In these current times when issues of truth about Jesus and Christianity come up, what we don't want to do is this.

 

(HT:  Marko)

In a new documentary titled "The Lost Tomb of Jesus" set to air on Sunday, James Cameron attempts to prove that archeologists have discovered not only Jesus' bones, but the bones of his mother, wife, child, and brother.  If true, it would be the end of Christianity.  As Paul said, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins…[and] we are of all men most to be pitied."

 

But (surprise, surprise) it turns out there are few problems with the evidence.  I suspect we'll get a full refutation as time goes on, but for now, read about the situation in this article, see Ben Witherington's post for a quick response here, and see the STR blog for a note from Christian historian Paul Maier.

 

Regardless of how good the responses are, though, I'm sure people will quickly latch on to this story as a reason to reject Jesus' claims.  This is good PR news for Cameron.  With Jesus out of the way, this discovery should add some serious weight to his bid for King of the World.

In his book of children's poems, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein has this poem titled "The Land of Happy":

Have you been to The Land of Happy,
Where everyone's happy all day,
Where they joke and they sing
Of the happiest things,
And everything's jolly and gay?
There's no one unhappy in Happy,
There's laughter and smiles galore.
I have been to The Land of Happy--
What a bore!

Growing up, this poem was unsettling to me; to affirm it seemed somehow wrong, and yet I knew it to be true.  I much preferred books, movies, and television shows that included bad guys and the people fighting to stop them over stories about people living happily and somewhat non-eventfully.  I couldn't reconcile my preference with the fact that heaven would have none of this excitement; what was wrong with me that I didn't prefer the Land of Happy?

It's taken me years, but I finally see now that there's no contradiction between 1) loving, honoring, and desiring good and 2) preferring stories with bad guys over the Land of Happy.  I was drawn to stories with evil and suffering not because I was attracted to the evil, but because that evil brought out the glory and character of the good that struggled against it; it was the response of goodness that I was tuning in to see.  The characters in those stories who rose up against the bad guys revealed the power and beauty of goodness in a way that an unprovoked--though perfectly good--character would not.

I'm not saying that goodness needs evil to exist--that would be nonsense.  I'm saying that there are aspects of goodness and God's character (which is the definition of goodness) that we would never understand, appreciate, or glorify were we not to see Him interact with a sinful world.

Let me explain what I mean.  Think of all the heroes of 9/11--those who saved others, often at the cost of their own lives.  The day before 9/11, those people shopped, put gas in their cars, and fed their kids.  Nobody could see the depth of their character by watching them do these ordinary things; it took something as horrible as 9/11 to reveal their strength, courage, and selflessness to the world even though those traits already existed within each of them. 

In the same way, God's character would have been the same regardless if sin had ever come into the world, but there would have been many aspects of Him that we would never have seen, experienced, or understood, and so we would have known Him less deeply.  God would have been just (as He always was), but without judgment, would we have known?  God would have been merciful and forgiving, but without our need for mercy, would we see this?  The very words "judgment" and "mercy" would be meaningless to us. 

The aspects of God's character we learn about now from our suffering will make our time with Him in eternity even more glorious.  But after sin has served its purpose here, we won't need it to continue.  We'll have all of human history on which to reflect in order to truly know God's character, and all of eternity to enjoy Him face to face in peace.

He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
And it will be said in that day,
"Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation."

Isaiah 25:8-9

Some how many Christians have adopted the notion that if they put forward the right arguments for Christian truth claims (such as God’s existence or Christ’s resurrection), then they can persuade any person to become a Christian. These Christians are often disappointed and dismayed when they’re best efforts seems to go no where. Dr. James W. Sire explores why this is the case in Why Good Arguments Often Fail.

The book is divided in three parts consisting of 12 chapters. Part 1 examines the most common logical fallacies by reflecting on a “Love is a Fallacy” by Max Shulman. Part 2 looks beyond logical fallacies to issues of character, perception, worldviews (naturalism and postmodernism), and sin. In Part 3, Dr. Sire offers two persuasive approaches, one from the Apostle Paul in Acts 17 and one from his own experience. The last chapter is a thorough annotated bibliography divided into ten categories.

I think there are primarily two reasons people should buy this book. The first is that Part 1 of the book is an excellent introduction to basic critical thinking. Dr. Sire takes seemingly abstract rules of logic and makes them tangible through clear explanations and applications to arguments against Christianity and even a few bad arguments Christians sometimes put forward. The second reason this book is worthwhile is for the bibliography at the end. It is a handy guide that covers most apologetic issues in great detail.

While apologetics deals primarily with intellectual issues for rejecting Christianity, almost every non-Christian (if not all) have other issues that must be dealt with. This book acknowledges this by addressing the character of the Christian evangelist and the “moral blindness” of the non-Christian. However, it’s general approach is of an intellectual nature and I think it’d be stronger if it dealt with sin and psychological issues to a further extent.

Why Good Arguments Often Fail is a much needed book to help Christians think more critically about the arguments they put forward for Christianity. Dr. James W. Sire’s experience and wisdom provides ample illustrations and insights that can make our overall case for Christ more persuasive to non-Christian ears.

Dr. Bruce Metzger past away Tuesday. John Piper and Ben Witherington have published reflections. (HT: Between Two Worlds) Dr. Metzger so profoundly influenced New Testament studies that he was certainly among the most important of twentieth century scholars.

Major media has again displayed its utter moral bankruptcy. It's grossly obsessed with the death of Anna Nicole Smith, someone who had basically no influence on our society, and yet it barely flinched at a Muslim who killed 5 people in a Utah mall. The act of terrorism was mostly ignored, and that is a significant reason why we will likely suffer another 9-11 type of attack. Our culture is too deep in celebrating plastic people to notice that it's falling apart.

Dr. Gordon Lewis has written a brief yet substantive letter to Christianity Today responding to Scot McKnight's article on the "Five Streams of the Emerging Church." (HT: Groothuis)

I'm getting rather sick of the major Republican candidates for President in 2008. Each of them appears strong on one or two important issues, but repugnant when it comes to all the others. While media swarms the guys with make-up, I'm looking into some guys with substance, such as Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul.

Somewhere between funny and disturbing: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.

Dr. Bruce Edwards, one of the predominant C.S. Lewis scholars of our time, edited a 4 volume work on Lewis due out in April. He'll also be a plenary speaker at what looks to be a great October conference in North Carolina. Anyone interested in meeting me there?

The U.S. Mint released the first of it's Presidential $1 Dollar coins today, bearing the likeness of George Washington. Thankfully, these coins are better looking than the ugly Sacagawea Dollar. It will stimulate more coin collecting, which is good for my job (at a coin shop), but since most Americans prefer paper dollars to coins, I don't think they'll make much difference in the long run. Speaking of coins, I think there should be more coin collectors blogging.

For those of you who play the 24 drinking game, which depends upon Jack yelling "Dammit!", I don't think this season has been very eventful. Maybe we should change it to a shot for every Bauer family member who betrays Jack and their country.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Lucy Pevensie found an interesting book on her friend’s bookshelf titled Is Man a Myth? The subject matter makes sense from a world in which no human had been for quite some time. But even in our world questions about what it means to be human are at best unresolved by our culture. In Mere Humanity, Donald T. Williams explores humanity in the work of G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Mere Humanity consists of an introduction, six chapters, concluding thoughts, and two appendices. In between each of these are one-page poetic “interludes” that reflect on various aspects of humanity. Over the six chapters, Dr. Williams analyzes The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton, “On Faerie Stories” and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, and The Abolition of Man, The Space Trilogy, and The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.

Continue reading this review at Never Enough Tea.

Doug Pagitt and his emerging church on Christianity, including their view of you if you're conservative:

 

 

Now compare that to these.

In his post, "God Hates Inequality," Jim Wallis argues that the Bible demands we raise the minimum wage because God hates inequality.

Leaving aside the issue of hermeneutics regarding the passage Wallis chose to support his position and the question of whether or not we should raise the minimum wage, I actually have no reason to think that God hates inequality (in terms of results, not in terms of unjustly applied laws and oppression) as Wallis's title says.  That seems to be more of a Marxist idea than a biblical one.

I think He hates greediness, injustice (e.g., withholding a person's agreed-upon wages, using dishonest scales, accepting bribes), oppression (e.g., imposing heavy rent and tribute, keeping the clothes off people's backs as pledges overnight, inflicting violence), a lack of giving, and suffering.  But inequality--the mere fact that some people have more than others?  I'm not sure I see that condemned in the Bible.  

A couple years back, a law was passed by the people of California that compelled everyone who makes over a million dollars to pay an extra tax.  This really disturbed me.  I don't like the idea of people taking from others just because they have more.  The Mosaic Law not only says we're not to favor the rich, it also says we're not to favor the poor.  We're also not to covet what the rich have, nor are we to take what is theirs for our own, regardless of how much they have.

Wallis uses the following argument to support his position:

The average worker [in America] has to work a whole year to make what their boss makes in one day. This is wrong; it's an injustice; it's a theological issue.

An injustice?  Because one person makes more than another?  Even though the standard of living for all our people is so much higher than nearly every (if not every) other country in the world?  I don't like the fact that the word "justice" is now being used to mean "equality."  The two words are not synonymous.  For example, I worked in the film industry, and I knew the outrageous amounts some people were paid, but this never made me angry.  Just because I had to work one and a half weeks to make what the Director of Photography made in one day (that's eight years to make what he makes in one--and our production assistants would have to work fifteen), was that an injustice?  I think Wallis has a misunderstanding of what justice is.  I was not oppressed by the mere fact that someone was making so much more money than I was, nor was I cheated in any way.  We were all paid the amounts for which we agreed to work at the agreed upon time; we were treated equally justly, though we had unequal results.

Perhaps Wallis is confusing justice and equality because he assumes that if anyone does have a great deal more money than others, that person must be dishonest and/or an oppressor (another residue of Marxism, I think), but this is not the case.  It's possible to be wealthy and still giving, righteous, and even good.  Look at Job.  Job stole no money from others, neither did he oppress anyone.  He and his servants were unequal, yet he was approved by God.  How could this be?  Because Job was just, and that is the category that God cares about, not inequality.

(HT:  Sacred Frenzy)

Part One of this series. Audio of the whole sermon.
Part Two of this series.
Part Three of this series.

How Do We Pursue the Proper Role of the Bible in Evangelism?

So far we have seen why the Bible has a role in evangelism and what that role is. But how can we pursue this role? How can we make application of this to our lives? I believe there are three closely related ways we can do this:

1)      First and foremost, we must dedicate ourselves to personally studying and meditating on the rich truths found in God’s Word. This really is the point of this Sola Scriptura series. The Bible is true and authoritative in and of itself, but its purpose is to be proclaimed and applied to our lives.

If we want to understand the trustworthiness of the Scriptures, we must investigate what it says. If we want to have a fully functioning community that glorifies God, we must treasure God’s Word together. If we want to live lives that reflect God righteousness, we must apply His Word to our lives with humility and without hesitation. And if we want to evangelize in a manner that will best communicate the Gospel to our fallen world, we must study the message of the Bible and discover how it directs our means for evangelism.

2)      Secondly, we must seek out experienced Bible teachers to guide us through the difficult passages we will find. Not many of us here, if any, know enough Greek and Hebrew or historical contexts to understand everything the Bible has to offer. We must adopt the discipline of learning from those who have more knowledge and wisdom than us in order to make the most of our time spent in the Bible.

3)      Thirdly, we must hold each other accountable to what is taught in the Scriptures. As members of Christ’s body we each bear the responsibility to sharpen one another according to what is required of us by God’s Word. In this way, we live out what we saw in Colossians as the foundation for Biblical community: teaching and admonishing each other according to the rich words of Jesus Christ.

Part One of this series. Audio of the whole sermon.
Part Two of this series.

The Role of the Bible in Evangelism: Foundation for the Tools of Evangelism

When we talk about evangelism, we usually do not simply mean the content of the Gospel. We often have in mind the means of communication for the Gospel as well. Such means include apologetics, community, and right living. But these means are not independent tools for us to use as we wish. Every means for evangelism must be rooted in the foundation of the Bible. The authority of the Bible applies to each of these means and it provides guidelines for how to appropriately use these means. Therefore, the secondary role of the Bible in evangelism is to provide a foundation the means of evangelism.

Apologetics:

Let’s first look at how the Bible provides foundational guidelines for apologetics. Traditionally, to give an apology has meant to give a defense. So when we discuss Christian apologetics, we’re talking about defending the Christian faith. The Bible describes apologetics and one of its core principles in 1 Peter 3:15-16:

1 Peter 3:15-16 “But in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

Not only are we to be prepared to give a defense for our beliefs, but we must follow the guideline of being gentle and respectful of those we’re conversing with.

Some people claim that the Bible provides the foundation for a specific method of apologetics. These people generally divide into two camps: Evidentialists, those who focus on using evidences for Christianity such as the facts surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, and Presuppositionalists, those who focus on dismantling the hidden assumptions non-Christians use to form their beliefs such as the idea that the physical natural world is all that exists. Much ink has been spent debating between these two sides, sometimes to the extent that more care is given to developing the so-called correct methodology than actually doing apologetics and presenting the Gospel to non-believers.

So what might we say about apologetic methodology? Do we focus strictly on evidences or on people’s presuppositions? (In posing this question, I acknowledge that many Presuppositionalists, for example, do include evidences in their apologetic. However, I've been told by several Presuppositionalists that using evidences is some how offensive to God. So I think the question is fair as it relates to those who draw such a drastic dichotomy.) I believe the Bible suggests a coherent balance between the two. Let’s look to Paul’s address in Athens as an example of how this might work:

Acts 17:22-31 “So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

We should keep in mind that what we have here is likely a summary of Paul’s message. However, speeches in the Areopagus often when on for hours. Our pastor would have fit in well there. Paul went first to the presuppositions of the Athenians. He addressed their belief in an unknown god, and argued that the God of the universe is knowable and described how we might know him. Paul concluded with evidential claims about Jesus’ resurrection, and according to the verses that follow, these claims divided the crowd. Some mocked and some joined him.

The methodological principle we find for apologetics in the Bible is not strict presuppositionalism or strict evidentialism. Rather, we find that different means are used according to different circumstances and the people being evangelized.

Community:

Another means for evangelism is community. Sean did an excellent job of exploring the relationship between Sola Scripture and community a couple of weeks ago, and I wish to expand upon some of his points here. Paul painted a great picture of what community looks like in his letter to the Colossians…

Colossians 3:16-17 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

This is a key expression of what our community should look like when it is founded upon the Bible. Community begins with the word of Christ and we are to let it dwell in us and use it to teach and admonish one another. But our community is not for our benefit only. Our community is to be a demonstration of Christ’s love and as such is a means for communicating the Gospel message. In John 17, a passage we’ll get to in a few years, we find Jesus praying for his disciples.

John 17:20-21 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also might be in us, so that the world may believe that you send me.”

Francis Schaeffer offered an important reflection upon this passage:

“Jesus goes on in this 21^st verse to say something that always causes me to cringe. If as Christians we do not cringe, it seems to me we are not very sensitive or very honest, because Jesus here gives us the final apologetic. What is the final apologetic? ‘That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.’ That is the final apologetic… We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and the Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of the oneness of true Christians.”

In other words, our ability to love one another as a unified body of Christ is a measure of our ability to evangelize. If we cannot love one another as a harmonized community, then God will have little use for us in saving the lost.

Right Living:

Last week, Chris explored the relationship between sanctification and Sola Scriptura, and I wish to expand on this to as it related to right living as a means of evangelism. First, we find in 2 Timothy that the Bible is the appropriate foundation for how we are to live our lives…

2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

Every good thing we do is rooted in and directed by what we find in God’s Word as He applies it to our lives. Through learning about His Word our minds become transformed as was emphasized last week through Romans 12:1-2. There is, of course, some overlap between our personal actions and how we act as a community. We are responsible to show unity as a community, and we are also personally responsible to show love toward one another.

John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus claimed here that the world will be able to judge whether or not we are Christians by the love we show for each other. If we cannot, as individuals, also reflect the love of Christ in our lives, then we will be no different from the world around us.

Now there are some who say that our primary focus in evangelism should be on apologetics, or on community, or on right living. Many of us have heard that line from St. Francis of Assisi “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” While all of these things are helpful, good, and required of us as Christ’s ambassadors to the world, words are necessary. Apologetics, community, and right living in relation to evangelism are simply means to an end. The ultimate end is the presentation of the Gospel message. To have great arguments for the Christian faith, a loving community, or a moral lifestyle alone for the purpose of evangelism is to miss the point completely. The point of all of this is to get to what the Bible declares to be the good news for those who are dead in sin.