coronary artery bypass)
|Three years after surgery
|Lyme disease
|Six months after date of last signs or symptoms/48 hours
|One month after taking last dose
|If donating platelets by apheresis, three days after last dose
|Have had sex with anyone listed in the first five categories in the Permanent Restrictions listed below
|Twelve months after last incident
|Permanent Restrictions (Please do not give blood if you:)
|Source: New York Blood Center
Back to the GMHC Treatment Issues November/December 2000 contents page.


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Around the world there are more than 5,000 different Indigenous Peoples, speaking more than 4,000 languages.
They have different customs and cultures, but they do share some unpleasant realities: removal of their lands, denial of their culture, physical attacks and being treated as second-class citizens.
Indigenous Peoples are often marginalized and face discrimination in countries' legal systems. This leaves them at further risk of violence and abuse. Indigenous human rights defenders who speak out face intimidation and violence, often supported by the state.
Peaceful efforts of Indigenous Peoples to maintain their own cultural identity or exercise control over their traditional lands and resources can be branded treason or "terrorism".
Amnesty works with Indigenous Peoples to develop urgently needed laws to protect their lands, cultures and livelihoods. At the international level, Indigenous Peoples have made their voices heard and effectively lobbied governments. Amnesty has supported them, for example, on the development of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).
We also work to get people home. After more than 20 years living in deplorable conditions beside a main road, the Sawhoyamaxa Indigenous community in Paraguay won their legal battle to return to their ancestral land. "We Indigenous People cry only when we have achieved our freedom, says community leader Carlos Marecos. "Today, it is like we are coming out of a prison, so many of us are crying because it is so emotional."
The problem
Dispossessed and in danger
Indigenous people often share a key value – the close association between their identity, their way of life and their land. They act as "guardians" or "custodians" of the land for the next generation. Losing it means a loss of identity.
The lands on which Indigenous Peoples live are often rich in resources and have been appropriated, sold, leased or simply plundered and polluted by governments and private companies. Many have been uprooted from their land through discriminatory government policies or armed conflict. Indigenous rights activists face violence and even murder when they seek to defend their communities and their lands.
In many countries more than 50% of Indigenous people live in cities. Over the last three decades Indigenous people have moved from their traditional lands towards urban areas. Some seeking opportunities for education and employment. While others are escaping human rights abuses, particularly related to their land rights and the survival of their culture.
Cut off from resources and traditions vital to their welfare and survival, many Indigenous Peoples are unable to fully enjoy their human rights. Instead they face marginalization, poverty, disease and violence – in some instances extinction as a people.
Amnesty is calling for
Governments must implement laws and policies that bring the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to life, particularly around:
• Ensuring that Indigenous Peoples have a say in decisions that affect them.
• Maintaining their distinct cultural identities.
• Living free from discrimination and the threat of genocide.
• Having secure access to the lands and resources essential to their wellbeing and ways of life.
The issue in detail
Indigenous Peoples face discrimination and marginalization. Across the Americas, for example, compared with other citizens, Indigenous women and men are more likely to be underpaid, have lower levels of education and have a lower life expectancy. Globally, Indigenous people suffer higher rates of poverty, landlessness, malnutrition and internal displacement, and they have lower levels of literacy and less access to health services.
Indigenous women face multiple forms of discrimination because of their culture, class and gender. They are more like to die in child-birth and discrimination results in abuse by the authorities and people from other communities. More than 2000 poor indigenous and campesino women in Peru were sterilized by state authorities in the 1990s without their full consent. On 22 January 2014, the Public Prosecutors office in Lima closed their case. Justice simply denied.
Domestic violence can occur in all communities. But with the disruption of traditional ways of life, Indigenous women may lose status in their own society or find that the frustration, resulting from racial and sexual discrimination affecting the wider community tips over into violence in their household.
Such discrimination, marginalization and violence occurs again and again across the globe. From southern Africa where the children of the San, Ovahimba people and other Indigenous Peoples find it very hard to access education to south-east Asia, where the majority of women and girls trafficked across state borders are from Indigenous communities.
Help us protect Indigenous Peoples. Join millions fighting for human rights.
Key Facts
370 million people in more than 70 countries identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples
5000 different Indigenous People's in the world
70% of them live in Asia

subset: commoncrawl


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DISCLAIMER: We provide suggestions for books for information only. The views and opinions of the following books are not necessarily those of the Geneva Centre for Autism.
- The Source of Autism
Author: G. Richard
(East Molline: Lingui Systems, 1997)
- Emergence: Labeled Autistic
Author: T. Grandin
(Novato: Arena Press, 1986)
- Biological Treatments for Autism and PDD
Author: W. Shaw
(Great Plains: The Great Plains Laboratory, 2002)
- Nobody Nowhere: The Remarkable Autobiography of a Girl
Author: D. Williams
(Toronto: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1992)
- Exiting Nirvana: A Daughter with Autism
Author: C. Claiborne Park
(New York: Little Brown Company, 2001)
- Asperger's Syndrome, the Universe and Everything
Author: K. Hall
(Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2001)
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Author: M. Haddon
(Canada: Doubleday Canada Ltd., 1992)
- A Guide to Successful Employment for Individuals with Autism
Author: M. Datlow-Smith
(Baltimore: Brookes Publishing, 1995)
- Autism Treatment Guide
Author: E. Gerlach
(Eugine: Four Leaf Press, 1996)


text:
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Sub-districts : Eglwysilan; Llanwonno; Llantrisaint; Pontypridd; Rhondda; Ystradyfodwg
GRO volumes: 11a (1863-1930).
Registers and Census District:
11a (1863-1930).
Pontypridd Register Office
Courthouse Street
Mid Glamorgan
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Ira Flatow: Science Friday at the Museum main content.
by AMNH on
This Wednesday, March 28, NPR's popular weekly talk show Science Friday travels to the Museum for a special public recording in the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life. Host Ira Flatow will interview Museum Curator Emeritus Ian Tattersall about how Homo sapiens became the dominant human species and speak to a panel of urban biodiversity experts, including Eleanor Sterling, the director of the Museum's Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. Flatow recently shared what he's looking forward to about the evening.
What's it like taking Science Friday on the road?
Ira Flatow: I love taking Science Friday out of the studio and into a public square like the Museum. When we're with an audience, it's like doing theater. The audience is part of our show, and you can hear them, feel them, and react to them.
What makes for a good Science Friday?
Flatow: A good Science Friday is when everybody has a good time and we're actually having a conversation. We're not trying to do an interview. We're trying to feel like we're sitting around schmoozing and talking about science in a meaningful but interesting and entertaining way. And that's how most people absorb things. Science is organic, it breathes, and the public will take in as much science as it can.
You'll be speaking to a panel of urban biodiversity experts at the Museum event. What do you find most interesting about this topic?
Flatow: I don't think people realize how much wildlife there is in an urban society like New York City. It's always fascinating to show people the rich biodiversity of a city.
What do you hope listeners take away from your talk with paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall?
Flatow: I think listeners enjoy the experience of talking to someone on the cutting edge of research like Ian Tattersall. There's a living, breathing scientist up there, unfiltered, and you can talk to him and he can speak English to you. He's a rock star of his science in many ways, pun intended. We keep pushing back the dates of when the first hominids can be detected by what they leave behind, and it's always exciting to talk to the people who are filling the gaps in our knowledge.
Click here to purchase tickets. Doors open at 6 pm and taping begins promptly at 6:30.


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The 8th Judicial District ADR Program is assembling a Court Roster of neutral evaluators to handle civil, commercial and matrimonial matters pending before the Court.
Neutral evaluators will not be compensated for the first two (2) hours spent in ADR. Thereafter, neutral evaluators, who are not court employees and who are not employed by an agency having a contract with the Office of Court Administration, will be paid at an hourly rate they have listed on the Court Roster for neutral evaluation work. Billable time will include actual time spent in neutral evaluation sessions and up to one-half hour of pre or post preparation time for each scheduled session. Compensation exceeding $1,500.00 is subject to prior court approval.
Neutral evaluators responsibilities may include:
• Coordinating with Court staff;
• Managing cases promptly and efficiently;
• Conducting neutral evaluations in accordance with the procedural and ethical standards related to neutral evaluation;
• Preparing agreements and/or disposition forms in a format acceptable to the Court.
Requirements for Court Roster membership include completion of at least six (6) hours of training in procedural and ethical matters related to neutral evaluation and either be:
1) A lawyer admitted to the practice of law for at least five (5) years AND have at least five (5) years of substantial experience in the specific subject area of the cases that will be referred; OR
2) A Judge, JHO, Court Attorney-Referee or Confidential Law Clerk to a Judge AND have at least five (5) years of substantial experience in the specific subject area of the cases that will be referred.
Appointment to the Court Roster is at the discretion of the Administrative Judge of the Eighth Judicial District in consultation with the Coordinator of the Unified Court System's Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs. Admission will be competitive and will be based on each applicant's training, experience, education, and availability to conduct neutral evaluations. Applicants may be required to participate in an interview process before a review committee appointed by the Administrative Judge.
Pursuant to the Rules of the Chief Administrator of the Courts, 22NYCRR 146.3b, neutrals shall be redesignated to the court roster every two years. In determining whether to redesignate any neutral, the neutral must show proof of compliance with the requirement that they attend at least six (6) hours of additional approved training relevant to their respective practice areas every two years pursuant to 22 NYCRR 146.5. Neutral evaluators may be removed from the panel at the discretion of the Administrative Judge in consultation with the Coordinator of the Unified Court System's Office of Alternative Dispute Resolution Programs.
To be considered for the Eighth Judicial District Court Roster of Arbitrators, please complete the enclosed application and return it to:
Mary Louise Hayden, Esq.
8th Judicial District ADR Program Administrator
92 Franklin Street
Buffalo, NY 14202
Include a copy of your resume or curriculum vitae with references along with your hourly rate. Please also indicate if you utilize a sliding fee scale in appropriate cases.
Answer all questions completely.
Inform your references that they may be contacted by the 8th District Administrative Judge's Office.
Sign and date the declaration at the end of the application.
(in .PDF format)


text:
- Family Tree
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|This article describes a collection of historical records available at FamilySearch.org.
Access the records: Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914 .
Deutschland, Bremen, Namenskartei aus den Bremen Schiffslisten 1904-1914
This collection of passenger lists card index covers the years 1904 to 1914.
This is a collection of handwritten cards covering the information of over 8,800 passengers.
This card file was created by the Deutsches Ausland-Institut from Bremen passenger ship lists sometime between WWI and WWII. When the allies occupied Germany at the end of WWII, the Institute was closed and later re-opened as the Institut für Austlandsbeziehungen. These records, created by the Deutsches Ausland-Institut, were subsequently transferred to the Bundesarchiv.
This name index includes approximately 8,800 individual emigrants. The cards appear to have been in good condition when they were microfilmed in 1988.
===Template:Collection citation ===
The key genealogical facts found on the card index include:
Use the last residence given in the card index to pursue earlier records for the individual: birth records in any case, marriage records for those that had been married.
The index was created to facilitate access to the information in the Bremen passenger lists. It was created by the Deutsches Ausland-Institut, who was interested in documenting German groups outside of Germany.
The information is pretty reliable; however, as this index has been derived from the actual passenger lists, errors may have occurred during the indexing process.
Germany, Bremen Name Card Index to Passenger Lists
|We welcome user additions to FamilySearch Historical Records wiki articles. We are looking for additional information that will help readers understand the topic and better use the available records. We also need translations for collection titles and images in articles about records written in languages other than English. For specific needs, please visit WikiProject FamilySearch Records.
Please follow these guidelines as you make changes. Thank you for any contributions you may provide.
The following citation refers to the original source of the data and images published on FamilySearch.org Historical Records. It may include the author, custodian, publisher, and archive for the original records.
Information about creating source citations for FamilySearch Historical Collections is listed in the wiki article Help:How to Create Source Citations For FamilySearch Historical Records Collections.
When you copy information from a record, you should list where you found the information. This will help you or others to find the record again. It is also good to keep track of records where you did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records.
A suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched is found in the wiki article Help:How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.
"Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists, 1904-1914." index and images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org: accessed March 21, 2011). entry for Josef Pater, departure 16 August 1913, destination: Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.A.; Citing Departure Lists, FHL microfilm 1,568,603. Deutsches Ausland-Institut Stuttgart, Germany.


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As I was thinking about what I might share with you this morning, I was reading in the Epistle of James this week and it struck me that there's such a powerful, powerful portion of that chapter right at the very end and that's what I want to address with you this morning. So open your Bibles to James chapter 1.
I'm going to read you a passage here from versus 19 down to verse 27 and then address the great truths in that together with you. James 1 beginning in verse 19, "This you know my beloved brethren but let everyone be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. For the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God; therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness. In humility, receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror. For once he has looked at himself and gone away he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer. This man shall be blessed in what he does. If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart this man's religion is worthless. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and father to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Year after year and month after month week after week here in Grace Community Church we study the word of God. We preach the word of God. We teach the word of God that is the heart and soul of this ministry. And I suppose from time to time it's important to stop and affirm why we do that. This passage allows me that opportunity.
The Psalmist said, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord," Psalm 119, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord." In the same Psalm, the Psalmist expressed his deepest desire, "oh, let me not wonder from thy commandments." He expressed his deepest affection, "oh how I love thy law." He expressed his greatest happiness, "I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies as much as in all riches."
In other words, he found everything in the word of God. And that's why he says in verse 30, "I have chosen the way of truth." In fact, in verse 161 of that same Psalm he says, "My heart stands in awe of thy word."
The word is the heart and soul of our Christian experience. In it God speaks. In the same Psalm, the Psalmist again said, "I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right." Everything in it is true. And he summed it up with this commitment, "I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes always even to the end."
His commitment was to the word of God to hear it, to love it, to believe it, to apply it. The Godly are described in Psalm 1, "In the familiar words, as those who delight in the law of the Lord and in that law meditate day and night."
And frankly, a person's attitude toward and response to the word of God is at the very core of their Christianity. That's why we teach the Bible here. There's really nothing else to say.
In the section that I read to you, James makes two major themes clear and helps us to understand what is important about them. First of all, he talks about a proper reception of the word and secondly a proper response to the word. I suppose you could look at those two things in this way how the word goes in and how the word comes out. That's really the issue.
Let's begin with James by looking at a proper reception of the word. You will notice in verse 21 the little phrase, "Receive the word." "Receive the word." In verses 19 to 21, he is talking about this reception of the word. And there are a number of things it must be attendant to a proper reception.
You remember Jesus said in Mark 4:24, "Take heed what you hear." And in Luke 8:18, he said, "Take heed how you hear." It's not just what we here it's how we here it. Jesus pointed out in the parable of the soils in Matthew 13, that people hear the same word. The seed is the word of God but they have very differing responses to it.
It's not the what as much as the how. The word, the truth, falls on hard ground accomplishes nothing. Falls on stony ground ultimately accomplishes nothing. Falls on wheaty soil ultimately accomplishes nothing. Falls on good grounds and on those various good grounds one, two and three produces a thirty fold, sixty fold, one hundred fold response. It's the same truth. The what is the same. The how is different.
Now, how are we to receive the word? Three features answer that question. Number one, we are to receive the word with submission -- submission. Verse 19, "This you know my beloved brethren."
What does he mean by that? Well, it really connects up with what was just said as well as what is to be said. This you know, and of course he has just spoken in verse 18 about the power of the word of truth; in fact, in verse 18 he says he brought us forth. He regenerated us. He raised us from the dead. He gave us life. He saved us redeemed us by the word of truth.
This you know; in other words, you've already experienced the power of the word. You already know that the word is alive and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword. You already know what Peter said, "That you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable. That is through the living and abiding word of God. And this is the word that was preached to you," 1 Peter 1.
You have already experienced in your conversion, in your salvation, the power of the word of God. You know that the law of the Lord is perfect totally transforming the whole inner-man as Psalm 19:7 puts it. You know that.
You already know that the Scripture can make you wise under salvation. You know that it is profitable to make the man of God complete thoroughly furnished unto all good works. You already know that. You have already experienced that because you were born of the truth. You know that the gospel is the power of God both to the Jew and the Greek to whoever believes.
So you have already heard the word. You have already experienced its power. Now because you already know that my beloved brethren I want you as the thrust of this to continue to receive the word.
You already have experienced its power at that massive level that we would call conversion or regeneration transferring you out of darkness to light out of death to life. You have already experienced that.
Now, I want you to continue to receive the word. It is our food. It is our drink. It is our light. It is our lamp. It is our path. We must commit to hearing the word.
And it's along that line that he then says, "Here's how I want you to respond to it. Let everyone be quick to hear." Now, I suppose if you just pulled this verse out of the section, uprooted it, you might conclude that this is some kind of generic statement about being a good listener. Listen to your kids. Listen to your wife. Listen to your friends and don't talk too much.
And that's a nice kind of way to be but that's not what this is talking about. The context here is all about the word of truth and when it says be quick to hear it means to be eager, to put yourself under the proclamation of the word of God. That's what it's talking about.
The idea here is to grasp every opportunity to increase your hearing of God's word. The word of God is the theme. You see the word of God mentioned in verse 18. You see the word of God mentioned again in verse 21, "Receive the word." You see it mentioned in verse 22, "The word." You see it mentioned in verse 23, "The word." And it's referred to in verse 25 "As the perfect law the law of liberty."
The context here is the word and it is the word that we are to be quick to hear. The idea again is to grasp every opportunity to increase your hearing of God's word. To pursue every privileged occasion to obtain the knowledge of God.
Literally in the Greek, be quick to the hearing. Go to the lesson. Go to the sermon. Go to the class. Go to the exposition. Get where you can hear.
In verses 2-12, James talked about trials. Life is made up of trials. And when the trials come they demand wisdom from God and the word provides that wisdom.
And then starting in verse 13 down to verse 18 he talks about temptation. And the temptations come and when they come they demand knowledge of the word of God to be withstood. So whether you're talking about the trials of life or the temptations -- solicitations to evil, we need the word of God which gives us the foundation on which we stand.
And so James says, "Put yourself quickly. Hasten every time you have the opportunity to get where you can hear the word of God." Charles Wesley cultivated this element in his own faith when he wrote among the many, many magnificent poems that he wrote and set to music he said this, "When quiet in my room I sit thy book be my companion still. My joy thy sayings to repeat, talk or the records of thy will and search the oracle divine until every heart felt word is mine."
That's the heart that James is after, quick to hear. Psalm 119:11, the Psalmist again says, "Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever for they are the rejoicing of my heart." If they are the joy of your heart you're going to be quick to hear.
Listen I know why people are here. I know why you're here this morning. I know why people come to this church on a Sunday night. I know why they go to a fellowship group. I know why they attend classes. I know why because they love the truth.
Alex Motyere wrote, "We might wonder why the ever practical James does not proceed to outline schemes of daily Bible reading or the like. For surely these are the ways in which we offer a willing ear to the voice of God. But he doesn't do that. Rather, he goes deeper. For frankly there is little point to schemes and times if we have not got an attentive spirit. It is possible to be unfailingly regular in Bible reading but to achieve no more than to have moved the bookmark forward. The word is read but not heard."
James says, "Be quick to hear. Hear what it says." But he immediately adds something else, "Slow to speak --slow to speak." I don't think he's talking about again generically being kind of a quiet person. You can be mistaken for being very profound if you never say anything. That's not the issue.
What he's talking about here is when it comes to the hearing of the word be in a hurry to hear it when it comes to the teaching of the word slow down. You have just engaged yourself in the most serious engagement and exercise on the face of the earth, teaching the word of the living God. Eagerly, do we pursue every opportunity to hear it? Reluctantly, do we pursue any opportunity to speak it?
People sometimes ask me if I get nervous before I preach. Well, I've done this for a long time. And what they mean has to be answered, "No, I don't get nervous." It's not unfamiliar ground to me. I'm very much at home here.
So I don't get nervous about public speaking. But there's another thing that goes on in me and it is there all the time. And it is a constantly, engaging reluctance to do this frankly at all. There's ascension which I came into this kicking and screaming and I'm still doing it.
There's ascension in which I approach every Sunday with a bit of reluctance because I have to assume that you are accepting what I say as the word of the living God and that frankly is more responsibility than I should have to bear.
You might think that a preacher who preaches as much as I do charges into this thing with some kind of rapacious attitude. Nothing could be further from the truth and if you want to know the truth I would be perfectly content to spend the rest of my life just doing the preparation and never preaching the sermons because for me the joy is in the discovery.
The responsibility comes when I spread it around. James chapter 3, James elucidates what he means in chapter 1 when in verse one he says, "Let not many of you become teachers my brethren knowing that as such we shall incur a stricter judgment." Now who in their right mind wants that?
I mean it's tough enough to be under divine scrutiny without elevating yourself into a category that's even higher. That's why 1 Timothy 5:22 says, "Don't go laying hands on anyone too soon because when you push them into the responsible position of teaching and they're not appropriately prepared for that they will simply incur a stricter judgment. And also they may compound the iniquities of others by what they say."
Sadly, tragically there are preachers all over the world who are irresponsible and are going to face severe judgment some day in the economy of God when they have to take a stand on the things that they have said that have polluted the revelation of God. But it's a frightening thing and James says, "Don't be in a hurry to speak."
So corresponding to the positive command to receive the word with submissiveness is this negative command as to that nature of that submissiveness; the certain reluctance to speak the Scripture, a holy fear.
A number of years ago when I first went to Scotland to preach I didn't know this of course I knew the great story of John Knox the Scottish reformer and what a man he was. I just recently reread biographical material on John Knox and was again astonished at the kind of man that he was.
But John Knox was the Scottish preacher who defined the reformation in Scotland and who stood up to preach and was the powerful, bold proclaimer. And now they call pulpits like this in churches the John Knox desk or the John Knox pulpit.
And when you ascend to preach and you always ascend some little man called the church sexton fixes you up and puts you on a robe and pushes you up these little stairs when it's time to ascend and you go up into the John Knox pulpit.
And it's sort of an elevated thing, in the liturgy of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, the pulpit is up. It's elevated. It's not to elevate the preacher but it is to elevate the proclamation of the word of God.
But when you think about John Knox, and you get into the story of his life, you find that he was the very opposite of a man who wanted to be elevated. Here they've named pulpits after him which in a sense leaves his legacy on the back of every preacher who steps into one of them though most of them have long ago abandoned it.
But John Knox, according to his own biographer, when he was first called to preach had this reaction. This is what his biographer says, "He burst forth in most abundant tears and withdrew himself to his chamber. He started to cry and ran to his room."
The biographer continues, "His face, his countenance, and behavior from that day till the day he was compelled to present himself in the public place of preaching did sufficiently declare the trouble and grief of his soul." The man was in constant grief from the time he was told he had to preach until he got there.
Why? Because of the seriousness of what he was dealing with. Now apparently in some of the fellowships to whom James writes, of course he's writing to converted Jews scattered all over everywhere, but apparently there were a lot of folks who wanted to talk and not listen. He makes reference to them in verse 26 of chapter 1, people who don't bridle their tongue.
The whole of chapter 3 is all about the tongue. So apparently there were some folks in there who were real quick to speak and slow to listen and so James reverses that for them. And then he adds this and I think it's a wonderful addition in verse 19, "And slow to anger".
He uses the word here for anger or gay which means a deep seated resentment. It's not an outburst. It's not thumas. It's not some kind of explosion where you lose your temper. This is a deep seated resentment. Now, he says, "I want you people to be eager to hear the word, very reluctant to be put in the place to speak it, and very slow to boil inside with resentment when you hear it." That's the issue.
And here's where we get to the submissiveness. It refers to a disposition that is used in Scripture as such, Romans 1, Romans 9, "I want you to hear the word and I want you to hear it without any resistance." Often people who hear the word of God get hostile toward the truth and toward the preacher.
My mail has many illustrations of that hostility. The truth is presented. They don't want to hear the truth. They don't like the truth. And so it begins a smoldering resentment.
Some people begin to resent when they hear something that's different than what they believe. Some people resent when they hear something that confronts them. They are hostile to the truth because they're convicted by it.
Some people come through the church, a church like this. Hearing me say something, say I'll never go back there again. That offends me. And that's an anger, a resentment toward the truth.
In Galatians 4:16, Paul says, "Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth? Does that make me an enemy because I told you the truth? It's the greatest thing I could ever do for you is tell you the truth."
So James says, "When it comes to the word take every occasion to hear it. Be very reluctant to stand in the place of the teacher and speak it and very, very slow to be resentful." In other words, there may be an occasion when you do hear something that isn't true and you need to take issue with it and be very slow to a negative reaction.
Why? Verse 20, "Because the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." And what is the purpose of teaching the word? To produce what? The righteousness of God. What does that mean? To make you right with God.
The purpose of teaching the word is to make you right with God. And it can't happen if you're fighting it, if you're resenting it, if you have this evil attitude. That's why Proverbs 16:32 says that, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty. And he who rules his spirit than he who captures the city."
Proverbs 19:11 says, "A man's discretion makes him slow to anger." You don't want to be resentful toward the word of God. You don't want to fight back. And that's easy to do that.
I can even be sitting and listening and somebody will say something that is convicting to my own heart about a shortcoming in my own life and I have an initial sort of self defensive mechanism that goes into place and I resist that. The true believer desires to hear the word, speak the word only when compelled to do so and prepared to do so, and never exhibit any hostility or smoldering resentment or rebellion against biblical truth or the one who teaches it.
So first of all, you receive the word with submission. Secondly, here's how to receive the word. You receive the word with purity. Look at verse 21, "Therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness."
I mean this is so basic. Sin hinders the work of the word. That's why 1 Peter 1 says, "The word was preached to you. You were saved by it." 1 Peter 2 says, "So put aside all remaining evil, all guile, all hypocrisy, all envy, all slander and then like a newborn baby long for the pure milk of the word that you may grow by it."
But before you're going to be able to take in the word and grow by it you're going to have to deal with sin because sin is a barrier. Verse 21 talks about receiving the word. That's the main verb. The main verb is the verb receive -- receive.
But there is a participle that modified the main verb and that participle is putting aside that defines how you receive. That's the syntax of the verse if you're into grammar. The main verb is the main verb which carries the main action. It's a verse about receiving the word.
How to receive the word? Putting aside is the participle that modifies the main -- it's actually an aorist middle participle it should be read, "Having already put aside receive the word." The point is before the word can be received and produce the righteousness of God, which is what it wants to produce; sin has to be dealt with it.
Now, notice what he says about it some pretty graphic terms here putting aside. That verb came to refer to taking off your clothes. Now you come home from the end of a difficult day, dusty or muddy roads, dirt roads in the Middle East. You came home from hard labor in the hot sun sweaty and filthy from the dirt and from the menial task of working the land in Agrarian culture.
You came home and you threw off those filthy clothes at the end of the day that's the imagery here. All filthiness, ruparia, it's a word used for dirty clothes. It's a word used for filth and scum that gets on the body when you're out in the dirt and you're working. And it came metaphorically to refer to moral vice to inequity sinful filth.
But it's a very interesting word. The root word, rupas, which were seeing the word here ruparia but the root word rupas is used in the writings of Hypocrites and Clement to refer to wax in your ears -- the wax in your ears. How interesting.
Get rid of any dirt that accumulates and plugs up your ears so you can't hear the word. You can become deaf because of accumulated wax; death because of the accumulated sin. Throw it off. Get rid of it.
Romans 13:12 Paul says, "Put off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." Take off the filth in your life. When I look at someone who has no particular appetite for the word of God, no particular longing to be where the word of God is taught. No big hurry to get under the sound of preaching and teaching. No great passion to study Scripture.
I conclude one of two things is true; one, they're not Christians. They don't really know the Lord because they don't have the love of the truth or two their ears are plugged. They have no interest in hearing and what plugs them is sin -- sin.
Then he adds as if it weren't enough to say putting aside all filthiness, "All that remains of wickedness." That phrase is interesting. All is very important. Get rid of all remaining wickedness. Wickedness is a word for general evil. It includes not only the evil act but the evil intent, the evil thought, the evil heart.
When it translates all that remains that's actually the term overflowing. All overflowing, all abundance, all amount of evil that's still there. Get rid of it. It refers to whatever evil still resides in our humanness. It's a cancer that has to be cut away. It's a wax that plugs our ears. It's a garment that's filthy. It has to be thrown off. The whole filthy, ugly, dirty mass of wicked, moral, vice and sin must be confessed, repented and removed. That's how you have to receive the word.
And if you have no interest in the word it's because you're rebellious or sinful. It's because you're not submissive or you're not pure. Thirdly, James says there's a third aspect to receive the word. We have to receive the word with humility. Verse 21, "In humility receive the word."
Another reason you don't want to listen to the word of God is you're proud. You have your own spin on life. You have your own answers. You don't need it. A submissive, pure, heart with a humble attitude.
It's like the Barians who had such a readiness of mind to search the Scriptures. Receive, it's a command. Receive the word but receive it in purity and submission and in humility. By the way, that word humility really has the idea of humble, gentle, meek and willing. Receive it with meekness, gentleness, a willing spirit.
I suppose we could say what he means here is be teachable -- be teachable. It's an active kind of teachability where you really want to know and you want to submit your heart and soul. Now what is it we're receiving? I just have to close the verse with a look at this the word implanted. The word implanted.
Now we live in a day where we hear a lot about implants, right? I don't want to get into this too much. But the other day on television I saw what I thought has got to be the ultimate, men having implants in strange places.
Some men have implants in their face but the new implant is in your calf. For men who like to wear shorts and wow the ladies with some kind of shaped calf. You can have an implant in your calf. How wonderful.
Now look I have an implant and so do you if you're a Christian. It's right here. It's the implanted what? Word. Forget the calf. Forget that deal. I'll go for this one; the implanted word. When was it implanted? Wow, when did you have your surgery? I had mine when I was saved. So did you. And the word got implanted. It's there.
The resident author of Scripture lives in me. Is that not true? I mean I have the word and I have the author in me to interpret the word. The preaching of the gospel mixed with faith implanted the word in my heart. And now that word is there and it's a vital element of my new life and my new nature. But the power and the affect of this routed word is dependent on my ongoing willingness to receive it.
Right? I mean I guess the tragedy of all tragedies is to have the word implanted and be indifferent to it. You know I never cease to be amazed at the fact that I can pick up my Bible and as I begin to read the Bible I have the confidence that the spirit of God, the living spirit of God dwelling within me, is illuminating his own revelation. That's the implanted word.
The power of the word and the affect of the routed word is dependent on my receiving it. And what compels me to receive it? The end of the verse. It's able to save my soul or my life. What does he mean by that? It is the source of salvation past, present and future. It is the source of my justification, sanctification, glorification.
It is the word that continually delivers me from sin, continually saves me from myself from my sin, continually conforms me to the image of Jesus Christ. That's what he means. 1 Corinthians 1:18, "We are being saved by the power of God." And it's the word that does that. It's the word that sanctifies and nurtures and builds us up.
As Paul told the Ephesians' elders, "It's the word that builds us up and gives us an inheritance." He's not talking about salvation here. He's talking to already saved believers and telling them the word has already been implanted and now if you will receive it, it'll continue on the path of salvation all the way to glorification.
The word has power to continually deliver us from sin and to deliver us into the very presence of God. So the whole section there in verses 19 to 21, "Is a call to the Christian to a right reception of all the truth of God's word that you have to listen with a submissive heart. You have to listen casting off all sin and humbling yourself in obedience." That's the issue.
When you do that you mark yourself out as a true believer and you throw open the gates of blessing. We should be like Mary. Luke 10:39 says "She sat at Jesus' feet and heard his word." We don't want to be like the crowd. Remember the crowd that stoned Stephen in Acts 7 it said, "They cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears."
We want to be like Cornelius who said to Peter, "We are all here present before God to hear all the things that are commanding you from God." Acts 10:33, "We should be like the noble Barians who received the word with all readiness of mind." Not like those of whom Paul spoke in 2 Timothy 4:3, "Would turn away their ears from the truth." James makes a great point of a proper reception of the word secondly; a proper reaction to the word.
And now that we've received it, how do we respond to it? Verse 22, "Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves." It's fine to receive it but in the end what really matters is doing it. It's important to hear but it's not enough to hear.
The word, listen now, that is powerful enough to totally transform the whole person, powerful enough to sanctify you must be obeyed. You not only have to take it in you've got to put it back out again in your living. Be ye doers or prove yourselves literally doers of the word as the NAS puts it.
Be ye continually doers of the word. Builders build and teachers teach and doers do. You should be known as a doer of the word because that's your life habit. One writer said, "It's a life of holy energy." And not merely a hearer like so many. By the way, the word for hearer here it's the ancient term for auditors.
Now at the Masters' College and the Masters' Seminary we have people who show up and they want to audit a class. You know what that means, right? That means you want to listen but not apply. It just means you don't want to do any of the work. You just want to sit there and listen.
Well, do you know there are Christians who just audit the Bible? They listen. They hear. But they have not commitment to do. Now they are deluded. They may be so deluded they may be saved. There should be a willingness to apply the word of God so that you're not merely a doer -- not merely a hearer rather but a doer; otherwise you have deluded yourself.
By the way, the word delude -- there's a lot of great words. And James has many that are unique but the word to delude is used in Mathematics to refer to a miscalculation. They got it wrong. The reckoned it wrong. They miscalculated. They were self-deceived through fallacious reasoning. They believe they're okay when the fact is they're not.
Now in order to explain this truth of doing James takes an analogy. And it's just a great analogy. Look at it in verse 23. Now here's his analogy to explain his point. You have to not only receive it but you've got to react to it respond to it. "Anyone -- if anyone is a hearer of the word, not a doer -- here's his little parable -- his little analogy, "he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror." Now that's pretty clear, right?
He says, "The person who just hears and doesn't do is like a guy who looks in a mirror and he sees his natural face." That simply means the face of his genesis or the face of his birth. That's him. You see yourself.
In those days, there was no glass. Glass didn't come till the Thirteenth Century in case you want a little trivia. But mirrors in those days were hand sized mirrors maybe a little bit larger made of polished bronze which is a combination of copper and tin. Made of silver for wealthy people and for really wealthy people made of gold. And gold could be polished pretty good and pounded pretty flat and so you could get a fair likeness.
Glass mirrors they didn't have. Those mirrors were not perfect. They of course had a little bit of wave in them that might distort somewhat. But people would use those mirrors, obviously, like people do today to make sure you don't go out and frighten the world.
Generally, adequate for an accurate view and see what you look like. So he says a person who is a hearer and not a doer is like somebody who looks in a mirror. And for once he had looked at himself and gone away. He's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. Now we've all experienced that.
My phone rings always every morning when I'm shaving. And some days I go out there and I forget what I looked like when I left and I just finished getting dressed and leave. And the first shocked face makes me wonder. So I find a mirror and say, "Oh, this part didn't get shaved. This part didn't get combed. My tie is over here. The collar deals aren't button. I got different socks."
You know how that works because you never -- I took my wife out for a nice dinner the other night and I thought she was starting a new fashion. She had one long earring. She was in the middle of putting them on and got interrupted and forgot what she look like. And I reminded her in a nice way that I preferred the old style. I mean the symmetry.
How many times have you sort of -- and I've always wondered why they put the biggest mirror in the house in the bathroom where you stagger in and look the worst. You know if they had a graduated series of larger ones as you worked your way through the process.
But at some point you can go away from the mirror and forget what you look like. And you know how people show up at work like that occasionally or show up at school like that. God forbid some women even go out having forgotten their make-up.
Now this is like a hearer only. What does he mean by this? Verse 25, "One who looks intently at the perfect law," that's the Scripture. He wants to remind us that it's not a law like other laws. So he says, "The law of liberty." It's a freeing law.
"The one who looks intently at the Scripture and abides by it or remains in it or obeys it or applies it is not a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer," this man shall be what? "Blessed in what he does."
"The one who looks intently", notice that in verse 25. It's a different word than the word for look back in verse 24. It means to stoop down and look very closely with precision and care. And when you look into the word of God carefully, precisely, closely it implies a stooping intently with an eager effort to see the truth of God. To discern you or own the face to see what you're really like. To let the word of God reveal you to you.
When you look intently and long and it's not haphazard look and a distraction and you're gone. When you look long you're going to remember what you saw. And you're going to be able to apply it and you're going to be blessed. And his little analogy finds its meaning or the key to his analogy is in that phrase looking at the perfect law.
The mirror is the Bible. The mirror is the Scripture. It's the word of God. And when you look into the word of God intently and when you look into intimately. And you see the revelation of God and Christ and the spirit and the truth and the revelation of your sinful ugliness and you see how desperately ugly you are and how much cleansing you need and how much repentance you need and how you need to throw off the filthy garments that you keep putting back on even though you're a believer. And you need to adorn yourself in the beautiful robes of righteousness when you look into the word of God intently that's exactly what you're going to see and you're going to reflect it in the way you live.
The hearer only listens, has a brief glance, walks away, forgets what he looks like and goes on his way and misses God's blessing. It was a momentary and untransforming impression but on the other hand, one who looks long and intently into the Scripture is going to definitely understand their life. And they're going to be able to apply the word of God to make that which is honoring to God a reality in their own living.
This man shall be blessed in what he does. God is so practical. Do you want to be blessed or unblessed? I'd rather be blessed. Wouldn't you? I'd rather be happy. I'd rather make my way prosperous and have good success than make my way miserable and have failure. Then that means I have to look intently into the law, the word. And by the way it's an easy yolk and a light burden.
When I was young I was in College. I remember these days vividly. I was dating Patricia at the time. I was playing football. And I was teaching a Bible study at my dad's church every Sunday morning. It was always hard to get up because football games on -- collegiate games were always on Saturday and we were beaten to a pulp. And I'd stagger in on Sunday mornings and get up and teach this Bible study to these college students. And I loved it. It was a great time in my life. But I always looked for an opportunity to find a guest speaker during football season because I was a wreck.
Those old days, some of played sixty minutes, we went from wire to wire in those games. And by the time we traveled back home or sometimes flew back home from wherever we were it was a just a very, very difficult time. Well, I invited this guy one time as a Scottish preacher by the name of Billy Stracken, a fiery little guy. And I had met him somewhere my dad introduced me to him. And I had him come and take my class.
And I was just really happy to just sit there and listen. And he poured out his heart and he preached real passion -- real fiery little guy, just a little guy. And I got a -- the class was over and I wanted to thank him because he was really taking my place and giving me a little break. And just a -- I was just a college kid. And I went up to him and I said Mr. Stracken I just want to tell you that was a wonderful message -- that was a wonderful message. And he looked at me and said yeah, well what are you going to do about it? That was exactly his response. No, he was right. I mean that is the appropriate contemplation but you could say it a little differently I suppose.
But I'll tell you one thing, I don't remember anything he said but that. And I'll go to my grave remembering that. And I remember the surroundings, I remember where I was standing when he said it because it about knocked me out. Yeah, well what are you going to do about it?
So my final words to you are -- but isn't that in the end the real question? Doing the word is the path of blessing. And how practical is it you say well, I -- what do you mean by that? Well, all right verse 26 and 27, we don't have time to dig into them but listen to it. "If anyone thinks himself to be religious doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his hear this man's religion is worthless."
Here's the first practical way you do the word or you know you're doing the word. It'll show up in pure speech. You want to know whether you're a doer. Listen to what you say. Listen to your conversation. Listen to your words. Listen to your jokes. Listen to your rhetoric's. Listen to your conversations.
What comes out of your mouth? Lusty things, Godly things, things that exalt, lift up, honor Christ. Is your speech seasoned with grace? Because when you're an obedient believer and you're not just taking the word in but you're putting in back out. It'll show up in your speech because out of the abundance of the heart, what? The mouth speaks.
Secondly, it'll show up in your relationship to others. This is pure and undefiled religion verse 27, "In the sight of our God and father to visit orphans and widows in their distress." If you want to know whether a person is a doer listen to what they say and watch how they deal with people in need.
You'll see the love of Christ in a doer. You'll see sacrifice. You'll see compassion. You'll see kindheartedness. You'll see tenderness. You'll see mercy. You'll see grace. And then lastly, at the end of verse 27, "Keep oneself unstained by the world."
What's that? Holy living. Godly living. Are you a doer? Pure speech, loving care, holy living. If the word is coming in and your hearing it right and you're actually doing it those three areas will demonstrate it. What you say, what you do toward others, and how you live toward God. That is the belief that behaves. That's the right response to the word.
And I suppose I would be honest and say that I have a fear that the more you hear the word and the more you don't apply it the more you train yourself to ungodliness because it just kind of rolls off like water on a duck's back.
There is a way to receive the word with submission, and purity, and humility. And there's a way to respond to it by being a doer of the word. It'll show up in your speech, your relationships, and your godliness. That's why we do what we do that you might be blessed.
Father, thank you for our time this morning. Thank you again for reminding us of the centrality of your word and the need to be hearers and doers not just hearers only.
I thank you for this congregation, this great, great group of people who love you and who do respond to the word so wonderfully.
And I thank you for those faithful ones. I pray for those who are not. And I pray that all of us would be discontent no matter how faithful we are with the fact that we ought to be more faithful, more diligent.
But Lord I am not ungrateful for a congregation of people who love the word and love to live it and I thank you for that. And I commend these people to you for blessing who are indeed obedient but Lord make us even more that way.
Forgive us for those times when we are not and continue to increase our love to hear the word because in it you speak and through it you bless. And what fool wouldn't choose to be so blessed. We commit this word these hearts to you in Christ name. Amen.
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