By Richard Howe
In our recent live-stream about truth, we demonstrated how properly understanding the nature of truth and recognizing that truth about reality is objective and knowable are crucial in properly doing both apologetics and Bible study. We also discussed that language is capable of communicating objective truth about reality, including communication found in the Bible. Here we wish to give some preliminary thoughts on how to understand properly the objective truth we find in the pages of Scripture.
Does Everything in the Bible Apply to Us Today?
First, does everything in the Bible apply to us today? I (Richard) was in a discussion about Bible interpretation when this question came up. I told my friend that it would seem that answer must be ‘no’. In making my case, I appealed to what I thought would be a relatively uncontroversial example from Matthew 21. Verses 1-2 tell us “Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, {2} saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me.’” [NKJV] It seemed obvious to me that none of us today are under the obligation to bring a donkey to Jesus. Clearly, Jesus’ command was to the disciples present with Him then and was not a prescription for all time for us to loosen a donkey and bring it to Jesus.
I must quickly add, however, that, based upon hearing some of the most ridiculous sermons and Bible studies, I would not be surprised that somewhere in a pulpit one Sunday, there will be a sermon preached, “Have You Loosened Your Donkey for Jesus?” In thinking about what a “donkey theology” might come to look like throughout the Christian world I had to conclude that the Reformed Calvinist Christians held firmly to the notion that you cannot loosen your own donkey. Instead, God has to sovereignly loosen your donkey for you. To be sure, God only does so for His elect. I’ll avoid the tricky task of trying to referee the debate between the Supralapsarians who hold that God’s decrees are so ordered that God decrees to tie the donkey first and then decrees to loosen the donkeys for the elect vs. the Infralapsarians who insist that God’s ultimate decree was that His elect would have their donkeys loosened and only then decrees to have them antecedently tied.
Baptists, of course, are noted for their battle cry, “Once loosened, always loosened!” The Arminians not only disagree with the Calvinists over whether someone has the free will to loosen his own donkey, but they warn of the danger of losing your donkey on your way to bringing it to Jesus.
Departing from the more conservative wings of the faith, one will note that the liberal Christians maintain that it doesn’t have to literally be a donkey that you bring to Jesus. It can be any farm animal as long as you’re sincere. Moving even further away from a core evangelicalism, the radical pluralists believe that it doesn’t even necessarily have to be Jesus to whom you bring your donkey. You can bring your donkey (or other farm animal) to Krishna or Buddha or more. Last, the New Ager urges everyone to just become one with his donkey. [I can’t take credit for that last one, as it was suggested to me once when I was telling this joke.]
Other passages could be given like the donkey passage that seem to collapse into absurdity when forced to apply to us today. Whenever I encounter a Christian who seems too full of himself in how obedient to the commands of the Bible he thinks he is living, I ask him if he has greeted Rufus yet. After all, we can see from Rom. 16:13 that we’re commanded to do so!
Setting aside, then, those instances where Matt. 21:1-2 or Rom. 16:13 could only be made to apply to us today by the most illegitimate interpretive move, a sober reading of such passages makes us aware that, with any given Bible reading, we have to come to terms with the issue of whether it does or does not apply to us today.
The Challenge of Descriptive vs. Normative (Prescriptive) Passages
In addition to the above challenge (actually a close cousin to it) is the problem of distinguishing descriptive from normative (or prescriptive) passages. A descriptive statement is one that merely states what a situation is, i.e., it describes the situation. A normative (or prescriptive) statement states what a situation ought to be, i.e., it prescribes a situation. I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke about the long-haired “hippy” teen-ager who wanted his dad to buy him a car. The dad, who had grown weary of his son’s long hair, told him that he would buy him a car only if the son cut his hair. The son responded “But dad, Jesus had long hair!” to which the dad countered, “Yes, and he walked everywhere too!” What the joke points out is the issue of whether, because Jesus did X, we, as His followers, should do X. I remember well as a young person and a new Christian my spiritual leaders urging that we should rise early in the morning to pray just as Jesus did in Mark 1:35. Little did they realize how much they were setting this night owl up for the bleakest discipleship experience because of my repeated failures to crawl out of bed early enough in the morning.
However, such considerations can quickly get one into issues that are less funny than they are controversial or divisive. Consider Malachi 3:10 which commands us to “bring all the tithes into the storehouse” after which God has promised that He would “open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” Forget wishing that you had a dollar every time this passage was preached in a contemporary church to defend a doctrine of tithing for the Christian. I’m sure such preaching has brought many dollars in already. But is tithing something obligatory (or even expected) for the Christian? Is the Christian church a “storehouse”? Is it obvious that the passage is prescriptive for today?
If such questions were not divisive enough, how about Acts 2:4? The early disciples were all gathered in the upper room. When the Holy Spirit filled them, they “began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Is such an experience normative for the Christian today? Ought we to seek such an experience? Or is it the case that this experience was something only relative to what God was doing in the early stages of the Church?
The Problem of Moralizing or Allegorizing
More often than I care to count, I have heard sermons where a given passage is “moralized.” This means that the preacher takes the passage, attempts to glean some moral principle from the passage, and then applies the passage to our lives today. What could be wrong with this? After all (some might wonder) is not this the very calling of a preacher vis-à-vis the Bible? The problem arises when, in attempting to glean any such moral principles, the interpreter has to allegorize the passage. Various elements of the passage (most often, but not always, a historical narrative) are given an allegorical (or “spiritual”) rendering.
How many times have you heard 1 Sam. 17:38-39 preached to teach that we should not seek to adopt someone else’s “calling” or “ministry” for ourselves? Instead, we should seek to discover what God’s unique ministry is for us in our own “calling.” This, the preacher might insist, was what David discovered when he attempted to put on Saul’s armor, only to find that it didn’t fit. For David to try to do God’s will in this situation by wearing Saul’s armor (instead of going forth with what God’s had equipped David) was the wrong path. Once he discovered that Saul’s armor didn’t fit (i.e., once he discovered that God did not intend for David to work within what God had given to Saul) then David “took them off.” You know the rest of the story. So, the conclusion goes, if you want to succeed in God’s will for your own ministry, don’t try to “borrow” someone else’s “calling” or “equipping.”
If that lesson doesn’t sound familiar, surely you’ve been encouraged more than once on how to “slay the giants in your life.” The familiar story of David and Goliath has always (in my hearing) been preached as an allegory. It is (so the common interpretation goes) the classic story of the triumph of the underdog. Goliath represents (i.e., is an allegory of) the seemingly insurmountable obstacles we all encounter from time to time in our lives. But with God’s help, we can have the hope of being able to overcome those obstacles by slaying these “giants” that we encounter. What could be a more uplifting message with which to walk out of the church to face our week?
Sometimes the stretching used to make a passage “preach” itself begins to stretch credibility. While few people with whom I’ve discussed the issue would see anything wrong with the above take on the David and Goliath passage, I almost fell out of the pew when I heard a preacher encourage all of us to “lighten our loads” in our lives, based on the “principles” he saw in Acts 27:18 “And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship.” If your life is getting to be too much to bear, perhaps you need to consider lightening your load! What made it even worse; the preacher admitted at the beginning of his sermon that this probably wasn’t what this passage was teaching. Apparently, the allegory was too hard for him to resist wrenching out for his sermon.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t visit the most notorious example of allegorizing a passage in a public sermon. There are a number of versions of the stories. Most of the versions I’ve heard come from people claiming to have actually heard a preacher preach the passage this way. Then they quickly add the joke that they so cleverly thought while sitting in the pew listening to the sermon. As the preacher is preaching about Jesus riding on the donkey for His triumphal entry, observing how the donkey is “carrying Jesus to the world,” making the application of how we, too, ought to be a “donkey for Jesus” to “carry” Him to our world as (to extend the application) the Great Commission commands, the one telling the story remarks how fortunate it is that the preacher is not preaching from the King James Version of the Bible!
Some Comments on the Issue of “Out-of-Context” Verses
All of the above points fall under the heading of hermeneutics; the science of textual (in this case, biblical) interpretation. There are seemingly countless books that have been written on hermeneutics. Sadly, too many of those books have been compromised (to a greater or lesser extent) by bad philosophy; specifically, the philosophical issues surrounding the nature of language, the nature of meaning, the relationship of language to reality, and the nature of how meaning is conveyed from the meaner to the reader. I am not here so much concerned with these critical philosophical issues. For that, I would recommend to my reader Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation by my brother Dr. Tom Howe. For my purposes, I should like to focus on a few more general points and then visit different senses in which a verse or passage can relate to its context.
Sometimes one may use a verse out of context to defend a point that is true and that may actually be taught elsewhere in Scripture. Thus, for me to quarrel with a verse out of context, does not necessarily imply that I disagree with the ultimate conclusion that someone may put to the passage to serve. Even if a conclusion is true, when using a verse out of context, as the saying goes, “You can’t get there from here.”
Six Types of Context
As to the issue of context itself, there are a number of sources of misinterpretation of verses of Scripture. I want to briefly focus on six. First, there is the philosophical context. This involves issues mentioned earlier regarding the nature of truth, the ability of human beings to know truth, the usefulness of language to convey truth, and even metaphysical truths like the fact that all physical beings have natures by which they are known. Without having a sound philosophical underpinning for our hermeneutics, readers can come to all sorts of bad conclusions. For example, the Bible clearly says that Jesus is made of flour and water. After all, He is the bread of life! This is a silly example because we know the nature of human beings (Jesus’ human nature) and the nature of bread. And we know that humans are not bread. Hence, we know that Jesus being the bread of life is a figure of speech. Nevertheless, this simple example illustrates exactly how bad philosophical foundations lead to dangerous, and sometimes heretical, conclusions. For on this issue, see this archived blog post.
Second, there is the Immediate Context. This asks “How might the surrounding verses aid our understanding?” Unpacking this a bit, one should consider in which Testament (Old Testament or New Testament) the verse is found. This can be important because some things are true absolutely and transcend the context of the particular Testament such as God’s existence and nature. Some things are true specifically in reference to the subject matter of the particular Testament. Some verses/promises/warnings/commands pertain to the Nation Israel, some to Christians in general, and some to specific individuals. Also, one needs to consider who exactly is doing the speaking in the passage. Sometimes the passage represents the words of a speaker who is not necessarily conveying God’s words (e.g., Satan in the Garden of Eden) and may, in fact, be speaking a lie. Sometimes the passage represents the words of God Himself.
Third, there is the Original Language Context. This asks “How might the original language of the text aid our understanding?” The Bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and Koine Greek (New Testament). It is possible that the original language might convey a sense (either meaning or significance) that is obscured by a translation.
Fourth, there is the Grammatical Context. This asks “How might a careful reading of the English grammar aid our understanding?” Many examples can be given to illustrate the need to pay careful attention to the adequately translated passage.
Fifth, there is the Historical/Cultural Context. This asks “How might historical or cultural considerations aid our understanding?” Since the culture of the Bible is several thousand years (and even more miles) removed from many of us, the interpreter has to be careful not to ignore this context (or, worse, not to impose his own) in considering a passage.
Last, there is the Theological Context. This asks “How might theological considerations aid our understanding?” Admittedly, this can be the trickiest, if not the most abused. It plays off the delicate interplay of, on the one end, exegesis (leading out of the text the meaning that is there) and, on the other end, systematic theology (the careful arrangement of one’s conclusions about the truths of God into a systematic, coherent whole). Exegesis without systematic theology is in danger of being inconsistent (and, thus, false at some point) while systematic theology without exegesis can lead to defending a theological system without careful regard to the testimony of Scripture. And all of this, again, hinges on a proper philosophical foundation that begins with the undeniable fact that truth about reality is objective and knowable.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)
How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)
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Richard G. Howe is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.) Dissertation: A Defense of Thomas Aquinas’ Second Way. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has a BA in Bible from Mississippi College, an MA in Philosophy from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Howe is the past President of the International Society of Christian Apologetics (ISCA). He is a writer as well as a public speaker and debater in churches, conferences, and university campuses on issues concerning Christian apologetics and philosophy. He has spoken and/or debated in churches and universities in the US and Canada as well as Europe and Africa on issues relating to the defense of the Christian faith.
Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/NQ6BOy9
Cinco cosas que debe tener la apologética cristiana
EspañolBy Doug Potter
I was raised in a Christian home, was always active in an evangelical church, and even got on first-name terms with my youth pastor. However, I was not prepared “apologetically” for my first year of college. It started after freshman orientation, when my coordinator met with us and said, “Look, you’re pursuing a Liberal Arts degree, so you have to take a religion and philosophy class. Do that now. Don’t wait until the end.”
So, by the end of my freshman year, after taking Bible and Philosophy classes, I still considered myself a Christian, but I was pretty convinced as a result of taking those classes that the Bible contained historical errors and that no argument could prove the existence of God. Those were just the things I could verbalize. I had also internalized that some truths, especially religious ones, must be subjective and relative.
Yet, I still had this nagging inclination in the back of my mind. Remember that youth pastor, the one I knew by name? He thought he was smart, he’d gone to seminary, he knew Greek and Hebrew and even some philosophy, and he didn’t believe the things I learned in class. Why did I believe them? Because my college professor did? All I knew at that point was that I had to dig deeper.
Apologetics to the rescue
Up to that point, all I had seen was what I now call historical or evidential apologetics. In other words, I knew the biblical and historical points concerning Jesus’ resurrection. However, that didn’t help me with philosophy or even with the supposed errors of the Bible.
Then I finally bought a book called When Skeptics Ask . It changed me. It was the apologetic baptism I had been waiting for and looking for. What made that exposition better than any other? In short, it defined what apologetics is and is not, covered truth, arguments for the existence of God, different views of God (worldviews), and organized the questions and points into a systematic defense of the Christian faith.
I got hooked and I still am. However, I have discovered that not all approaches to apologetics are created equal. I now use five principles to evaluate apologetics systems, people, books, curricula, and other materials. If it doesn’t measure up, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s all bad, but it’s not complete. Apologetics must include these five things:
Only in them can we support the claim that Christianity is true and everything that opposes it is false. Yes, there are difficult passages in the Bible, but the clear things are the main things. And yes, truth exists outside the Bible, but nothing that contradicts the Bible can be true since Jesus, the Son of God, taught that he is the Word of God (John 17:17).
I never imagined that apologetic resources would be as widely known and accessible as they are today. The Internet has certainly made this possible. However, it can be both a blessing and a curse. I encourage you to evaluate apologetic programs, ministries, and materials so that these five things are not lacking. Your faith and the faith of your disciples can be compromised.
Recommended resources in Spanish:
Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek
Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek
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Dr. Potter is the author of Developing a Christian Apologetics Educational Program (Wipf & Stock, 2010) and co-author (with Dr. Norman Geisler) of The Teacher’s Guide to Twelve Points that Show Christianity is True (Bastion Books, 2015). He has written and published articles in the Christian Apologetics Journal , The Homeschool Digest , as well as the Christian Research Journal . Dr. Potter also serves as the Academic Registrar and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program.
Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/CQ69HU1
Translated by Yatniel Vega Garcia
Edited by Elena Romero
What Does This Verse Mean to You? Some Thoughts on Understanding the Bible
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Richard Howe
In our recent live-stream about truth, we demonstrated how properly understanding the nature of truth and recognizing that truth about reality is objective and knowable are crucial in properly doing both apologetics and Bible study. We also discussed that language is capable of communicating objective truth about reality, including communication found in the Bible. Here we wish to give some preliminary thoughts on how to understand properly the objective truth we find in the pages of Scripture.
Does Everything in the Bible Apply to Us Today?
First, does everything in the Bible apply to us today? I (Richard) was in a discussion about Bible interpretation when this question came up. I told my friend that it would seem that answer must be ‘no’. In making my case, I appealed to what I thought would be a relatively uncontroversial example from Matthew 21. Verses 1-2 tell us “Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, {2} saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me.’” [NKJV] It seemed obvious to me that none of us today are under the obligation to bring a donkey to Jesus. Clearly, Jesus’ command was to the disciples present with Him then and was not a prescription for all time for us to loosen a donkey and bring it to Jesus.
I must quickly add, however, that, based upon hearing some of the most ridiculous sermons and Bible studies, I would not be surprised that somewhere in a pulpit one Sunday, there will be a sermon preached, “Have You Loosened Your Donkey for Jesus?” In thinking about what a “donkey theology” might come to look like throughout the Christian world I had to conclude that the Reformed Calvinist Christians held firmly to the notion that you cannot loosen your own donkey. Instead, God has to sovereignly loosen your donkey for you. To be sure, God only does so for His elect. I’ll avoid the tricky task of trying to referee the debate between the Supralapsarians who hold that God’s decrees are so ordered that God decrees to tie the donkey first and then decrees to loosen the donkeys for the elect vs. the Infralapsarians who insist that God’s ultimate decree was that His elect would have their donkeys loosened and only then decrees to have them antecedently tied.
Baptists, of course, are noted for their battle cry, “Once loosened, always loosened!” The Arminians not only disagree with the Calvinists over whether someone has the free will to loosen his own donkey, but they warn of the danger of losing your donkey on your way to bringing it to Jesus.
Departing from the more conservative wings of the faith, one will note that the liberal Christians maintain that it doesn’t have to literally be a donkey that you bring to Jesus. It can be any farm animal as long as you’re sincere. Moving even further away from a core evangelicalism, the radical pluralists believe that it doesn’t even necessarily have to be Jesus to whom you bring your donkey. You can bring your donkey (or other farm animal) to Krishna or Buddha or more. Last, the New Ager urges everyone to just become one with his donkey. [I can’t take credit for that last one, as it was suggested to me once when I was telling this joke.]
Other passages could be given like the donkey passage that seem to collapse into absurdity when forced to apply to us today. Whenever I encounter a Christian who seems too full of himself in how obedient to the commands of the Bible he thinks he is living, I ask him if he has greeted Rufus yet. After all, we can see from Rom. 16:13 that we’re commanded to do so!
Setting aside, then, those instances where Matt. 21:1-2 or Rom. 16:13 could only be made to apply to us today by the most illegitimate interpretive move, a sober reading of such passages makes us aware that, with any given Bible reading, we have to come to terms with the issue of whether it does or does not apply to us today.
The Challenge of Descriptive vs. Normative (Prescriptive) Passages
In addition to the above challenge (actually a close cousin to it) is the problem of distinguishing descriptive from normative (or prescriptive) passages. A descriptive statement is one that merely states what a situation is, i.e., it describes the situation. A normative (or prescriptive) statement states what a situation ought to be, i.e., it prescribes a situation. I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke about the long-haired “hippy” teen-ager who wanted his dad to buy him a car. The dad, who had grown weary of his son’s long hair, told him that he would buy him a car only if the son cut his hair. The son responded “But dad, Jesus had long hair!” to which the dad countered, “Yes, and he walked everywhere too!” What the joke points out is the issue of whether, because Jesus did X, we, as His followers, should do X. I remember well as a young person and a new Christian my spiritual leaders urging that we should rise early in the morning to pray just as Jesus did in Mark 1:35. Little did they realize how much they were setting this night owl up for the bleakest discipleship experience because of my repeated failures to crawl out of bed early enough in the morning.
However, such considerations can quickly get one into issues that are less funny than they are controversial or divisive. Consider Malachi 3:10 which commands us to “bring all the tithes into the storehouse” after which God has promised that He would “open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” Forget wishing that you had a dollar every time this passage was preached in a contemporary church to defend a doctrine of tithing for the Christian. I’m sure such preaching has brought many dollars in already. But is tithing something obligatory (or even expected) for the Christian? Is the Christian church a “storehouse”? Is it obvious that the passage is prescriptive for today?
If such questions were not divisive enough, how about Acts 2:4? The early disciples were all gathered in the upper room. When the Holy Spirit filled them, they “began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Is such an experience normative for the Christian today? Ought we to seek such an experience? Or is it the case that this experience was something only relative to what God was doing in the early stages of the Church?
The Problem of Moralizing or Allegorizing
More often than I care to count, I have heard sermons where a given passage is “moralized.” This means that the preacher takes the passage, attempts to glean some moral principle from the passage, and then applies the passage to our lives today. What could be wrong with this? After all (some might wonder) is not this the very calling of a preacher vis-à-vis the Bible? The problem arises when, in attempting to glean any such moral principles, the interpreter has to allegorize the passage. Various elements of the passage (most often, but not always, a historical narrative) are given an allegorical (or “spiritual”) rendering.
How many times have you heard 1 Sam. 17:38-39 preached to teach that we should not seek to adopt someone else’s “calling” or “ministry” for ourselves? Instead, we should seek to discover what God’s unique ministry is for us in our own “calling.” This, the preacher might insist, was what David discovered when he attempted to put on Saul’s armor, only to find that it didn’t fit. For David to try to do God’s will in this situation by wearing Saul’s armor (instead of going forth with what God’s had equipped David) was the wrong path. Once he discovered that Saul’s armor didn’t fit (i.e., once he discovered that God did not intend for David to work within what God had given to Saul) then David “took them off.” You know the rest of the story. So, the conclusion goes, if you want to succeed in God’s will for your own ministry, don’t try to “borrow” someone else’s “calling” or “equipping.”
If that lesson doesn’t sound familiar, surely you’ve been encouraged more than once on how to “slay the giants in your life.” The familiar story of David and Goliath has always (in my hearing) been preached as an allegory. It is (so the common interpretation goes) the classic story of the triumph of the underdog. Goliath represents (i.e., is an allegory of) the seemingly insurmountable obstacles we all encounter from time to time in our lives. But with God’s help, we can have the hope of being able to overcome those obstacles by slaying these “giants” that we encounter. What could be a more uplifting message with which to walk out of the church to face our week?
Sometimes the stretching used to make a passage “preach” itself begins to stretch credibility. While few people with whom I’ve discussed the issue would see anything wrong with the above take on the David and Goliath passage, I almost fell out of the pew when I heard a preacher encourage all of us to “lighten our loads” in our lives, based on the “principles” he saw in Acts 27:18 “And because we were exceedingly tempest-tossed, the next day they lightened the ship.” If your life is getting to be too much to bear, perhaps you need to consider lightening your load! What made it even worse; the preacher admitted at the beginning of his sermon that this probably wasn’t what this passage was teaching. Apparently, the allegory was too hard for him to resist wrenching out for his sermon.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn’t visit the most notorious example of allegorizing a passage in a public sermon. There are a number of versions of the stories. Most of the versions I’ve heard come from people claiming to have actually heard a preacher preach the passage this way. Then they quickly add the joke that they so cleverly thought while sitting in the pew listening to the sermon. As the preacher is preaching about Jesus riding on the donkey for His triumphal entry, observing how the donkey is “carrying Jesus to the world,” making the application of how we, too, ought to be a “donkey for Jesus” to “carry” Him to our world as (to extend the application) the Great Commission commands, the one telling the story remarks how fortunate it is that the preacher is not preaching from the King James Version of the Bible!
Some Comments on the Issue of “Out-of-Context” Verses
All of the above points fall under the heading of hermeneutics; the science of textual (in this case, biblical) interpretation. There are seemingly countless books that have been written on hermeneutics. Sadly, too many of those books have been compromised (to a greater or lesser extent) by bad philosophy; specifically, the philosophical issues surrounding the nature of language, the nature of meaning, the relationship of language to reality, and the nature of how meaning is conveyed from the meaner to the reader. I am not here so much concerned with these critical philosophical issues. For that, I would recommend to my reader Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation by my brother Dr. Tom Howe. For my purposes, I should like to focus on a few more general points and then visit different senses in which a verse or passage can relate to its context.
Sometimes one may use a verse out of context to defend a point that is true and that may actually be taught elsewhere in Scripture. Thus, for me to quarrel with a verse out of context, does not necessarily imply that I disagree with the ultimate conclusion that someone may put to the passage to serve. Even if a conclusion is true, when using a verse out of context, as the saying goes, “You can’t get there from here.”
Six Types of Context
As to the issue of context itself, there are a number of sources of misinterpretation of verses of Scripture. I want to briefly focus on six. First, there is the philosophical context. This involves issues mentioned earlier regarding the nature of truth, the ability of human beings to know truth, the usefulness of language to convey truth, and even metaphysical truths like the fact that all physical beings have natures by which they are known. Without having a sound philosophical underpinning for our hermeneutics, readers can come to all sorts of bad conclusions. For example, the Bible clearly says that Jesus is made of flour and water. After all, He is the bread of life! This is a silly example because we know the nature of human beings (Jesus’ human nature) and the nature of bread. And we know that humans are not bread. Hence, we know that Jesus being the bread of life is a figure of speech. Nevertheless, this simple example illustrates exactly how bad philosophical foundations lead to dangerous, and sometimes heretical, conclusions. For on this issue, see this archived blog post.
Second, there is the Immediate Context. This asks “How might the surrounding verses aid our understanding?” Unpacking this a bit, one should consider in which Testament (Old Testament or New Testament) the verse is found. This can be important because some things are true absolutely and transcend the context of the particular Testament such as God’s existence and nature. Some things are true specifically in reference to the subject matter of the particular Testament. Some verses/promises/warnings/commands pertain to the Nation Israel, some to Christians in general, and some to specific individuals. Also, one needs to consider who exactly is doing the speaking in the passage. Sometimes the passage represents the words of a speaker who is not necessarily conveying God’s words (e.g., Satan in the Garden of Eden) and may, in fact, be speaking a lie. Sometimes the passage represents the words of God Himself.
Third, there is the Original Language Context. This asks “How might the original language of the text aid our understanding?” The Bible was written in Hebrew and Aramaic (Old Testament) and Koine Greek (New Testament). It is possible that the original language might convey a sense (either meaning or significance) that is obscured by a translation.
Fourth, there is the Grammatical Context. This asks “How might a careful reading of the English grammar aid our understanding?” Many examples can be given to illustrate the need to pay careful attention to the adequately translated passage.
Fifth, there is the Historical/Cultural Context. This asks “How might historical or cultural considerations aid our understanding?” Since the culture of the Bible is several thousand years (and even more miles) removed from many of us, the interpreter has to be careful not to ignore this context (or, worse, not to impose his own) in considering a passage.
Last, there is the Theological Context. This asks “How might theological considerations aid our understanding?” Admittedly, this can be the trickiest, if not the most abused. It plays off the delicate interplay of, on the one end, exegesis (leading out of the text the meaning that is there) and, on the other end, systematic theology (the careful arrangement of one’s conclusions about the truths of God into a systematic, coherent whole). Exegesis without systematic theology is in danger of being inconsistent (and, thus, false at some point) while systematic theology without exegesis can lead to defending a theological system without careful regard to the testimony of Scripture. And all of this, again, hinges on a proper philosophical foundation that begins with the undeniable fact that truth about reality is objective and knowable.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
How Philosophy Can Help Your Theology by Richard Howe (DVD Set, Mp3, and Mp4)
How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)
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Richard G. Howe is a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.) Dissertation: A Defense of Thomas Aquinas’ Second Way. He is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has a BA in Bible from Mississippi College, an MA in Philosophy from the University of Mississippi, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Arkansas. Dr. Howe is the past President of the International Society of Christian Apologetics (ISCA). He is a writer as well as a public speaker and debater in churches, conferences, and university campuses on issues concerning Christian apologetics and philosophy. He has spoken and/or debated in churches and universities in the US and Canada as well as Europe and Africa on issues relating to the defense of the Christian faith.
Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/NQ6BOy9
What Are Students Learning At Yale? A Review of Dale Martin’s Introductory Lecture on the New Testament
Theology and Christian ApologeticsDale Martin is a scholar of the New Testament, formerly a professor at Yale University until his retirement in 2018. Prior to his appointment at Yale, Martin was a faculty member at Rhodes College and Duke University. Yale University generously uploads many lecture series, covering various disciplines, to their “YaleCourses” YouTube channel. One of their series, uploaded in 2009, covers the discipline of New Testament studies and is instructed by Dale Martin (here is the link to the playlist). Watching Dale Martin teach his introductory lecture raised a number of concerns for me — not primarily because I disagree profoundly with many of Dr. Martin’s conclusions but because a significant number of the ‘facts’ he delivers in his presentation are quite simply false on a factual level, or otherwise misleading. This concerns me because of Dr. Martin’s position at the time as a faculty member and thus a position of trust in relation to his students. Undergraduate students are unlikely to fact-check the statements of one of their professors because it is assumed that the information being delivered at the college level, in particular at a prestigious institution such as Yale, will be factually correct. Imagine being a young Christian freshman student and, being interested in the New Testament, signing up for the course on “Introduction to New Testament History and Literature.” Is it any wonder that somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of young people in the church are losing their faith after going to college? Of course, intellectual concerns are not the only reason why a young student may walk away from the faith, but it is certainly a major factor that contributes to the youth exodus problem. In this article, I will discuss some of the assertions made by Dr. Martin in his introductory lecture, which one can presume is representative of what students in other institutions around the country are also being exposed to.
Dr. Martin begins his lecture by asserting that “the text of the Bible isn’t Scripture in itself. It’s only Scripture to a community of people who take it as Scripture.” This is nothing short of postmodern relativism (though Dale Martin himself elsewhere identifies as a postmodern Christian, so I doubt he would quibble with this). However, this position is not tenable — either the Bible is Scripture for everyone or it is not Scripture for anyone, irrespective of what any individual believes about it. It cannot be Scripture to a community of people who take it to be Scripture and not Scripture to everyone else.
Dr. Martin went on to give his class a quiz about whether certain ideas are found in the Bible or not. He claims that the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible. However, this is very misleading. Certainly, the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, and neither are the philosophical categories that came to be associated with the doctrine of the Trinity in particular at the council of Nicaea in 325 A.D (i.e. the distinction between being and person). But the concept of there being one God who is manifest in three distinct persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is an idea that can indeed be found in the Bible. If the Scriptures uphold the doctrine of monotheism and also maintain that the attributes and titles of deity are associated with three distinct persons, I would argue that the Nicene formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is the best way of understanding the Biblical text. Readers who are interested in a more thorough discussion of this topic are invited to peruse my articles on the subject of the Trinity, available here. Readers may also find useful the recording of my recent debate with an Islamic scholar, Dr. Shabir Ally, on the Trinity vs. Tawhid. Dr. Martin says that “Some people will say that at least the doctrine of the Trinity is hinted at in the Bible and that the later church was correct to read the New Testament to support it. And that might be right theologically. But read historically it’s not in the Bible.” It is not clear to me how Dr. Martin makes a distinction here between reading the Bible theologically and reading it historically. Good hermeneutics attempt to elucidate the meaning of the text as intended by the original author, historically. It is a mistake to draw any sort of distinction between what the text meant historically and what it means theologically.
Dr. Martin also brought up a popularly claimed contradiction between the resurrection accounts in Matthew and Luke. According to Dr. Martin, the gospel of Matthew “has Jesus appear to the disciples only in Galilee (not in Judea), and the gospel of Luke and Acts have Jesus appear to his disciples only in Judea but not in Galilee.” At the end of Luke, however, there is clear haste and a lack of specificity about time. The very end of Luke does not make it look like all of the appearances take place in one day. He’s either running out of scroll or in a hurry at that point, and he doesn’t appear to have full knowledge yet of exactly how long Jesus was on earth, so he just leaves it non-specific and clarifies in Acts 1. I would argue that it is entirely plausible that Jesus’ instruction to remain in Jerusalem (Acts 1:4) was said to the disciples after they had returned to the Jerusalem area from Galilee during the 40 days on which Jesus remained on the earth, perhaps shortly or even immediately prior to the ascension. By all accounts, the ascension occurred from the region of the Mount of Olives near Bethany, so evidently, they went to Galilee and then came back. I do not see a problem here.
Dr. Martin also claims that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is not found in the Bible and that the New Testament does not teach that souls go to be with Jesus after death. This, however, is nonsense. Paul says in Philippians 1:23-24 “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). The alternative reading of that text, which puts the comma after “today” (i.e. “I say to you today…”) is possible but unlikely since that construction is not found anywhere else in the New Testament. The parable of the rich man in Lazarus in Luke 16 also seems to indicate a conscious experience post-death. Even though the story is a parable, parables reflect actual real-life scenarios. There are no other parables in the gospels where Jesus literally invents a fantasy world which does not reflect actual realities.
Dr. Martin then went on to claim that the book of Acts reads like a Greek romance novel. This is material straight out of the late Westar Institute fellow Richard Pervo, who was, to be candid, a fringe scholar. Craig Keener, who is arguably the world’s leading authority on the book of Acts, comments[1],
The fact of the matter is that the book of Acts is spectacularly well supported by extrabiblical corroborating evidence (one could give more than a hundred examples lifted from works by Craig Keener, Colin Hemer, James Smith, and others).[2] It is also supported by dozens of undesigned coincidences with the letters of Paul (indeed, one could adduce more than forty examples if one were limited to using only Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, and Galatians, never mind the numerous examples found in the other epistles).[3] There are also unexplained allusions (such as Acts 18:18), which further support historicity. For further discussion of this subject, I refer readers to Tim McGrew’s excellent lecture on the reliability of Acts, as well as the discussion I had on the same subject with Craig Keener (see also the interview I did with Wesley Huff on the evidence for the historical trustworthiness of Acts). I have also discussed this subject in detail elsewhere on this website (e.g. see here, here, and here), so I need not repeat myself in this article. Furthermore, the best way of interpreting the “we” passages in Acts 16:10ff as indicating that the author was a travelling companion of Paul. Besides the clear inside-knowledge that is demonstrated by the author of Acts throughout his volume, the “we” passages trail off in Acts 16 when Paul is in Philippi and then begin again in Acts 20 when Paul returns back through Philippi (strongly suggesting that the author had remained in Philippi and rejoined Paul when Paul returned through Philippi).[4]
Dr. Martin then claims that Paul was not considered to be an apostle by the guy who wrote the book of Acts. However, the author of Acts does indeed identify Paul as an apostle, since he refers to “the apostles Barnabas and Paul,” (Acts 14:14). Even without that reference, however, it would not demonstrate that Luke did not view Paul as an apostle, since Luke does not say anything to the contrary. And Paul implies in his letters that the Jerusalem leaders recognized Paul as an apostle (e.g. Galatians 2:7). Luke was present with Paul when he met with the Jerusalem leaders, including James, in Acts 21.
Dr. Martin also claims that the epistle to the Hebrews (which he correctly recognizes is more like a homily) is not addressed to Jews but is addressed to gentiles. This too is indefensible. The whole point in Hebrews is that the author is explaining the superiority of the new covenant over the old because the audience to whom the homily is addressed are in danger of going back to their former ways of Judaism. Even the opening verse of the book of Hebrews suggests that the intended audience is fellow Jews: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” The book also presupposes certain things that the author can take for granted would be familiar to a Jewish audience, but which he cannot take for granted to have been familiar to a gentile audience.
Dr. Martin further asserts that the New Testament books were written between the year 50 and the year 150 A.D. One has to wonder what book(s) Dr. Martin thinks were written as late as 150? It seems unlikely to me that any of the books were written later than the close of the first century, and I am not aware of any contemporary scholars who would date any of the New Testament books that late. At the very least, Martin’s view here is extremely out-dated. Though it was once thought by the Tubingen school that the gospel of John was composed towards the latter end of the second century, this view has now been universally abandoned, in part due to the discovery in 1934 of the John Rylands fragment, p52, a small fragment of the gospel of John that may be dated to, give or take, 125–175 A.D.
It is quite disappointing to see a scholar of Dale Martin’s caliber mislead his students in regards to the text of the New Testament. If this lecture is representative of what freshman students are being told at institutions of higher learning such as Yale, Duke, or Harvard, then it is no wonder that so many young people are falling away from the faith. Now, to be fair, I am also aware of misleading and factually inaccurate statements being made at evangelical seminaries as well, so this problem is not unique to secular institutions. However, this does teach us how imperative it is that students, no matter what institution of higher learning they attend, when it comes to worldview-sensitive subjects such as New Testament studies or philosophy of religion, should always do their own fact-checking and not take the word of their professor at face-value. It also reveals how important it is for parents to equip their children with a robust, though balanced, education of their own in regards to the Bible in order to adequately equip them for the intellectual challenges they will face in college.
Footnotes
[1] Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Vol. 1 (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012), 431, 80–81.
[2] Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Vols 1-4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012–2014). Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, ed. Conrad H. Gempf (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990). James Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul: With Dissertations on the Life and Writings of St. Luke, and the Ships and Navigation of the Ancients, ed. Walter E. Smith, Fourth Edition, Revised and Corrected. (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1880).
[3] William Paley and Edmund Paley, The Works of William Paley, vol. 2 (London; Oxford; Cambridge; Liverpool: Longman and Co.; T. Cadell; J. Richardson; Baldwin and Cradock; Hatchard and Son; J. G. & F. Rivington; Whittaker and Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; Smith, Elder, and Co.; E. Hodgson; B. Fellowes; R. Mackie; J. Templeman; H. Washbourne; Booker and Dolman; J. Parker; J. and J. J. Deighton; G. and J. Robinson, 1838). Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (Tampa, FL: Deward Publishing Company, Ltd, 2017)
[4] Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, Vol. 1 (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2012), 431.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Paperback), and (Sermon) by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek
Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)
Fearless Generation – Complete DVD Series, Complete mp4 Series (download) by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace
So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)
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Dr. Jonathan McLatchie is a Christian writer, international speaker, and debater. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (with Honors) in forensic biology, a Masters’s (M.Res) degree in evolutionary biology, a second Master’s degree in medical and molecular bioscience, and a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. Currently, he is an assistant professor of biology at Sattler College in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. McLatchie is a contributor to various apologetics websites and is the founder of the Apologetics Academy (Apologetics-Academy.org), a ministry that seeks to equip and train Christians to persuasively defend the faith through regular online webinars, as well as assist Christians who are wrestling with doubts. Dr. McLatchie has participated in more than thirty moderated debates around the world with representatives of atheism, Islam, and other alternative worldview perspectives. He has spoken internationally in Europe, North America, and South Africa promoting an intelligent, reflective, and evidence-based Christian faith.
Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/8Q6Jipt
A Short History of Tyranny
PodcastHow do you take power from the people and consolidate it in a dictator or government? There are known tactics to do this, and they have been demonstrated since the time of Plato. Historian Bill Federer joins Frank and identifies these tactics. He then takes us on a fascinating ride through history to show us how these tactics have been used in the past and how they are being used right now. Among the questions they discuss are:
Don’t miss this podcast. History is repeating itself! Bill’s new book here. His website is: www.AmericanMinute.com The first of his recent presentations at CCCH can be found here. If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org. Subscribe on iTunes: http://bit.ly/CrossExamined_Podcast Rate and review! Thanks!!! Subscribe on Google Play: http://bit.ly/CE_Podcast_Google Subscribe on Spotify: http://bit.ly/CrossExaminedOfficial_Podcast Subscribe on Stitcher: http://bit.ly/CE_Podcast_Stitcher
¿Se está desvaneciendo Dios?
EspañolBy Mia Langford
The “omnis” of theology – omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, etc. – are coming under attack with increasing frequency, and not only from the more well-known theologically liberal camps of Christianity. Examples abound – even within evangelical communities – of these attacks on various attributes of God, which seem to have been “shot down” by the fire of academics, or are altered by laymen to the point that the essence of the word is lost, and along with it, the force that would inspire in the individual worship and wonder.
What is causing the traditional understanding of God to “fade away”? It seems as if the nail holding all these attributes in place has been removed.
In this week’s episode of Why Do You Believe?, Dr. Richard Howe gives that nail a name: classical theism.
Classical Theism
Classical theism is a theology about God that denotes His simplicity. The word classical must be understood within the boundaries and categories of Western thought that emerged with the ancient Greeks, followed by the Christian church fathers, and then the medieval scholastics.
Within this framework, God is uninterrupted or infinitely present, invariable existence, not a being composed of metaphysical parts like the rest of creation (for example, angels are composed of form and existence, human beings have a mixture of form, matter and existence, etc.).
All of God’s attributes, such as omnis, immutability, and others, are derived from this metaphysical principle of simplicity (the quality of the attribute describes a characteristic of God’s nature or of His actions, and both can be known through creation [general revelation] and through His Word [special revelation]). God’s attributes are not independent, but are in such harmony that they are all involved and collaborate at all times and moments; by eliminating or altering one attribute, the others simply collapse.
Put another way, representing God’s attributes individually has to do with our finite, human understanding attempting to segment God’s magnitude and majesty into pieces that are easier to perceive, and when we misuse the cornerstone of divine simplicity, or any other essential attribute of God, the whole house falls into jeopardy.
Who removed the nail?
So, if simplicity is the foundation of many of God’s attributes, why has simplicity been neglected in modern times? Dr. Howe attributes this omission primarily to a lack of skill in hermeneutics . And he demonstrates in these few lines that an insufficient and erroneous view of the nature and attributes of God will result in the omission of this precious and firm theological principle, and will end in an absurd and incorrect interpretation of the text. In classical theism, God is honored as unique in his kind because he is a necessary and simple being, but other philosophical systems are capable of imposing human, finite, and inexact characteristics on God very often.
Recommended resources in Spanish:
Stealing from God ( Paperback ), ( Teacher Study Guide ), and ( Student Study Guide ) by Dr. Frank Turek
Why I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist ( Complete DVD Series ), ( Teacher’s Workbook ), and ( Student’s Handbook ) by Dr. Frank Turek
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Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/sQJ8OJP
Translated by Yatniel Vega Garcia
Edited by Gustavo Camarillo
Are Christians the New Extremists? Yes, and That’s Okay
Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Natasha Crain
My blog and podcast have been quiet since April because I was finishing writing my new book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture.
Faithfully Different is about the fact that Christians with a biblical worldview are now a minority in America and how the secular worldview that surrounds us is putting significant pressure on what we believe, how we think, and how we live. I wrote it to help Christians more clearly understand the fundamental differences between the secular and biblical worldviews, both for the strength of our own faith and for our ability to be salt and light to others. I’m really excited to share it with you! Faithfully Different comes out in February and I’ll be posting pre-order details here in the next few weeks.
In reading that, you might wonder if Christians really are a “minority” in America. I discuss this at length in my first chapter, but here’s the bottom line. About 65 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians—certainly not a minority. But when researchers ask questions about specific beliefs and behaviors, only about 10 percent of Americans have what would be considered a “biblical worldview” (holding basic beliefs consistent with the historic Christian faith and exhibiting corresponding behaviors). Furthermore, researchers have found that not only are those with a biblical worldview now a small minority in America, they’re a small minority within the church.
Now, there are plenty of minority groups that people don’t care much about. I’m sure there are only a handful of people, for example, who eat pickles every morning for breakfast. No one cares. But it’s becoming clear to Christians with a biblical worldview that secular culture does care about our existence…because it hates all we represent.
In a very real sense, we’re increasingly being seen as a small and extreme faction of society.
Understanding Christian “Extremism”
Read or watch anything in mainstream media that mentions “conservative Christians” and you’ll immediately know from the tone that the term isn’t being used as a neutral descriptor. It’s now a pejorative that comes with a knowing nod and eye roll among the supposedly more enlightened culture. (Note that I’m not necessarily talking about conservative in a political sense; in secular usage, “conservative” is a blanket label to reference Christians who disagree with mainstream secular views. There’s often a correlation with politics, but it’s not exclusive to that.)
The implication is that we’re those people—the hold-outs who won’t get on board with where the rest of society wants to go. We’re seen as an impediment to culturally-defined progress because of how different our views are relative to today’s mainstream secularism.
The result is that secularists now see us with various degrees of indignation. As strange as it sounds to many Christians, we’re the new extremists—a minority group whose views are seen as 1) fundamentally different from the “average” view of secular culture and 2) concerning to the rest of society.
When you sense that this is how culture sees us, it can seem pretty bizarre. After all, Christianity has been the dominant religious influence in America for the last 400 years, but now it’s extreme (and concerning) to believe that the Bible is God’s Word?
While there’s no reason to agree with secularists that our views are concerning, there are many reasons to agree that our worldview is extremely different relative to the dominant secular worldview culture now holds. We’re certainly “extremists” in that sense—and should gladly embrace the fact if we fully understand the nature of a biblical worldview.
More specifically, we’re extreme in three major ways.
First, we’re extreme in our source of authority
The most foundational difference between those with a biblical worldview and those with a secular one is our source of authority. Every person, as part of their worldview, has an ultimate authority for what they believe to be true about the world and how they should function within it. For Christians with a biblical worldview, that source of authority is God, and we believe that He’s revealed those truths in the Bible.
In secularism, a person’s source of authority is the self. Secularism isn’t what you get when you simply subtract so-called religious beliefs from a person’s worldview. When you take away the authority of God, you aren’t left with no authority—you’re left with the authority of you.
This difference in authority is at the root of almost every difference between a biblical and secular worldview.
When the vast majority of people’s authority for truth is themselves, it shouldn’t be surprising that Christians are going to come to some very different conclusions about the nature of reality than culture. Even uttering the words “The Bible says…” with the assumption that what follows is objective truth that supersedes personal opinion is extreme relative to today’s average view that the individual reigns supreme.
And for those who assume the Bible is merely a written record of man’s thoughts about God (and nothing more), such extremity is concerning. How can Christians be compelled to follow new societal directions if they don’t view truth as something subject to change? With fellow secularists whose feelings determine truth, society can “progress” through the push and pull of changing popular consensus. But Christians who believe they have un unchanging authority for all time? That’s an infuriating barrier that secularists resent.
Second, we’re extreme in our understanding of morality.
It follows from the first point that Christians with a biblical worldview are going to be at great odds with secularists in matters of morality.
For those whose authority is God and who believe He’s revealed Himself and His will in the Bible, what the Bible says is right or wrong is going to be the final word…regardless of what we think, regardless of what any other individual thinks, and regardless of what society thinks. From a secular perspective, what a stubborn view!
When your authority is yourself, there’s no objective basis for defining morality for all people. In essence, each person is their own God. What’s right or wrong isn’t a matter of what someone else has said—God or not—it’s a matter of what you’ve said.
But wait! Wouldn’t that mean that secularists should accept the Christian view of morality as just one more valid view?
Absolutely.
But they don’t. And this is where secularists fail to live consistently within their own worldview rooted in the authority of the self.
If they were consistent, they’d say this: “Hey, we understand that your Christian view is just as valid as anyone else’s since every individual is their own authority and there’s no objective basis for claiming that anything is right or wrong for all people. But a bunch of us have (fill in the blank) view on (fill in the blank) issue, and we want to try to convince you to change your opinion! Yet even if you don’t change your mind, that’s OK, since everyone’s view is equally valid anyway. Have a great day.”
Instead, they’re saying this: “The (fill in the blank) view on (fill in the blank) issue is the objectively right view for all people, and if you disagree, you’re wrong…and evil.”
Without an objective basis for morality from a higher-than-human moral lawgiver, the closest thing secularists can have as a moral standard that applies to all people is popular consensus. That’s why it’s so important for secular culture to continually push their views of morality through every conceivable channel—education, media, entertainment, business, and more. The more people get on board with any given view of morality, the more the popular consensus is achieved, and the more secularists have a new supposed standard for what’s right.
But once again, Christians with a biblical worldview aren’t subject to that shift. No matter how prevalent any new idea of morality is, if it conflicts with what Christians believe God Himself has said, the popular consensus won’t become our new standard. And that “extreme” viewpoint relative to average culture is mind-numbingly frustrating to nonbelievers.
Third, we’re extreme in believing that judgment can be objectively valid.
This point follows from both of the prior points. Because Christians look to God and His word as the source of authority for our lives, and because views of morality are an outworking of those beliefs, Christians believe that judgment on matters of truth can be objectively valid—not just a matter of opinion.
In Faithfully Different, I describe the tenets of a secular worldview this way: Feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, judging is the ultimate sin, and God is the ultimate guess. Judging is the greatest sin in secularism because when feelings are your guide and happiness is your goal, no one has the ability or right to tell you what only you can know (how you feel and what makes you happiest). From the worldview perspective that the authority is the self, it’s absurd and insulting for someone else to come along, look at a person’s life journey, and claim to know better than they do how they should or shouldn’t be living.
But that assumes there’s no God who has provided a reliable and authoritative source for that information.
From a biblical worldview perspective, God has provided that in the Bible. And if the God of the universe has told us what’s true about reality, it’s not absurd or insulting to share what He’s said—it’s literally the only reasonable thing to do given that the God who created everything would assuredly know more than any human.
Jesus never said that the world would understand us. To a large degree, secular culture’s views here are to be expected. What concerns me far more is when Christians don’t understand how extremely different a biblical worldview should be from a secular one. In many ways, secularists who think those with a biblical worldview are extreme relative to average society understand this more than self-professed Christians who see only marginal differences.
When we truly have a biblical worldview, we should understand that we really are “extremists” in today’s culture…and embrace it. Not only is it okay to be extreme in this way, it’s beautiful—because it’s what God Himself calls us to.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)
Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)
Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)
Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. 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://cutt.ly/2QJ0e0X
Why People Hate Being Judged
Theology and Christian ApologeticsBy Al Serrato
“Don’t judge me” seems to be an increasingly uttered, and accepted, refrain in our society, reflecting what appears to be a universal and deep-seated human tendency. Even Christians, who should know better, seem to be jumping on board, believing somehow that Christian compassion requires us to be more understanding and more accepting of bad behavior.
But when you think about it, the phrase is not quite apt. Most people don’t really mean that they don’t want to be judged. In fact, they do. What they mean is that they want others to approve of their conduct or behavior. What they don’t want is to be judged and found wanting. Whether its sports or academics or work, again and again we see that people want to compete, want to be praised for their performance, and want to come out on top. It is losing – being told that they didn’t measure up or that they did something wrong, or bad – that they seek to avoid.
This inclination to seek praise and to avoid condemnation is apparent from a child’s earliest days: praise him and he smiles, admonish or scold him and he cries. He doesn’t need to be taught how to react; he simply knows it. And when he learns to express himself, one of the first things he will intuitively grasp is that there is this thing called “fairness” by which all behavior is judged. He will make use of this early and often, as he condemns actions that do not meet his expectations. “That’s not fair!” he will exclaim, without fully understanding the power of that phrase to influence others. And when he himself is accused of being unfair, he will not respond by saying that it’s okay to be unfair; instead, he will say that he is being fair, as he attempts to justify his conduct. It’s only as he gets older that he will learn the clever parry that is so popular today of claiming that judging itself is wrong.
What explanation does atheism have for this obvious human condition? Since the vast majority of people seem inclined to want to shake off judgment and be free to do what they wish, wouldn’t natural selection have eliminated this condition of feeling constrained to act a certain way long ago? In other words, when we seek to avoid judgment, what we are really saying is that we do not want to feel guilt. We don’t want that nagging sense that, as CS Lewis put it, we are aware of a law that is pressing down upon us, a law that we did not create and that we cannot evade, for it resides within our minds. But if there is no God, what evolutionary benefit would possibly derive from feeling guilty about not acting as we should? Would this not inhibit us from future acts that might benefit us in a direct and personal way at the expense of others? If natural selection operates as Darwinists suggest, then those early humans who lacked a sense of guilt would have been free to vigorously pursue their self-interest – to enhance their ability to survive and to procreate – as contrasted with their fellows who were inhibited because they did not want to feel the guilt that comes from hurting other people. With survival of the fittest as the rule, behaviors that limit our choices and prevent us from putting ourselves first make us weaker, not stronger. In a universe in which we are simply an accident of evolution, pursuit of self-interest would be the default setting.
The Christian worldview, by contrast, can and does make sense of guilt. We intuitively know that there is a right and wrong, that there is good and evil and fairness and unfairness, because the absolute standard for goodness made us in His image. He left within us – written upon our heart as it were – intuitive access to this standard and a desire – a need – to conform to it. Our fallen nature prevents us from ever fully achieving this, but the knowledge of this law, and of our need to yield to it, is part of the very fabric of our minds.
God left within us the desire to find our way back to Him, and an innate fear of condemnation for failing to meet His standard. Though we may not realize it, we long to hear Him welcome us home with words of praise, a hearty “well done my good and faithful servant.”
What we seem to have forgotten, however, is that we need not fear ultimate condemnation, for He also sent His Son to provide us the way home, the path to redemption. But we cannot make it there on our own and pretending otherwise by trying to avoid feelings of guilt does no one any good.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)
Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)
Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)
Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek
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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.
Proving Jesus without the Bible
PodcastSuppose none of the New Testament survived to this day. Would we know anything about Jesus and his teachings? Yes, much of what we know today about Jesus and his teachings we would know even without any of the New Testament documents. How? Cold-Case Homicide Detective J. Warner Wallace joins Frank to show you how. Drawing from his amazing new book, Person of Interest, Wallace shows the unparalleled impact Jesus has had on culture in six different areas: literature, art, science, music, education, and even other world religions. To cite just one example from art, you could reconstruct the entire Gospel of Mark just from paintings and drawings done in the first several hundred years following Jesus. Wallace lays out several other examples. And the conversation is just getting started. This is just the first show on this topic. Check back in September for the next one. In the meantime, if you pre-order the book, you’ll get some free stuff that you can get nowhere else! If you want to send us a question for the show, please email us at Hello@CrossExamined.org. Subscribe on iTunes: http://bit.ly/CrossExamined_Podcast Rate and review! Thanks!!! Subscribe on Google Play: http://bit.ly/CE_Podcast_Google Subscribe on Spotify: http://bit.ly/CrossExaminedOfficial_Podcast Subscribe on Stitcher: http://bit.ly/CE_Podcast_Stitcher
Lo que nos dice nuestra lucha perpetua con la entropía
EspañolPor Al Serrato
Hace muchos años, cuando era más joven y mucho menos sabio, decidí que sería un buen proyecto de padre e hijo invertir en un coche antiguo que pudiera restaurar. (Nota para los padres: es mucho mejor encontrar algo que les guste a tus hijos que al revés). Así que, después de buscar, y teniendo en cuenta mi escaso presupuesto, encontré un Mustang convertible del 87 que, en general, se encontraba en buenas condiciones. No me resultó difícil imaginar que, con un poco de esfuerzo y un sitio web especializado en piezas de Mustang, podría hacer que este coche tuviera calidad de sala de exposición en poco tiempo.
Después de que la novedad desapareciera, y el interés de mis hijos disminuyera de poco a nada, me encontré con que tenía un proyecto solitario entre manos que tenía esa molesta costumbre de progresar negativamente. Así es. No importaba cuántos elementos tachara de la lista de tareas, se seguían añadiendo más. Y descubrí que las cosas siempre pasaban de buenas a malas, de funcionar a estar rotas, de estar limpias a estar sucias. Los interruptores de las ventanas que funcionaban un día, dejaban de funcionar al siguiente. Los motores que hacen que las ventanas se muevan suavemente hacia arriba y hacia abajo comenzaron a rechinar y luego se detuvieron. Los fusibles se fundieron, una y otra vez. Sorprendentemente, el proceso nunca funcionaba al revés. No importaba el tiempo que esperara, los interruptores rotos nunca se arreglaban solos. Las piezas agrietadas de las molduras, o una luz trasera rota, nunca se reparaban solas. El óxido en el metal siempre aparecía donde antes no estaba, y nunca daba paso a un metal limpio y brillante. Sí, la ley de la entropía estaba plenamente vigente, y la única manera de revertir ese proceso era invertir tiempo, energía y dinero.
Esto, por supuesto, no es una sorpresa para cualquiera que haya tenido algo. Tampoco es una sorpresa para quien haya considerado el funcionamiento de la naturaleza. Los científicos nos dicen que esta ley -la entropía- es una característica del universo. La entropía es, sencillamente, una medida del desorden, y parece que una ley universal está en funcionamiento moviendo todo desde estados de mayor a menor orden. En otras palabras, la naturaleza tiene una dirección particular, y esa dirección es hacia abajo.
El cristianismo y el ateísmo son cosmovisiones que compiten entre sí. Cada una de ellas pretende dar sentido al mundo para explicar cómo son realmente las cosas. Y a pesar de la creciente popularidad del ateísmo, y del creciente desprecio por el cristianismo histórico, la cosmovisión atea es totalmente incapaz de dar sentido al mundo. En relación con la entropía, el ateísmo debe explicar por qué la “evolución” de la vida ha escapado a esta ley universal. ¿Cómo es que seres humanos increíblemente complejos evolucionaron a partir de formas de vida inferiores? Cuando el ADN se somete a cambios aleatorios, el resultado suele ser letal: se llama cáncer. Pero de alguna manera, insisten los ateos, dado el tiempo suficiente, una simple forma de vida unicelular adquirió las instrucciones necesarias para producir una vida humana completa, instrucciones que deben dirigir perfectamente el ensamblaje y el inter-funcionamiento de docenas de sistemas. Y si eso no fuera suficientemente difícil, ¿cómo puede haber surgido la vida a partir de un material inerte -sin vida-? Si se deja una roca sola durante unos milenios, se acaba teniendo, bueno, una roca.
La cosmovisión cristiana , por el contrario, puede proporcionar esa explicación. El acontecimiento del Big Bang que inició este descenso en el progreso, es el resultado de un ser masivamente poderoso e inmensamente inteligente, que proporcionó las leyes que vemos en la naturaleza, y que escribió las instrucciones que los científicos están empezando a descifrar dentro del ADN. La razón por la que la vida “evolucionó” en la tierra es porque un Diseñador Inteligente la diseñó y proporcionó la fuente de energía para impulsar el proceso. Reconocer la necesidad de esa “primera causa” no es algo anticientífico. De hecho, la ciencia moderna comenzó con la presuposición de que las mentes inteligentes podían desentrañar los misterios de la naturaleza porque estos misterios no eran aleatorios, sino que eran el producto de una mente ordenada, de la inteligencia.
Luchar contra lo evidente, como hacen los ateos, tiene aún menos éxito que luchar contra la entropía. Estarían mejor empleando su tiempo en actividades más productivas.
Recursos recomendados en Español:
Robándole a Dios (tapa blanda), (Guía de estudio para el profesor) y (Guía de estudio del estudiante) por el Dr. Frank Turek
Por qué no tengo suficiente fe para ser un ateo (serie de DVD completa), (Manual de trabajo del profesor) y (Manual del estudiante) del Dr. Frank Turek
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Al Serrato se licenció en Derecho por la Universidad de California en Berkeley en 1985. Comenzó su carrera como agente especial del FBI antes de convertirse en Fiscal en California, donde sigue trabajando. Una introducción a las obras de CS Lewis despertó su interés por la Apologética, que ha seguido durante las últimas tres décadas. Comenzó a escribir Apologética con J. Warner Wallace y Pleaseconvinceme.com.
Blog Original: https://cutt.ly/8QUxzYS
Traducido por Yatniel Vega García
Editado por Ámbar Porta
What did Jesus think about the Old Testament?
4. Is the NT True?, Jesus ChristBy Ryan Leasure
It’s not uncommon for Christians to throw shade on the Old Testament. These Christians say they love Jesus, but they could do without those primitive Jewish texts. In fact, many Christians suggest that much of the Old Testament is ahistorical. Events such as the flood, Jonah being swallowed by a big fish, or the fiery judgment of Sodom and Gomorra never happened. And then there’s the infamous quote that Christians simply need to “unhitch themselves from the Old Testament” because much of it is embarrassing or difficult to understand. Why can’t we just focus on Jesus instead?
We can certainly sympathize with these sentiments. After all, the flood and Sodom’s judgment seem pretty incredible and kind of harsh to boot! Wouldn’t it just be easier to disregard this ancient corpus? This position seems reasonable until one realizes that the same Jesus these Christians adore also happens to hold the Old Testament in high regard. Not only does he affirm the Old Testament’s inspiration, he also affirms its historicity and authority.
The Old Testament is Inspired
Historically, Christians have affirmed the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible. That is to say, they recognize that every word of Scripture is “God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16-17). At the same time, God spoke through human agency. Therefore, Scripture not only has a divine author, it has human authors as well.
Jesus affirmed the human authors of the Old Testament. Repeatedly, he recognizes that Moses is the one who gave the Law (Matt 8:4; 19:8; Mark 1:44; 7:10; Luke 5:14; 20:37; John 5:46; 7:19). He’ll say things like “do what Moses commanded” (Mark 1:44). Or “Moses said, Honor your father and your mother” (Mark 7:10). With respect to other Old Testament authors, Jesus declares, “Well did Isaiah prophesy . . .” (Mark 7:6). Also, “David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared . . .” (Mark 12:36). And “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel . . .”(Matt 24:15). It’s worth noting that just about all critical scholars call into question the authorship of these individuals in clear contradiction to Jesus.
At the same time, Jesus affirms that these individuals wrote divinely inspired Scripture. As was just alluded to, Jesus noted in Mark 12:36, “David himself, in the Holy Spirit, declared, . . .” In other words, David wrote, but his writings were the result of the Holy Spirit’s work (2 Pet 1:20-21). He also declared “Well did Isaiah prophesy . . .” (Mark 7:6). The mere mention of prophecy suggests that Isaiah wrote from God. Prophecy, after all, is by definition “a word from God.” The same could be said for Matthew 24:15 when Jesus refers to Daniel as “the prophet.” Moreover, when speaking to the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus asserts, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men” (Mark 7:8). He then goes on to clarify that the commandment of God was what Moses wrote in Exodus 20.
As John Wenhan notes, “To [Jesus], Moses, the prophets, David and the other Scripture-writers were truly inspired men with a message given by the Spirit of God.”1
The Old Testament is Historically Accurate
While many are willing to grant the Old Testament’s inspiration, many of these same individuals deny that it’s historically accurate at every point. They might affirm its historical nature in general (God created the world, called Abraham and the Jewish people, the Jews were exiled, etc.), but they balk at some of the more challenging texts (the flood, Sodom, Jonah, etc.). That said, Jesus has no qualms about affirming the historical nature of the Old Testament—even the most difficult texts to believe. Here are a few examples:
He believed that Cain killed Abel (Luke 11:51), that God sent a flood but spared Noah in the ark (Matt 24:37-39), and that God destroyed Sodom because of their wickedness (Matt 11:23-24). He even adds, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). Additionally, Jesus believed that God sent down manna from heaven (John 6:31), the Israelites were healed by looking at the serpent (John 3:14), and that Jonah was swallowed by a big fish only to be regurgitated three days later (Matt 12:39-41).
The last text about Jonah is especially significant because it demonstrates that Jesus didn’t simply view these events figuratively. For the end of the text reads, “The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here” (Matt 12:41). It’s hard to imagine how Jesus could assert that Ninevah would rise up in the final judgment against the people who rejected him if they were make-believe. The same could be said for Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24:37: “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” In other words, just as God’s judgment was poured out in the days of Noah, so it will be again in the final judgment.
Again, Wenham remarks, “It is evident that [Jesus] was familiar with most of our Old Testament and that he treated it all equally as history.”2
The Old Testament is Authoritative
Because Jesus believed the Old Testament was divinely-inspired, he also affirmed its full authority. He demonstrated this authority by appealing to the scriptures dozens of times.
When asked what were the greatest commandments, he declares that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. . . And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:37-39). Jesus said that these two commands (Deut 6:4-6; Lev 19:18) sum up the totality of the Old Testament and are the guide to all ethical matters.
When facing temptation, Jesus appealed to the authority of Scripture to do battle against Satan. He repeatedly declares, “it is written, it is written, it is written” (Matt 4:1-11). Even as he was facing death, the final words on his lips were words from the Old Testament (Psalm 22:1; 31:5).
Jesus appeals to Genesis 1-2 when speaking about marriage and divorce. He asks, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh?’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matt 19:4-6). By alluding to Genesis 1-2 here, Jesus asserts that his position on marriage and divorce is rooted in the authority of the Old Testament text. By contrast, Jesus’ opponents rooted their position in different Rabbis (Shammai and Hillel).
When disputing with the Sadducess about the resurrection, Jesus scolds them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29). In other words, the Scriptures give us the definitive, authoritative word about the resurrection. Jesus goes on to question them, “Have you not read what was said to you by God, I am the God of Abraham . . .?” (Matt 31-32) Again, Jesus appeals to the Old Testament text to assert God’s power over the resurrection.
Jesus goes so far as to state that “Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). For Jesus, Scripture is so powerful, nothing can undo it.
Jesus and the Old Testament
All the evidence taken together suggests that Jesus held a high view of the Old Testament. Those who claim to hold Jesus in high regard but reject some of the Old Testament’s teachings are being inconsistent. If you hold Jesus in high regard, you must hold the Old Testament in high regard as well. As John Wenham notes:
“To Christ the Old Testament was true, authoritative, inspired. To him the God of the Old Testament was the living God, and the teaching of the Old Testament was the teaching of the living God. To him, what Scripture said, God said.” 3
*For more on this topic, see John Wenham’s book Christ and the Bible.
Recommended resources related to the topic:
Old Testament vs. New Testament God: Anger vs. Love? (MP3 Set) (DVD Set) (mp4 Download Set) by Dr. Frank Turek
Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)
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Ryan Leasure is a pastor at Grace Bible Church in Moore, SC. For more on his background and interests, click here.
Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/rQYMyUQ