The highest grade in the officially recognized Chinese martial arts system is Ninth Duan. It is a prestigious honor that takes a lifetime of sustained training and experience to attain. The most famous martial master to achieve this level, is Lu Zijian; and it only took him 109 years.

Born in China, in 1893, Zijian developed a love for various Chinese martial arts. He was a late bloomer in the world of competitive fighting, and won his first significant gold medal in 1911 at the age of 18. His notoriety grew rapidly when he killed a well-known Japanese boxer with the palm of his hand, in a single blow.

On January 2, 2009 Lu Zijian inherited the unique but ominously transitory title of Oldest Person in the World, at 116 years old. The spritely supercentenarian was still immersed in the world of martial arts, actively participating in competitions and widely sought-after as an instructor. Zijian eventually died on February 20, 2012, after 118 years, 128 days of life (once you pass 110, every day is a birthday).

Accounts like this inspire me greatly to have a long-term perspective of my life. If Zijian knew how long he would live, retirement planning in his sixties would be considered a midlife crisis! When most people’s vitality is winding down rapidly in their eighties, this fighting fit octogenarian was just getting warmed up.

I find that in the church, some elderly saints have irrepressible energy and contagious joie de vivre, while others have a bleak outlook on the impending autumn of their lives.

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The fascinating case of young David Vetter, makes for a vivid illustration. Vetter was born in 1971 with a condition ominiously called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. What that meant was that his little body had no natural ability to fight off any disease. The mildest form of any germ could result in his death. Doctors attempted to protect him by placing him in a sterile plastic environment. The media, with uncharacteristic discreetness, never revealed his name while he was alive, but dubbed him affectionately as “The Bubble Boy.”

Vetter’s medical team sought to provide him with as normal a life as possible. The boy was educated, watched TV, and had a playroom area—but all within the confines of the sterile bubble.

In an attempt at curing the child, a bone marrow transplant was done from his sister through intravenous tubes running into the bubble. What pre-screening tests could not reveal was that the donor’s blood contained dormant traces of a virus. With no immune system, the virus rapidly spread and killed David Vetter at age twelve.

That sad story has a parallel in the spiritual world. Many parents treat the souls of their children as if they possessed an incurable immune deficiency. Anxious about infecting their young ones with worldly philosophy, they keep them in a sterile environment. Some parents never allow their children to play with other kids, or venture outside the home. All their education and entertainment comes directly from their parents. This certainly does preserve the children from worldly, unbiblical influences, and is highly appropriate in the very young years [emphasis added after some commenters missed my support of protecting little kids.] But at some point, if the child has any hope of surviving independently outside the home, he or she will need to have been educated about what is out there. In other words, temptation is not only conquered by avoidance, but also by pre-emptive education of how to identify the lure and consequences of the temptation, as in what the father does for his son in Prov 7.

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When I was in college and a brand new believer, I was asked a question that caught me off guard: Where in the Bible does it say that Christians should wait until marriage to have sex?

It stumped me because a) I didn’t know my Bible at all, and b) even as an unbeliever I had taken for granted that Christians did not sleep together before marriage. I had never thought anyone would challenge that assumption. I was wrong.

I was asked the question again the other day, and decided to put an answer on the blog for others to use. Here’s my condensed offering…

In his letter to the Thessalonian Christians Paul reveals God’s will on the issue of sex before marriage to “you in the Lord” I.e. Christians. It is important to realize that this is not limited to a particular culture of time period, because Paul says this is what he received from God who inspired the writing of Scripture (as in 2 Tim 3:16-17 explains), on “how you aought to walk and to please God (1 Thess 4:1)”

If you don’t live this way you are living like the people “who do not know God” (vs 5) i.e. unbelievers. So, if a person lives this way, he should not call himself a Christian.

Here’s the passage…

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