Theology and Christian Apologetics Archives - Page 21 of 96

Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, then resurrected from the dead three days later. It’s not just a fairy tale. Christians believe that the Resurrection is a historical fact. It’s what sets Christianity apart from every other world religion. It is the foundation of the Christian faith. If it’s not true the New Testament is fiction, Jesus is a fraud, and Christianity is a false religion. Anyone would be a fool to believe in it. This isn’t just my opinion. It’s the Apostle Paul’s:

1 Corinthians 15:12-19 — “… if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile … [and you] are to be pitied more than all men.”

None of us wants to be foolish or pitied for our faith. And no one wants to follow, or encourage others to follow, a false religion. So what reasons do we have to believe this story? It turns out there are several.

Impact Events

Just outside the cockpit door of every commercial airliner, there is a telephone handset that allows the flight attendants to talk to the pilots. And inside the cockpit of every commercial airliner is a “Door Unlock” switch on the center console that allows the pilots to open the cockpit door without getting out of their seats.

If a flight attendant had knocked on my cockpit door at 8:45AM on September 11, 2001, and asked me if she could come up front, I would have unlocked the door while I was still on the phone with her. I wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. But by 9:15AM that same morning, the passengers of United Flight 93 had already figured out that was a bad idea. They were storming the cockpit of their Boeing 757 over southern Pennsylvania for that very reason.

What changed during those thirty minutes?

We all know what changed. The collective mindset of the entire world changed. It’s called an “Impact Event” — an incident so shocking it has the power to change not just what we think, but the way we think … about everything.

Resurrection – The Cultural Backdrop

In the first century A.D., there were several different kinds of beliefs about life-after-death in the Egyptian and Greco-Roman worlds that surrounded Israel. The Egyptians mummified people with their stuff so they could use it in the afterlife. The Greeks and Romans believed in various forms of an underworld destination. But no one anywhere believed in the idea of a bodily resurrection occurring after a person died.

The Jews weren’t any different. Their views varied by theological sub-group. The Essenes’ views were similar to their neighboring pagan cultures. They believed in a single-stage disembodied immortality — a “soul” that continued on into an “afterlife.” Their view didn’t include any kind of bodily resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in any kind of life-after-death at all. The Pharisees did believe in one form of a “resurrection.” But theirs was a group event that they thought would occur for all God’s people. The righteous would rise bodily together at the end of time.

Not Even In Myth

In other words, there were plenty of different ideas about what happened to people after they died. But the Jews and their pagan contemporaries agreed about one thing — that the idea of a bodily resurrection was complete rubbish.

“This basic tenet of human existence and experience is accepted as axiomatic throughout the ancient world; once people have gone by the road of death, they do not return. When the ancient classical world spoke of (and denied) resurrection, there should be no controversy about what the word and its cognates referred to … ‘Resurrection’ was not one way of describing what death consisted of. It was a way of describing something everyone knew did not happen: the idea that death could be reversed, undone, could work backward. Not even in myth was it permitted.”

~ N. T. Wright, The Resurrection Of The Son Of God

The New Paradigm

Then, suddenly, everything changed. Despite every commonly-held belief to the contrary, one group of people began believing in a bodily resurrection. They were the first-generation Christians. For some reason, a large group of these people turned on a dime. They started saying that a person could be resurrected. In fact, they claimed that someone had done just that. And they described a resurrected person as having some kind of weirdly transformed physical body. These Christians started using the term “resurrection” in ways they had never used the term before. They talked about it in the present tense.

The New Church

The idea of a resurrection had been a tangential doctrinal variant for the Jews. But, for some of them, it morphed overnight into the central tenet of their faith. Opinions about life after death had been all over the map. But suddenly Christians were remarkably unanimous about one thing: The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

And that changed everything else.

Their Jewish religious and Temple worship rites weren’t exempt. They went from practicing animal sacrifice to preaching on Christ’s sacrifice. They claimed that the binding Law of Moses had been fulfilled. That baptism and communion had replaced circumcision as the symbol of their faith. They even changed their weekly day of worship from Saturday to Sunday.

It was like the world had experienced some kind of cataclysmic Impact Event.

Because it had.

The Resurrection is History

These rapid, sweeping changes in thinking and habits are documented history. And that is what makes Christianity so unique. It’s not just a “faith system” or a list of rules for healthy living. And it’s not a self-help program based on having a friendly relationship with God. Christianity is based on an epic story. But the story is true. It’s historically verifiable. And the central event in the story is the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

The truth of Christianity lives or dies (pun intended) on the Resurrection. If you want to falsify the Christian story, just prove that Jesus never rose from the dead. That is the point the Apostle Paul was making in 1 Corinthians 15. If the Resurrection of Jesus was not an actual, historical event, you can dismiss us Christians as fools.

But if it was, you should bend your knee to the risen Messiah.

As I’ve discussed many times, the definition of truth is “correspondence to reality.” Does what we believe about something match the way the world really is? If it does, that belief is true. And that means that if we believe the Resurrection is true we should have solid historical evidence for it from the real world. Is there any?

You bet there is.

Evidence Please

The evidence doesn’t depend on your religious point of view. It’s the same kind of evidence mainstream historians use to evaluate any kind of historic event. You take the evidence you have and look for an explanation that takes all of it into account.

The first bit of evidence is the New Testament itself. If you evaluate it in the same way you would evaluate any set of ancient documents, the conclusion is simple. The New Testament documents are historically reliable. This really isn’t even debatable. The evidence is overwhelming. But think about the origins of these documents. Who wrote them, and why?

The answer to both those questions is so obvious it blows my mind that I, as a confessing Christian, missed it for decades.

The New Testament was written by people whose lives were turned upside down by the Resurrection of Christ. Their writings weren’t just fanciful musings. The authors wrote down what they saw. And they wrote those things down because of the Resurrection,

The Resurrection came first. It’s why we have a New Testament.

So, we have highly reliable historical documents. And those documents record an Impact Event unlike any other. Billions of people have died throughout history. But the world has only reset its entire calendar system in honor of one life. That’s the ultimate kind of Impact Event. And it’s powerful evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus.

The Minimal Facts Approach

The New Testament writers experienced the Impact Event and wrote about what they saw. But they weren’t the only ones. Other historians witnessed the effects of the Resurrection too. And their accounts corroborate the New Testament authors’ stories. For that reason, there are several elements of the story that even its critics admit are undeniable. These are mainstream historians who overwhelmingly agree to the veracity of five facts tied to the Resurrection. Dr. Gary Habermas, a world-class PhD Bible scholar, calls these the “Minimal Facts.” And he has popularized an argument based on them.

Here are the five central elements of the Resurrection account that even Christianity’s opponents admit are historically accurate:

Jesus of Nazareth died by crucifixion on a Roman cross.
Jesus’ disciples believed that he appeared to them after he had died.
Paul, the church persecutor and sworn enemy of Christianity, was suddenly changed into its greatest advocate.
James, the brother of Jesus, suddenly dropped his skepticism and became the leaderof the Jerusalem church.
The tomb where they buried Jesus on Friday was empty on Sunday.

Since there is overwhelming agreement to these, Habermas’ “Minimal Facts Approach” simply says that the conclusion we draw about the Resurrection must be based on an “inference to the best explanation” for all these facts.

I’m not going to get into the details of each right now, but here’s the point: The only all-encompassing explanation for all five of these facts is that that Resurrection actually occurred.

A Reason To Believe

The New Testament writers penned their manuscripts for a reason. They believed that something cataclysmic had happened. And it doesn’t make sense to say they conspired to concoct the story. Every single one of them went to his grave without recanting the story they shared. Most of them were executed for that very reason. It strains credulity to say they were willing to suffer and die in defense of a story they knew they had made up.

Taking all this into account, it is perfectly reasonable to say the Resurrection is a historical fact. If you can say that about any historical event, you can say it about this one.

And yes, that means a miracle occurred. So, those who deny that miracles are possible can’t just dismiss the Resurrection as being “religious.” Of course it’s religious. But it’s also historical. The evidence is clear. They can doubt all historical claims. Or they can be reasonable and rethink the presuppositions that led them to reject miracles in the first place.

Here is a short summary of some of the “Minimal Facts” about the resurrection:

… and there is plenty of evidence to support each one of these facts:

Biblical Judgment in a “Don’t Judge Me” World

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Alisa Childers

“YOU SHOULDN’T JUDGE.”

Once upon a couple of years ago, there was a wildly popular book written by a self-professed Christian author. It was released by a Christian publishing house and marketed on Christian platforms and websites. It was a fairy tale come true. Crushing it at the top of The New York Times Best Seller list and winning the hearts and minds of millions of women, it was featured in countless small group Bible studies and conferences nationwide.

The only problem is that the core message of the book is the exact opposite of the biblical Gospel. So, I decided to write a little review of it and post it on my blog. I didn’t anticipate this “little review” going viral, nor did I predict the boatloads of hate mail that would sail into my inbox in the following weeks.

Some of the emails cannot be repeated in polite company. But the bulk of the pushback can be distilled down to three fateful words: “You. Shouldn’t. Judge.”

The message I received loud and clear was that it was wrong of me to criticize unbiblical ideas in a popular book. After all, Jesus would never be such a “McJudgypants.” With love redefined to mean the affirmation of a desire or an idea, it’s easy to see how “judging” has become the unforgivable sin in our culture.

But Christians live by a different standard than the world. When someone says, “You shouldn’t judge,” they are actually contradicting real love, the Bible, and plain common sense. So, the next time someone pulls out this particular conversation-stopper, remember these three things:

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT BIBLICAL.

It seems like everyone’s favorite Bible verse (at least when they’re trying to keep someone from telling them they’re wrong) is Matthew 7:1. The words, “Judge not, that you be not judged,” come from the lips of Jesus himself.

Mic drop. End of conversation—right?

Well, that only works if you scribble out the next six verses, along with some other things Jesus said, and a good portion of the New Testament. In fact, just after saying, “Judge not,” Jesus lets his audience know that when they judge, they should be very careful to make sure their judgment isn’t hypocritical. “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,” Jesus instructs in verse five. In other words, don’t point out a sin in your sister’s life before you confront the bigger sin in your own.

But the whole point is to help your sister take the speck out of her eye, which requires you to judge that it’s there. So, Jesus isn’t saying that it’s always wrong to judge. In fact, verse six tells us to “not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs.” How can one identify “dogs” and “pigs” unless they first judge correctly?

JUDGE THE FRUIT

If there is still any confusion, just a few verses later, Jesus tells us to recognize wolves, or false teachers, by their fruit. Again, this requires us to judge whether or not these teachers are speaking truth or deception. Then, in John 7:24, Jesus couldn’t say it more plainly. He directs his listeners to “not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Later, in Matthew 18:15–16, Jesus gives instructions about how to confront a fellow believer if they’ve sinned against you. (Don’t forget to take the log out of your own eye first!) The apostle Paul echoes this sentiment in Galatians 6:1, by telling Christians how to handle a brother who is caught in a sin. He writes, “You who are spiritual”—think log-less in the eye—“should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.”

In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul tells the believers in Corinth that it’s actually their job to judge other believers. He writes, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”

Telling someone they shouldn’t judge is not biblical. In fact, Scripture actually commands us to judge, but to do it carefully, rightly, humbly, and without hypocrisy.

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT LOGICAL.

Imagine you are home alone and your doorbell rings. You peek through the window and observe a very large man with a gun in his hand, wearing an orange jumpsuit. He’s sweating and looking around nervously. Be honest. Are you going to open the door for him? My guess is … probably not. But wait. Why are you being so judgmental? Maybe he’s not an escaped convict but simply enjoys wearing orange jumpsuits and carrying his weapon while out for a jog. Who are you to judge?

Obviously, this is an extreme example. No one would open the door for that guy. But this goes to show that literally everyone judges. We all make judgments about people every single day. It would be beyond illogical, and sometimes unsafe, to not judge.

Plus, to even tell someone they shouldn’t judge is to judge that they are judging, which is considered judgmental, which requires making a judgment about all the judging. You get the point. But that whole logical mess can be avoided by simply taking Jesus’ advice to “judge with right judgment.”

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT LOVING.

When I was younger, I was trapped in a toxic cycle brought on by an eating disorder. One of my good friends, an eternal people-pleaser, worked up every last bit of courage she could muster to confront me. To put it lightly, it didn’t go well. I not-so-politely invited her to stop “judging” me and back all the way off.

Nevertheless, she persisted. Her determination to make sure I was not only helped but held accountable literally changed my life. I ended up confessing my secret and getting counseling as my healing began. To this day my eyes mist with tears when I think about how much she loved me to do such a difficult thing.

According to the Bible, love is patient and kind. It’s not arrogant or rude. 1 Corinthians 13:6 goes on to tell us that “love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.” My friend couldn’t rejoice at my wrongdoing. Had she simply ignored the “speck in my eye,” and chosen to not judge, my life could have gone down a very different path.

She judged me because she loved me. And it quite possibly saved my life. Judging with right judgment is not only biblical and logical, but it’s also the most loving thing you can do.

COURAGEOUS JUDGMENT

Culture will always have its slogans, mantras, and catch-phrases. But haven’t Christians always been countercultural? Sometimes Jesus calls us to judge each other. As difficult as it may seem, obeying his commands will keep you from being tossed about by the whims of a fickle culture. After all, that culture won’t be there for you when your life (or the lives of the people you love) falls apart from following its advice. Jesus will.

And that’s something you can rightly judge to be true.

Learn To Make a Maximal Case For The Resurrection

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Erik Manning

I used to love sharing the minimal facts with unbelievers. It’s easy to present in a few minutes and sounds rhetorically powerful. When I tell my friends that the facts I’m sharing are universally acknowledged by scholars, even those who are skeptical, it seems like I am not coming at them with something that only conservative evangelicals believe. And on the surface, taking an end-run around the Gospels seemed helpful because unbelievers tend to view them as dubious sources.

However, I ran into a couple of issues. One was practical. Let’s say I got the skeptic to hear me out. Does it really make sense to say: “OK, I granted for the sake of argument that the Gospels are a hot mess of contradictions and historical gaffes. I now wanna take that back and argue that they’re much more reliable than that. You should accept orthodox Christian doctrine” The skeptic might ask “um… if that were true, why’d you start out granting so much for the sake of argument?” This feels like bait and switch.

WHY MAXIMAL DATA?

Plus, once an objection like grief hallucinations or mass delusions came up, I’d eventually have to back up and present other facts that skeptical and liberal scholars didn’t acknowledge. Any imagined rhetorical advantage evaporated. This approach didn’t really save time. If I wanted to defend the bodily appearances, the empty tomb, or the early persecution of the Twelve, I couldn’t “do it all with Paul.” I’d have to learn to defend the reliability of the Gospels and Acts. There are no shortcuts.

The good news is that this can be both rewarding and faith-building. You won’t be lost for words when you’ll hear a scholarly critic like Bart Ehrman lay out a list of complaints about the Gospels. You’ll no longer have to console yourself with “well, I’m not sure how to answer that, but at least the core facts are true.” You can read the Gospels and not wonder “is this part really defensibly historical?” Learning this approach kills cognitive dissonance.

OBJECTIONS TO MAXIMAL DATA

The only drawback is that you’ll be told you hold fringy views. But again, saying that there is evidence that the tomb was empty or the resurrection appearances were physical is already considered fringy to the scholarly consensus anyway. And importantly, scholarly politics can’t trump the force of objective evidence. It doesn’t mean that something is weakly supported by non-question-begging evidence because it isn’t granted by skeptical and liberal scholars. Nor does it mean we’re making a “for the Bible tells me so” argument.

When the skeptic asks, “what about all the contradictions?” you can offer to revisit them later and continue to make your positive case, rather than conceding them for the sake of argument. And by the way, the robust reliability argument can also be made in a way that’s just as quick and easy to share as minimal facts. It goes like this:

Either the disciples were deceivers, deceived, or they were telling the truth.
They were not deceivers. (They had good reasons not to lie considering they’d be ostracized and persecuted)
They were not merely mistaken or deceived. (We can tell this by the accounts they gave of seeing, touching, and talking with Jesus over a long period of time after the resurrection)
Therefore, they were telling the truth.

There! That’s not so hard now, is it? You could make that argument on an elevator. You just need to be prepared to back it up with additional evidence. So with this in mind, I’m going to tell you about 3 modern books you can pick up for around $50 total. And then I’m going to give you three older, public domain books that you can get off the Google Play store that won’t cost you a dime.

Resource #1: The Case For Jesus – Brant Pitre

This book helps answer a whole host of questions: Were the four Gospels really anonymous? Aren’t they written far too late to be considered reliable? Aren’t the Gospels folklore? What about the lost Gospels, like the Gospel of Judas or the Gospel of Peter? Is Jesus only divine in the Gospel of John and not the Synoptics?

Pitre offers some neglected evidence from the early church fathers and ancient manuscripts to demonstrate that the Gospels are not anonymous, as skeptics like to assert. Furthermore, he puts Jesus of Nazareth’s divine claims in an ancient Jewish context in a way that blew my mind. You won’t look at the phrases Son of Man and Kingdom of God in the same way.

Resource #2: Can We Trust the Gospels? – Peter J. Williams

This is a super accessible book and only 140 pages. The whole thing is great, but chapter 3 is worth the price of the book alone. Skeptics often claim that the Gospels were written decades later by people unfamiliar with 1st-century Palestine. If that’s true, we’d expect to find all kinds of errors regarding Palestinian geography, names, and customs, but Williams demonstrates time and time again that the Gospel writers get these details right, including many difficult types of details. Based on the data, Williams concludes that “The resulting Gospels are not what we would expect from people who made up stories at a geographical distance.” This serves as evidence that the evangelists were well-informed, consistently trustworthy, and close up to the facts.

Resource #3: Hidden in Plain View – Lydia McGrew

Having been largely neglected for over a century, Lydia McGrew revives an argument for the reliability of the NT called undesigned coincidences. In a nutshell, an undesigned coincidence is an apparently casual, yet puzzle-like fit between two or more texts, and its best explanation is that the authors knew the truth about the events they describe or allude to. These connections are among passages in the Gospels, as well as between Acts and Paul’s epistles. These lend credence to the idea that these documents were written by eyewitnesses who knew what they were talking about. This is relevant to developing a case for the resurrection. For if the gospels can be shown to be rooted in credible eyewitness testimony, you have to take seriously the reported nature and variety of the post-resurrection encounters with the risen Jesus as coming from the original eyewitnesses.

Seeing examples of this in action is the easiest way to understand it. You can find plenty of interviews and lectures on YouTube where Dr. McGrew shares this argument.

I’d also highly recommend her other two books if you are interested in learning more about the Gospels’ reliability. Those are The Eye of the Beholder (which is a defense of John’s Gospel) and The Mirror and the Mask, which argues against claims made by evangelical scholars that the Gospel authors felt free to present events in one way even though they knew that the reality was different. These are a little more technical than her first book, and a great place to start if you want to go deeper into the issues.

FREE RESOURCES

Now, for the free resources: JJ Blunt’s book Undesigned Coincidencesand William Paley’s Horae Paulinaeare the non-updated versions of Lydia McGrew’s Hidden in Plain View. I still recommend you get Lydia’s book, because she picks the “best of” these undesigned coincidences, and she has discovered several more that are not in these older books. If you’re on a budget, these are great additions to your library. And if you’re not on a budget, get them anyway. Both of these books are still worth reading even after reading Hidden in Plain View.

Finally, get A View of the Evidences of Christianity by William Paley. I cannot recommend this book enough. Paley debunks Hume’s anti-miracle argument. He examines all the evidence that the original witnesses of Christianity were willing to undergo labors, dangers, and suffering in order to spread the gospel of the resurrection.

He goes into great detail regarding the authorship and early use of the Gospels, which includes the unanimous testimony of the early church and even some heretics. Paley takes us into the unity of the character of Christ in all four Gospels. This answers some of the “why’s John’s Jesus so different?” objections. Paley also demonstrates 41 instances where the Gospel writers make incidental allusions to history that can be confirmed outside the NT, even down to minor details. These illustrate the evangelists’ familiarity with the setting and their accuracy in recounting details. He discusses alleged discrepancies in the Gospels, prophecy, and so much more. I can’t do this book justice in a short video. Just get it. Sure, his style of writing is from the 18th-century and his arguments could use a little updating. However, this book has mostly stood the test of time and should not be forgotten.

Just search the Google Play store for these three public domain books and you can find free versions. There are many other books I could recommend, but these are meant to get you started. I just want to assure you that this isn’t a very difficult method to learn. It took time to learn the minimal facts approach, and you can take the time to learn this. There may be extra details, but we’ve seen that extra details are needed anyway to make a strong case. We can all find less time for Twitter, Instagram, or reading the latest political news, or binge-watching Netflix. You just have to set priorities.

Skeptics have poked apart the minimalist approaches to the resurrection for far too long. We need an army of Christian apologists who can make a more robust case. You can do this.

How Culture Got to the Point Where Saturday Night Live is Promoting Abortion in a Clown Outfit

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Natasha Crain

This weekend, Saturday Night Live cast member Cecily Strong played a character called Goober the Clown who had an abortion when she was 23 and now talks to people about how normal abortion is in between clown jokes.

Goober explains that it’s a “rough” subject, so she does fun clown stuff to make it more “palatable.” In the context of her skit, saying that it’s a rough subject wasn’t a tacit admission that abortion is in some way wrong; it was a condemnation of those who make it rough to talk about because they have a problem with it.

If you can stomach it, you can watch the 4 minute clip here.

Yes, the intentional killing of preborn babies has become fodder for a comedy skit—something literally worth clowning around about.

Every single one of us should be asking how on earth we, as a culture, have arrived at such a moment.

If we’re not asking that question, we’ve become completely desensitized to evil.

In one sense, the question of how we got “here” is a complex one worth hundreds of pages of historical, philosophical, political, and theological history. (And if you’re looking for something of that nature, I can think of no better resource than Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution.)

But in another sense, the question is far more straightforward when you understand the nature of the secular worldview that dominates our culture.

In Chapter 8 of my upcoming book Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture, I talk about “Reaffirming Biblical Morality (Under the Pressure of Secular Virtue Signaling).” As I explain in that chapter, there are a lot of nuances to what people popularly call “virtue signaling,” but my objective was quite simple: to take the moral statements people and institutions publicly make at face value and assume 1) they truly believe the position they’re stating is the morally good position to have, and 2) they believe there’s some kind of value in stating that position publicly (otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered to say anything at all).

What I show is that these bare bones aspects of virtue signaling play an important role in promoting the secular moral consensus over and against a biblical view of morality.

To do that, I break down the psychological process of moral buy-in that secular culture must go through to gain acceptance of a changed moral position: awareness, normalization, then celebration.

While in the chapter I take a more detailed look at each stage, for my current purpose I just want to highlight key points for understanding the normalization part of the process. Goober the Clown clearly wanted us to all feel just how normal abortion is with her skit, and it’s important to understand just how culturally strategic—and predictable—that is.

The focus on portraying abortion as normal and therefore good is no accident.

Why is normalization in particular so important for gaining secular moral buy-in?

As I explain in chapter 8, “To understand why, we need to return to three of our secular worldview foundations [discussed earlier in Faithfully Different]: Feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, and judging is the ultimate sin. On the one hand, secularism is all about the individual defining their own journey. On the other hand, if there’s a negative prevailing societal judgment about the morality of certain choices, it can make people question the validity of their journey…whether they want that gut check or not. Yes, the secular ideal is to live in a self-contained judgment-free zone, but when the reality is that there’s a holy God who defines morality and gives humankind an inner sense of right and wrong, there will be a battle fought with the conscience.

Through virtue signaling—publicly proclaiming the moral good of an action—people are fighting this inner battle in the public sphere.

The battle commonly takes three steps.

1. Publicly proclaim that the action leads to the holy secular grail of happiness (if it makes you happy, how could it possibly be wrong?). For those who believe that happiness is the ultimate goal, it makes a powerful statement to juxtapose a morally questionable action with the achievement of secularism’s greatest good. Abortion, for example, is commonly portrayed as the means through which a woman became free to happily pursue the life she wanted and the goals she had.

2. Proclaim it with as many people as possible to demonstrate that there’s no shame in the action (if everyone’s willing to tell the world they’ve done it, clearly there’s nothing to be ashamed of). Here’s perhaps the most important thing you can take away from this article: Given that secularism doesn’t defer to an objective higher authority, the closest thing it has to a moral standard is the popular consensus. Read that again multiple times—it’s the key to understanding a vast array of activism we see today. Increasing the number of people who share a positive moral judgment of an action is a proxy for transforming that action into a moral good for those who otherwise have no objective, external standard. Goober the Clown talks about how once a woman goes out on a limb in a social group to say she’s had an abortion, several more will say, “Me too!” The message is clear, and it sounds like something out of a bad 1980’s commercial portraying peer pressure to do drugs: “Everybody’s doing it, so it’s fine if you do, too.”

3. Remind everyone that life is all about self-authority anyway. Sure, you’ve shown it’s possible to justify your moral choice in steps 1 and 2, but this reminds people you never really had to anyway. Goober the Clown says right up front that it should all just be part of her “clown business,” but people keep talking about it, so she has to as well.

Normalization is ultimately a process of publicly signaling to society that an action is so commonplace, it’s unnecessarily taboo. Normal is the social validation secularism needs to minimize conflict with the conscience.

Perhaps nowhere has that been so on display as in this skit. If we can show that a subject is so unnecessarily taboo that we can discuss it in a clown outfit, surely it must not be a bad thing… right?

Christians, don’t be surprised. Secular culture will undoubtedly continue to “clown around” with evil. It’s actually quite predictable.

It’s the modus operandi for suppressing truth in unrighteousness.

The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book)

Defending Absolutes in a Relativistic World (Mp3) by Frank Turek

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Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3DxEvht

November 24, 2021/by Guest

How We Got Our Bible: Old Testament Formation

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

This is the second in a series of nine posts addressing the question of how we got our Bible. Last post dealt with the question of inspiration and inerrancy. This week we turn our attention to the formation of the Old Testament.

Introductory Matters

In the late second century, Tertullian coined the term “Old Testament” to distinguish the Hebrew from the Greek Scriptures. The word “testament” simply means “covenant.” The Old Testament, in its current form, consists of thirty-nine books and was written by dozens of authors over the course of one thousand years.

In the earliest times, biblical authors used a variety of different writing surfaces. They etched into stone (Exod 34:1; Josh 8:32), inscribed on plaster (Deut 27:2-3), engraved on metal (Exod 28:36), and scratched on waxed tablets (Isa 30:8; Hab 2:2). In order to engrave on these surfaces, they used iron pens (Job 19:24; Jer 17:1) and other styluses.

Thankfully, the Egyptians had already invented a paper-like product using papyrus plants long before Moses wrote the law. Biblical authors adopted this writing technology for practical purposes (Jer 36:23). When papyrus wasn’t available, authors would write on stretched and dried animal skins called parchments. Writers used thin-stemmed reeds (Jer 8:8) that they dipped in ink which was usually a mixture of soot and tree sap or oil. Scribes would often wear ink cases around their belts (Ezek 9:2-3).

The First Scripture

Fittingly, God himself wrote the very first Scriptural text. We read in Exodus 31:18, “And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.” Those same tablets were then stored in the Ark of the Covenant along with a jar of manna and Aaron’s staff (Deut 10:5; Heb 9:4).

Moses would later compile God’s writings into the Pentateuch along with his other writings. We have indications that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in stages and not all at one time. Exodus 24:4 reads, “And Moses wrote down all the words of the LORD.” Exodus 17:14 notes, “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalak from under heaven.’”

Scholars debate how Moses learned the contents of Genesis. Some suggest he learned them at Mount Sinai through divine revelation. Others believe it was passed down through oral tradition. And others believe it was a combination of the two.

Stages of Writing

As was previously noted, the Old Testament was not written at one time but over the course of a thousand years. It may be helpful to think of the development of the Old Testament in four stages.

The first stage was at Mount Sinai when Moses wrote the Law. Early on, the Pentateuch functioned like the Jewish canon of Scripture. In fact, Moses commands “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you” (Deut 4:2). Over the course of hundreds of years, other books were written, but their inclusion into the canon took some time. The Books of Moses, however, were authoritative from the get go.

The second stage of revelation deposits came during the transition from the theocracy to the monarchy. During that era, authors wrote several historical books (Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuels), poetry (Psalms), and wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon).

The third stage was the time surrounding the Babylonian Exile. Several prophets wrote during this time period (Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, Jonah, Amos, Joel, etc.).

The fourth and final stage was the return from exile. More prophets continued to write (Zechariah and Malachi) as did historians (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther).

Quoting the Law

Because the Old Testament developed in stages, later Old Testament writers often referred back to the Books of Moses. Perhaps the most quoted text from Moses is Exodus 34:6. The text declares, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Consider how these later Old Testament texts quote Moses:

But your are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Neh 9:17).

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15).

That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2).

Submitting to the Law

Not only did later Old Testament writers quote from Moses, they explicitly affirmed his authority.

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from into the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it (Josh 1:7-8).

When David’s time to die drew near, he commanded Solomon his son, saying, I am about to go the way of all the earth. Be strong, and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his commandments, his rules, and his testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses (1 Kings 2:1-3).

They told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. . . . And he read from it . . . in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law” (Neh 8:1-3).

The Prophets Use of Prophets

Because the Pentateuch was authoritative from the beginning, we find far more references to Moses than any other Old Testament author. That said, the prophets still recognized the authority of other prophets who lived closer to their time. Consider Daniels words:

“In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years” (Dan 9:2).

Even though Jeremiah wrote only a few decades prior, Daniel still recognized his divine authority.

Zechariah also recognizes the divine authority of his prophetic predecessors. He writes:

Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: Say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it not for me that you fasted? . . . Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous? (Zech 7:4-7).

Authors and Dates

Admittedly, we cannot be too precise on some of the authors and dates of the Old Testament books, especially some of the historical works. That said, consider the following chart which details the authors and dates of each Old Testament book.[1]

Use of Sources

Inspiration does not imply mechanical dictation. While biblical authors did dictate God’s word from time to time, they also employed other methods such as researching historical sources. Consider the following examples:

Therefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14).

And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? (Josh 10:13).

Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? (1 Kings 11:41).

Now the rest of the acts of Joram, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? (2 Kings 8:20).

What these texts demonstrate is that the biblical authors didn’t invent this stuff. They did careful research before compiling their works.

Editors

Inspiration does not preclude editing. In other words, God not only inspired authors, he inspired editors to modify and rearrange the text. Without exception, the New Testament writers, and even Jesus himself, affirm Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch (Matt 8:4; 19:8; Mark 7:10; 12:26; Luke 16:31; 20:37; 24:44; Acts 3:22; 15:1; 26:22; 28:23; 1 Cor 9:9; Heb 9:19). That said, we have clear indications of later editing by Jewish scribes. Consider the following texts:

Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth (Num 12:3).

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day (Deut 34:5-6).

And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face (Deut 34:10).

Did Moses call himself the meekest person on the earth and report his own death and burial? And following his death, did he report that no such prophet has arisen since the time of Moses? Doesn’t that last statement assume that some time has passed since his death? In short, while Moses penned the Pentateuch, later scribes edited his work into their present form.

Preservation

Knowing that it took a thousand years to write the Old Testament (1400-400 BC), how confident can we be in its preservation? After all, we know that there was a period of time when it seems like the text had been lost and out of use (2 Kings 22-23).

Apparently, “clans of scribes” existed during the Old Testament era to copy and preserve the Hebrew Bible (1 Chron 2:55). Since then, Jewish scribes have meticulously copied texts for the same purposes. Perhaps the most famous of these scribes are the Masoretes and the Ben Asher family from the fifth century AD. These professional copyists counted the number of words on every page and knew the number of words in every book as well as the exact middle word and letter of every book to ensure that they copied accurately.

Additionally, the Masoretes added vowel markings to the otherwise vowel-less text. Up until the 1940s, the earliest Hebrew texts in our possession were Masoretic texts dating to the 9th and 10th centuries.

Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1947, a shepherd by the name of Muhammed edh-Dhib was out looking for some of his sheep along the coast of the Dead Sea. As he passed by a cave, he tossed a rock inside hoping to hear the bleating of sheep. Instead, he heard pottery shattering. That shattered jar led to one of the most significant archaeological finds of the twentieth century.

Archaeologists have since uncovered over a thousand ancient Jewish documents from dozens of nearby caves dating from 250 BC to AD 65. These texts belonged to the Qumran community otherwise known as the Essenes. These people functioned much like Jewish monks, isolated from much of society. The Qumran community most likely stashed their sacred texts in these caves during the war with Rome (AD 68-70) hoping to return to them once the dust settled. Unfortunately, they all died during the war, so their texts remained hidden for two thousand years.

Among these documents are every book of the Old Testament except for Esther. Perhaps the most significant text is a complete Isaiah scroll, consisting of twenty-seven sheets of parchment sewn end-to-end. It measures twenty-three feet in length. The scroll dates to 120 BC—a thousand years older than the previous oldest text. Most significantly, the Isaiah scroll hardly differs from the Masoretic text from the tenth century, demonstrating that Jewish scribes carefully preserved the original text.

Old Testament Canon

The next post will consider the Septuagint, the apocrypha, and the Old Testament Canon.

*For more on this topic, read Timothy Paul Jone’s helpful book How We Got the Bible.

References:

[1] This chart is modified from Timothy Paul Jones, How We Got the Bible, 31-33.

The Benefits of Active Listening and Moral Apologetics to the Chaplaincy Ministry

Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Brian Chilton

For the first article after having been named a Senior Contributor for MoralApologetics.com, it is only appropriate to acknowledge the tremendous benefit that moral apologetics has served in my present ministry as a clinical hospice chaplain. In September of 2020, I joined a team of nine other individuals who care for patients and their families at the point of death. Numerous individuals have inquired, “How do you do that? Don’t you stay depressed all the time? Isn’t that a heavy job?” Yes, the job can be intense emotionally and spiritually. A fellow chaplain told me that the average duration of a clinical hospice chaplain is generally 2-3 years because of emotional burnout. Ironically, I have found the job to be a blessing. I have seen God move in powerful ways to change lives and to impact people in ways that I was never prepared to see.

Two skills have served as a tremendous benefit for helping me help those most in need. By no means am I saying that I have these skills mastered. I am still learning. Nonetheless, I digress. The first is a skill acquired from my chaplaincy training. Fellow chaplain Jason Kline taught me the benefits of a practice known as active listening. Active listening is a technique that carefully listens to what the person is saying and observes non-verbal cues that communicate what the person is feeling and thinking. More on this in a moment.

While active listening is a tremendous tool, it becomes even more powerful when coupled with training in moral apologetics. This writer was highly honored to participate in Dr. David Baggett’s final course at Liberty University before he made his trek to Houston Baptist University. Truly, Liberty’s loss is HBU’s gain. For me, I wanted to take the course because I had already befriended Dr. Baggett but never had him as a professor. Even if Baggett taught a class on the benefits of chocolate ice cream, I would have taken it because I wanted to say that Dr. Baggett was my professor. Nonetheless, it could not have been more appropriate that the class was on moral apologetics. Furthermore, nothing could have prepared me for the enduring benefits that stemmed from this deeply philosophical and apologetic overview of the moral apologetic landscape. The field of moral apologetics prepared me in numerous ways to be able to help patients as a clinical chaplain and deal with the intense situations that I have encountered in my brief time in the profession. As a caveat, HIPAA laws do not permit the use of personal stories and examples in the chaplaincy field. Thus, this article will only speak in generalities as it pertains to the benefits of both active listening and moral apologetics to the task of chaplaincy ministry. As the article will show, the benefits are not only found in chaplaincy.

Benefits of Active Listening

As previously noted, active listening is a technique whereby a counselor actively participates in the conversation by observing both verbal and non-verbal cues that speak to the person’s emotional, spiritual, and physical condition. Healthline.com suggests that active listening requires eight tasks: 1. Give the person your full attention. 2. Use body language (show them you are interested in the person, don’t just say it). 3. Avoid interrupting the person. 4. Don’t fear the power of silence. 5. Reflect on the person’s communication, don’t parrot them. 6. Validate the person’s feelings. 7. Ask thoughtful questions. 8. Avoid passing judgment or offering advice.[1] All of these tips work well within the framework of moral apologetics. The eighth tip may sound counterintuitive to the apologist’s task because the apologist wants to guide the person to a personal relationship with Christ and/or strengthen his/her relationship with Christ. However, strategically asked questions can provide the same result and will allow the client to own the information for oneself. Furthermore, this fits well into the abductive argument for moral apologetics. Marybeth Baggett avers that the abductive approach “relies on and encourages bridge building, which isn’t helped by treated difficult questions as easier than they are.”[2] It just so happens that active listening works well within the abductive approach. From the brief time this writer has served as a clinical chaplain, it has been observed that the practice of active listening brings about four tremendous benefits.

Encourages dialogue. Just as Baggett argued for the abductive moral argument, so also active listening encourages dialogue. There is a distinct difference between dialogue and monologue. Monologues occur when a person gives a lecture. While this is nice in the university setting, it is not preferred for one-on-one communication. If the counselor or apologist only gives the person what-for, enshrouded in the ideology of “telling it like it is,” the listener will quickly turn off his/her ears and will no longer engage in the conversation. The conversation will quickly devolve and end. However, the effective communicator is willing to hear what the other person says and how they feel. Speaking as an apologist, this is something that is missing in many circles these days.
Identifies personal concerns. Active listening encourages the person to speak about their personal issues and concerns. The counselor and apologist will quickly learn why the person believes what they do. More often than not, a person’s experiences help shape one to become who they will be. Recently, an A&E documentary on the life of WWE legend Rowdy Roddy Piper spoke to the tragic events of Roddy Toombe’s early life that led to his self-destructive habits. Active listening helps to identify and detect those issues.
Allows for self-assessment. The best counselors and apologists are those that can lead individuals to own the information for themselves. This is the very tactic that Jesus used. For example, Jesus asked the disciples who others said that he was before asking them poignantly, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15, CSB). Simon Peter owned the information for himself which came from Jesus’s strategic inquiry.
Reveals personal biases and worldviews. In correlation with the second point, active listening reveals what the person believes. Non-verbal communication can serve as a huge help. Does the person wince or squirm when more difficult theological or spiritual questions are asked? What does this say about the person’s beliefs? Did the person have experiences that led them to their current spiritual reservations? Knowing the seven major worldviews is of immense value as it helps one know the foundation upon which the person’s belief system is based.[3]

Benefits of Moral Apologetics

As was shown, active listening is a powerful technique used to engage and develop a conversation with others. However, questions cannot be one-sided. Sometimes people want to know why a loving God would allow their loved one to suffer. Why is God allowing them to endure hardship and suffering? Simply answering, “Just believe God and all will be well” is not enough. Furthermore, the counselor and/or apologist needs to have a goal in mind. In the case of the moral apologist, the goal is to teach and move a person to accept the good moral nature of an Anselmian God.[4] The use of active listening within the framework of an abductive moral apologetic makes for a powerful means to assist those suffering from moral doubt for the following reasons.

Provides confidence to handle the most difficult situations. Nothing can prepare someone for the outpouring of emotions when tragedy strikes. Different people mourn in different ways. Some may become loud and boisterous, whereas others become depressed and guarded. Having a moral apologetic background grounds the counselor and apologist with the confidence needed to stand amid the turbulent chaos. Like CPR for the EMS worker, ingrained moral apologetic truths become second nature to the trained moral apologetic counselor and apologist and can be quickly accessed.
Grounds a person’s confusion and doubt. Eventually, the counselor and apologist will face a situation that causes them to wonder about why a certain instance occurred. This is natural. The person suffering through the tumultuous time is asking the same question with sevenfold intensity. Nonetheless, the tools in the moral apologist’s toolbox are readily available to assist both the counselor and client during the most difficult of days. Holding fast to God’s benevolent nature anchors one’s emotional and spiritual state.
Reminds of the loving character of God amid the storms. Moral doubt has led many to dark places. Habermas estimates that 70-80% of doubt comes from emotional doubt.[5] Moral apologetics affords the ability to focus on the benevolent nature of God even in a world full of evil and despair. In the end, God’s moral nature is the best explanation for knowing that moral good exists and the intrinsic moral value held by all people, as they are made imagio Dei. Baggett and Walls word it well, noting that “God’s nature as the best explanation of moral good, and the fact that he has created us in his image, constitute an excellent explanation both of why we cannot avoid making moral judgments about the world and of why we cannot escape seeing evil as a problem if there is indeed a gap between the way the world is and the way it ought to be.”[6] Rather than leading the counselor and client away from God because of their moral plight, moral apologetics equips them to come closer to God during the occasion because of the goodness of God and the necessity of God as the best explanation as to why one can make moral claims in the first place.
Acknowledges a better day to come. Hope can help a person through the most decadent times. Viktor Frankl reminisces on the power of hope after having survived the torturous Nazi death camps. He recalls, “The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.”[7] What hope does materialism offer with one’s suffering? Nothing. Moral apologetics acknowledges that a benevolent Anselmian God holds the very best in mind for his children’s future. While things may appear grim at present, a better day is coming. As I hope to show in a book I am currently writing—if God is that than which nothing greater could be perceived, then the final hope for his children is that than which nothing greater could be anticipated. The believer has hope for a perfect world created by a perfect God.

Conclusion

Quite honestly, this article has only skimmed the surface of the great depths that the combination of active listening and moral apologetics extends to the counselor and apologist. However, this combination is not only limited to chaplaincy, but it can also be useful for every field and profession. From the academic professor to the local pastor and everyday Christian, these practices can enrichen one’s life and relationships. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the practice of active listening disarms a person from being on edge from thinking that he/she must prove one’s intellectual prowess. In most cases, the active listener allows the other person to do the most talking. Additionally, the strength from having a moral apologetic background encourages both counselor and client alike that they are not defined by the bad situations endured, but rather they are defined by a God who loves them and cares for them more than one could ever realize. What could be better than that?

References:

[1] Crystal Raypole, “Active Listening: Why it Matters and 8 Tips for Success,” Healthline.com (December 15, 2020), https://www.healthline.com/health/active-listening.

[2] David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett, The Morals of the Story: Good News about a Good God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), 51.

[3] See Brian G. Chilton, Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics: Bridging the Essentials of Apologetics from the Ivory Tower to the Everyday Christian (Eugene, OR: Resource, 2019), 40-43.

[4] That is, “God is the ground of being without whom nothing else can exist.” David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, God & Cosmos: Moral Truth and Human Meaning (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016), 64.

[5] Habermas in Chilton, LMOCA, 75.

[6] Baggett and Walls, God & Cosmos, 96.

[7] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston, MS: Beacon, 2006), 74.

Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 4)

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Josh Klein

Lil Nas X

Back to where we started.

What if I told you that the issue with Lil Nas X was not his being gay, but with how he perceived the Church’s response to his being gay?

He has somehow come away with the understanding that he should hate himself because he has a natural proclivity to same-sex attraction. For some reason, pointing out a lifestyle of sin has been equated to pointing out the evil of the person. I think this reason is tied to the idea of identity. In this final section of this series, I will attempt to offer a “better way” in dealing with these issues.

It is important to note, however, that these ideas are not original with me. Many who have come before me such as Christopher Yuan, Rachel Gilson, Preston Sprinkle, Leadthemhome.org and others champion these same principles, but I will attempt to outline a strategy here that is simple, straight forward, and yet extremely difficult.

In an attempt to assuage the conflation of sin and sinner Christians have come up with a pithy phrase that you may have heard (or even said): “Hate the sin but love the sinner.”

As I mentioned in part one of this series, sexuality is a different animal altogether. This is not some universally accepted vice that must be confronted like drug addiction or alcoholism. The world has done a bang-up job in making this issue one of identity, and the church, for some reason, has agreed to the terms. Therefore, when a Christian says, “Hate the sin but love the sinner” the non-Christian balks in disgust. Why? Because the non-Christian has no identity except that which is being called a sin. Thus, the non-Christian believes that the Christian is subtly saying, “hate their identity but love what they could be if we could change them,” but they are currently happy with their identity.

Of course, this is not the intention of the phrase, but its use has had an unintended consequence in the LGBTQ+ community for decades. A full generation of human beings that identify as their sexual proclivity have come away with the belief that Christians hate them for simply being “who they are.”

Their solution then, is to either hate themselves and try to be something they are not, or to leave the bigoted views of those who claim to love them behind and pursue a life of what seems to offer fulfillment and happiness.

To the liberal church’s credit, they recognized this reaction as unacceptable. After all, God wants all people to come to a saving faith in him, does he not (1 Timothy 2:3-4)?

While their diagnoses of the problem may have been accurate, in parts two and three I touched on why their response to the problem (affirming people in their sin) was not and is even doing more harm than good.

So, what then?

How does the church affirm the holiness of God and his moral framework for creation and minister to those that closely identify with the sin that drives their sexuality?

I recently listened to a podcast by conservative pundit Andrew Klavan, who is a Christian. Klavan has a gay son that proclaims a faith in Jesus Christ, thus, Klavan struggles with the idea that homosexuality is a sin.

I will not get into critiquing Klavan’s beliefs on this matter; however, I believe his response to a listener’s question regarding her own gay son deserves some consideration. In the midst of answering this mother’s question Andrew says something to the effect of:

“Homosexuality is the one sin that we don’t allow in our church. We don’t tell the fat man to stop being gluttonous, but we tell the gay man to stop being gay. My advice is to love your child with the love of Christ and pray that he will pray to God concerning his sexuality as we all should be bringing our sexuality before God” (paraphrased).

I believe Andrew is onto something here. We treat Homosexuality differently than any other sin.

Now, some might rebut Andrew’s statement by indicating (rightly so) that sexual sin is more severe and has an internal consequence that other sins do not (1 Cor. 6:18). So, gluttony may not be the best example, but the response to other sexual sins then should be considered.

How many young people in your church have had sex before marriage?

How many men (and women) are viewing pornography regularly?

How many marriages have crumbled due to infidelity or abuse?

How many teens struggle with opposite-sex attraction in a way that is sinful?

What would happen if we treated each of these people the same way we treat those struggling with (or embracing) homosexuality?

What if we did not think the answer to homosexuality was to make a person straight but to help a person become dedicated to Christ?

In the same response Klavan mentions a concept that is conspicuously foreign in some of our conversations regarding homosexuality. He says something to the effect of allowing God to confront the sin in people’s lives since we are all mired by some sin or another.

In the same vein, noted theologian and Dean of Theology at African Christian University in Zambia, Voddie Baucham is credited for saying this concerning the gospel:

“The gospel message is more about sin than about sins. The point is that I don’t need to approach a person on the basis of a specific sin that they need to quit but on the basis of a Nature that needs to change” (emphasis mine).

How often do we ask a person struggling with lying to stop lying before coming to Christ? How often do we ask someone that is addicted to drugs or pornography to quit their addiction before coming to Christ?

The way we handle homosexuality in the church, however, almost forces a gay man or woman to renounce their homosexual behavior before they can come to Christ.

What if we spent less time convincing people of individual sins and more time pointing to our own sin nature as the reason we need a savior?

This does not mean we ought to ratify sinful behaviors as good. If we did that then we are limiting the ability of the Spirit to convict individuals of individual sins. Tell an addict that their addiction is not only unproblematic but part of their identity and that they should embrace it and why would the addict ever seek a way out of their addiction?

The church has a nasty history of handling sexual issues poorly and we need to come to terms with that.

I believe that the message the world needs to hear is not that they are evil but that they are broken, and they cannot hear that message unless we first tell them how broken we are apart from Christ. In other words, it is not so much the desire to convince the post-Christian culture that they are morally bankrupt, but that they are without hope just as we were without hope.

Instead of shouting into the burning building that the people inside are going to die because they are inside, we offer a way out of the building. “If you don’t want to die, come this way!”

This is what Voddie Baucham is saying concerning how we ought to preach the gospel. The gospel is not the good news of behavioral modification. The gospel is the good news that the Almighty God of the universe has provided a way to life!

In my conversation with the former student concerning these things she expressed a concern about the “hate on the internet” from supposed Christians concerning the LGBTQ+ community. This concern stems from two things, a misunderstanding of what hate really is on her part, sure, but also an inability to engage with society in a way that draws them to Christ on the Christian’s part.

Take, for example, Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 17.

Paul could have walked through Athens and chosen to address their polytheism and idolatry. However, he knew that this would not be a winsome way to express the good news of Jesus. Instead, he lauded their spirituality and passion and found a hook on which to hang the gospel.

Outside of the church we must start looking at conversations with the post-Christian American culture more like a Mars Hill conversation than a letter to the Corinthians conversation.

What is the difference?

In one, Paul was addressing unbelievers (Mars Hill) and in another he was addressing supposed believers that knew better (1 Corinthians).

The church has spent so much time convinced that homosexuality is a threat that we have lost the opportunity (in many ways) to minister in grace and truth. There is no real threat to the Church! The gates of Hell themselves pose no danger! (Matthew 16:17-19)

The liberal church has ministered to them in grace and has augmented the truth and thus, the job of the orthodox church is made that much more difficult. There are now competing gospels for the gay person. This is a failure of the Church not of God and not of those that are being confused.

One gospel that affirms their identity both sexually and as a child of God and one that affirms their ability to be adopted as children of God but insists a thorough reckoning of the self in regard to behaviors and appetites.

But in the reaction to pursue truth with passion we have left grace at the window in many situations.

We do not need to convince the homosexual that they are participating in a particular sin to win them to Christ, but we must convince them that they are a sinner (regardless of whether or not they are gay) that is in need of a savior. In other words, the conversation is the same with a young man living with his girlfriend as it is with a young man living with is boyfriend, and yet, we tend to handle the two situations very differently.

They need not renounce all of their sins prior to knowing Jesus, just that of their sin nature. They renounce slavery to sin and embrace slavery to righteousness as they place their faith in Christ. And then the Holy Spirit gets to work and, as we all know, they will likely continue the struggle!

If they come away with the idea that they ought to hate themselves, it is likely that we have handled the conversation poorly.

So what does this “better way” mean? Do we remain silent on the topic of homosexuality culturally? No, but we must cover the truth in love. Homosexuality is not the primary issue, just as sexual promiscuity or pornography use is not the primary issue. The primary issue is a heart that needs desperately to be transformed, fulfilled, and made new. Give us a heart of flesh instead of stone Lord! (Ez. 36:26) Too often, the church operates with a heart of stone towards those that are in the LGBT community.

I think the following are some (not all) ways that the church can start to make headway in the conversation on sexuality in our culture. These are not easy, but I believe they are simple and in line with scripture and the gospel.

Refuse to use the language of “identity” concerning sexuality. Simply do not do it. If a couple comes to your church and says, “we are a gay couple” treat them in the same way as you would an unmarried heterosexual couple that is cohabitating.
Abandon the idea that God will choose to make someone “straight” if they come to Christ. This puts an undue burden on a specific group of people. God may not take away my lustful desires, but I can pray that he curbs them to his will. The same can be said for people with a bent towards homosexuality. God may not (and probably will not) make them “straight” and that is okay. To be celebrated and supported even! These brothers and sisters will need our support more than most as they will feel stuck between two opposite worlds.
Reassure the gay person of the gospel, offer accountability (if they desire), and do not treat them as if they have something wrongwith them just as you would not treat a person struggling with any other sin that way.
Encourage faithful study of the word, not only on the issue of homosexuality, but on the whole counsel of God. If they want resources on the topic, offer to go through a book by Christopher Yuan or Preston Sprinkle with them (read it first for yourself!).
Pray, love, and befriend! Understand that you should not compromise on the truth, but that does not mean love and friendship should go out the window.
Encourage church leadership to think through this issue with a gospel mindset, not a moralistic mindset. Offer resources, like I mentioned above, and specifically consider leadthemhome.org.
Be cognizant of how you act online concerning these things and resolve to progress

Lastly, understand that this is an uphill battle. We will be bucking trends on both sides of the aisle. We could lose friends, we could accidently offend, and we could be called all sorts of names from those that believe homosexuality is a sin and from those that believe it is not. Stand firm on the truth, regardless of consequences, but do not abandon grace and love in the process (Matt. 5:10).

I believe that homosexual behavior is a sin, but I do not believe it is a sin beyond the grasp of an Almighty God. The Church needs to stop treating it as though it is the one sin that must be fixed before someone darkens our doors. May God grant us all grace and favor as we endeavor to glorify his name and bring others to the foot of the cross!

What Does It Mean That God Is “Jealous”

2. Does God Exist?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Al Serrato

The Old Testament contains passages in which God is described as “jealous.” For instance, in Exodus 20, God’s Ten Commandments to the Israelites include the admonition not to worship false idols, with God explaining that “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Similar passages can be found elsewhere in the Bible. Joshua, for example, refers to God as both holy and “jealous.” Joshua 24:19. On first glance, this may seem a rather odd term to use, and make little sense to us, as we do not view jealousy to be an attractive, or appropriate, character trait. Certainly, it is not what we would expect of a perfect being. Indeed, theists often use these passages to make the case that a “jealous” God is petty and not worthy of our love or respect, let alone our worship.

But let’s take a closer look at what is at play. When we hear the word “jealousy,” it usually carries the connotation of a feeling of envious resentment, often brought on by another person’s rivalry or success. We are jealous of people whose accomplishments are well-respected, or who have found the means to acquire things that we too wish to possess. In some instances, it suggests a desire to possess exclusively, as in completely controlling a romantic partner. But even here, the underlying dynamic is that the person feeling jealous fears the loss of the loved one, or fears being made to look foolish if their loved one is unfaithful.

How, then, could such feelings apply to God? At the outset, it is important to recognize that our understanding of God is of necessity limited. We cannot fully know him. However, applying reason to our observations of the universe supports the belief that he is immensely powerful and intelligent, that he is a personal being (since he acted to bring us into existence), and that he transcends space and time. Reason also suggests that such a being must embody perfection. As St. Anselm once formulated in the Ontological Argument, God must be “that being a greater than which cannot possibly be conceived.” He is the ultimate, the supreme; the creator of all there is, was or ever will be. If this is indeed the case, then reason also tells us that there is nothing –simply nothing – that God wants or needs, for there is nothing that he does not already possess.

But there is another definition of “jealous” that makes a bit more sense in context, and interestingly the dictionary lists it as the “biblical” definition: “intolerant of unfaithfulness or rivalry.” But, the atheist may challenge, why should God be “intolerant?” This too seems to suggest that He is injured or diminished when his creatures turn away from Him to worship idols, when they reject him. But how can a perfect being experience injury, hurt… or even, for that matter, sad feelings?

I would suggest that there is another perspective from which to view these passages. Yes, God is “intolerant” of our worship of false idols, but he is so not because of any pettiness on his part or because of any need he experiences. Our turning away from him does indeed cause damage, but not to him; the damage caused is to us. When we make idols of things, we substitute the proper worship of God with the worship of lesser things. This causes us to turn away from God, and from the redemptive work He has planned for us. We were meant to spend eternity with God, but in our rebellion, we shake our fist at him and demand to have things our way. When we die in that rebellion, when we die with the worship of lesser things consuming our hearts and minds, we end up eternally separated from God.

Idol worship no longer involves figures made of gold. In its modern manifestation it involves love of career, success, wealth, possessions, power, sex… the list goes on and on. But the effect is always the same, to turn us away from the one true source of goodness and life. Idol worship points us back toward ourselves, as we grow increasingly selfish and separated from others, who we begin to view as means to our selfish ends, or perhaps as threats to what we have. God is not “intolerant” of this behavior because of some deficit in him. Instead, this intolerance is reflective of what is necessary for us. Loving us, he wants us to choose wisely, but because love requires free will, he will not coerce our choice.

Satellites like the one pictured above can derive energy from the Sun. But to do so, the satellite must first deploy its solar panels fully and in a particular way, and then orient them so that they are completely facing the Sun’s rays. This is not to accommodate the Sun, or to meet some “need” that the Sun has. Instead, it is to allow the thing in need of the Sun’s energy to be in the proper position, relative to the Sun, to receive what it needs.

So too with people. Only by re-orienting our hearts away from ourselves and instead toward the source of all life – the Son of God – can we hope to attain all the good that is promised to those who place their trust in Him.

Resources related to the topic:

How Can Jesus Be the Only Way? (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Al Serrato earned his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. He began his career as an FBI special agent before becoming a prosecutor in California, where he continues to work. An introduction to CS Lewis’ works sparked his interest in Apologetics, which he has pursued for the past three decades. He got his start writing Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace and Pleaseconvinceme.com.

November 11, 2021/by Guest

Confronting Homosexuality in a Culture of Identity (Part 3)

Culture CrossExamined, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Josh Klein

As we enter into the final section of critiquing the objections to the orthodox view of homosexual activity as a sin, it is important to note, again, why I am spending such a significant amount of time on these particular points. The rallying cry for the liberal theologian has been grace, mercy and love, but as I established in part one (HERE), I believe that true grace, mercy and love must be based on the Truth established in God’s word. In order to have proper compassion we can not entertain falsehood.

We intrinsically know this to be true. If your child believes with all his heart that he can fly and climbs to the top of your house to prove it do you let him jump because it is unloving or unmerciful to tell him he’s wrong? Or do you do whatever it takes to keep him from jumping even if it makes him cry, get angry, or hate you? A good parent does not even need to consider the problem. The correct response to the situation is natural.

In the same way, we must address sinful habits in our own lives and untruths in the world. We cannot be compassionate to the child by allowing him to plummet to his death and we cannot be compassionate to fellow believers as we watch them plunge their lives into unrepentant sin. That would be unloving. So we must first establish what is true and then we can place true empathy and compassion on top of that foundation.

The following are just a sampling of other objections I have interacted with in my time in ministry. I believe we should answer each with grace and truth and any subsequent argument ought to be handled the same way. I have attempted to do so here. I pray to God that he has empowered me to succeed in that endeavor. I answered one of the more technical objections in last week’s article that you can access by clicking here.

Homosexuality is just as much a sin as eating Shellfish in the Bible

This argument ignores New Testament scriptures on the topic completely, it is also incredibly flawed theologically and is primarily used only as an argument with which to denigrate those of the faith as inconsistent or hypocritical.

This, of course, is an argument that Christians still eat shrimp and mussels but will not agree that the homosexual act is good/right even though both come from the same book of the Bible. In Leviticus 11 we find that God forbids the consumption of shellfish to his people, likewise, just seven chapters later in Leviticus 18 God forbids men to lie with men and women to lie with women going to far as to call the act an abomination.

The difference in language of these two things is paramount to understand. While the Hebrews are to detest shellfish, they are not ordered to detest those who consume shellfish, just the shellfish itself. Consuming shellfish is detestable, but it is not an “abomination” but God does call sodomy (homosexuality) an abomination. We also find that God removes food restrictions from the believer (as well as eternal restrictions of faith!) to Peter in Acts 10:9-16, but God does not do the same thing for homosexuality.

Perhaps some might try to include homosexuality in the interpretation of Acts 10, however, the early church certainly did not. It seems that Peter and other apostles saw this vision as a twofold allowance of food consumption and God bringing salvation to the gentiles without forcing the gentiles to convert first to Judaism.

Furthermore, God had clearly defined rules for his chosen nation to set themselves apart from those around them. Simply put, part of the prohibitions in the Old Testament were simply made to distinguish God’s chosen people from the gentile nations around them. It is fair (and safe) to assume that God’s prohibition on clearly cultural differences (consuming shellfish, wearing certain fabrics, circumcision etc.) would dissolve over time as he ushered in the church age and Jesus became the fulfillment of what those laws were intended to convey, whereas his prohibition on moral issues (murder, theft, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality) would not change, because they are based on His character and His design for life, not simply on setting a nation apart for himself. There is, believe it or not, a hierarchical structure to the law of God.

Thus Leviticus 18 carries a much more relevant prohibition than Leviticus 11 because one has to do with God’s character and the other with establishing the theocracy of Israel specifically. Much has been written on this topic and I cover it only sparingly here but for a more comprehensive look at the subject the book The End of the Law by Jason Meyer is a good resource.[1]

Homosexual was not even a word in the Bible until 1946

We covered a bit of this argument in part 2, but will look at the lay argument here. Homosexual was not a word in the English dictionary until the late 19^th century, first appearing in the English dictionary in 1892. The term was coined by German psychologists in the 1860s in reference to the act of same-sex sexual relationships. Bible translations tend to run behind common vernacular by a significant time gap, thus, the fact that the first use of homosexual in an English Bible was in the mid-40s should not be a significant surprise to anyone if they honestly follow the linguistic history of scriptural translations.

Prior to the 40s the word that is translated as homosexual likely would have been translated as Sodomite or Sexually-Immoral. In fact, as we found last week, I believe those are still better translations than homosexual in many cases since they cover a broader range of sexual immorality rather than simply pointing to a homosexual relationship. However, to say that the word homosexual was not in the Bible until 1946 and that therefore it is a recent addition to the Bible is disingenuous on its face. The intent of the passages was clear prior to the 40s and helped to form the decision to insert the word in the translation history after the 40s. The interpretive history of these passages lent credence to the use of the word initially and, while it is not the best translation currently, I do not believe it to be a poor translation either, though, given the current cultural context of identity, I would still like there to be clarity in translation towards behavior and not simply attraction. My problem with the translation in general is that it is making an interpretive decision for the reader rather than simply translating the word, and this means that the narrowing of meaning could leave out important sin issues such as pedophilia, rape, cohabitation and more.

God Did Not Make a Mistake when He created Me

In fact, God did not make a mistake when he created anyone. However, to continue on the theme of Romans 1 from last week, we find that being born with a proclivity to a certain action does not necessarily make that action or desire good and right.

Being born as someone with a disposition to addiction would not make becoming addicted to pain killers good or right. In the same way, being born as someone who is highly sexually driven that desires multiple sexual partners does not make acting on those desires right and good.

In my opinion, homosexuality is the same sort of sin, but we have turned the discussion on its head. Making homosexuality a matter of identity rather than behavior did no one any good and we are currently reaping the “rewards” for such a miscalculation.

Romans 1 indicates that homosexuality is part of the fall, both for men and women. In fact, the entire first section of Romans 1-4 seeks to help the Roman church understand the depravity of man and why we need a savior. Romans 1 is not meant to indicate personal behavior, but it is meant to be read in the context of all human history.

If we read Romans 1 correctly, we will not argue and bicker about who was born what way and whether or not homosexuality is a choice. The fact of the matter is that homosexuality is a natural consequence of the original fall of man. Sin shattered God’s created order and introduced all sorts of behaviors that could be and have been deemed natural, but are, in fact, evil. (I use the word “evil” in the theological sense here – meaning rebellion against God).

No, God did not make a mistake in creating you. Scripture is clear that you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), but scripture is also clear that you are a fallen human being with a natural bent towards sin that needs to be rescued from yourself and your own passions and desires. Romans 6-8 puts this struggle under the magnifying glass. The transition from death to life is immediate and permanent but it is also a process of understanding where we are broken and where we need to be mended by the Holy Spirit.

And as Paul indicates at the end of chapter 7 the only answer is through Jesus Christ, otherwise we are still under the headship of Adam and thus, in sin, and in death. Which is why having a dual identity is so problematic. This means God can remake only part of who we are, because we have eliminated him from impacting our other identity. It is sequestered off in a dark closet that his renovation crew is not allowed to touch. The exclusivity of Christ is of utmost importance in this discussion, but according to a survey recently conducted on supposed “born again” Christians, thus fundamental doctrine is also under attack. Ultimately compassion without adherence to truth ends up there. It is not a slippery slope fallacy if the slope is, in fact, slippery.

So no, God did not make a mistake in allowing any person to be born, but that also does not mean that we are all born perfect either. Two things can be true at once. God can have fearfully and wonderfully made a person and also that person could be irreparably damaged beyond repair with natural bents towards evil and self-destruction unless God intercedes on his/her behalf. All people are worthy of dignity and love because they are image bearers of the Almighty, but all people are also broken image bearers because of sin and must be repaired by their Creator.

I know this, because I am this. No, I am not a homosexual, but I am wickedly depraved. I need a savior, I have one in Jesus. This same savior is available to all who would believe, and he will make them a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17) with the ability to find victory over whatever sinful proclivities they may have been born under, because in Jesus we are offered a completely new identity.

A Homosexual in a Committed Consensual Relationship is Fulfilling a Marriage Covenant

This is the last one we will have room for in this section, and it is the easiest and most difficult to answer. The easiest, because I believe that understanding the actual meaning of Romans 1 and the passages in 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy will ultimately lead one to the understanding that marriage can only be, and has only ever been, ordained between a man and woman and the marriage bed (Heb 13:4) must not include two of the same sex.

That said, it is the most difficult to answer because my heart genuinely aches for those that have those homosexual proclivities that desire to have a meaningful long-term relationship and have children and experience all that is good about those relationships. But empathy is all I can offer in that regard because scripture seems to be clear on the issue, and I do not know of a married couple that can (or should) abstain from sexual intercourse in order to maintain a pure relationship. If my answers to the previous two sections are biblically accurate, then the answer to this objection becomes obvious.[2] And as we will see next week, there are many professing gay Christians that agree with this.[3] Some resources are footnoted below.[4]

So what then?

I am sure I have not covered every single TikTok take in the previous sections. I am sure there are many more, but let us move on. What then, is the responsibility of the church? In Part 4 I want to look at a better way of handling these things than what the church has done for the past few generations. I believe the church has, and continues to have, fallen short in ministry to those that struggle in this arena and while I do not have all the answers, I do believe we can start down the path of a better way. One thing the book I mentioned in part 3 does get right is this: I believe the church’s handling of homosexuality has been myopic and graceless for many decades, and this needs to change (and it is changing), but it must change without compromise with the Truth.

References:

[1] https://www.christianbook.com/the-law-mosaic-covenant-pauline-theology/jason-meyer/9780805448429/pd/448429?event=AFF&p=1011693&

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Washed-Waiting-Reflections-Faithfulness-Homosexuality/dp/0310330033

[3] https://www.amazon.com/Born-Again-This-Way-Coming-ebook/dp/B0822YXJTC/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=born+again+this+way&qid=1630075251&s=books&sr=1-1

[4] https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Sexuality-Gospel-Desire-Relationships/dp/0735290911/ref=sxts_entity_rec_bsx_s_def_r00_t_aufl?cv_ct_cx=Christopher+Yuan&dchild=1&keywords=Christopher+Yuan&pd_rd_i=0735290911&pd_rd_r=16cfa890-064c-4ddb-ab8a-de32677f69d2&pd_rd_w=ye02G&pd_rd_wg=GblHm&pf_rd_p=923d3ad5-e62b-462e-9474-e4d7cf9b91ea&pf_rd_r=TXGCY9NT2B4VYJBZP87J&qid=1630075278&s=books&sr=1-1-795edd5f-cc24-47c7-9173-701523fd4bcf

How We Got Our Bible

4. Is the NT True?, Theology and Christian Apologetics

By Ryan Leasure

This article is the first in a series of nine blog posts that will unpack the story of how we got our Bible. That is to say, the Bible didn’t just fall from heaven into our laps. Rather, the Bible is the result of a long process that starts from the mind of God and ends with to our modern English translations.

The process involves inspiration of texts, collecting certain books, rejecting other books, copying of manuscripts, evaluating thousands of manuscripts to recreate the originals as much as possible, translating the Hebrew and Greek texts into English, and then creating translations that are readable in our modern vernacular.

As you may have guessed, this series will deal with some of the more crucial issues surrounding the Bible—issues such as canon, the apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, pseudopigraphical Gospels, textual criticism, the King James only movement, and so much more. I hope you will follow along with me as we trace the fascinating history of the Bible. If you’re not already a subscriber, click subscribe so you can get updates on future posts.

That said, we begin with Inspiration.

Verbal-Plenary Inspiration

Paul writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17). A few concepts are worth noting here.

First, Paul says that Scripture is “breathed out by God” (from the Greek word “theopneustos“). Technically, God “exhales” rather than “inspires” the text. In other words, he is the source behind all Scripture.

Second, notice that God inspires Scripture, not the authors themselves. This necessary distinction means that God’s inspiration extends to the final product of Scripture itself, not the human author’s day-to-day life. Meaning, the authors were fallible while their God-breathed Scripture was not.

Third, Paul notes that ALL Scripture is inspired, not just parts of it. Some have erroneously taught that inspiration only extends to the parts that touch of faith and morals. But that is not what Paul writes. When Paul says “all,” he includes the Canaanite conquests, a talking donkey, and the Levitical Code.

Biblical Authors Affirmed Inspiration

Several times throughout the Old Testament, authors acknowledged that they were writing God’s words. Consider these examples:

“Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua”(Exod 17:14).

“Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, “Behold I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer 1:9).

“The word of the LORD that came to Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah” (Hos 1:1).

“On the fifth day of the month . . . the word of the LORD came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi . . . and the hand of the LORD was upon him there” (Ezek 1:2-3).

Furthermore, New Testament authors affirmed the Old Testament’s inspiration:

“And this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet . . .” (Matt 1:22).

“Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas” (Acts 1:16).

“But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.” (Acts 3:18).

“David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” (Mark 12:36).

This last quotation is from Jesus’ lips himself. That is to say, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament’s inspiration.

What About the New Testament?

When Paul writes that “All Scripture is breathed out by God,” he was most likely referring to the Old Testament since the word for Scripture (“graphe“) refers to the Old Testament when it’s used in the New Testament. We must also remember that when Paul wrote this letter, portions of the New Testament had yet to be written. Was inspiration, then, limited to the Old Testament? No it wasn’t.

Notice how Peter speaks of Paul’s letters in 2 Peter 3:15-16: “Just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.” Peter appears to be lumping in Paul’s letters with the Old Testament and granting them equal authority.

First Timothy 5:18 is another crucial text on this matter. Paul writes, “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and, ‘The laborer deserves his wages.’” Paul quotes two passages in this verse and refers to both of them as Scripture. The first text comes from Deuteronomy 25:4. The second comes from Luke 10:7. That is to say, Paul thought the Gospel of Luke was Scripture on par with the Old Testament.

We even have some clues that suggest the apostles knew they were writing God’s Word. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:37, “If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.” Additionally, Paul declares in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, “And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God.”

Peter also remarks, “You should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:2). The apostles, then, believed that they spoke authoritatively from God. And they could do this because Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would guide them in the process (John 14:26; 16:13).

Mechanical Dictation?

Peter notes, “Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:20-21). Some suggest that the Holy Spirit’s activity sounds an awful lot like mechanical dictation. But this would be a mistake. As I alluded to earlier, inspiration extends only to the final product of Scripture. Meaning, God worked within and through the human authors’ skills, personalities, and experiences as they wrote their various works. In short, the dozens of biblical authors produced their Scripture in different ways.

The author of Hebrews makes this point when he begins, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets” (Heb 1:1). Notice how he affirms that the prophets spoke “in many ways.” And Scripture makes these different ways abundantly clear. Consider a few examples:

Investigation/Interpretation: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Pet 1:10-11).
Dictation: “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write . . .” (Rev 2:1)
Research: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:1-3).

Additionally, biblical authors wrote poetry, wisdom literature, letters, and prophecy. And in doing so, God worked through them in such a way as to not override their unique perspective. At the same time, he superintended the process to guarantee that his exact message was communicated. As the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy remarks, “We affirm that God in His Work of inspiration utilized the distinctive personalities and literary styles of the writers whom He had chosen and prepared. We deny that God, in causing these writers to use the very words that He chose, overrode their personalities.”¹

Evidence of Inspiration

Some argue that inspiration appeals to circular reasoning because we must appeal to Scripture itself to affirm inspiration. While that’s a fair critique, Christians are right to appeal to Scripture because it is our highest authority. If we appeal to, say human reasoning, then we elevate human reasoning to a higher authority than Scripture.

That said, we have good evidence for inspiration in fulfilled prophecy. I could list dozens of fulfilled prophecies, but I will only mention two briefly. First, Isaiah 53 correctly predicts Christ’s crucifixion. Of note is the fact that Isaiah says that he will “pierced for our transgression” (Isa 53:5). This method of death is significant because at the time, Jewish methods of execution were stoning or hanging. How could Isaiah rightly predict the kind of death Jesus would suffer seven hundred years in advance?

Another example is Daniel 9. While I won’t go into detail, Daniel predicts the exact timing of Christ’s arrival. More than that, Daniel says that the Messiah will be “cut off” (killed) just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Jesus was crucified in AD 30. The Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70.

Inerrancy

Inerrancy naturally follows from inspiration. In other words, if God is the author behind the entire Bible, it must all be true because God always speaks truth. Consider the following texts

“It is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18).

“You are God, and your words are true” (2 Sam 7:28).

“Every word of God proves true” (Prov 30:5).

“Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

Notice that Jesus doesn’t just say that God’s word is true, but it is TRUTH. It is the absolute standard of truth. And lest anyone thinks this idea of inerrancy is a modern invention, listen to a few of the church fathers:

“You have searched the Scriptures, which are true and given by the Holy Spirit. You know that nothing unrighteous or counterfeit is written in them.” — Clement of Rome, 1st century

“The statements of Holy Scripture will never contradict the truth.” — Tertullian, 3rd century

“It is the opinion of some that the Scriptures do not agree or that the God who gave them is false. But there is no disagreement at all. Far from it! The Father, who is truth, cannot lie.” — Athanasius, 4th century

In short, while Scripture does not give us exhaustive knowledge of all things (how to change a tire for example), it does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact.

The Next Post

The next post will consider how the Old Testament came to be. Specifically, it will address the unfolding nature of the Old Testament, its authors and editors, as well as its preservation.

Impact Events

Resurrection – The Cultural Backdrop

Not Even In Myth

The New Paradigm

The New Church

The Resurrection is History

Evidence Please

The Minimal Facts Approach

A Reason To Believe

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“YOU SHOULDN’T JUDGE.”

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT BIBLICAL.

JUDGE THE FRUIT

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT LOGICAL.

SAYING “DON’T JUDGE” IS NOT LOVING.

COURAGEOUS JUDGMENT

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WHY MAXIMAL DATA?

OBJECTIONS TO MAXIMAL DATA

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The Case for Christian Activism (MP3 Set), (DVD Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek

Introductory Matters

The First Scripture

Stages of Writing

Quoting the Law

Submitting to the Law

The Prophets Use of Prophets

Authors and Dates

Use of Sources

Editors

Preservation

Dead Sea Scrolls

Old Testament Canon

References:

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Benefits of Active Listening

Benefits of Moral Apologetics

Conclusion

References:

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So, what then?

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Homosexuality is just as much a sin as eating Shellfish in the Bible

Homosexual was not even a word in the Bible until 1946

God Did Not Make a Mistake when He created Me

A Homosexual in a Committed Consensual Relationship is Fulfilling a Marriage Covenant

So what then?

References:

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Verbal-Plenary Inspiration

Biblical Authors Affirmed Inspiration

What About the New Testament?

Mechanical Dictation?

Evidence of Inspiration

Inerrancy

The Next Post

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