Mar 17, 2017 | Parents and Family
In my previous post I made the argument that, for Christians, having children is not an option. Just this morning I was reading Jeremiah and discovered God actually agrees with me! I’ll admit, though, that I did get the idea from him first.
The book of Jeremiah is a tough read. Knowing that it was written by what some have called “The Weeping Prophet” gives you some indication that it’s not for the faint of heart. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been conquered by the Assyrians, and now God was warning Judah, the southern Kingdom, that if they didn’t repent and change their ways, they too would suffer the same fate as their northern brethren. The Lord tells Jeremiah to warn his people that the Babylonians are coming, and that they must submit to King Nebuchadnezzar and allow themselves to be taken into exile. Do not, he seems to be saying, resist the Lord’s judgment and your lives will be spared.
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Mar 12, 2017 | Parents and Family
No, I haven’t turned into a Catholic, but Catholic teaching regarding having children is something Evangelicals should embrace. I thought of this when I read a piece recently by John Stonestreet at Breakpoint: “Fur Babies:Pets, Children, and the Triumph of Autonomy.” I know for most Evangelicals, asserting that having children is not an option is “controversial.” But I would argue that it’s only controversial because we’ve too easily been influence by the culture of autonomy Stonestreet is talking about. The word means “freedom from external control or influence; independence.” In other words, our choice is the ultimate value. In the West, and especially for Americans, choice is as sacred a right as one can possess. Why would Christians, on the other hand, think having children is a choice? It certainly doesn’t come from Scripture.
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Mar 9, 2017 | Apologetics
Most Americans do not believe that the Bible gives us reliable history, let alone a divinely inspired authoritative history we can trust for the salvation of our souls. Most Christians do believe they can trust Scripture, but few know why. This is unfortunate because in the history of the Church there has never been so many solid, scholarly, easy to understand resources available for Christians to defend that trust.
One issue that is a popular target for skeptics of the New Testament is the idea of canon, which means “a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine.” Critics of the New Testament insist that what we find in our Bible was the result of a power play by early Church Fathers. What’s at stake is the authority of what we find in our Bible. The goal of skeptics who attack our canon is to undermine that authority by claiming it’s formation was no more than some Shakespearean tragedy.
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Mar 6, 2017 | Truth
Words mean things . . . This little phrase is one my kids have heard numerous times over the years, probably more than they’d like. And words are among the most profound things about human existence because they allow us to think and communicate.
The profundity of language is built into the nature of the Christian faith. In the first chapter of the first book of our Bible we read, “And God said,” nine times, all in the context of God creating “the heavens and the earth.” Think of the power of one single atom, from which can arise immense forces of destruction. You will maybe then have some sense of the power in the words, “And God said.” He created an entire universe filled with atoms!
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Feb 28, 2017 | Parents and Family
Since the Enlightenment and the drive by Western cultural elites to make secularism the default plausibility structure of reality, the family has been under attack. It may not have appeared this way to the average mom and dad in the street until the 1960s, but many Western intellectuals have been trying to throw off the shackles (for such is how they see it) of the family for several hundred years. The successful effort to legally redefine marriage is only the latest in this long march. The family is a reflection of the very nature of God, and thus of immense importance; it’s not up for redefinition.
In Genesis 2 when God makes a “suitable helper” for Adam, he established the foundation for the family, but the Triune nature of God is the true basis on which the family exists. The essence of the Triune God is life-giving love, unlike the monism God of other religions. I was reminded anew of the beauty and logic of the Trinity recently as I thought about some who can’t or don’t accept it.
In December of 2015 a professor at Wheaton College, the well known Evangelical college in Illinois, made the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. The two religions venerate the Old Testament, but the Gods they worship couldn’t be more different. I also recently learned about a Christian sect called Apostolic Pentecostalism which rejects the Trinity. For them God is one, end of story. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are only different revelations of the one God, not three persons in one as understood since the first church Council of Nicea in 325. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses also have the trappings of Christianity, but deny its core. While adherents of these religions think the Trinity is illogical, it actually makes total sense logically. (more…)
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