Tag Archive for: Bob Perry

A Wolf in the Sheep Pen

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By Bob Perry

The church service at our suburban Cincinnati non-denominational church had barely ended when I started receiving text messages from friends. All of them shared some version of the same question my wife and I were asking each other about the sermon we had just heard from a visiting preacher: “What in the world was that?!” The simple answer was that we had unknowingly let a wolf in the sheep pen.

The sermon was delivered by a man who on the surface was someone we could trust. He was a professor from a reputable Christian university, with master’s degrees in both Divinity and New Testament Studies and a Ph.D. in Philosophy/New Testament Exegesis. He had preached at our church on several occasions over the years. His sermons had never been notably good or bad. But this Sunday morning was different. He had more than a message to deliver.

He had an agenda.

Scripture Twisting

The visiting preacher’s message was based on Ephesians 2:11-22, a text that starts with a “therefore” connecting it to the previous passage. That means it’s sandwiched between Paul’s explanation of Christ’s person and mission at the beginning of Chapter 2, and his clarification in Chapter 3 that the Gospel is also meant for the Gentiles.

The unmistakable point of this passage is that the Law, which had excluded non-Jews, had been superseded by the grace we receive through Christ’s sacrifice. It’s about Spirit-vs-Law, grace-vs-works. It’s a call to unity wherein Paul was exhorting his readers to recognize that the Gentiles were no longer “foreigners and aliens” but are fellow members of God’s household. He was clarifying a theological point about the unifying nature of salvation and the shared solution to our human rebellion and hostility toward God.

Changing the Subject

Our guest preacher acknowledged all this in passing. But four minutes into his message, things took an insidious turn. His focus subtly shifted from the solution for man’s hostility toward God to the reality of human beings’ hostility toward one another. Suddenly, we were hearing about diversity, inclusion, “minority status,” and the human inclination for conflict.

He had changed the subject. His goal had not been to exegete the passage in question; it had been to deliver a cultural message.

Once the subtle change of subject morphed into the central point, we were treated to a lecture about a lack of diversity in the demographics of typical suburban midwestern community churches like ours. We were warned about Evangelical Christianity’s bent toward a toxic “Christian Nationalism.” These topics were lead-ins to the message he really wanted to deliver. That came when he began reading us letters he had received from his diverse list of friends in response to a query he had offered them: “What do you want white American Christians to understand about Christians like you?

The specter of division is built right into his question. And it didn’t take long for it to bear fruit.

Critiquing People They’ve Never Met

Though he later denied knowing much about Critical Race Theory (CRT) or having any intention of talking about it, the letters he read could have formed a bullet point summary of its tenets. They included the declaration that “it’s not enough for white Christians to be ‘”non-racist,” we need them to be ‘anti-racist,”’ and the demand that “we need white brothers and sisters to not only acknowledge their own racist tendencies, but to also confront and challenge the racism of family, friends, co-workers, and church folk.” We were called on to “reimagine and reinvent systems that make it more difficult for African Americans to realize the American dream.” And we were “comforted” in learning that a woman who had never met a single person in our congregation had assured us, “I do not hate you. I just pray that one day I will be able to wholeheartedly forgive you.”

It isn’t hard to imagine the damage this thirty-minute cultural hand grenade caused when it detonated inside our church. So, it pays to stop at this point and reflect on the claims and assumptions built into these serious accusations and ask how they are in any way related to the text in Ephesians 2:11-22.

They aren’t. And that’s the problem.

Eisegesis -vs- Exegesis

Our visiting preacher wasn’t exegeting the meaning of the text or drawing an application from (ex in Greek) it. He was imposing his own predetermined view into (eis in Greek) the passage. That’s called eisegesis. It’s the opposite of exegesis.

No doubt, racism is a blight on society. We all need to talk about it. But making generalized assumptions about the actions and attitudes of entire groups of people we don’t know, and segregating “white Christians” from “Christians of color,” are not good alternatives for seeing every human as being made in the image of God.

Racism was his topic of choice that day. Unfortunately, the method he used to address it is a microcosm of a trend that is metastasizing inside the church. Our congregation saw it in real-time. But the more dangerous kind of eisegesis happens slowly and insidiously.

Creeping on the Sheep

The tentacles of “wokeness” are slithering into our churches under the guise of social justice, inclusivity, tolerance, and love. But the head of the hydra is the same as it’s always been. It’s the human propensity to interpret God’s word through the lens of self.

One of the main features of our guest preacher’s sermon was the repeated exhortation to accept his point of view based on the experiences of others. Though the logical flaw in that practice is obvious – alternative experiences can make the opposite point – it turns up again and again inside the church.

Unlike the full-frontal assault our congregation faced, the more common approach is subtle. And that’s what makes it so dangerous. Alisa Childers recently exposed it stealthily baked into a wildly popular churchwide youth curriculum. It’s easier to access young minds in their formative stages when parents aren’t in the room.

When Your Guard is Down

Christian colleges are no different. Astute students expect to confront the all-too-typical atheist professor at the State University. They arrive at school with their antennae up. But some choose to avoid that kind of opposition by attending a Christian college. It seems like a safer environment. Parents and students assume the faculty and staff at a Christian school will be the type to critique the culture from a biblical point of view instead of the other way around. So, they enter with their guard down.

But the fences around Christian colleges don’t keep out bad ideas. Remember, our visiting preacher had been a professor at one for many years. How many young minds had been influenced by his eisegetical methods during that time?

Maybe those who engage these issues in these ways are doing so with pure motives. Maybe they’re simply mistaken. We can be charitable and allow that possibility. But that doesn’t mean we have to be passive when it happens. Beware the wolves in sheep’s clothing. They’re not going away. And they’re finding new ways to sneak into the sheep pen.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

When Reason Isn’t the Reason for Unbelief by Dr. Frank Turek DVD and Mp4

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/3kzw4hz
An earlier version can be found in Salvo Magazine at: https://salvomag.com/post/dances-with-wolves

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Christmas: The Cure For Our Two-Storied World

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By Bob Perry

Even people who don’t celebrate Christmas seem to know what it’s about — the birth of a Savior who comes to rescue us from the consequences of our rebellion against Him. Ultimately, that means it’s part of God’s rescue plan and where we go when we die. But there’s another aspect to Christmas that I think is important too. It’s also about showing us how to live. And right-living depends on how we think. Unfortunately, our thinking is infused with lies that we’ve accepted as being part of “the human condition.” And believing those lies results in dissension, oppression, racism, political wrangling, class struggle, economic strife, and war. Sadly, it’s all part of the gravest story ever told. Christmas offers an antidote to the effects of that story too.

The story started in The Garden. And we’ve been repeating it to each other ever since. It thrives on divided minds. But we are designed to be united. God and man. Husband and wife. Body and soul. Physical and spiritual. The division we experience is a symptom of wrong thinking about the nature of reality. But there is a way to fix it. Christmas shows us how. It’s the cure for our two-storied world.

Focus On The Physical World

There is an assumption in our contemporary society that all of us have tacitly accepted, even if we claim to be “religious.” It is an assumption born in the Enlightenment and nurtured through four-hundred years of modern philosophy, medical breakthroughs, and technological innovation. The assumption is this: That the physical world is all that really exists. And, since science is the study of the physical world, the logical assumption is that it will give the answers to our most profound questions. This is called Naturalism or Materialism. And many of us claim not to accept this view. We may even argue vehemently against it. But it is a difficult assumption to overcome because it is embedded in the fabric of our culture.

When we hear of an inexplicable healing, or an answered prayer, or an eerie “coincidence,” or a Christmas Star, our initial reaction is to seek a scientific explanation. Even those of us who take our faith seriously secretly wonder if the walls of Jericho really just fell down; if the Red Sea really parted, or (though we would be loathe to admit it) if Jesus really rose from the dead. We are hard-wired to be skeptical of those kinds of claims. In a thousand different ways we have assimilated, accommodated, and capitulated to the materialistic world. And with each baby step in that direction, the idea of the miraculous diminishes into a faintly held belief we have little hope of defending.

Non-Physical Reality

The Apostle Paul told us to “test everything” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). So, we take him up on it. But in our knee-jerk reaction to do so we sometimes forget that a Christian view of the world is not limited to physical things. In fact, science is impotent when it comes to answering our biggest questions. And that’s because Ultimate Reality is not physical. It’s transcendent. It’s spiritual.

The Christian worldview encompasses both the physical and the non-physical. Alone, neither is adequate to describe us as persons. And neither can explain the makeup of all we know and experience. Ideas. Values. Reason. Mind. Morals. Love. None of these things are physical. But all of them are real. Life would be meaningless without them.

Creating The Two-Storied World

The modern, materialistic culture we live in disdains such a view. It does its best to belittle and destroy it. The result is that we are constantly engaged in the battle of ideas that this kind of philosophy has created. Francis Schaeffer addressed this conflict many decades ago. He didn’t originate the idea. But he identified its roots in a kind of “split” thinking. And he popularized the notion in a phrase we all recognize when we talk about taking a “leap of faith.”

On Schaeffer’s view, we have created a two-storied vision of reality. And we all live in it. Think of it as a two-story house. Non-physical realities like values, spirituality, religion, faith and the like, reside upstairs. Downstairs we find things like the physical world and science.

UPPER STORY: Values – Spiritual – Religion – Faith — Private

LOWER STORY: Facts – Physical – Science – Knowledge — Public

Living In The Two-Story World

When you think this way, the lower story is where we are told to go when we want to know the true things. Only science can help us. It is public and verifiable. The culture tells us this is where we should be living our lives. It’s the force behind the exhortation we hear every day to “trust the science.”

Conversely, upper story ideas are private and subjective. We are free to take an irrational “leap of faith” to the upper story if we want to. But we must realize that to do so is to ignore rational thought. That kind of stuff has no business seeping into the “real world.” We take the leap upstairs on faith alone. And while no one is permitted to question the thoughts or ideas of your “private world,” neither are we free to allow those ideas to influence how we understand the lower story.

The Consequences Of A Two-Storied View

Unfortunately, most of us go along with this program unwittingly. We tacitly accept the idea that our personal faith and religion are disconnected from, and have little value in, a fact-based world. But this doesn’t fit with what we know and experience. There is no way to understand meaning and purpose.

The lower story is right in front of us. But it contains no hope. Nothing in it can save us. And our world is filled with people who are wallowing in this disconnected reality. They live in the lower-story, but they long for the upper.

Wrong Solutions

Some religions just accept the disconnect. The secularists deny the upper-story. They try to construct a replica of it downstairs using only lower-story stuff. Conversely, the New Age, Gnostic, and eastern religions try to deny or escape the lower-story. They’re happy to float around upstairs with no attachment to the ground.

Both of these are dismal failures because they can’t make sense of the whole show. They don’t even try. All they can offer is a truncated view of the reality.

Christianity is a house where the two stories meld into one. A place where it all makes sense. Facts and values. Spiritual and physical. Religion and science. Faith and knowledge. All of these make up an integrated view of reality.

The two-storied world is not meant to be divided. It never was. There are stairs right in the middle of the house. But they’re too tall for us to climb.

So, God comes down.

Christmas

This is the other Christmas message. The Author steps onto the stage to offer His ultimate revelation. He shows us that human-centered thinking is inadequate to address the human condition we created shortly after we arrived on the scene. We came up with the flawed philosophy that exacerbated those problems. We’re the ones who manufactured a “two-story” view of the world. Our humanistic thinking divided that which was meant to be indivisible.

Christmas reminds us that it all can be fixed in only one way. God gives us the ultimate example of how the world was meant to be through the Incarnation. That’s what it means. God’s essence quite literally “puts on meat.” “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

The spiritual is united with the physical right in front of our eyes.

At Christmastime, the floor joists shatter and a thundering shock wave pierces the night. The ceiling above our human-centered world collapses. And the spirit Who has been rattling around in the attic comes crashing into our living room.

The divine unites with the human in one person. A person who offers us the perfect example of what it means to bear His image. What it means to function as an integrated whole. That person offers us a way out of our self-made morass of idiotic ideas and worldly wisdom. The infinitely perfect man comes downstairs to rescue us. But He also shows us how to live.

Only He can do such a thing. And when He does, the world makes sense again.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)

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

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

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

 

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An Atheist’s Call To Make Our Case

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By Bob Perry

St. Francis of Assisi may have died 800 years ago, but his influence still looms. He was a man who venerated nature and lived a life of great sacrifice in service to God and his church. But within the Christian ecosystem, he has become most famous for an adage that strikes a chord with anyone who is serious about sharing their faith:

Preach the Gospel always. If necessary, use words.

The modern interpretation of Assisi’s exhortation is clear. Our charge is to love people into the kingdom, not argue them there. If you’ve bought into that mindset it may surprise you to learn that it’s not accurate. And it may surprise you even more to learn that it flies in the face of an atheist’s call to make our case.

Here’s why.

A Gospel Without Words?

On one level there is no denying that, “who you are speaks so loudly that no one can hear what you say.” We certainly don’t want the life we live to deny everything about the faith we claim to represent. But is the Franciscan inversion of this exhortation also true? Can we proclaim the message through our actions alone?

The problem here is that the Gospel makes propositional truth claims about the nature of the world, the nature of man, and the remedy for man’s rebellion against God. It’s a story about reality. And it’s only “good news” if it’s actually true. So, how can we share the propositional truth claims of such a message and explain their implications without using words or giving answers?

I contend that we can’t. Furthermore, the attitude that says we can is not only harmful, but it also does violence to the Gospel it claims to love. This contention is not my own. A rabid atheist will back me up.

The Gift of a Bible

Penn Jillette and his partner, Raymond Teller, have been entertaining Las Vegas audiences for years. Their mixture of magic, music, and commentary – the Penn & Teller show – is the longest-running show at the same hotel in Las Vegas history. Jillette is a magician, actor, and inventor. He is also a hard-core atheist – so adamant about his denial of God’s existence that at one point in his life he is said to have owned three cars with vanity license plates that read: “atheist,” “nogod,” and “godless.”[i] “Strangely enough,” says Jillette, “they wouldn’t give me ‘infidel.’ He was also a happy participant in YouTube’s viral “blasphemy challenge,” in which participants publicly mock and denounce the Holy Spirit.

Penn Jillette is no friend of Christianity. But he has a message that every Christian should take to heart.

In July 2010, Jillette posted a video online[ii] in which he shared the story of a man who approached him after one of his performances. The man was extremely complimentary of the Penn & Teller show. He said he enjoyed Jillette’s honesty, his use of language, and his talent. The man was polite and humble. And he came bearing a gift.

“I was here last night,” said the man, “I brought this for you.” The man handed Jillette a pocket Bible containing the New Testament and the book of Psalms. Penn Jillette was genuinely humbled and impressed by the actions and attitude of this kind Christian man. And he is quite direct about how he received the gesture.

I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. If you believe there’s a heaven and hell … and if you believe that people could be going to hell, or not getting eternal life … and you think that it’s not worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward … How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that? If I believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that a truck was bearing down on you and you didn’t believe it, there’s a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than that (emphasis mine).

Misquoting Assisi

Most of us don’t have a lot in common with a rabid atheist Las Vegas showman who mocks the Holy Spirit. But every Christian would do well to take seriously Penn Jillette’s reflection. Not only does it fly in the face of the just-love-them-into-the-kingdom mindset, but it also comports with what Assisi actually said … and with what he did.

It turns out the legendary quote attributed to St. Francis is nothing but a modern corruption of the words he actually wrote in 1221 AD:

Let none of the brothers preach contrary to the form and institution of the church … Nevertheless, let all the brothers preach by their works.

Notice that Francis did not render preaching the gospel a contingent option. Instead, he linked words and actions directly together.

Francis of Assisi devoted himself to the kind of life for which he is now known after being convicted by a sermon he heard in 1209. He took a vow of poverty, felt connected to nature and the beauty of the creation, and demonstrated empathy for others. But he was also known for the powerful sermons he delivered. He lived out the Gospel, and he was happy to tell others about it.

Words Are Always Necessary

Arguments and evidence are far from arrogant intellectual add-ons to the Gospel.[iii] They are integral to it. God saturated our world with truths that could never be adequately expressed through our actions alone. There are plenty of examples of militant atheists who have turned to God after hearing about them. C. S. Lewis, Antony Flew, Lee Strobel, and J. Warner Wallace[iv] come to mind. Penn Jillette isn’t on that list – yet. That’s his choice, not ours. Don’t hate him for it. Be winsome and kind. But by all means, don’t be silent.

Footnotes

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_Jillette

[ii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6md638smQd8

[iii] https://truehorizon.org/the-gospel-requires-us-to-give-answers/

[iv] https://salvomag.com/article/salvo24/the-evidentialist

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

How to Interpret Your Bible by Dr. Frank Turek DVD Complete Series, INSTRUCTOR Study Guide, and STUDENT Study Guide

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

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

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Fertility Matters

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By Bob Perry

Nicholas Eberstadt, the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, is a demographic expert. He has identified some sobering trends that are cause for concern for the future of America. In his article, “Can America Cope with Demographic Decline?”, Eberstadt points out that the traditional attempts to address those worries through government policy and financial incentives “vastly underestimate the challenge they wish to address.”

​Going Lower

The birth rate required to support a society’s population stability is 2.1 births per woman. Eberstadt’s research found that in 2019, the birth rate in the U.S. was 1.71, the lowest rate ever recorded up to that point. Then, COVID-19 hit. In 2020, the rate fell to 1.64. Projected estimates for the as-yet-unreported first quarter of 2021 point toward another 5% decrease. These trends portend some challenging socioeconomic times ahead.

Some post-pandemic rebound may be expected, of course. But fertility forecasts are notoriously unreliable … there are reasons to suspect that U.S. fertility could actually decline even further in the years ahead … Decades of accumulating social and political dysfunction have left America less favorably poised for, and perhaps also less capable of seizing, the advantages of the new demographic era ahead of us.

Fertility rates below 1.3 will halve a population in less than 45 years. And there is no documented case of a society surviving a rate that low at any time in history prior to 1990. Depopulation trends have already started in Russia and Japan. Projections for the European Union show that theirs will begin in 2027. China could commence even sooner.

Financing Fertility

Typically, governments attempt to boost birth rates using financial incentives. But this has proven to be a faulty solution. Russia, China, Singapore, and Japan’s efforts to stimulate fertility using financial carrots paid small dividends in the short term. In each case, financial inducements had some impact on the timing of their citizenry’s birth decisions – they are most attractive to those at the lowest income and education levels. But, ultimately, they didn’t have much impact on the total number of births, which usually return to at or below their pre-stimulus levels once the incentive runs its course.

Cultural Headwinds

The prognosis for reversing these trends is not good. Several factors lead to that conclusion. As John Stonestreet has pointed out, radical feminism demanded that women be “liberated from their own creative potential” and can be directly connected to the inclination to postpone or forgo childbirth altogether.

Since 1980, the median age of first marriage has gone from 24.7 for men and 22 for women to 30 and 28 respectively. The additional six years for women puts them almost exactly at their peak fertility.

But the Millennials who occupy that age category …

are of a markedly different mindset from that of their Boomer parents. Their lived experience is in a very different America. People under 40 do not have much memory of America with a vibrant, private-sector-driven economy. They came of age during a strange historical run of unusually poor political leadership … Theirs is an America where public confidence in the nation’s basic institutions has undergone a gruesome and wholesale slide.

Religiosity, which has historically encouraged the pursuit of the traditional family, has also been a casualty of the cultural milieu. A Gallup poll earlier this year revealed that just 36 percent of Millennials report any religious affiliation. They likewise express pessimism about the country’s future, they lack pride in it, and they are increasingly unwilling to defend it. As Eberstadt puts it, young Americans have become “demoralized and de-moralized.”

Resurrecting Marriage

There is a way out of this. And it depends on the same thing it always has – God’s design for marriage and the command to “go forth and multiply.” Mark Regnerus addresses these issues in his book, The Future of Marriage, wherein he acknowledges all of the above. His research points out that “young Christians are significantly influenced by the culture around them … [and] have a sense of swimming upstream in their efforts to marry and form families.” But, despite all this, he argues that:

Marriage as an institution has changed very little … On these points, young Christians are substantially similar to their parents and grandparents. They have not lost sight of the value of lasting love. Fundamentally, they know what it means to wed … If marriage is so deeply written into our nature, it probably won’t disappear … the young will go on looking for love, and the world will still be peopled. Civilization will continue.

These kinds of motivations don’t come from the government. That’s Nicholas Eberstadt’s point. He is cautiously optimistic that a “spontaneous, intellectually and spiritually disruptive ferment from within civil society might offer a homegrown American answer” to our demographic decline.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Does Love and Tolerance Equal Affirmation? (DVD) (Mp4)  by Dr. Frank Turek

Sex and Your Commanding Officer (DVD) (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3T5KBhA

 

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A Way To Simplify The Big Picture

A Way To Simplify The Big Picture

By Bob Perry

Being able to make the case for the truth of Christianity means you have to understand it yourself. There are plenty of resources out there that can help you do that. I always try to share the best ones I know about. But right now, I want to offer you a visual tool as a way to simplify the “big picture.” This diagram helps categorize the facts supporting Christian Theism. It’s a way to organize the evidence for Christianity in your mind’s eye. Diagram

Confident Christianity

Last year, I developed this model into a book-length summary of the evidence for Christian theism. It is available now in both paperback and Kindle formats. You can order it here:

Confident Christianity Book

This book doesn’t make any claims about the theological nuances that are required to understand Christianity in detail. And it doesn’t address denominational differences between Christians. It is a simple summary of the evidence for “Mere Christianity” that we find in the real world. It’s a challenge to skeptics who may have dismissed Christianity as just another blindly-followed religious myth. And it’s an easy-to-read distillation of that evidence for Christians who may never have been exposed to all of it in one place. My goal in writing this book was to provide a basic, “big picture” overview for those who may have never been exposed to apologetics.

What Is Theism?

There are many different views of God. But they fall into three basic categories:

  1. Pantheism— the idea that all of reality actually is Hinduism is an example of a pantheistic religion. Pantheism makes no distinction between God and nature. The entire physical universe is a manifestation of God. Rocks are god. Trees are god. You are god. God is not a person. God is everything.
  2. Deism— the idea that God is separate from the physical world but does not interact with it. God is like “The Force” in Star Wars — a powerful entity who creates the world and then steps back to watch his handiwork. There is no revelation from this God. There are no miracles. God has no further contact with his creation.
  3. Theism— this is a view that there is a creator God who not only forms the physical universe but also stays involved with it. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are theistic religions.

Christianity is a theistic religion. That means we should have evidence for some kind of theistic God who is separate from, but involved in, the universe. This is a God who created, sustains, and interacts with the world. Our diagram is a summary of the evidence for that kind of God.

First Things First – God Exists

I’ve summarized the case for God’s existence into three basic categories: Origins, Ethics, and Life. Here’s what I mean:

If this God exists, we must have evidence for the type of God who is a personal, moral agent. In order to create the physical universe, that God must exist outside of that universe. That means God can’t be part of the matter, energy, space, or time that makes up our world. He must be transcendent and non-physical. But it doesn’t stop there. Theism requires that God is also able to act within the universe he created.

These three foundational categories (origins, ethics, and life) contain all the evidence that explains things we know about our universe:

  • It is a universe in which we all recognize that real, moral truths exist and that they are constantly being violated
  • It is an actual, physical thing that came into existence sometime in the finite past
  • Whatever/whoever caused the beginning of the universe could not have been a part of the physical universe itself
  • It is designed to allow for, and to sustain, the existence of living things
  • Some of those living things are personal beings who have moral, mental, and physical attributes

Obviously, there is a lot to each of these topics and I will provide resources to support each of them, but the takeaway is simply that our claim to believe that there is a God is not based on some kind of wishful thinking or irrational hope. It is based on evidence — concrete evidence about the way the world actually is.

Since we have evidence that there is a God and that this God’s attributes must be consistent with the evidence listed above, it follows that one of the theistic religions must be true. In order to determine which of the theistic religions is true, we need more specific information.

Specific Evidence For Christianity

The blue categories at the top of the diagram are what allow us to differentiate Christianity from the other theistic religions. Here, we look at data from archaeology and history. We can also compare the manuscript evidence from each of those religions in order to identify which of them is true. This is where the strength of the case for Christianity shines. No other religion even comes close to having the amount of evidence to support it:

  • The existence of its primary historical figure — Jesus of Nazareth
  • The archaeological relics that correlate to its story from the very beginning
  • A world-changing event — the Resurrection — that is central to its claims
  • The number of manuscripts that verify Christianity’s authenticity and reliability

That’s the case for Christian Theism in a nutshell. We can be confident that our faith is justified, not because it makes us feel good about ourselves, or because it “works for us,” but because it is actually true!

Now for the hard part.

The Ultimate Apologetic

If you aren’t already familiar with the information above, it won’t seep into your brain through osmosis. You have to be dedicated to familiarizing yourself with it. In the posts that follow, I will give you resources — videos, articles, and books — to help fill in the details of each of these categories of evidence. But remember, you don’t have to become a biblical scholar and master every subject listed above in order to prepare yourself and those you love to use them. Remember, the purpose of True Horizon is to look at the world with a view from 35,000 feet.

You simply have to understand the basics and be willing to go find answers. In the meantime, here are some fundamental things to understand about what this all means and how to use it:

  1. Knowing “facts” gives you confidence to engage with others but, in the cultural climate we live in, citing facts will rarely convince others to change their minds.
  2. Your attitude may go further than your evidence in compelling others to consider what you’re saying.
  3. Asking questions is almost always more effective than making statements.
  4. Telling your story s vastly more interesting than regurgitating practiced arguments.

Finally, always remember that you are not meant to convince people to agree with you. That’s not your job. The Holy Spirit is the one who leads them to the truth. You are not the one who saves them. That’s Jesus’ job.

Your mission is simple: know and speak the truth. “Always be prepared to give a reason for the hope you have” (1 Peter 3:15). You are only meant to train those in your little corner of the world to be prepared to engage people in a winsome way.

That’s your “job.” And when you’ve done it, relax … and let God do His.

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)

Defending the Faith on Campus by Frank Turek (DVD Set, mp4 Download set, and Complete Package)

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

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

 

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Was God’s Original Creation Perfect?

Was God’s Original Creation Perfect?

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by Bob Perry

There is, and probably always will be, a debate going on between sincere Christians about the age of the Universe. I think I’ve made my position on that issue very clear. But at the core of the disagreement between the so-called “Old Earth” (OE) and “Young Earth” (YE) Creationists is their respective views of “Death before the Fall” of Adam and Eve. I fully understand the stridency on the side of my YE friends in this regard. After all, this topic is vitally important to our understanding of the entire plan of salvation. But the YE paradigm insists that the original creation was a Perfect Paradise in every way. I think they’re dead wrong about that. And my reasons are theological. Was God’s original creation perfect? I think it was. But not in the way my YE friends insist it was. It wasn’t a perfect paradise, free of death and suffering. But it was perfectly designed to achieve God’s eternal purposes. That’s a far different thing.

The Meaning of God’s “Very Good” Decree

At the center of this debate is what God meant when He declared His creation to be “very good” in Genesis 1:31. On the YE view, there is no room for interpretation of this phrase. The reasoning is straightforward. Death isn’t good. And if you think the Earth had been around for a few billion years before Adam & Eve showed up, the obvious implication is that there would have been a whole lot of “death before the fall.” God would never have created such a place. He certainly wouldn’t have called it “very good.”

Even worse, if there was death before the fall, that seems to negate the very reason that humanity needed a Redeemer. Romans 5:12 states very plainly that “… sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin …” In other words, there was no death before the fall of Adam & Eve. To say there was is to ultimately negate the very reason for which Christ had to die on the cross!

This is a big problem that needs to be addressed. I get it. And that’s why I am empathetic to the objection to an old universe with lots of death before the fall. We have to be very clear and careful about how we approach this issue.

The “Perfect Paradise Paradigm”

To do that, we should first look at a summary of the YE position. In his book, Peril in Paradise (available below), author Mark Whorton lays out five basic tenets of what he calls the YE “Perfect Paradise Paradigm.”

  1. When God declared His finished creation “very good,” He meant that it was perfect in every conceivable way.
  2. Eden was the embodiment of the Creator’s ideal intentfor His creation.
  3. Man’s sin thwarted God’s plan, shattered His ideal intent, and ruined all of His perfect creation.
  4. God introduced the physical death of man and animals as a punishment for sin.
  5. God instituted the plan of redemption to reverse the effects of Adam’s sin and restore all things back to their original intent.

This is an outline of the view most of us have probably learned about the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1. I know it’s what I was taught. But the more I’ve studied the issue, the more I found it wanting.

Problems With A Perfect Paradise

To be direct, the first point in the list above is obviously false. The creation was not perfect in every conceivable way. I say this for a few reasons …

  • Satanwas in the garden
  • The garden contained the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”

But 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us that, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

If that’s the case (and I believe it is), the Garden of Eden could not have been a “perfect paradise.” Not if something far better is coming in the future. And there’s more:

  • Adam was always required to tend to the Garden — the fall did not impose that work on him, it just made his work more
  • The curse on Eve did not originate the pain of childbirth, it increasedthe pain she would experience.

For each of these reasons, it seems pretty clear that the garden could not have been a place of “absolute perfection.” Satan, and evil, and pain cannot exist in any place that God says is “perfect.” But there is an even more obvious problem with this notion of a perfect paradise.

Words Mean Things

The more obvious problem is right there in the words. In fact, the problem is so obvious it’s hard to imagine how it ever became an issue in the first place. God said that his creation was “very good.” But …

“Very good” does not mean “perfect.”

The Hebrew phrase translated as “very good” here is: meod tob. This phrase occurs elsewhere in the Bible. But Genesis 1:31 is the only place in Scripture where some have interpreted it to mean “absolute perfection.” Why would that be?

I submit it is because we have been taught to assume the YE paradigm is true. And if it is, the Perfect Paradise Paradigm also has to be true.

I don’t know how else to put it.

Perfect Paradise Assumptions

No doubt, the Garden of Eden was a unique and specially protected place that defies our imagination. But the flaw in the Perfect Paradise Paradigm is that it assumes these conditions also existed outside the Garden. Think about that for a second. Why would the Garden need to be specially protected if the entire creation around it was also “perfect?” Secondly, where is the Scriptural evidence to support the idea that the entire Earth was a perfect paradise?

It is nowhere to be found.

There are several other logical difficulties that stem from this idea. And they are not trivial.

Animals Cursed by Death

The Perfect Paradise Paradigm demands that there was no death of any kind (including animals) before the fall. It insists that death only invaded the perfect paradise when God imposed it as a penalty after the fall of Adam & Eve. But, once again, this idea is foreign to the text. Look at Romans 5:12 again. It tells us specifically that death was imposed on “all men.” It doesn’t mention anything about animals, or anything else in the creation. Those who defend the Perfect Paradise Paradigm always quote the beginning of this verse to make the point that ” … sin entered the world [through one man], and death through sin.” They rarely acknowledge the remainder of the verse that specifically states “… and in this way death came to all men.”

My point is simple. There could well have been death in the plant and animal kingdom outside the Garden before the fall of man. Nothing in Scripture prohibits it. The only critical issue regarding death is that it was a penalty God imposed on human beings who willfully rebelled against Him. As human beings are the only moral agents with free will on the planet, it is only human beings who received the penalty for violating God’s moral law.

Carnivores

It’s pretty obvious that for animals to eat, other animals must die. But if the world was a perfect paradise with no death, it follows that there could not have been carnivorous activity either. In other words, all the animals that we now recognize as carnivores must have been herbivores before the fall. The perfect paradise model insists that these animals all changed their “behavior” by “degenerating” into carnivorous activity after the fall.

But, as Mark Whorton points out, there are enormous differences between carnivores and herbivores.

“Carnivorous digestive systems are fundamentally distinct from herbivore systems. Herbivores are able to digest the cellulose that forms the cell walls of plant while carnivores are not. Carnivores can survive without a stomach. Herbivores cannot. Carnivores can survive without microorganisms; herbivores cannot. Carnivores can survive without plant food. Herbivores cannot.”

A carnivore like a lion is a finely-tuned eating machine that is built with specific instincts, musculature, anatomy, physiology, and biochemical makeup. These are fundamentally different animals than the herbivorous creatures that would have existed prior to the fall under the Perfect Paradise model.

Defense Mechanisms

Other creatures like the bombardier beetle have always been favorites of creationists (of all stripes) because of the incredible design they exhibit in their ability to defend themselves. But why would such a creature need to defend itself before the fall if there was no death or violence to threaten it? Did a porcupine not have quills, a skunk not spray, sea urchins not have spines, or did snakes not have venom and fangs? The list of preposterous suggestions goes on and on. The design of these creatures makes no sense if they originated in a world without threats or danger.

Immune Systems

According to the Perfect Paradise Paradigm, there would have been no need for immune systems in animals because there was nothing to threaten them. Living things had nothing to fear from death through disease. Yet, these kinds of systems are highly sophisticated and built into the physical makeup of every living creature. They depend on specific physiology and use the energy resources of the body in a very integrated way. Did these systems just spontaneously appear after the fall?

Extreme Habitats

There are countless examples of organisms of all kinds that are specially adapted to the environments in which they live. Not only so, but these are parts of larger ecosystems that are also specially designed to support the food chains of their inhabitants. In a non-threatening, perfect paradise this makes absolutely no sense. If the entire planet was one giant, perfect ecosystem, there would be no need for any creature to be specially equipped to survive in its home environment.

The Most Troubling Implication 

There are plenty more examples. And all of these are fatal flaws for the Perfect Paradise Paradigm. But there is one aspect of this way of thinking that is more troubling than anything we can observe in nature.

The most harmful aspect of the paradigm is the way it sabotages the sovereignty, omniscience, and character of God.

The Perfect Paradise Paradigm implies that God created what He thought was the perfect world for humanity to enjoy. He intended mankind to live pain-free in that world forever. But we humans shattered the perfect world He had created. Worse, God never saw it coming. He was caught off-guard. And when mankind threw him the ultimate curveball, God was forced to react. He had to institute a new plan of redemption to return the creation to the way He wanted it to be.

Human sin thwarted God’s intended purpose for the creation and forced Him to invoke Plan ‘B.’

Really?

A Better Understanding

There is a better way to understand all this. Mark Whorton calls it the Perfect Purpose Paradigm. On this view, the Garden of Eden is still a special, protected place. But being protected implies there was something it needed protection from. The lack of death inside the Garden is what made it special. The world outside the Garden was dangerous. But it was designed in exactly the way God needed it to be to achieve his ultimate purpose.

On this view, the incredibly integrated design we see in nature today was not the result of some Plan ‘B’ reaction on God’s part. God didn’t have to completely alter His original creation because of something we did to screw it up.

In His perfect omniscience and foreknowledge, He designed the world to be this way. He knew exactly how He would use it to serve His purposes when the time came. Where the Perfect Paradise view insists that suffering and evil defy God’s intentions, the Perfect Purpose view recognizes their place in the story.

Ironically, if Eden was the perfection God originally intended there would be no need for a Redeemer. But that’s why the Perfect Purpose Paradigm is a more accurate view of reality.

The Perfect Purpose Paradigm

We don’t know why, but evil pre-existed the creation. The rebellion of Lucifer and his minions played a part in it all. And God’s purpose in creating the world was to defeat that evil forever. Suffering and evil are part of the creation. But God allows them here for a little while as compared to eternity. They are part of what God uses to accomplish His eternal purpose. We can see how this plays out throughout the Bible in the lives of Job, Moses, Pharaoh, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, the nation of Israel, Paul, and, yes, even Jesus.

Under the Perfect Purpose Paradigm, God’s labeling the creation “very good” is a value judgment about the where and why of His eternal plan. On this view, “very good” means “perfectly suited to the purpose for which God intended it.” It makes more sense of the words of Scripture. And it aligns more with the reality we see in the world around us.

The destination is much more wonderful than our ability to enjoy this life alone. He designed the world to allow His image-bearers to experience darkness and evil so that we would hate it as much as we should. As much as he does.

As free-will beings, our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to choose to reject evil, thereby drain it of its power, and join with God in defeating it for good. And those — His church — who choose God over evil get to spend eternity with Him.

The real purpose of it all is for us to glorify God forever.

Our Ultimate Purpose

God’s plan of redemption is not a Plan ‘B.’ It was not instituted as a reaction to our unforeseen rebellion. Instead, it was the plan for God’s perfect purpose from before the beginning of time.

Suffering and evil are here for a little while. They serve only to lead us to accomplish an eternal purpose. That purpose was not to create a perfect world. It was to perfect us so that we would be worthy of spending eternity with God.

To answer the original question, God’s creation was indeed perfect. But it was perfect in a different way than most of us have been led to believe. It was perfect because it was built to prepare us for glory in the new heaven and new earth.

That’s a perfect end. And that’s how God has always intended it to be.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Science Doesn’t Say Anything, Scientists Do by Dr. Frank Turek (DVD, Mp3 and Mp4)

Macro Evolution? I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be a Darwinist (DVD Set), (MP3 Set) and (mp4 Download Set) by Dr. Frank Turek

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons. 

Original blog: https://bit.ly/3LEzW9e 

 

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A Myth Come True

A Myth Come True

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By Bob Perry

If you’re anything like me, you probably associate the word “myth” with an ancient fairy tale. The Greek and Roman pantheon of gods comes to mind — magical spells, curses, and multi-headed monsters. But myths are more than just old-fashioned fantasies. They serve a purpose. They appeal to our collective imaginations. Myths may be fantastical but, as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary puts it, they “serve to unfold part of the worldview of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” They are archetypal stories that help us make sense of the world in which we find ourselves. In other words, there is a connection between myth and reality.

The Power of a Story

C.S. Lewis grew up a voracious reader. In 1916, while waiting for a train near London, he bought a copy of George MacDonald’s Phantastes: A Faerie Romance. The book changed his life, not because it enticed him to believe in fantasies, but because it “baptized his imagination” through the power of story. His appreciation for man’s moral imagination led to a lifetime of reading and writing stories. He later studied ancient Greek and Latin literature, philosophy, and Medieval and Renaissance literature. He taught and lectured on all of those during his 29 years as a professor at Magdalen College, University of Oxford.

Great Minds Don’t Always Think Alike

While he was at Oxford, Lewis became friends with J. R. R. Tolkien. They argued about philosophy, religion, and the existence of God. Both were storytellers. And they argued about how to tell stories too. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, believed that myths originated in the mind of God as a way to communicate his truths to the world. Lewis thought that was nonsense. Though he saw myths as beautiful charmers of our imaginations, he thought “they were lies: inventions that contain no objective truth about the world.”*

C.S. Lewis struggled with the relationship between myth, imagination, and reality for years. But it wouldn’t let him go. Finally, in 1929, alone in the quiet of his room at Magdalen College, he succumbed to God’s call. And I do mean succumbed.

The Most Reluctant Convert

Lewis describes his two-step conversion — from atheist to theist to Christian — in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy. He knew mythology. And he was intellectually honest enough to read the Christian Scriptures. Something about them rang true. Ultimately, it was his love for truth and stories that merged in the pages of the Gospels:

“I was … too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion . . . was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this …

Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another. But nothing was simply like it … And no person was like the Person it depicted; as real, as recognizable, through all that depth of time, as Plato’s Socrates . . . yet also numinous, lit by a light from beyond the world, a god … But if a god — we are no longer polytheists — then not a god, but God. Here and here only in all time, the myth must have become fact; the Word, flesh; God, Man. This is not ‘a religion,’ nor ‘a philosophy.’ It is the summing up and actuality of them all.”**

The God who became flesh made sense of the two things C. S. Lewis knew and loved the most. He surrendered to the divine call. Lewis entered God’s kingdom kicking and screaming, “the most reluctant convert in all of England.”

Storytellers

C.S. Lewis’s conversion is notorious but it’s not unique. History is littered with the accounts of reluctant converts who were struck by the peculiar force of the Christian myth. He and Tolkien became two of the most famous storytellers to do so.

“Fortified by their faith, they proclaimed for their generation — and ours — a True Myth about the dignity of human life and its relationship to God. Against all expectation, their writings would captivate and inspire countless readers from every culture and every part of the globe … as mythmakers, [their writing] created new worlds … invented new languages, and transported us into realms of brooding darkness and unforgettable beauty.”***

In the end, Tolkien and Lewis rejected the secular myth that had dragged the world through two World Wars and into the empty despair of the postmodern worldview. They were masterful at appealing to our moral imaginations. They connected myth to reality.

The True Myth

The Christian myth is a story of the struggle between good and evil. It’s a story of flawed and rebellious people, heroes, and villains. Ultimately, it’s the most fantastic story of redemption ever told. And its hero is — as my friend Tom Gilson has put it in his book by the same name — simply “too good to be false.” Gilson’s point is that Jesus of Nazareth is the most compelling character in human history for a reason. He stepped into the story he wrote.

Jesus’ life and ministry are recorded and verifiable. The veracity of the accounts of his death and resurrection are as reliable as those of any historical event. But his impact goes beyond the reliable accounts about it. As J. Warner Wallace has so clearly summarized it in his book, Person of Interest, Jesus’ life rocked the world, even for those who never believed in him. He influenced education, literature, music, art, architecture, and science in ways that no mere mortal ever could. We restarted our calendars because of his life. He quite literally changed the world by combining history’s most fascinating character with mythology’s most compelling storyline.

He brought the myth to life.

Heaven Meets Earth

In Jesus, the infinite voluntarily reduced itself to something we could see and understand. The divine put on flesh and bone. The all-powerful became a pain-feeling person who stood for the powerless. The Almighty who spoke the universe into existence took the form of a tiny, vulnerable embryo. The Great Mythical ‘I AM’ became a little boy.

Contemplating that, I was reminded of a talented musician named Rich Mullins. Mullins died tragically in a car wreck in 1997, at age 41. But his music always resonated with me. It was thought-provoking, vulnerable, and real. Rich Mullins was a storyteller. So, it’s not surprising that the same guy who wrote the classic worship song, “Awesome God,” also wrote the little tune I offer you below.

Here, Mullins does with music what C. S. Lewis did with literature. He brings the myth to life. It will never become a classic in the genre, but that’s why I consider Rich Mullins’ “Boy Like Me” to be a Christmas song. Maybe you will too …

Boy Like Me

You was a baby like I was once … You was cryin’ in the early morn’

You was born in a stable, Lord … Reid Memorial is where I was born.

They wrapped You in swaddling clothes … Me they dressed in baby blue.

Well, I was twelve years old in the meeting house, listening to the old men pray,

And I was tryin’ hard to figure out what it was that they was tryin’ to say.

There You were in the temple … They said You weren’t old enough to know the things You knew

Well, did You grow up hungry? Did You grow up fast? 

Did the little girls giggle when You walked past?

Did You wonder what it was that made them laugh?

And did they tell You stories ’bout the saints of old? Stories about their faith?

They say stories like that make a boy grow bold. Stories like that make a man walk straight.

And You was a boy like I was once … But was You a boy like me?

Well, I grew up around Indiana. You grew up around Galilee

And if I ever really do grow up … Lord, I want to grow up and be just like You.

References:

* Joseph Loconte, A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a Great War (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2015), pp. 130-131.

** C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956), pp. 236.

*** Loconte, p. 138.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

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

Cold Case Resurrection Set by J. Warner Wallace (books)   

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3HAE5IE

 

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The Resurrection Is A Historical Fact

The Resurrection Is A Historical Fact

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By Bob Perry

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:

  1. Jesus of Nazareth died by crucifixion on a Roman cross.
  2. Jesus’ disciples believed that he appeared to them after he had died.
  3. Paul, the church persecutor and sworn enemy of Christianity, was suddenly changed into its greatest advocate.
  4. James, the brother of Jesus, suddenly dropped his skepticism and became the leaderof the Jerusalem church.
  5. 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:

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Early Evidence for the Resurrection by Dr. Gary Habermas (DVD), (Mp3) and (Mp4)

Cold Case Resurrection Set by J. Warner Wallace (books)

The Footsteps of the Apostle Paul (mp4 Download), (DVD) by Dr. Frank Turek

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons

Original Blog Source: https://bit.ly/3Cp1iuE

 

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La clave para reducir el estrés en la toma de decisiones

La clave para reducir el estrés en la toma de decisiones

By Bob Perry

“What is God’s will for my life?” It’s a common question to hear from someone who is pondering a difficult life decision. Making big decisions can be confusing, but using “God’s will” as the benchmark for success adds an element of agony to it all. The key to making decision-making less stressful is to be clear about what it really means.

What if we make the wrong decision and choose the wrong place to live? The wrong job? Or, more dishearteningly, the wrong spouse? Think about it. If we marry the wrong person it means our spouse was meant to marry someone else, and the person they were meant to marry also married the wrong person. The chain of wrongly conjoined spouses soon multiplies out of control. Something must go wrong in a vision that turns a wrong decision into a global catastrophe. How can we prevent calamity and avoid uncertainty? Is decision making supposed to be so difficult?

In search of God’s will

Decision making itself is difficult, but we make it worse when we increase the burden by evaluating our options with false criteria. We misinterpret God’s will when we equate it with some kind of hidden divine plan. The reality is that any of us can evaluate our alignment with God’s will with clear assurance. To know how, we need to evaluate this reasoning with what the Bible actually says about God’s will.

“If there really is a perfect will of God for us to discover, in which we will find tremendous freedom and fulfillment, why does it seem that everyone who seeks God’s will find themselves in such bondage and confusion?”

-Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something

The hidden message

The contemporary model of Christian decision-making amounts to something like a treasure hunt. God’s will becomes a secret blueprint that has been hidden from us. We can only access it by begging God to reveal it to us in doses small enough to protect us from misuse. He whispers His revelation and guidance to us, and we must learn to listen. God uses gentle promptings to assure us that we are following the right path.

According to this method, God’s “plan for your life” is a road map that we can only decipher through careful reflection. The pressure is on us to figure out the plan or risk deviating from the course He has charted for our lives. Within this method, our anguish is understandable. The pressure to conform to the plan is enormous because the treasure we seek is not a worldly or material reward, it is the very purpose of our life.

There are two problems with this model. The first is that it becomes an exercise in trying to see the future. This is a futile task unless one is an ordained prophet endowed with the authority and responsibility that comes with that office. The second and more important problem is that this model of decision-making is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

The sovereign will of God

God has a sovereign will. He planned it before He created the universe, and He set the plan in motion at the moment of creation. It will unfold exactly the way the Creator intended. We know that. We can also be sure that we cannot know it in advance and that we cannot do anything to change it.

The Bible describes this sovereign will in passages that refer to God’s purposes. He knows the future. He brings it to pass. We can see evidence of this, but we can never see it looking forward. There is only one way to recognize God’s sovereign will. We see it looking back.

Your own life is a testament to this. Look back at all the amazing “coincidences” you have experienced in your life. Each one of them has brought you right to where you are at the present moment.

There are times when we fail to appreciate this aspect of God’s will. We want to know how things will turn out. Our motivation may be good. We may be sincere in wanting to be aligned with God’s purposes. We may be trying to avoid pain and hardship for ourselves, or trying not to hurt others. But no matter how pure our motives, this desire reveals an unwarranted concern for the future.

The moral will of God

There is a second aspect of God’s will that is very clear. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:3, “For this is the will of God, that you should be sanctified.” This is God’s moral will. It is an ongoing project, not to figure out the future He has in store for us, but to conform us to His likeness. Theologians refer to this process as “sanctification.” Sanctification is a process that begins with the renewing of our minds and continues throughout the rest of our lives. It is the process that molds our will and character to align with “God’s will—what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). Our sanctification is manifested as we live out the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). God’s moral will is for us to reflect the character of Christ.

The model of wisdom

If you keep these two aspects of God’s will in mind, we arrive at the true biblical model of decision-making. It is simple and straightforward. First, when it comes to making life decisions, God’s sovereign purposes will always come to pass, no matter what decisions you make. Next, any life choice we consider must be consistent with God’s moral will. In other words,

God’s desire is not about the details of where we go or what we do; it’s about who we are. It’s about the person we’re becoming.

If the choices we make are consistent with God’s moral standards, we are free to do whatever we want. Our motivation should be to develop wisdom, not to receive marching orders.

What the wisdom model does not say

This is not to deny that God can speak to anyone at any time. After all, God is God. But nothing in the Bible suggests that we should use the common Christian decision-making practice that has become so popular in our culture.

There is no suggestion that we should humble ourselves for guidance and then listen to God’s personal messages about what we should do. Quite the opposite. As apologist Greg Koukl says, the record shows that personalized guidance in the Bible is not only rare, it is an intrusion into the lives of those who receive it. No one in the Bible pleads for secret knowledge and then quietly awaits instruction. God’s voice is supernatural and unmistakable. Even Paul, a man who hated and persecuted Christians, heard God’s voice on the road to Damascus. In short, if God speaks to us, there will be no doubt who He is speaking, or what He is trying to say.

Do good, then do what you want

Making life decisions doesn’t have to be bewildering or overwhelming. As long as the options we consider don’t violate God’s moral boundaries, we can do whatever we want. The wisdom model allows godly believers to pursue their own desires. Once we understand it, decision-making becomes a joy. We learn to move forward in life with confidence and humility. We don’t approach life’s difficult decisions with fear and trembling. Instead, we pursue a God-centered lifestyle.

What is God’s will for your life? Paul couldn’t have made it clearer. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).”

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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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and culture at truehorizon.org. He is a contributing writer to Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of experience in military and commercial flight. He holds a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy and a MS in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown children.

Original Blog: https://cutt.ly/DEaF5n6

Translated by Elias Castro

Edited by Daniela Checa Delgado

 

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On Apologetics and Spiritual Warfare

On Apologetics and Spiritual Warfare

By Bob Perry

In my experience, the typical discussion of “spiritual warfare” centers on the stuff of the old Frank Peretti novels like This Present Darkness or Piercing the Darkness. It’s all about gargoyle-looking demons snarling on our shoulders, power plays, and satanic influences. But the whole “devil made me do it” thing has always seemed a little over-the-top to me. For that reason, it’s a subject I have mostly ignored. It certainly never seemed to have much to do with the things I like to talk about here — arguments and evidence. But it turns out there is a direct connection between apologetics and spiritual warfare. And all of us need to understand what it is.

The Balanced View

As usual, C. S. Lewis encourages us to consider a more reasonable view of the spiritual warfare than the one we usually hear:

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

~ C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

Balance is always good. And if you want an introduction to that view of spiritual warfare, there is no more entertaining way to get it than reading C. S. Lewis,’ The Screwtape Letters. The gist of the book is that Screwtape is a senior demon who is training his understudy, Wormwood, about how to best mess with humans. The book is a record of their dialogue. It’s a training manual for spiritual warfare — from the bad guys’ point-of-view.

Lewis said it was the most difficult book he ever wrote because it forced him to think backwards. God is the “enemy.” Promoting evil is Screwtape’s mission.

I’ve always enjoyed Lewis’ unique approach. But more recently, I’ve come to see spiritual warfare in an even more pragmatic way.

Close Encounters of a Different Kind

In lesson two of his 8-part course, The Bible Fast Forward, Greg Koukl makes a fantastic insight about this. He points out that much of the emphasis in the church on spiritual warfare has been on engaging in power encounters. We talk about binding, loosing, and casting out demons with specific kinds of prayers. Much like Frank Peretti, we focus on methods we can use to counteract the evil enterprises of the enemy.

But, Koukl says, Scripture suggests something different. His point is that the essential character of spiritual warfare is not about power encounters with the devil. It is about truth encounters. It’s about opposing lies and deception.

Paul’s Take on Warfare

In 2nd Corinthians 10:3-5, Paul addresses the issue this way:

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Then, in Ephesians 6, the most famously quoted Bible passage on the subject, Paul goes on to describe the fight:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

But in the plea that follows, Paul doesn’t tell the Ephesians to pray against the rulers, authorities, and powers. Rather, he tells them to pray for perseverance. He asks them to pray that he and those around him might speak the truth fearlessly.

Do you see the difference?

The Battlefield of Ideas

The weapons of spiritual warfare are thoughts. The battlefield is in our minds. And that means that an apologist — a defender of the faith — lives at the forward edge of the battle area. The battlefield is not just a place to make arguments about topics like the existence of God, the design of the universe, or the reliability of Scripture.

It’s a place to fight for the essence of truth itself.

Think about it. Normal, rationally thinking human beings could never come up with some of the ideas our culture accepts without question. Those who argue in favor of corruptions of human sexuality — things like same-sex “marriage” or gender fluidity — aren’t just arguing about the moral nature of their conduct. Reasonable people could debate that kind of thing. Instead, they are denying biological reality itself. And, as Carl Trueman puts it in his book, The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self, “many in our society [insist that] to deny it or question it in some way is to reveal oneself as stupid, immoral, or subject to yet another irrational phobia.”*

In other words, the culture holds in contempt anyone who claims to see reality for what it actually is. We have arrived at the place George Orwell warned about 100 years ago, “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Not Just A Cultural Trend

Human sexuality is at the epicenter of the cultural battles that are raging around the topics of truth and reality. But it’s not the only issue. Our society has also accepted without argument the idea that science will solve all our problems. This philosophical view is called “Scientism.” And it’s based on the notion that science and faith are in a perpetual state of war. But, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, that is a lie. Science and theology are complementary ways knowing things about the world. They are mutually reinforcing allies in the ongoing battle for the truth.

Likewise, those who foment hatred in our society do so by disingenuously politicizing the news. They do it using incidents of racism, oppression, inequity, and inclusion. Surely, we can find blatant examples of abuse with each of these. No thinking person can deny it. But that does not mean our entire society can be reduced to them. Generalizations are never a good idea. You don’t define the whole by the abuses of outliers.

But the really troubling thing about all these trends is that they are not just cultural phenomena. They are also infiltrating our churches under the banner of “Progressive Christianity” and “social justice.” I guess we should expect the world to turn things inside out and upside down. But when the church goes along with it, I don’t see any other way to explain it except as the consequence of spiritual warfare.

The “Social Justice” Deception

Back to C. S. Lewis. In one of his training sessions with Wormwood, the indomitable Screwtape hits on the topic of how to remove spirituality from the Christian’s life. His method may sound familiar:

“We want men to treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but, failing that, as a means to anything – even to social justice. The thing to do is to get a man first to value social justice as a thing which the enemy demands, and then work him on to the stage at which he values Christianity because it may produce social justice … it is quite easy to coax humans around this little corner. Only today I have found a passage in a Christian writer where he recommends his own version of Christianity on the ground that ‘only such a faith can outlast the death of old cultures and the birth of new civilizations.’ … You see the little rift? ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’  That’s the game …” (emphases mine)

Remember, Lewis wrote those words in 1942. It turns out the battle for our minds hasn’t changed much over the years. Screwtape’s minions have been wildly successful in their mission to deceive the world. Our challenges as defenders of the faith are complicated but they’re not new. When it comes right down to it, they’re as old as the Garden of Eden.

A Reason For Hope

When you see spiritual warfare this way you realize it never stops. The battle of ideas will continue far into the future. We can’t escape the battle. But we can embrace a battle plan that refuses to surrender. As Rod Dreher put it in his fantastic book, Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents,

“You have to live in a world of lies, but it’s your choice as to whether that world lives in you.”

~ Rod Dreher

If you watch the news, this can all become very discouraging. But as an apologist, we don’t have time to be discouraged. Our charge is not just to give answers. It is to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have…”

Hope.

In The Everlasting Man, G. K. Chesterton surveys the many forces that have threatened to destroy Christianity over the last 2000 years. “Time and again,” said Chesterton, “the Faith has to all appearances gone to the dogs. But each time, it was the dog that died.”

Our faith and our church have been under attack since the beginning of time. But the Bible and history are littered with examples of the saints who persevered in the face of both physical and spiritual warfare. Our time is unique in many ways. But from an eternal perspective the mission is still the same. Lies are still the enemy. And truth is still unchanging.

And that is the reason we have hope.

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)

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl (Book)

Defending the Faith on Campus by Frank Turek (DVD Set, mp4 Download set, and Complete Package)

So the Next Generation will Know by J. Warner Wallace (Book and Participant’s Guide)

Fearless Faith by Mike Adams, Frank Turek, and J. Warner Wallace (Complete DVD Series)

 

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Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and an M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/wW6E98x 

 

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