Personal Apologetics John 4

Making Apologetics Personal: A Quick Lesson from John 4

It’s no secret that I love apologetics. I love to read apologetics blogs, study apologetics books, and have apologetics conversations. But there is a constant temptation I have to battle that I believe is common among many apologists: the temptation to simply study apologetics but not put it into practice.

Let me state something clearly up front so I am not misunderstood: Studying apologetics has tremendous value in its own right. After all, learning how to defend the faith can bring both clarity and confidence in God and Scripture. Nevertheless, apologetics does not primarily have an inward focus in the life of the believer. It has an outward focus aimed at graciously answering tough questions that trouble both believers and non-believers in their understanding of God and salvation (e.g., 1 Pet. 3:15; Jude 3).

So, why would someone study apologetics but never put it into use? There are probably a myriad of reasons. But I suspect one reason is that its much easier, and more comfortable, to discuss apologetic matters in the abstract. It is less risky to debate the age of the earth or presuppositionalism with a fellow believer than to discuss the evidence for the resurrection with a non-believer. After all, what is there to lose in an “in-house” discussion? As easy and tempting as this can become, Jesus took another route.

Jesus obviously knew the Scriptures well and was eager to discuss them. But he regularly puts his knowledge into practice. In John 4, for instance, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. Wanting to keep religion as an abstract matter, she raises the question as to whether one should worship in Jerusalem or Samaria. Yet Jesus declined to entertain the question merely as a theoretical exercise. He made the issuepersonal by discussing her five husbands and how God wants her to worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24).

My point is not that we should necessarily confront other people in their sin, as Jesus did in John 4. There is a time and place for that, as Scripture teaches (e.g., Matt 18:15-20). Rather, my point is that we apologists must not solely remain in the realm of speculative discussion—we need to “get in the game” and find a way to apply apologetics to life. The greater point of apologetics is not simply to learn the material for its own sake, but for the sake of changing lives. Jesus refused to keep religious issues entirely in the abstract. He made them personal. And so should we.

Pastor Dan Kimball wrote an insightful (and convicting) chapter in Apologetics for a New Generation called “A New Kind of Apologist.” He tells the story of how apologetics played a key role in his conversion to Christianity. As a new Christian, Dan was eager to share his faith, so he quickly began to immerse himself in apologetics. He read books, went to conferences, watched videos, studied debates, and more. But ironically, he noticed a disturbing trend: The more he studied apologetics the less he was really doing apologetics and evangelism. In other words, his study of apologetics actually drove him further away from the practice of it.

Fortunately Dan noticed this trend early in his journey and did a 180. As a pastor, he still studies apologetics, and writes apologetics-related books, but always with an eye for how he can apply it to life and ministry. Like Jesus in his conversation with the woman at the well, Dan refuses to keep apologetics in the theoretical realm. He wants to make it personal. And this is what I try to do as well. How about you?

 

 

/by
Kids Resentment Christianity

How Living Counter-Culturally Can Lead to Your Kids’ Resentment of Christianity

By Natasha Crain 

Our family just returned from a wonderful vacation to the mountains of British Columbia. It was stunningly beautiful! We spent our first day there relaxing at this picture-perfect lake.

My husband and kids had a blast swimming out to a wooden platform in the middle of the lake and taking turns jumping off. I’m highly opposed to submerging myself in freezing cold water unnecessarily, so I happily enjoyed reading on the shore.

At one point I decided to walk down to the sand and take some photos. A man soon approached me and pointed to the water with a very serious look on his face.

“Leeches. The lake is filled with leeches. Look around and you’ll see that the big ones are puffed up on the blood they’ve sucked.”

I immediately freaked out, imagining that my family would soon be swimming back covered in blood-sucking creatures I would be too terrified to remove. But when I looked around the shallow water for signs of my family’s impending leech doom, I didn’t see anything. I started feeling better and decided the guy probably didn’t know what he was talking about.

When my husband and kids got back from swimming, I told them what the guy had said. My husband was as grossed out as I was and replied, “Great. I’m sure it’s not a big problem but now I don’t want to go back in. Way to ruin the rest of my day, ‘leech on the beach guy.’”

A little while later, leech on the beach guy spotted me and proudly walked over with a water bottle in hand. Inside was a gigantic leech with several babies attached.

“I told you so. She’s huge and was just sitting near the shore. They are everywhere.”

He walked away with the confidence of someone who had just revealed one of life’s greatest mysteries. But although it turned out he was right, my husband wasn’t exactly grateful for the confirmation. He still resented our leech friend for ruining his swimming plans.

When the Bearer of Bad News is Resented

That same day, I read with disgust about the now infamous Teen Vogue article promoting sodomy among teens. I truly couldn’t believe this was in a mainstream magazine. Speechless. Just speechless. And it made me consider how counter-culturally we have to live today as Christians. We’re no longer talking about a world where counter-cultural means leaving sports practice early for Wednesday night youth group.

We’re talking about having to protect our kids from widely available TEEN FASHION magazines that teach them how to be sodomized.  

(Almost equally unbelievable is the Twitter response from the magazine’s digital editor to those who think this is a problem.)

In a world like this, parents must increasingly say “no.” A lot. But if we’re not careful in how we execute our counter-cultural living, our kids can start seeing us like the alarmist leech on the beach guy and resent Christianity because of it.

There are four ways we can inadvertently allow that to happen.

  1. We focus more on the dangers of the world than on the beauty of Christianity.

There’s no doubt that leech on the beach guy was right about the dangers lurking in the water. But it was astounding to see how absolutely focused he was on the leeches, seemingly missing the stunning beauty around him entirely. He only cared about leeches.

In a world that seems to be going crazier by the second, it’s easy to spend more time pointing out the darkness of culture than the light of Christianity. Now, don’t get me wrong; we absolutely need to make our kids aware of cultural dangers. But when we don’t consistently point them back to the beauty of the Christian worldview which renders our culture so ugly in the first place, our faith will become defined by what we’re against more than what we’re for. There are a lot of problems with that, but for our current purpose, suffice it to say that persistent negativity breeds resentment.

The last six chapters in my new book, Talking with Your Kids about God, are written to help parents understand and communicate the beauty of a Christian worldview versus the atheistic worldview that so often pervades secularism. It was my favorite part of the book to write, knowing how important this knowledge is today.

  1. We spend more time addressing what is problematic about culture than whyit’s problematic.

Because leech on the beach guy was so focused on danger that no one else saw, we assumed his level of concern was disproportionate to the reality of the problem. Without more information to properly evaluate the significance of leech danger, my husband was left with ambiguous fear while having doubt about the legitimacy of the fear.

It’s a recipe for resentment: enough concern to modify your behavior, but not enough understanding to be confident the modification was worthwhile.

When the message our kids hear is an ongoing stream of don’ts without meaningful explanation—don’t listen to this music, don’t visit these sites, don’t use this social media platform, don’t subscribe to this magazine, don’t join this political movement—they’ll start to wonder if our level of concern about the world is warranted. And meaningful explanation requires demonstrating how the problems actually relate to the Christian worldview. Simply telling our kids that a movie has violence and they shouldn’t watch it, for example, is hardly a meaningful explanation. Why is that a problem for Christians? How can that affect us spiritually?Where should we draw the line? These kinds of questions should regularly be discussed.

  1. We frame our lives in terms of worldly limits more than Christian freedom.

If leech on the beach guy had a child with him, I bet that child would be longingly looking around at the groups of people having great fun. Some of the surrounding types of “fun” would be morally acceptable, some not so much. But you can bet the child would feel he or she was missing out on something by spending so much time focused on leeches…and probably resent dad because of it.

I often see ex-Christians comment about the freedom they feel in “letting go of God.” The language they use to describe their deconversion says so much. They saw religion as a limiting approach to life and therefore felt freer after shedding their beliefs in God. But as Christians we know that we are not free in our natural state at all—we are slaves to sin. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are given a new nature that is free from such bondage (Romans 6:18).

The reality, therefore, is that only Christians are actually free.

To embrace the feeling of freedom rather than limitation, our kids need to understand 1) the definition of sin, 2) the reality of sin, 3) why sin is such a big problem, and 4) why we should value being slaves to righteousness rather than to sin (Romans 6:18). Only then will they begin to understand that they’re notmissing out when they don’t make worldly choices.

  1. We focus more on authoritative parental decisions than on cultivating the skill of discernment.

Leech on the beach guy was incredibly smug. When he told me about the leeches, I asked him to show me where they were. He had no interest in doing so; he merely restated that he knew there were many in the lake. Had he not caught one later to show me, I probably would have left not believing him at all.

In many cases, parents have a bigger perspective than kids can possibly have given their limited life experiences. We have to make certain decisions on our kids’ behalves. But if we consistently present our “counter-cultural” lives as a series of decisions made by mom and dad (albeit for good reason), kids will naturally resent what they feel has been forced upon them. To the degree we can, we should always strive to cultivate our kids’ skill of discernment by involving them in the thought process of our decision making. After all, the second they walk out our door as adults, “authoritative parental decisions” no longer apply.

Finally, I want to mention that if you feel like you’re drowning in rather than navigating the cultural waters right now, there’s a fantastic new book out you should know about. It’s called A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World, by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle. It explains why culture matters and how to handle topics with your kids such as pornography, the hookup culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, affluence and consumerism, addiction, entertainment, and racial tension. I highly recommend it for all Christian parents.

Just for fun, I managed to snap a picture of leech on the beach guy in anticipation of this post. Here he is, water bottle in hand, combing the beach for more leeches. Don’t be like this guy. Keep your family’s eyes on the beauty of the Lord and don’t let the world’s leeches suck the spiritual life out of you.

Leech on Beach Guy

Original Source Blog: http://bit.ly/2v4Nln7 

 

 

/by
Objections Objective Morality

Objections to Objective Morality

,

By Cole James

I took a philosophy class while I was in college. The topic of this class was on contemporary moral issues, so you know we got into some heated topics. I heard every objection under the sun to objective morality. Everything from it was not very “tolerant,” to different cultures act differently so therefore there cannot be objective morality. I was the minority in this class to say the least!

Objective morality means that moral statements like “murder is bad” is independent of the person saying it. Objective morality means that there is a standard of morality that transcends human opinions and judgements. Morals are not invented, they are discovered. Now that our society has seemingly transformed into a “post-truth” society, objective morals have come under attack. A “post-truth” society is a society which is not concerned with objective facts, but rather, right and wrong are based on personal subjective feelings, tastes, and personal belief.

As Christians, one of the best arguments we have for God is the moral argument. Of all the attacks on Christianity and God, a Christian will most likely hear the most attacks on this subject. Why? Because everyone can relate to this topic. Each one of us every day makes moral judgements and decisions every day, ranging from opening the door for someone to helping someone who just got in a car wreck. Just so we can have a basis for what the argument actually is, it goes as follows:

Premise 1: If objective moral values and duties exist then God exists
Premise 2: Objective morals values and duties do exist
Conclusion: Therefore, God exits

With the argument in mind, consider four objections:

  1. There are so many different cultures with different values, there can’t be objective morals! Look how different we are!

Off the bat, I agree with this objection. There are many different cultures appearing to be morally different on the surface. However, as one reads between the lines it becomes apparent that these different cultures are not really that different. It is important as we read between the lines to keep in mind that when looking at cultural diversity we need to determine whether differences are really about core morals or instead about application of that core moral truth. For example, what constitutes murder?

What my classmates did not realize is that these difference were in how morals were applied, not a difference in morals. Peter Kreeft says this,

“No culture has ever existed which believed and taught what Nietzsche called for: a transvaluation of all values. There have been differences in emphasis, for instance, our ancestors valued courage more than we do, while we value compassion more than they did. But there has never been anything like the relativism of opinions about values that the relativist teaches as factual history. Just imagine what that would be like. Try to imagine a society where justice, honesty, courage, wisdom, hope, and self-control were deemed morally evil. And unrestricted selfishness, cowardice, lying, betrayal, addiction, and despair were deemed morally good. Such a society is never found on Earth. If it exists anywhere, it is only in Hell and its colonies. Only Satan and his worshippers say ‘evil be thou my good.’”

It really comes down to a case-by-case basis. For instance, in the Hindu religion, they believe in reincarnation. Some of these people will starve themselves because they will not eat a cow. Why? Because they believe their great uncle died and reincarnated into a cow. Looking on the surface at this, it may look like there are differences in morals, but we need to read between the lines. As we read between the lines we see that the morals of our culture and their culture are the same. They think it is wrong to eat the cow because they believe that is their great uncle, we also believe it is wrong to eat our great uncle. As we can see, this really is not an objection, it is just a matter of not digging deeper.

  1. Objective morality is not very tolerant! Relativism is much more tolerant of people’s opinions and beliefs.

This objection is entirely problematic. First, it is a self-refuting statement! By someone telling a person that his/her beliefs are not very tolerant, they in turn are being intolerant of the other person’s views. Moreover, this objection assumes that tolerance is really objectively good.

A second answer to this objection is, if relativism were true, why not be intolerant? Why should I be tolerant? Do you see where I am going with this?

Relativism is the view that morality is culturally based, therefore being subject to a person’s individual choice. With this view, there is no objective standard that a relativist can point to, to say that someone should be tolerant.

At root, this is merely an emotional objection. The person who puts out this objection probably does not want objective morality to be true because it will change their lifestyle. So called, “tolerance” feels better to them, and indeed it is a good quality (Paul thought so), but again, just because it feels good does not mean I ought to be that way.

  1. There are so many different understanding of morals, there cannot be objective morality.

Just because there is widespread disagreement about a particular moral issue, does not mean that truth does not exist. Think of it this way, just because eight students have different answers to a math problem does not mean that a right answer does not exist. Philosopher Dave DeSonier says it best,

“Finally, even if one believes that morals (not just facts or practices) do actually differ between cultures, it does not logically follow that there must be no absolute, objective moral standards that transcend cultures. Just because five independent observers of an automobile accident give very different accounts of the event, it would be false to conclude that there is not an accurate, objective, and true description of what actually occurred.”

Even the skeptic David Hume understood this much. He points out,

“the fact that different cultures have different practices no more refutes ethical objectivism than the fact that water flows in different directions in different places refutes the law of gravity.”

So we can see, that even though common objective morals might sometimes be hard to find or discover, it does not logically follow that therefore, there are no common objective moral values and duties.

  1. I do not believe in God and I am a moral person. So you are saying that atheists cannot be moral people?

This is NOT at all what objective morality means! Of course, an atheist can be a good moral person. What’s ironic is that I know some atheists who are actually more moral than many Christians! A person does not have to believe in God to be a good person. This is more of an objection of epistemology, or how we know something. The atheist can know morality, but they cannot justify or provide logical grounds for it.

From the Christian worldview, we believe God fabricated a moral code into our DNA (Romans 2:15), other people think we know morality because of evolution. Again, this is a question of how we know something, notwhy I ought to do something. This objection confuses ontology (is there a moral reality) with epistemology (how do we know morality). On the naturalistic atheist worldview, they cannot justify why someone ought to be moral. There is no objective standard for the naturalistic atheist to point to. This objection is just a common misunderstanding of the argument. A simple clarification of what you mean by the moral argument will handle this objection.

As I mentioned earlier, in our “post-truth” society it is inevitable that a Christian will run into one of these objections. As Christians, we have to be prepared to answer these objections and to show that belief in God is rational and reasoned (1 Peter 3:15). What I have seen in dealing with the students in my class who opposed objective morality is that it is more of an emotional problem. As I mentioned in objection three, the students in my class did not want objective morality to exist because it would have to demand a change in their way if living. Hopefully, after reading this, you will be prepared to give a defense of one of the most relatable and fundamental arguments for the existence of God.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tLqhF5

 

 

/by
Paul Letters Author

Did Paul Write All Thirteen Letters Attributed to Him?

,

By Brian Chilton

In the New Testament, thirteen letters are attributed to the apostle Paul. Paul is, of course, the individual who had persecuted the church, but became a Christian missionary after an encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. But, did Paul actually author all thirteen epistles believed to have been penned by him? Some believe that Paul only actually authored seven of the thirteen.

Epistles are ancient letters written to individuals or groups of individuals addressing particular theological issues and/or doctrinal problems. The thirteen letters classically attributed to the apostle Paul are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. Of the thirteen letters, seven are recognized as being undisputed (that is, without debate). Those seven undisputed letters are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. But what of the other six (Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus)?

Some scholars have called the disputed six letters of Paul the “deutero-Pauline” epistles.[1] It is believed by some that these letters may have been written by someone who was influenced by Paul’s doctrine and wrote what they thought Paul would have said on certain issues.

Skeptics of the disputed letters hold several reasons for their disbelief. First, they claim that the history presented in the disputed letters do not match what one finds in the book of Acts. For example, Paul leaves Timothy in Ephesus in 1 Timothy 1:3 and leaves Titus in Crete in Titus 1:5. Such events are not found in Acts.

The vocabulary, it is argued, is much different in the disputed letters than in the undisputed letters of Paul. Drake Williams notes that the skeptic argues that “Approximately one third of the vocabulary within the Pastoral Letters is not found anywhere else in Paul’s letters, and over 35 names are not found elsewhere in Paul’s writings. Many of these words, however, can be found within second-century writings (Harrison, Problem).[2]

In addition, skeptics argue that the development of church structure is more advanced in the disputed letters than the undisputed letters; doctrinal issues seem to point towards a later date (including some apparent allusions to Gnosticism); and the stylistic differences between the undisputed and disputed letters all illustrate their cause for dismissing Paul as the author of the disputed texts.

Despite the objections offered, one possesses good reasons for accepting all thirteen letters attributed to Paul as authentic. I have never been convinced that the disputed letters were forged. Here are a few reasons why.

The Appearance of the Apostle’s Name on All the Letters

The first point does not necessarily prove Paul to be the author of the disputed letters. In fact, the authors of the Gnostic second-century letters erroneously attributed them to apostolic origin. Nevertheless, it is quite odd that all thirteen letters would have received approval from those closest to Paul if the letters had not actually been written or dictated by him. The letters are certainly early enough to have been tested for authenticity as many early church leaders quoted from the disputed letters as well as the undisputed letters, as we will discuss a little later.

At times, skeptical claims can be a bit inconsistent when applied to biblical authorship. Some scholars deny the traditional authorship of the Gospels because they are anonymous while also denying the traditional authorship of the Epistles because they are not anonymous. How bizarre!

Differing Circumstances Account for Differing Theological Emphases

It must be remembered that Paul encountered various issues in differing locations. The church of Corinth faced tumultuous circumstances with doctrinal issues and infidelity. Thus, the letters to Corinth would differ from the letters written to Galatia where they were bombarded by individuals who attempted to steer believers away from the idea that the grace of God alone was sufficient for salvation. These differences are recognized among the undisputed letters. So then why would one not account for some differences in emphasis with letters written to individuals like Timothy and Titus, especially if one allows for the idea that Paul wrote the later letters from a prison cell?[3]

The Use of Amanuenses Account for Stylistic Differences

When I first learned the scribal practices of the amanuensis, I realized the stylistic differences in the different Pauline epistles were easily resolved. One may see stylistic differences even among the undisputed letters of Paul for the same reason. An amanuensis was a scribe who penned a letter as the author was dictating the message to him. The amanuensis would read back the letter to the author to ensure the message was as the orator desired. Scholars have noted that amanuenses were often allowed some liberty in the structure of their writing so long as the message was preserved.

In the undisputed letters, one finds evidence of the amanuensis’s involvement. Take Romans, for instance. The letter begins by stating, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1).[4] Yet, at the end of the letter, one reads, “I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord” (Romans 16:22). What’s going on here?

Well, it’s simple really. Paul authored the letter while Tertius was the amanuensis. Paul dictated the information to Tertius, who wrote down the message of Paul and read it back to Paul to ensure that it encapsulated the message desired. In my humble opinion, I think the practice was used by the Holy Spirit to make the epistles even better than they would have been if only one hand was involved. Evidences for the amanuensis imprint are found in 1 Corinthians 1:1 and 1 Corinthians 16:21, 2 Corinthians 1:1, Ephesians 6:21, Colossians 1:1, among many other places.

The Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence

The so-called problem with the historical differences between the disputed epistles and the book of Acts is easily solved when one realizes that Luke did not provide an exhaustive history of the church in his sequel. That is to say, Luke did not document every event that took place in early church history. In like manner, the Gospels do not provide an exhaustive biography of the life of Jesus. As one of my former professors, Dr. R. Wayne Stacy denoted, “The Gospels provide us portraits of Jesus rather than photographs.” I like that analogy. John even admits as much when he writes that “There are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).

When one examines Acts with the epistles, there is no problem so long as the two do not contradict each other. These differences can easily be dispelled when one acknowledges the intentional gaps in Luke’s history.[5]

Early Church Father Quotations from the Disputed Letters

The early church unanimously accepted all thirteen letters as authentic. Space will not allow a full treatment of this issue. However, let’s look at one disputed letter: Colossians. Early church leaders unanimously endorsed the letter as authentically Pauline. Irenaeus endorsed it in Against Heresies 3.14.1; Tertullian in De Praescr. Haer., 7; Clement of Alexandria in Strom., 1.1; as well as Justin Martyr in Dialogue with Trypho 85.2 and 138.2.

Evidence for Deacons and Elders in Undisputed Letters

Concerning the development of elders and deacons in the church, one must consider the role of leadership in the earliest church. Jesus himself divided his disciples into various groups. He chose seventy-two (or seventy) disciples and sent them out two by two. Of those seventy-two, Jesus had twelve primary disciples. Of those twelve, he chose three to be inner-circle disciples (Peter, James, and John). Therefore, even Jesus established a system for the church in the early going. In Acts 6, the disciples chose seven to serve. These seven are believed by many, including myself, to be the earliest deacons chosen to serve. Thus, with the system set in place by Jesus and the addition of deacons in Acts 6, it is no great leap to implement the offices of elders (i.e.,, pastors) and deacons in the church. Therefore, the idea that the offices of pastor and deacon represents a much later development in church history is greatly overblown.

The Rejection of Pseudonymous Letters by the Early Church (2 Thess. 2:2)

The early church flatly rejected pseudonymous letters. Ironically, 2 Thessalonians (a letter believed by some to be pseudonymous) admonishes believers to “not…be easily upset or troubled, either by a prophecy or by a message or by a letter supposedly from us, alleging that the day of the Lord has come” (2 Thessalonians 2:2).

Early church leaders emphasized the authenticity of Christian documents. Tertullian while teaching on his acceptance of complementarianism discredited a letter involving Paul and a woman named Thecla because it was falsely attributed to Paul.

Eusebius tells the story of Serapion. Serapion was the bishop of Antioch. Serapion chided the church at Rhosse in Cilicia for their use of the the apocryphal Gospel of Peter. Serapion wrote, “We brethren, receive both Peter and the other apostles as Christ; but we reject intelligently the writings falsely ascribed to them, knowing that such were not handed down to us.”[6]

Closeness in Proximity

Simply put, individuals closest in proximity to the writing of a document can know with more certainty who actually authored the document than those two-thousand years removed. This is especially true if the veracity of the document is stressed by early readers.

Conclusion

While this article is much longer than I hoped it would be, the importance of establishing the authenticity of Paul’s thirteen letters cannot be overemphasized. Did Paul write all thirteen of the letters attributed to him? Yes. He did with the help of amanuenses. With the points established in this article, one should have no reservation in accepting all thirteen letters. The only letter sometimes attributed to Paul that should be highly questioned for its Pauline origin is the book of Hebrews. No one really knows who wrote the book. However, it is accepted as authentic for reasons we will discuss in a future article. In fact, we will discuss the writers of the Pastoral Epistles next in our series on the authors of the New Testament.

Notes

[1] Drake Williams, “Paul the Apostle, Critical Issues,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary, John D. Barry, et. al., eds (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[2] Ibid.

[3] The idea that Gnosticism is found in the disputed letters is far-fetched in my opinion.

[4] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible(Nashville: Holman, 2017).

[5] By gaps, I do not mean errors. Rather, Luke did not provide an exhaustive history and never intended to do so.

[6] Eusebius, Church History, 6.12.3.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2vok7wP

 

 

/by
Miracles Useless Evangelism

Miracles Are Useless, If…

,

By Rajkumar Richard

The Bible is replete with miracles[1]. Sincere Christians who worship the Triune God will objectively believe every recorded miracle in the Bible. Miracles are intended to glorify God, meet human needs and establish the supernatural basis of revelation.

Sincere Christians will also affirm miracles subjectively. They will subjectively assert their existence as a product of not one or two, but many a miracle. A classic spiritual example of a miracle is the born-again experience.

Postmodern Christians, however, will arrogantly deny miracles. Consequently, they will deny that the Bible (God’s Word) is inspired by God, is error -free and absolutely trustworthy.

Miracle, by definition, ought to appeal to God as its ultimate source. So atheists are not expected to believe in miracles. However, their beliefs in life from non-life, order from chaos, rational from non-rational are miracles in themselves. It’s just that atheists would attribute miracles to random occurrences without scientific explanation[2].

This article is neither intended to deny miracles nor affirm its absolute uselessness, but it will endeavor to highlight specific instances of application where miracles could be rendered useless.

Miracles Sustain Unbelief

Miracles would be rendered useless if it were solely used as an evangelistic means to bring people to Christ.

Miracles bring people to Christ. The Jews who witnessed Lazarus’ miraculous resurrection believed in Christ (John 11: 45).

However, the Lord Jesus performed numerous miracles. Nevertheless people abandoned HIM. So miracles were either rendered useless when people did not respond with belief in Christ or miracles were not performed with a motive for people to believe in HIM.

The 6th chapter of the gospel of John offers a remarkable insight into people’s disbelief and abandonment of the Lord. Although they were cognizant of the Lord’s miraculous feeding of the 5000 and the miraculous walking on the water, many disbelieved and abandoned HIM (John 6: 30, 66).

This is the problem. Without adequate biblical support, miracles are posited as a vital means to evangelism by certain Christians. But there are instances of people refusing to believe in Christ even upon witnessing miracles. (An overnight change in character from bad to good need not be construed as a miracle by those who are not predisposed to believing in miracles.)

On the other hand, when miracle-workers fail to perform miracles, they ascribe the failure upon the audience. They could claim that their audience did not possess adequate faith in Christ for miracles to occur.

These Christians commonly believe that miracles cannot be performed when there is no faith in people (cf. Matthew 13: 58, Mark 6: 5). This is an invalid notion.

The sovereign God cannot be limited by man’s belief. Christ healed a faithless man who was invalid for 38 years (John 5: 1-9).

Since not all miracles lead people to Christ, a conclusion that miracles sustain unbelief in Christ is reasonable.

Miracles Deceive People

The notion that miracles are solely meant to draw people to Christ presupposes an argument that Christians are the one and the only group who could perform miracles. This is an invalid notion.

The Egyptian magicians imitated the miracles of Moses and Aaron to a large extent (Exodus 7). If miracles are solely meant to draw people to Christ, then the miracles performed by those in the name of their gods would deceptively draw people to their gods. If miracles lead people away from Christ, the notion that miracles should solely lead people to Christ is self-defeating.

The fact remains that miracles could be deceptive.

Satan deceives people through miracles, “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing…” (2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10, NIV, Emphasis Mine).

Therefore, miracles are useless when it deceives people and draws them away from the living God.

Miracles Propel Evangelists

Quite a few evangelists / miracle-workers perform miracles to propel themselves into greater fame and power. The Bible reveals this fact.

The Bible records Simon’s unholy eagerness to perform miracles (cf. Acts 8: 21-22). Simon probably desired to perform miracles to propel him to greater fame. The depravity of man’s heart remains the same then and now. Now quite a few evangelists use miracles to glorify themselves.

Sadly the destinies of these people are abundantly clear. They are eternally doomed (Matthew 7: 22-23). Although the miracles these people perform could bring people to Christ, these miracles, in their own eternal context, are useless (these miracles do not save the miracle-workers).

Miracles Entertain People

Miracles do possess an entertainment value.

Herod desired entertainment from Christ, so he hoped that the Lord would perform miracles (Luke 23: 8-9). This is the situation with quite a few people today. They look upon miracles as a means of entertainment.  This is another situation where miracles would be rendered useless.

Furthermore, could we pray for miracles in our life today? Yes! Miracles could be a means of God’s answer to our prayers.

How do we recognize if a miracle is from God or not? Miracles from God save man from his terrible predicament. Satan, as an agent of destruction, need not always save man from his predicament, unless ordained by God for a specific reason.

On a rather detached tangent, what about those among us who remain idle while expecting a miracle to happen?

This is a complex question. A universal answer is not a good choice to deal with this predicament. A suitable alternative is to examine every situation as independent of another within this context.

As a case in point, consider a Christian who refuses to eat medicines but waits on God to perform a miracle of healing. While God can accede to this request, HE could, as a just and a sovereign being, deny this prayer request. Hence, it is upon the Christian to know the will of the Lord.

The prayer life of a Christian should determine whether he/she waits upon the Lord for a miracle or consumes medicines, all the while knowing that medicines are also an agent of God’s healing for man.

So to conclude, the Bible reveals that Satan (a created being and enabled by God to perform miracles) could be a secondary source for miracles. In this instance, miracles will lead people away from Christ. So miracles need not always have God as its source (although God is the ultimate source for all miracles).

Man could also employ his [corrupt] freewill to draw people to himself rather than God. So miracles need not always be for the sake of God’s glory.

When a believer of Christ employs miracles for his selfish agendas, God need not necessarily confiscate the spiritual gift of miracles from him / her. The believer is responsible to use every gift for the sake of God’s glory.

Therefore, miracles should not be blindly believed to be as from God or as approved by God. Miracles ought to be perceived with utmost spiritual diligence.

Endnotes:

[1] Dr. William Lane Craig defines miracles as extraordinary acts of providence which should not be conceived, properly speaking, as violations of the laws of nature, but as the production of events which are beyond the causal powers of the natural entities existing at the relevant time and place. (http://www.reasonablefaith.org/creation-providence-and-miracle, last accessed on July 13, 2015)

[2]  http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24660240, last accessed on July 13, 2015

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tRFqX0

 

/by
God Patient Creation

God, Patience, and Creation

By Luke Nix

Introduction

One of the challenges skeptics raise against God as the Creator is the idea that He took entirely too long to create: God is inefficient and wasteful with time, if He did, indeed, take 13+ billion years to create the universe. Why did God take so long to create the universe when He could have created it in just a few days or even a couple microseconds? This challenge is necessarily dependent upon the idea that God has absolutely no possible reason for spending 13+ billion years to create. Thus, if it can be shown that God did have a reason for taking the time that He did, then the challenge is defeated. My goal in this post is to not only defeat the challenge, but to show that there is an answer that not just possible but more likely than not within the Christian worldview.

The Patience of God

I posit that the purpose is that God wanted to ensure that people would see that His Word, written thousands of years ago, actually does apply to us on a personal and existential (not just a distant) scale today.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”- 2 Peter 3:9

Patience is a virtue; it is also one of the Fruits of the Spirit (Galations 5:22). God is patient. Just as Proverbs (6:6) encourages us to look at the ant for it teaches us something about hard work, so too Paul encourages us to look at the creation for it teaches us something about the attributes of God (Romans 1:20). Patience is, no doubt, one of the divine attributes that are “clearly seen from what has been made” when we see the time it took for our universe to get from the moment of creation to its present state. When scientists investigate the heavens and the earth they discover their history is one of patience, punctuated by numerous moments of deliberate, delicate, and dynamic activity. Why would God take so long to create? Why not just “poof” everything into existence in the necessary form? To display the extent of one of His divine attributes: patience.

The Human Temptation

Further, this is a guard against human pride, thinking that we are as patient as our Creator. Engineers, artists, project managers, scientists, architects, and many others have projects that span the time of weeks, months, years, and even decades. They can be patient for that amount of time as they see the final product take shape. For those who’s projects take months and years, the temptation to compare their patience of years and decades to God’s patience of merely days (on the view that God created the universe in six 24-hour days) and see their patience as superior is overwhelming. However, God took billions of years of active involvement (not laziness, disinterest, or inefficency) in the creation of our universe and planet. This time span is orders of magnitude greater than what any human or even generations of humans could dedicate to any project. The comparison is simply not possible. The patience of God is beyond what we could even imagine, and He has given us proof of His patience in His acts of creation.

“Crowned With Glory And Honor”

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”- Psalm 8:3-5

God was patient with the universe He created because its combination of attributes uniquely could accomplish numerous purposes He had for His creation, yet He was aggressive in actively working through the universe’s laws and processes (which He put in place) to see the purposes fulfilled as soon as the universe that He created possibly could. One of those purposes is the redemption of as many of his Image Bearers as would freely choose to recognize their sinfulness and need of Jesus Christ. God patiently spent 13+ billion years preparing a world where we could come freely into a salvific relationship with Him; that is the value He places on us; that is what it means to be “crowned with glory and honor.”

Conclusion

Given the cases from Scripture for the value God places on patience and humanity and for looking to God’s acts (creation) to understand His purposes and attributes and the case from God’s creation for a necessarily time-consuming and precisely detailed series of processes to create our world, not only has the challenge been defeated by mere possibility; it has been shown that the answer is more plausible, evidentially, than not within the Christian worldview. The more I investigate the history of the creation of our world, the more I see the patience, the love, and the wisdom of our Creator and Savior, Jesus Christ. I believe the psalmist expressed this awe and wonder best:

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech; they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”- Psalm 19:1-4a

For more on this theological and scientific topic, check out these great books:

Improbable Planet: How The Earth Became Humanity’s Home

Why The Universe Is The Way It Is

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2tkwqIb

 

/by
Kids Existence of God

Do Your Kids Know Why They Should WANT God to Exist?

By Natasha Crain

I’ve written over 250 blog posts here since 2011. People still come across my old posts by searching for something on Google, so nearly every day I receive new comments on a wide variety of old posts. Many of the comments are from atheists.

As I read the latest comments this week, I noticed a running theme.

The vast majority of atheists who comment here don’t seem to want God to exist.

They talk about the “freedom” of no longer believing in God, how nice it is to be self-reliant, how great it feels to get rid of guilt, how they’ve found more meaning in life without God, how they can better enjoy all that life has to offer, how the world will be a better place when religion is gone, and so on.

If I saw God—and a godless existence—in the way most of these commenters do, I wouldn’t want to believe He exists either.

But I don’t think those who prefer the atheistic picture of reality have given it enough thought; no one shouldwant atheism to be true if we really draw out the implications of what that means for our existence. If people considered that more deeply, I think there would be more atheists saying, “I sure wish God existed, but there just isn’t enough evidence!” rather than, “There’s no evidence for God…and that sure is great!”

To be clear, wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true. But this isn’t a post about the evidence for the truth of any one worldview. This is a post about appropriately understanding the logical implications of a worldview.

With more than 60 percent of young adults rejecting their Christian faith today, and many becoming atheists, I have to wonder how many did so thinking atheism was actually more attractive…and not understanding these implications.

As parents, we should not only show our kids why there’s good reason to believe God exists, but why they should be thrilled that He does.

Let’s see what reality would look like in a world without God.

  1. Life has no objective meaning in an atheistic world.

In an atheistic world, our universe and everything in it developed by strictly natural forces. There’s no creative or sustaining intelligence behind it, and no ultimate reason for its existence. It just is.

It follows that there can be no objective meaning of life in such a world because there’s no Creator with the authority to say what that is. People can create theirown meaning, but there’s no meaning which applies to everyone.

Now, many people are enamored by that thought, but we should ask how meaningful that meaning can ever be. Without God, we’re just chemical specks in a vast, indifferent universe. You can choose to find meaning in saving the endangered Hawksbill turtle, but ultimately the Hawksbill turtle is just molecules in motion like you and every other living thing—why bother? You can choose to find meaning in art, but scientists say the sun will eventually explode and swallow the Earth—do paint patterns on canvas really matter? You can choose to find meaning in ending human suffering, but if humans have no more inherent value than rocks, why not just end those lives instead?

There’s no reason to celebrate the ability to live according to our small, self-defined meanings when ultimately such an existence leads to nothingness.

  1. Life has no special value in an atheistic world.

Astronomer and agnostic Carl Sagan said in his bestseller Cosmos, “I am a collection of water, calcium and organic molecules called Carl Sagan. You are a collection of almost identical molecules with a different collective label.”

Sagan appropriately sums up the value of life in an atheistic world: it has no more inherent value than its chemical components. Nothing exists apart from the basic matter of which we—and everything else in the universe—are comprised. In a world without God, we’re simply molecular machines.

  1. There’s little reason to believe we could actually make free choices in an atheistic world.

If all we are is our biology, a logical implication is that our decisions are driven by strictly physical impulses—we’re bound by the shackles of physical law. As molecular biologist Francis Crick said, “‘You,’ your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.”

Yet belief in the reality of some degree of free will fundamentally shapes how we live. Questions like What should we do with our lives? What is our responsibility to other people? and How should we make sense of evil?—have meaning because they presume humans have the ability to make choices that matter. That ability is highly questionable, however, in the context of an atheistic world.

  1. No way of living is better than any other way of living in an atheistic world.

If God doesn’t exist, there’s no objective reason why anyone should live in any particular way. Shouldimplies a moral obligation. But if we’re all just molecules in motion, to whom would we be morally obliged? To other molecules in motion? Clearly not. In an atheistic world, no one can prescribe a way of living for anyone else because there’s no moral authority, and, therefore, no objective basis for doing so. How a person “should” live his or her life can only be a matter of opinion. One way cannot be morally better than any other way.

  1. No one has a responsibility to anyone else in an atheistic world.

If life has no special value because it’s the product of purely natural forces, and there’s no moral authority to establish relational obligations, the idea of responsibility to one another is senseless. Molecules can’t owe other molecules anything.

Despite this implication of a world without God, many atheists consider themselves “humanists” and stress the importance of believing in human dignity and equal rights. It sounds good, but there’s a logical problem with the humanist position. If God doesn’t exist, natural rights that are equally held by all people also don’t exist. A “right” is something to which a person is entitled, and you can’t be entitled to something unless someone entitles you to it. Who has the authority to give rights to humankind if God doesn’t exist?

  1. There is no such thing as evil in an atheistic world.

On any given day, you can scroll through news headlines and read about people being murdered, children being abused, women being raped, and much more. It’s part of our most basic intuition to categorize such things as “evil.” But in a world without God, there’s no objective standard for calling anything evil. Without a moral authority, any one person’s view of murder, child abuse, and rape can only be a matter of opinion.

To be sure, atheists can feel as much moral outrage at the evil in the world as anyone who believes in God. They just have no objective basis for appealing to others to feel the same way. It can only be something they don’t like, not something that’s actually wrong.

  1. Life is ultimately hopeless in an atheistic world.

To recap, here’s a basic picture of reality in a world without God:

  • Life is an accident with no objective meaning.
  • We’re chemical specks in a vast, indifferent universe with no more inherent value than rocks.
  • There’s little reason to believe we can freely make choices.
  • No one should live in any particular way because it makes no moral difference.
  • No one has a responsibility to anyone else because we’re just molecules in motion with no moral obligations.
  • There’s no such thing as objective moral evil, so we can’t even condemn even the worst actions of society as objectively wrong.

Such a picture is undoubtedly hopeless in any meaningful sense. Sure, atheists can have “hope” in life, if we’re talking about hope for things like good parking spots or rain. Some hopes may have greater significance for a while—the hope of getting married, finding a good job, beating cancer, or having a family—but all of these hopes end in the same place after being realized: a grave.

Compare all this with a world in which God exists:

  • Life is precious and is the product of a purposeful Creator. All living things were meant to be here—no cosmic accidents involved.
  • Every person’s life has objective meaning: to know our perfect God and make Him known.
  • We have the ability to make choices and moral accountability for the choices we make. What we do actually matters.
  • Living a morally good life is the natural outcome of our belief in, knowledge of, and relationship with our perfectly good Creator.
  • There’s an objective basis for equal human rights because every human is created in the image of God and is therefore equally valuable.
  • Evil is an objective reality worthy of condemnation.

Instead of a grave, those who have put their trust in Jesus enter the glorious presence of the Lord and live with Him forever in a place free from pain and suffering (Revelation 21:4). This is a “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

That is hope.

Does it mean God exists or that Christianity is true? No. Again, that’s another subject.

But anyone who has thought through such a comparison of worldviews should want God to exist.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2sVXWw5

 

/by
Matthew Gospel New Testament

¿Quién escribió el Evangelio de Mateo?

Por Brian Chilton

En el curso de las siguientes semanas, discutiremos las razones para aceptar los puntos de vista tradicionales para la autoría del Nuevo Testamento. Hoy comenzaremos con el Evangelio de Mateo y luego nos moveremos hacia los otros tres Evangelios antes de mirar algunas de las cartas en Apocalipsis.

El Nuevo Testamento comienza con el Evangelio de Mateo. Pero ¿qué sabemos del origen del primer evangelio? En un mundo donde la erudición tradicional es a menudo cuestionada y con demasiada frecuencia ignorada, existen varias teorías a las que puede ser el autor del Primer Evangelio. Tradicionalmente, la iglesia ha atribuido el primer evangelio al apóstol conocido como Mateo. Pero ¿qué evidencia encontramos sobre el autor del primer libro del Nuevo Testamento?

Matthew Gospel New Testament

Evidencia interna

Cuando discutimos evidencia interna, estamos hablando de la evidencia que encontramos dentro del libro en cuestión. ¿Qué pistas encontramos sobre el autor del primer Evangelio del texto? Al igual que los otros tres Evangelios, el Primer Evangelio es anónimo.

Primero, encontramos que el autor del Primer Evangelio está profundamente arraigado en el judaísmo. El autor a menudo cita la Biblia hebrea (también conocida como el Antiguo Testamento). Él es paralelo a la vida de Jesús con los grandes profetas del judaísmo. Además, hace todo lo posible para demostrar que Jesús es el cumplimiento de la profecía mesiánica. De muchas maneras, el autor del Primer Evangelio se centra en los aspectos judíos de la fe, incluso describiendo algunas áreas como la cláusula de exclusión de Jesús para el divorcio. El escritor del Primer Evangelio también se centra un poco más en los mensajes de Jesús que algunos de los otros escritores del Evangelio.

En segundo lugar, el autor se centra en la obra de Jesús en Galilea y no se centra tanto en el trabajo de Jesús con los gentiles como lo hace Lucas. Por lo tanto, el evangelista se ocupa principalmente del ministerio de Jesús a los judíos.

Finalmente, el autor del Primer Evangelio agrega detalles financieros que sólo se encuentran en el Primer Evangelio. Por ejemplo, sólo el Primer Evangelio registra la incidencia donde los que recaudaron el impuesto del templo “se acercaron a Pedro y le dijeron: ¿No paga tu maestro el impuesto del templo?”(Mateo 17:24)[1]

De todos los detalles considerados con la evidencia interna (uno que es completamente judío en el alcance de los mensajes presentados por Jesús, uno que se centra en el cumplimiento profético de Jesús, uno que se centra en el ministerio de Jesús a los judíos y uno que se centra en materias financieras especialmente en el área de impuestos), Mateo encaja mejor como autor del Primer Evangelio. Mateo era recaudador de impuestos antes de aceptar a Jesús como Salvador y de su papel como apóstol. Por lo tanto, el conocimiento de Mateo de la taquigrafía para tomar notas, así como las finanzas sería muy superior a la mayoría de los demás.

Evidencia externa

Cuando hablamos de evidencia externa, estamos tratando la información que tenemos sobre la autoría de un documento fuera del documento. ¿Qué dicen los demás acerca del autor del Primer Evangelio?

La iglesia primitiva es unánime en su aceptación de Mateo como el escritor del Primer Evangelio. Papías, Ireneo, Panteno y Orígenes relatan a Mateo como el escritor del Primer Evangelio. Papías (c. d.C. 60-130) escribió: “Mateo reunió los oráculos [del Señor] en el idioma hebreo, y cada uno los interpretó como mejor pudo”.[2] Aunque no tenemos una edición hebrea o aramea del Evangelio de Mateo, hay informes de que una pudo haber existido en la iglesia primitiva.[3] No obstante, uno no debe sorprenderse de que Mateo, que necesitaría tener un gran conocimiento del griego en el mundo de los negocios, originalmente escribió su Evangelio en hebreo o arameo, sólo para revisar el Evangelio en griego. Incluso si su Evangelio fue escrito en griego por otro, incluso decir un amanuense,[4] esto no negaría la autoría de Mateo. Craig Evans recientemente grabó un video en el que afirma que Mateo pudo haber surgido en fases.[5]

Panteno también confirmó que Mateo fue el autor del Primer Evangelio. El gran historiador de la iglesia, Eusebio de Cesárea, escribe que Panteno, un líder de la iglesia a finales del siglo 2 o posiblemente a principios del siglo III, se encontró con la versión hebrea del Evangelio de Mateo. Eusebio señala que Panteno fue “un hombre muy distinguido por su aprendizaje, encargado de la escuela de los fieles en Alejandría”.[6] Lo que sigue es el informe de Eusebio sobre el encuentro de Panteno con la edición hebrea del Evangelio de Mateo:

Se ha informado de que entre las personas que conocían a Cristo, encontró el Evangelio según Mateo, que había anticipado su propia llegada. Porque Bartolomé, uno de los apóstoles, les había predicado y les había dejado la escritura de Mateo en lengua hebrea, la cual habían conservado hasta entonces.[7]

Con la adición de Orígenes y la aceptación de Ireneo de Mateo como escritor el Primer Evangelio, uno está muy presionado para desestimar sus afirmaciones.

Además, los eruditos reconocen que el nombre de Mateo fue asociado con el primer evangelio de los tiempos más tempranos. Los escritores de la CSB Study Bible denotan que “el título que atribuye este Evangelio a Mateo aparece en los primeros manuscritos y es posiblemente original. Los títulos se hicieron necesarios para distinguir un Evangelio de otro cuando los cuatro Evangelios empezaron a circular como una sola colección”.[8]

Fecha y lugar de escritura

Ciertamente es razonable aceptar que Mateo fue escrito en los años 50 debido a la asunción comprensible de que los Hechos fueron terminados antes del año 64 d.C., con Lucas apareciendo antes de Hechos y Mateo escribiendo su Evangelio antes de Lucas. Los eruditos generalmente sostienen que Mateo compuso su Evangelio en o alrededor de Antioquía de Siria.

Conclusión

Algunos pueden argumentar que un discípulo como Mateo no pediría prestado material de Marcos, si, de hecho, es cierto que Mateo tomó prestado material del Evangelio de Marcos. Sin embargo, cuando uno considera que Mateo siguió a Jesús mucho después que la mayoría de los apóstoles, y que Mateo no era un discípulo del círculo interno; entonces es lógico que Mateo tomara prestado material del Evangelio de Marcos si, es cierto, que Marcos transmitió información de Simón Pedro, quien era tanto uno de los primeros apóstoles como un discípulo del círculo interno.

Aunque algunos todavía no están de acuerdo, me parece extraño atribuir el Primer Evangelio a Mateo de todas las personas, especialmente cuando el Primer Evangelio fue utilizado como manual de la iglesia en muchos casos. Mateo era recaudador de impuestos. Los recaudadores de impuestos se mantuvieron en una estimación ligeramente superior a la escoria del estanque… pero no por mucho. Entonces, ¿por qué atribuir el Primer Evangelio a un recaudador de impuestos a menos que haya al menos algún mérito para la reclamación?

En mi humilde opinión, creo que el Primer Evangelio vino a nosotros en tres fases. Primero, el apóstol Mateo escribió las enseñanzas de Jesús en arameo. Entonces, Mateo añadió los milagros y hechos de Jesús a su edición aramea y / o hebrea de su Evangelio añadiendo su testimonio de testigos oculares y el testimonio de Simón Pedro como se encuentra en el Evangelio de Marcos. Finalmente, ya sea Mateo o un escribano altamente entrenado tradujo el Evangelio al griego.

Notas

[1] A menos que se indique lo contrario, todas las Escrituras citadas provienen de la Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).

[2] Papías, “Fragments de Papías”, en The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson y A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 155.

[3] Creo que es Jerónimo quien reporta haber visto un Evangelio hebreo de Mateo. ¿Pero es esto lo mismo? No podemos saberlo con seguridad.

[4] Es decir, un escribano que escribe las palabras que se dictan a sí mismo. A algunos amanuenses se les dio libertad para agregar sus propias expresiones a un grado.

[5] Video grabado para Faith Life. No pude encontrar el enlace. Voy a publicar el enlace si soy capaz de encontrarlo.

[6] Eusebio de Cesárea, “The Church History of Eusebius,” en Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed. Philip Schaff y Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 224.

[7] Ibid., 225.

[8] “Introduction to Matthew,” CSB Study Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017), 1494.

 

Brian G. Chilton es el fundador de BellatorChristi.com y es el presentador de The Bellator Christi Podcast. Recibió su Maestría en Divinidad en Liberty University (con alta distinción); su Licenciatura en Ciencias en Estudios Religiosos y Filosofía de la Universidad Gardner-Webb (con honores); y recibió la certificación en Christian Apologetics (Apologética cristiana) de la Universidad de Biola. Brian actualmente está inscrito en el programa Ph.D. en Teología y apologética en Liberty University. Brian ha estado en el ministerio por más de 15 años y sirve como pastor en el noroeste de Carolina del Norte.

Blog Original: http://bit.ly/2mMVEOA

Traducido y editado por Jairo Izquierdo

/by
Revolution Romans 13

So you say you want a Revolution, what about Romans 13?

By Steve Williams

Many Christians believe that the first section of Romans 13 – verses 1-7 — forbids any form of resistance to government… even when it clearly goes tyrannical. If one analyzes this passage of the Bible carefully, however, as The USA’s founding fathers did, we can see that Paul was speaking in generalities in this passage, and that unlimited tolerance of government tyranny is a highly wooden, hyper-literalistic reading of his words which is impossible to reconcile with other words of Paul, the words of Christ, other parts of The Bible, and Israel’s history. Ironically, many people who hold this position (like John MacArthur) probably wouldn’t even be here if their ancestors held to that reading, as these ancestors would have been slaughtered centuries ago for not resisting tyrants of old!

First, let’s look at the actual verses in question:

“13 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”

Now having seen the section in its entirety, let’s examine the implications of taking each verse in the hyperliteral way some understand it, verse by verse:

“13 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”

A wooden literal rendering of this would mean that Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, and other mass murderers were “established by God” (clashing starkly with the principle that God does no evil), and that men like Niemoller and Bonhoeffer – who resisted them – were sinners for doing so.

“2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.”

A wooden literal rendering of this would mean that every genocidal action taken by a tyrant is tantamount to “an ordinance of God”, which again, clashes brutally with the principle that God does no wrong.

“3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;”

A wooden literal rendering of this would contradict a tremendous amount of human experience over the millennia, wherein millions of people who were minding their own business were slaughtered by/tormented by their own governments. Exhibit A: the executions of Christians – including the author Paul – by the Roman government.

“4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.”

A wooden literal rendering of this would contradict millennia of human experience wherein governments have not only winked at evil behavior of “the connected”, but helped to get the immoral goals of these guilty parties accomplished.

“5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.”

A wooden literal rendering of this would contradict the fact that some rulers (such as the USSR, communist China and North Korea) have structured their entire governments on the premise that God does not exist.

“7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”

A wooden literal rendering of this would mean that we’d need to withhold things like “honor” from many governments and rulers, because it would require schizophrenia to deduce that they are due such things in the face of their evil actions.

In terms of Israel’s historical record and The Book of Revelations, an absolute literal interpretation: clashes with (among other verses) Joshua 2: 3-21, Daniel 3: 16-18, Daniel 6: 10-13, Acts 4: 18-20, Revelations 14: 9-11 (in the non-violent category), and with (in the more violent category) Joshua 6: 16-21, Judges 3: 14-26, Judges 4: 10-24, Judges 7: 19-25, Judges 16: 28-30, and The Maccabean revolt, which precipitated Chanukkah (“The Festival of Lights”). In The Maccabean Revolt of 167-160 BC, the Jews violently revolted against the Seleucid Empire. Inasmuch as Jesus, Paul, and virtually every other significant New Testament Jew celebrated this holiday, what does that tell us? Were they celebrating “the ends” and disregarding “the means”?!

Or consider the events of Judges 3: 14-26, in which Ehud kicks off a violent revolt against the Moabites with a quite graphic assassination of King Eglon. Obviously we have some significant Bible contradictions on our hands if Romans 13 mandates that revolution is ALWAYS forbidden. It is a generally well-accepted principle of hermeneutics that if two verses seem to clash on a strictly literal reading, another reading in which the two are harmonized is probably lurking in the background. What if Paul was writing in generalities, and didn’t mean to be covering EVERY situation? Well, it seems to me that that understanding of it has far greater explanatory scope and power than the former.

The USA’s Founding Fathers (whom I have argued had Christianity in mind) engaged in some interesting discussion on this topic, and obviously didn’t hold to the MacArthur view. They put up with a ton of abuse for many years prior to The Revolution, and tried a variety of non-violent ways to end the abuse, but I think where they finally drew the line and said “enough!” was roughly correct.

In 1775, Rev. Jacob Duché argued from the Bible in favor of the American position in Philadelphia, explaining:

“Inasmuch as all rulers are in fact the servants of the public and appointed for no other purpose than to be ‘a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well’ [c.f., Rom. 13:3], whenever this Divine order is inverted – whenever these rulers abuse their sacred trust by unrighteous attempts to injure, oppress, and enslave those very persons from whom alone, under God, their power is derived – does not humanity, does not reason, does not Scripture, call upon the man, the citizen, the Christian of such a community to ‘stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ….hath made them free?!’ [Galatians 5:1] The Apostle enjoins us to ‘submit to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake,’ but surely a submission to the unrighteous ordinances of unrighteous men, cannot be ‘for the Lord’s sake,’ for ‘He loveth righteousness and His countenance beholds the things that are just.’” [The Duty of Standing Fast in our Spiritual and Temporal Liberties, A Sermon Preached in Christ Church, July 7, 1775. Before the First Battalion of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia (Philadelphia: James Humphreys, Jr., 1775), pp. 13-14.].

Of course The British accused the states of “anarchy”, but our Founders obviously disagreed with that characterization. In fact, while the states had been generally following the laws and rules they were under as colonies of Britain, The British had been systematically breaking their own laws and rules at the expense of the states for well over a decade. The “long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinc[ing] a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism” which are listed in our Declaration of Independence were not “light and transient” events which one might encounter (and suffer out of pragmatism) with any human institution. They were very serious offenses (including rape and murder), committed on a continuing basis, and attempts to resolve the issues “through the system” had resulted in nothing but insults and further abuses. England had racked up a great deal of debt during the French and Indian War (which ended in 1763), had significant numbers of (often abusive) troops on the continent, and had begun attempting to systematically extract as much revenue, goods and accommodations as it could milk from the colonists, and were apparently feeling very little restraint due to the massive distance of the states from the motherland. Under the legal theory of “Lex Rex” (“The Law is King”; ie: even Kings are subject to it) – which basically had been operative in England since at least 1688 (and arguably since the Magna Carta of 1215) – it was King George and his enforcers which were in a state of anarchy!

John Quincy Adams later described the situation as follows:

“[T]here was no anarchy. . . . [T]he people of the North American union and of its constituent states were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians in a state of nature but not of anarchy. They were bound by the laws of God (which they all) and by the laws of the Gospel (which they nearly all) acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.” (emphasis added). [An Address Delivered at the Request of the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebrating the Anniversary of Independence at the City of Washington on the Fourth of July 1821 upon the Occasion of Reading The Declaration of Independence (Cambridge: Hilliard and Metcalf, 1821), p. 28.].

As Declaration signer Francis Hopkinson (also a church musician and choir leader) put it:

“Q. It has often been said, that America is in a state of rebellion. Tell me, therefore, what is Rebellion?

  1. It is when a great number of people, headed by one or more factious leaders, aim at deposing their lawful prince without any just cause of complaint in order to place another on his throne.
  2. Is this the case of the Americans?
  3. Far otherwise.”

The truth is that The Revolutionary War was a defensive one. Great Britain had attacked America, not vice versa; the Americans had never fired the first shot – not in the Boston Massacre of 1770, the bombing of Boston and burning of Charlestown in 1774, or in the attacks on Williamsburg, Concord, or Lexington in 1775. “Don’t fire unless fired upon!” is a memorable command from this time, and reflects the prevailing mindset among our forefathers. Yet, having been fired upon without having broken any law, the Americans believed they had a Biblical right to self-defense. In fact, the Rev. Peter Powers, in a famous sermon he preached in front of the Vermont Legislature in 1778, specifically noted that America had “taken up arms in its own defense” – that she had not initiated the conflict but was only defending herself after being attacked. [The Rev. Peter Powers, Jesus Christ the true King and Head of Government; A Sermon Preached before the General Assembly of the State of Vermont, on the Day of Their First Election, March 12, 1778 at Windsor (Newbury-Port: Printed by John Michael, 1778).]

As Founding Father James Wilson (a signer of both the Declaration and the Constitution, and an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court) affirmed:

“The defense of one’s self . . . is not, nor can it be, abrogated by any regulation of municipal law. This principle of defense is not confined merely to the person; it extends to the liberty and the property of a man. It is not confined merely to his own person; it extends to the persons of all those to whom he bears a peculiar relation – of his wife, of his parent, of his child. . . . As a man is justified in defending, so he is justified in retaking his property. . . . Man does not exist for the sake of government, but government is instituted for the sake of man.”

So I think we can conclude that The USA’s founders viewed the key words in Romans 13: 1-7 to be “governing authorities”; with a particular emphasis on what it means to be “governing”. When the powers-that-be diverge from following their own laws and begin systematically pillaging and otherwise abusing their subjects, it’s hard to see how that remains a case of “governing”, rather than “ravaging” people vulnerable to them under the color of authority.

In fact, let’s consider how Romans 13 describes what “governing” should look like:

“…For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil… Do what is good and you will have praise from the same, for it is a minister of God to you for good… for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.”

The British failed miserably at fulfilling these descriptions in the years leading up to The Revolution. In contrast, consider the fact that The USA’s Founders could have easily put into place a monarchy or oligarchy once the Revolutionary War was won and accreted power to themselves, but instead pored over the successes and failures of various forms of government throughout history, racked their brains as to how sustainable, checked and balanced self-governance could be arranged, and prayerfully cemented it into place.

One objection I’ve heard from “pacifists” (which I should hit before I wrap this up) is that during Paul’s time, evil Romans like Nero were in power, and since Paul didn’t endorse revolution against Rome, that must show that revolution against tyranny of that kind (or less), is not warranted. I think this objection overlooks a key principle: BE REALISTIC!

There was no way a ragtag handful of revolutionaries were going to be able to mount a viable revolution against the most powerful empire the world had ever seen at that point in time. Jesus Himself affirmed this principle in Luke 14:

31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.”

Side note: A reminder that Jesus endorsed self-defense in Luke 22 is worthwhile:

“36 Then He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money-bag should take it, and also a traveling bag. And whoever doesn’t have a sword should sell his robe and buy one.”

Lest one asserts this verse is taken out of context, please read Tim Stratton’s article, “Love Thy Neighbor & Pack Thy Heat.” 

In many (probably most) cases, the notion of revolution will simply be infeasible, as the powers-that-be will simply be too strong for a revolt. As Jefferson alluded to in The Declaration of Independence, actions like this are not to be taken “for light and transient causes”, and it’s better “to suffer, while evils are sufferable” than to engage in revolt, willy-nilly. In other cases, the notion will be dodgy because the populace will be morally questionable themselves. In the case of The USA’s Founders, however, they had the arms, numbers, terrain, intelligence, and most importantly, the morality, to pull it off and form something better. As a result, the most Christian country in the history of the world came into being, and inhabitants of the earth have been blessed in myriad ways as a result.

Yes, I’m well aware that we’ve drifted from the original blueprint. Anything administered by human beings will have its imperfections, but inasmuch as The USA has resembled Paul’s description of “government” substantially better than The British Empire (and most other governing entities that have existed), “the proof is in the pudding”.

Notes

I’ll be happy to open-mindedly consider the possibility I’ve gotten something wrong on this and consider a case for another viewpoint if one is presented to me, but I am highly doubtful that a more literal view of Romans 13 can survive its own self-refutation.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2uzs7L2

 

/by
Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

Objective Morality: Much Ado About Nothing?

Earlier this year, an early-morning storm passed through our area, causing schools to open late. Some counties announced they would open schools one hour late. Others announced that school would begin at 9:30 am.

Our county? Officials announced that school would begin “after the storms were over.”

Imagine the confusion this created, as the storms dissipated in some areas, and continued in others! Parents and students wondered exactly when school would start. Instead of providing a definite starting time for county students, the officials based the starting time on, at a minimum, two variable factors: the weather conditions at the student’s home, and each person’s idea of what it means for a storm to be “over”. This, of course, varies widely; In my opinion, a storm is “over” when it no longer poses a serious threat of damage. My aunt, who was terrified of storms, would insist that a storm isn’t “over” until the sky is clear for at least an hour!

Imagine what would happen if our government wrote our laws like this! If tomorrow, our legislators declared that all speed limits were repealed, and law enforcement officers were empowered to arrest those who were driving “too fast”, chaos would reign! How fast is “too fast”? It’s a safe bet that your idea of “too fast” is not the same as mine… and neither of us are likely to agree with the cop that has just pulled us over! Without a legal fact… a clearly-written and duly-established law, all legal opinions are equally valid… and thus are completely useless for governing anyone other than the holder of that opinion!

For this reason, modern legislators and lawyers spend enormous amounts of time fretting over the exact phrasing of a document. Companies spend huge amounts of money to remove as much opinion as possible from the wording of a contract.  And even after adding all of the “legalese”, litigants still debate the meaning of even the smallest words. (After all, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is“!)  Our laws and regulations must be objective, based in external facts independent of any one person’s opinions, in order to be meaningful.

In the same way, subjective moral opinion, in the absence of objective moral facts, is effectively no morality at all!

Often at this point, the subjective moralist objects, saying “I can be just as moral as anyone who believes in objective morality.” However, this objection is illogical… if moral facts do not exist, then why would it be “better” or “worse” (which are themselves, morally-charged words) to be called immoral rather than moral? Why does it matter whether one breaks a non-existent standard of behavior?

Can a subjective moralist be a moral person? Well, yes…they can be moral and wrong about the existence of objective moral facts. Or they can be right in their belief, but neither moral nor immoral. What they cannot be is both right and moral. (Or, to be fair, right and immoral!)

To clarify,  consider this question: does a unicorn’s horn glow in the dark? The answer doesn’t really matter. Because the topic of the question doesn’t exist, no answer has any meaning in the real world. In the same way, one’s opinion of how we should treat others is meaningless… unless there actually exists a way that we should treat others! Subjective moral opinion with no undergirding objective moral fact is an opinion about something that does not exist. It has no more relevance to our lives than the destruction of Krypton. (That’s the homeworld of Superman and Supergirl, for those under 30!)

Subjective Moral Opinion Isn’t Sufficient

Moral opinion alone lacks the necessary scope of influence required of morality. An opinion is, by its nature, limited to one person. No two persons can share an opinion. You might describe your opinion to me, and we might hold similar opinions, but I cannot hold your opinion! Nor can you hold mine!

This means that the scope of influence of any opinion is exactly one person; but a standard of morality deals largely with relationships between two or more persons. Opinions simply have insufficient scope to address relational behavior. For this reason, the argument that morality is a product of people in society fails. Moral opinion can provide no binding reason that men should seek the good of others.

Indeed, we instinctively resist the moral opinions of others, often with the common objection, “who are you to force YOUR morality on me!” At best, subjective morality informs a person of how they believe people should treat others, but it cannot inform a person of how they actually should treat others!

Subjective Moral Opinion Cannot Explain Guilt

How often we make excuses for our actions!  The same actions that the subjective moralist claims cannot be objectively wrong, he attempts to justify to themselves and to others. This strongly indicates that at least some form of guilt is felt; one does not justify moral actions.

Subjective morality cannot provide a sound explanation for guilt. Occasionally, when my oldest daughter was a toddler, she would put herself in timeout when she felt that she had done something wrong. She tearfully walked to the corner, although she had broken no rule, and neither my wife nor I had any intention of disciplining her.

One day when this had happened, she looked over at me and asked, “May I get out of timeout now?”

I replied, “Honey… I didn’t put you there! YOU put yourself there.”

In a world where morality is not objective, subjective moral opinion is a lot like my daughter’s self-imposed timeout. With no higher authority to tell us to behave, or else “sit in the corner”, and no moral facts by which to judge our actions, we make up our own rules. Then we behave as if they were binding. (Even more illogically, we act as if our moral opinions should be binding on others!) When we fail to live up to the rules we’ve created, we “put ourselves in timeout” with feelings of guilt and shame. And then we turn and ask “can we get out of timeout now”… and are answered with silence.

The Problem that Should Not Exist

Dealing with guilt should be simple in such a world. Just as my daughter chose to put herself into timeout, she could also choose to leave her self-imposed punishment at any time. She had no obligation to stay there. Similarly, guilt for breaking a subjective moral code can only result in self-inflicted guilt. We are “free to leave” at any time. Yet, this doesn’t reflect our experience.

Every mentally-healthy person at one time or another feels guilty. Subjective moralists attempt to explain this away by asserting that the crushing weight of guilt is just an illusion. Yet these “illusions” lead some to spend thousands of dollars on counseling. Others resort to alcohol or drug abuse, and some to self-destruction. This “illusion” has a huge impact in the real world!

It is more intuitively obvious that feelings of guilt are real. We stand guilty of breaking objective moral facts, and we need a way to “get out of the corner”. Repeated insistence that guilt is an illusion cannot soothe the nagging misery. All of our own efforts to remove ourselves from the corner fail. We crave forgiveness for our offenses… forgiveness that is neither necessary nor available if no law has been broken. Our conscience knows the truth that we often suppress.

Subjective Moral Opinion Cannot Secure Rights

Rejection of an objective moral standard claims to bring freedom. Instead it brings slavery. The cost is simply too high. Freedom from a moral law may seem to allow one to live as they desire, but it also requires the forfeiture of any protections and rights provided by that law. Appeals to subjective morality as a replacement only provides an illusion with no substance. Claims that men should submit to such a code “for the sake of society”. But this begs the question; you cannot argue for subjective morality by appealing to subjective morality. Either denying oneself for the good of the group is an objective moral principle, or it is a subjective opinion with no authority.

Objective morality exists, and this fact is implicitly affirmed by the subjective moralist, many of whom live highly moral lives in spite of their denial of the standard that makes them moral.  Does our society oppress certain groups of people? Should we change some of our laws to be more “fair”? Are discrimination and intolerance wrong? All of these require an objective moral standard to be meaningful… and practically no one these days, regardless of political leanings, religion (or lack thereof), creed, or color would not agree with at least one of these statements. Similar to logic itself, the more someone argues against objective morality, the more they show that they actually believe in it! The inability to reason without it is strong evidence for both its reality and its importance.

/by