Today’s episode is in lieu of one on Friday because of the importance of federal court decisions over the last four days. I address the importance of understanding recent decisions by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and SCOTUS regarding the FDA's rule allowing mifepristone (RU-486) to be dispensed by mail. What could a favorable mean for ending the scourge of abortion in the United States? The answer may surprise you.

David uses his misguided reason for running for office and Puritan theologian John Owen to explain what he believes is the most important consideration when it comes to Christian political engagement and often get’s lost. He will close by applying it to the political firestorm raised in several states by the end-abortion-now movement.

These brief thoughts of John Owen (1616-1683) on the glory of Christ are not just excellent, but they will be an aid to better appreciating Friday's publication. I will address what I see is most needed and yet often lacking in Christian political engagement, particularly in the present debates over abortion policies.

David hopes last week's publication left you wondering what Christians are to do if our way of seeing the world has allowed politics to become disproportionately important. That's today's topic. As a way forward, David offers his personal political story, examples drawn from his recent politics experiences, and Hosea's instructive, probative, and sobering words and their application.

David uses a Scriptural metaphor to explain what he sees missing in the way Christians understand our times. And he explains how it has affected the approach to politics taken by both end-abortion-now advocates and traditional right to life advocates. At a fundamental level, they seem to be the same.

Today, David takes the next step in what we began to cover last week — what it might look like to be spiritually minded (Romans 8:6) in trying to apply the juridical aspects of the “law of Moses” to political issues such as the current push to criminalize abortive mothers. The spiritually-minded may find in today's episodes some consideration that make doing that harder than some might think it is.

When it comes to legislation, many Christians look to the "law of Moses" to flesh out what is right and wrong and, increasingly, to determine what sanctions should be applied to certain wrongful acts. It is part of the "whole counsel of God," but is there a way to flesh out this law out that is "spiritually minded" vis-a-vis "fleshly" or even "carnally" minded? Today, David offers a context for thinking about those laws that he believes is spiritually minded, and begins to apply it to legislative efforts to "end abortion now."

Today’s short limited edition is an excerpt drawn from John Owen’s treatise, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded." It is an important precursor to this coming Friday’s episode in which I will begin to offer my application of this excerpt to present efforts to end abortion now. We must be "spiritually minded" (Romans 8:6) about the subject of law, because "law is spiritual" (Romans 7:14). Owen addresses a deceitful allure that can keep Christians from being so minded.

Today David looks at how some theonomists and abortion abolitionist might respond to what he said last week about Paul's 3-point summary given Timothy of what obeying the law of God means. Is it antinomian? To that end he considers what Paul meant when he told Timothy that some who desire to be teachers of the law don't use it lawfully because they neither understand what they say or what they affirm.

If we say with the Apostle Paul that "law is spiritual" can't that lead to antinomianism? Does a fear of antinomianism lurk behind the thinking of some theonomists? Is it behind the rhetoric of some abortion abolitionists who recently castigated all who did not think that Tennessee's legislators should make an abortive mother indictable either for first or second degree murder? Paul gives all those interested in law and public policy something to chew on.