Notable Quotations-Thomas Sowell

Notable Quotations-Thomas Sowell

Oct 25, 2023 | Notable Quotations

In 1987, Sowell published A Conflict of Visions. In this now-classic, he offers a simple and powerful explanation of why people disagree about politics. We disagree about politics, Sowell argues, because we disagree about human nature. We see the world through one of two competing visions, each of which tells a radically different story about human nature.

Those with “unconstrained vision” think that humans are malleable and can be perfected. They believe that social ills and evils can be overcome through collective action that encourages humans to behave better. To subscribers of this view, poverty, crime, inequality, and war are not inevitable. Rather, they are puzzles that can be solved. We need only to say the right things, enact the right policies, and spend enough money, and we will suffer these social ills no more. This worldview is the foundation of the progressive mindset.

By contrast, those who see the world through a “constrained vision” lens believe that human nature is a universal constant. No amount of social engineering can change the sober reality of human self-interest, or the fact that human empathy and social resources are necessarily scarce. People who see things this way believe that most political and social problems will never be “solved”; they can only be managed. This approach is the bedrock of the conservative worldview.

—Konstantin Kisin-The Day the Delusions Died

Believe It or Not, God Wants to Bless Us

Believe It or Not, God Wants to Bless Us

Oct 23, 2023 | Theology

Most of my life I didn’t really believe this. I would never have said that explicitly, but somewhere inside I think I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, something bad to happen. We all know life can be really hard, but “life” is not sovereign, God is. We all, however, tend to live by circumstances and not by faith or trust in God (faith and trust are synonymous). We in effect judge the character of God by our circumstances. How many people rejected or leave Christianity because their lives are a horrible disappointment, and they blame God? A lot. Loss and grief have created many a heathen. Yet from Scripture we see that this has always been so for God’s people. They, like we, are always confused and wondering what God’s up to. Living by sight and not trust is nothing new, and God doesn’t seem the least bit embarrassed telling us this is par for the course; get used to it.

Before I get to justifying my assertion of God’s intention to bless us, one of the most powerful passages in Scripture of trusting God in spite of the circumstances comes from the last verses of Habakkuk. In the face of impending judgment things are looking really bad to the prophet, but he utters these amazing words:

17 Though the fig tree does not bud
    and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
    and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
    and no cattle in the stalls,
18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
    he enables me to tread on the heights.

In the ancient world it could not get any worse, but he decided to trust the Lord anyway. That’s always the bottom line, isn’t it? Are we going to trust God, or our lyin’ eyes. Knowing and believing God’s intention is always blessing is critical if we’re going to resist the temptation to live by circumstances. The temptation itself comes from the pit of hell. It’s the same one Satan used to seduce Eve to distrust the goodness and love of God by implying He’s a liar. Because this is the fundamental temptation of human existence, to trust God or not, we need to be rooted in what God actually says about the life He’s granted us in Christ. To do this we need to go back to the very beginning and build from there.

In the face of man’s rebellion, God pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve, but provided a solution by clothing them and covering their nakedness and shame, promising a deliverer, a Savior. He promised them the woman’s offspring would crush the serpent’s head, and the serpent would strike this offspring’s heel. In other words, this was going to be a nasty business—ergo life! Conflict is at the heart of existence, and the biggest mistake people make is thinking it shouldn’t be, that life should be smooth sailing or . . . . something is wrong! No there isn’t. Our confidence and hope is that God uses the friction of life, the challenges and unpleasantness of it for our good and His glory. Trust says He loves us and everything that happens in life, good, bad, and in between, is for those ends. Without trust, we are slaves of circumstance.

Believing this, I am convinced God’s purpose for our lives is blessing, our happiness, our flourishing, our fulfillment, our joy. He doesn’t just want us to survive but to thrive. Does that mean there will not be struggle and real suffering? Of course not. If what God calls us to is really hard, serious suffering, we live forever so it’s all temporary. As Paul says, himself no stranger to suffering, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). The point of suffering in the Christian life is that it has a purpose; it isn’t just to crush us, but to crush us and remake us in the image of His Son. And so Paul also tells us, our “labor in the Lord is not in vain” (I Cor. 15:58).

As for the big picture of blessing, some time ago I came across a lecture by Dr. Mark Futato of Reformed Theological Seminary overviewing Genesis. For him the key text of the book comes from Chapter 12: 

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 

2 “I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you.”

He argues the key theme from these verses is “blessing for the nations.” God is specifically establishing his covenant with Abram so through him and his offspring the nations will be blessed. If Dr. Futato were to reduce Genesis to one word it would be blessing which is used over 65 times. What struck me was his definition of blessing: empowerment. When God blesses people He empowers them to do a wide variety of things, as he puts it, “God empowers people to flourish.” I love that! Secularists paint Christianity as repressive and intolerant, but what it represses and doesn’t tolerate is sin! Sin destroys everything it touches and makes true flourishing impossible. It is by definition dis-empowering. Jumping forward two thousand years, Jesus says the same thing (John 10:10): 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 

From Genesis 3 on, God promised this blessing in spite of the damage of the Serpent’s strike. Jesus tells the obvious us in John 16:33, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” We know from God’s own words, from the very beginning the fallen world, i.e., Satan, has no chance—he gets crushed! That doesn’t sound ambiguous to me; it has the scent of victory. I’ve come to see God’s promise in the garden as the microcosm of all of history, and Jesus’ words reflect that. Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to reign at the right hand of God overcomes Adam’s sin in space and time, and fully at his return and the consummation of all things.

We see throughout Genesis and in God’s covenant promises to Abram that these blessings are to touch so many people they literally can’t be counted (sand of the seashore, stars in the sky, and dust of the earth). God is not miserly in spreading his blessings on earth! And because of His covenant promise immediately after the fall, we realize all of it is done in the face of a cosmic spiritual war to frustrate the devil’s plans. We, the fallen myopic sinners we are, think the devil is there to frustrate God’s plans. He can’t do that! He’s a puppet on string in this unfolding drama. God, however, gives him sway so it will never be easy and will be done in the face of constant adversity and opposition, but through which we can rejoice in the victory already won by our risen Lord. We must always remember this big, huge, gargantuan picture is the context of our lives (Eph. 6:12). And we must also remember Christ ascended to heaven after the resurrection to be seated at the right hand of the Father to reign over all things, again for us and His glory (Eph. 1:15-23). It is no coincidence that the theme of the first book of the Bible, the foundation upon which our faith is built, is blessing. God wants to bless us! And the nations!

Looked at personally, for each one of us, Jesus confirms this in Matthew 7:

11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 

How . . . much . . . more! If you have children you know what he means, and multiply that by God and you have a sense of just how much He wants to give us good gifts. Luke’s version (I’m sure Jesus said both many times) is that we ask for the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13). That’s the perfect complement to Matthew’s because it is the Holy Spirit who applies the redemption accomplished by Christ in our lives and the world. At the individual level that’s called the blessing of sanctification. At the societal level that’s God advancing His kingdom as Christ reigns for the building of his church to accomplish that, spreading his blessings to the ends of the earth just as he promised Abram.

Persuasive Christian Parent: Teach Your Children Christianity is True!

Persuasive Christian Parent: Teach Your Children Christianity is True!

Oct 19, 2023 | Parents and Family

If you want to be a persuasive Christian parent, and you want your children’s faith to endure for their entire lives, teach them Christianity is true. It’s pretty simple, actually, but it takes work. I’ll justify that briefly below, but having written a book about being a Persuasive Christian Parent, I am convinced parents’ influence on their children is the primary influence on whether they maintain their faith throughout their lives. I know many Christians don’t buy this. They’ve seen children grow up in perfectly fine Christian homes and abandon the faith to one degree or another. They conclude, not unreasonably, that while parents certainly have a significant influence on their children, it is ultimately limited. I reject that. I go into some detail about this in the book, so I can’t do it here. You’ll just have to trust me, or read the book (you’ll be able to listen to the audio book in the not too distant future).

For mom and dad this is going to take some work. If your child came up to you and asked: “Mom, Dad, why do you believe Christianity is true?” Could you give them a credible answer? Be honest. If you stammer, or give them a half-baked answer, you need to get to work. I would like to commission a study, and I suspect I know what the conclusion would be. The study would be of all the young people, says 20s and 30s, who have gone through what we now call “deconversion.” If they grew up in a Christian household, we would ask them a simple question: “Did your parents teach you that Christianity was true, and why it is?” I am convinced the overwhelming majority would answer, no. Or if they did, it wasn’t very persuasive. The reason is that most Christian parents know what they believe, basic gospel, but have very little understanding of why they believe it, why their faith is “justified true belief.” Not teaching our Children why Christianity is the truth about the ultimate nature of things in this secular age leaves them susceptible to the lies of secularism they swim in every day.

The reason I was prompted to write this was because of an Apologetics Canada podcast I recently listened to. It confirmed exactly what I’m saying. The guest was John Marriot who has written five books on people walking away from their faith. He’s interviewed many such people and read hundreds of accounts and found that people don’t walk away because they want to sin more, etc. They say it comes down to no longer believing Christianity is the truth. He tends to believe them. When I heard that I instantly thought of my book, especially the second section on, “It’s All About Truth.” I felt so strongly about the Truth of the matter that when I first started thinking about writing the book, I decided this would be the first chapter. It turned out being chapters 3 and 4 because I felt “It’s All About Parents” was more important to establish up front. To decrease the odds that our children will experience a deconversion as they grow up in a hostile secular culture, the most important thing we can do for them, by far, is to persuade them Christianity is the truth.

Secularism Is Dead
We are living in a secular culture that daily attempts to drown us in its godless worldview. It is critical to understand this is not a threat to our children’s faith. Most Christians will not agree with that assertion. The problem seeing secularism as a threat gives it far too much credit as a credible alternative to Christianity. It is not! In fact, secularism (life without God) is a pathetically weak alternatives that gives zero answers to life’s most pressing questions. Why is it in an utterly secular culture, in the most prosperous country in the history of the world, almost 50,000 people successfully killed themselves last year? Does a God-less worldview have any answers to this beside drugs and therapy? It does not. Secularism is an almost 400 year-long experiment in futility. Once reason usurped God’s throne he was slowly set aside as necessary to a functioning society. But something ironic happened on the way to the coronation of God-lessness. It completely failed. Secularism is dead. It has been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

Therefore, there is nothing to fear from it. As I say in the book, our secular culture is the best friend of our children’s faith. I’ve used the culture all their lives, and still do as they are adults, to defend and argue for the truth of Christianity. Bottom line: If our children are to not only have their faith survive but thrive, they must be convinced with every ounce of their being that Christianity is the ultimate truth about the nature reality. How do we do that? Well, you’ll have to read the book to see how I did it, and see if you think I make my case. For a short blog post I can only do so much, but if you are one of those Christians who realize you need to work on your apologetic chops hopefully this will wet your whistle enough to check out the book.

Think about it. If your children are convinced Christianity is true, could anything make them walk away from it? Most if not all those who walk away from the faith never study apologetics, history, philosophy, or theology in any depth. They don’t come to their rejection after a thorough examination of the evidence. I’m sure after whatever input they’ve received, Christianity is no longer plausible to them, it no longer seems true, or seems real. This brings up a concept called plausibility structures, or the framework in our minds that makes certain things seem true to us and other things not true. It isn’t that they are true or not true, but that they seem so. I address this in a couple chapters of the book, but for those who reject the Christianity they once believed in, it simply no longer seems true to them, is no longer plausible. They’ve lived in a secular plausibility structure for so long with no counter narrative that Christianity doesn’t really have a chance.

There is No Such Thing as an Unbeliever
(This is going to be the title of a book I want to write in the not too distant future, God willing. That’s how important this is.)

One the most pernicious of the many lies of secularism is that if you’re not a Christian or “religious” then you don’t need faith. The uncritically accepted assumption of almost all people in the West is that if you’re not “religious” then you don’t need to believe things. Only “religious” people believe things, only “religious” people need faith. So the person who decides to reject the Christianity they once believed in thinks they are going from faith to not-faith, from belief to-not belief. What they fail to realize, and what is likely never pointed out to them, is that they are going from one faith to another. After they no longer embrace Christianity they are every bit the “religious” believer as they were before. Only there is far less evidence and plausibility for the veracity of their new faith than Christianity—and it’s not even close!

The question is always what we believe or have faith in, and why we believe it, not whether or not we have faith. The people who turn away from Christianity can tell you plenty of reasons why they no longer believe in it, but zero reasons for their newfound faith. They are under impression they gave up “faith” when they gave up Christianity. In defending Christianity to such people, in what we call apologetics (see I Peter 3:15), they are very easy to deal with. Probably one in a million can give a coherent defense of their new worldview, their new faith. Just asking the rest what they now believe in and why they believe it will leave them dumbfounded. They’ll likely think it’s a meaningless question because they’re no longer “religious.” I’m confident you’ll get a strange look, but it’s a wonderful question to begin a conversation if they’re open to it. If this happens to be one of your children, it’s a good question to get them thinking they don’t exist in some faith-neutral place where they don’t have to make decisions about what they believe and why.

A great phrase to keep in mind when grappling with such things is “the consideration of the alternative.” If we don’t believe in one thing then we are forced to believe in the alternative. Agnosticism is not an alternative but a copout for not thinking seriously about serious things. We may encounter people who just have no desire to think about or discuss serious things, and we just love them and pray. It is all, of course, up to the Holy Spirit, so we pray. However, and this gets us to the work part, we work like it depends on us. The saying goes, we work like it depends on us, and pray because it depends on God. What work am I talking about? Our apologetics chops. Each of us must ask ourselves, how good are we are defending the veracity Christianity. If most Christians are honest, they will have to say . . . . terrible.

Get to Work
That was the word I used about myself back in 2009 (along with horrible and pathetic). I had an encounter with a co-worker and it was embarrassing. He wouldn’t have noticed, but I sure did. After that I committed myself to put in the work. I got a little MP3 player (I still use one!) and listened to everything I could find. I also read everything I could get my hands on. I was determined in Paul’s words to Timothy, to study to show myself to God as one approved (2 Tim. 2:15). The word study (KJV) or do your best in Greek means “(figuratively) to move speedily by showing full diligence (fully applying oneself).” This is not just for professional ministers as was Timothy, but to every single Christian. If we’re honest most of us are lazy. There are many things in life more important to us than our Christianity. This is, I know, tough love. Most Christians know far more about their careers or hobbies than they know about their Christianity, and that ought not to be.

Just going to church on Sunday and reading our Bibles is not enough. Per Peter’s command, if we’re always to be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that that have, that is going to take time and effort. There really is no excuse nowadays with the Internet to not show ourselves as one approved when it comes to defending our faith, and that is first to ourselves. Once we are fully convinced and know why, we can share that with others. If we have children, we too can become persuasive Christian parents and have confidence our children will have a faith that endures for life. What we will realize the longer we study and the more we teach is what C.S. Lewis said was the reason he believed in Christianity:

 I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.

This is what we have to pass on to our children! Christianity, God in Christ, makes sense of literally every single thing of existence. When they are convinced of this any kind of secular alternative to Christianity will appear to them as the phony worthless alternative it is. God has seen to it by providing for us everything we need for building an enduring faith in both us and our children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Christian Life of Repentance

The Christian Life of Repentance

Oct 16, 2023 | The Gospel

Martin Luther nailed his world-changing 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Writing in Latin to engage clergy in debate about the propositions, not to start a Reformation, it was translated into German and because of Guttenberg’s press soon spread all over Europe and started a spiritual and cultural conflagration. Whether or not Luther intended it to be the most important, the first thesis certainly is:

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

The longer I’m on this journey with Jesus the more I understand how true this is. There was a time in Jesus’ ministry when he was eating with “tax collectors and sinners.” The religious professionals didn’t like that one bit, so Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Here we see the essence of the Christian life. Those who think they’re doing fine, who see themselves as morally healthy, will see no need for a Savior. On the other hand, those who have a conscience beset by doubt about their own moral worth know they need something. Whether that brings them to a Savior is God’s work.

When reading this passage in Luke 7 recently I was struck by repentance as almost a Continental Divide in the human heart:

29 All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right, because they had been baptized by John. 30 But the Pharisees and the experts in the law rejected God’s purpose for themselves, because they had not been baptized by John.

Luke doesn’t tell us here what the baptism of John meant, but in chapter 3 says it was a “baptism of repentance.”

Before we explore that, we need to understand that repentance doesn’t save someone, as if being sorry for our sins somehow makes us acceptable to God. Prior to his conversion, Luther basically thought it did. Catholic teaching calls it the Sacrament of Penance, and Luther took it to mean he needed to pay for his own sins through self-inflicted suffering. Mercifully, God saved him from himself and triggered the Reformation as he was studying and teaching the book of Romans. He came across this verse in chapter 1:

17 For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

The proverbial lightbulb when on for Luther, and the direction of Western civilization changed in that moment. He realized no matter how sorry he was, no matter how much repentance or penance he engaged in, he could never make himself righteous before God. The righteousness of God, he now knew, could only be had by faith, by trust, not by works. All of a sudden he saw the good news! We Evangelicals who are all about the gospel sometimes fall into this trap. We’ll tend to think the more I feel sorry for my sin, the worse I feel about it, acknowledge how worthless and horrible a sinner I am, the more God will like me, or something like that. God doesn’t forgive us, though, based on how sincere our confession or repentance is, but because of Christ. Thus the Apostle John writes in I John 1:9:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I’ll never forget hearing Chuck Swindoll preach on this verse saying because God is just he has no choice; he has to forgive our sin when we confess. Our feeling of remorse isn’t the issue. Because of what Christ accomplished for us in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, God in His justice has to forgive us. Do we feel horrible and guilty for our sin? Of course, or we should, but that’s not the thing. The reason God forgives us is His integrity not how sorry we are. We simply look to the cross and we know.

Theologically, this is based on a covenant, a promise, the eternal Triune God made with Himself prior to creating the world—it is that which determines our salvation, not us. This is known as the covenant of redemption. When the creation fell into sin through man’s rebellion, God promised He would save it by giving a people to the Son who would save them (election in biblical terms). After Jesus accomplished redemption for His people (Matt. 1:21), he ascended to His coronation as king in heaven sitting at the right hand of the Father, and from there sent His Holy Spirit to apply the redemption He had accomplished on earth. Here is where we get back to the passage in Luke 7 and consider the meaning of repentance.

What Came First, The Chicken or the Egg
Those who were baptized by John having repented of their sins were able to “acknowledged that God’s way was right.” Those who did not, who “rejected God’s purpose for themselves,” could not acknowledged that God’s way was right. They were unable to do so because they refused to repent and be baptized. This is the proverbial chicken and egg question. What came first, the change of heart toward God then the repentance, or repentance then change toward God? Of course, you can’t have one without the other; no chicken no egg, no egg no chicken. You need both. Looked at theologically, though, man is dead in his sin (Gen. 2:17, Rom. 6:23, Eph. 2:1) and so by sinful nature it is impossible for him to repent. Thankfully, Jesus gave us the answer to the chicken and egg question about sinful human beings and salvation in his discussion with Nicodemus in John 3. The pious Pharisee told Jesus he must be from God because of the miracles he was doing and

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

The phrase translated born again can also mean from above or from heaven. Nicodemus is appropriately confused as are most people who encountered Jesus, and he asks him how such a thing can be. Jesus answers that this happens by being born of the Spirit, that’s how one is born again, born from above. So repentance comes as a result of God’s working in our hearts, it does not cause God to work.

This is consistent with what Jesus also says later in John’s gospel about the mission of the Holy Spirit when Jesus sent him after he has ascended to the Father (John 16):

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

The Greek word convict is a harsh one, unpleasant to all we sinful human beings: to reprove, rebuke, discipline, expose, show to be guilty. His job is to reveal to us our guilt so we admit we have need of Savior. When we understand this, truly grasp our desperate state, we will repent, we can’t help but repent. The Holy Spirit exposes us for what we truly are, unworthy sinners before a holy God, rightfully condemned. Non-Christians have a hard time accepting this dynamic because it seems as I said, harsh. Why can’t God just be more accepting? They think of God as love, meaning he’s just a nice old man who forgives, forgets, and accepts everyone for who they are. He can’t do that because he is holy and just. Even secular non-Christians know they can’t even live up to their own standards, so what makes them think they can live up to the standards of a holy God? Sin!

We Christians, however, are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and know to the depths of our marrow that we are wretched, hopeless sinners without God’s intervention in Christ. He will not let us forget or ignore our sin either, which is why I John 1:9 is so important in the Christian life of daily repentance. I begin my prayer time every morning with two things, thanksgiving and repentance, which always seems to lead to doxology, to praise and worship. We can’t help as we grow in our understanding and knowledge of God to continually marvel at His mercy and grace. Indeed, the sicker we realize we are when we come to the spiritual hospital, the more able we are to fulfill the greatest commandment to love Him and other sinners. He who is forgiven much, Jesus said loves much.

Lastly, let’s look at the Greek word for repentance, metanoia-μετάνοια, meaning a change of mind. It is clear from Luke repentance is primarily about a change of mind regarding our relationship to God, not so much about what we think of as right and wrong, good and bad. The first temptation of Satan to man was to question the character of God with the question, who gets to be God. Repentance says God is God and I am not. Kind of obvious, I know, but we’re stubborn little sinners who don’t easily give up our pretensions to godhood. Confession to Him daily that He is God and I am not, is a good way to start every day. As John and Jesus both said introducing his work, repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.

 

Uninvented: Reading A Biblical Text Theologically and Apologetically

Uninvented: Reading A Biblical Text Theologically and Apologetically

Oct 12, 2023 | Apologetics, Uncategorized

Given we live in an utterly secular age it is important for the sustenance of our faith that we learn to read biblical texts through apologetic lenses. The inspiration for my book Uninvented came from a growing conviction I developed as I studied apologetics that the Bible itself was a testimony to its own veracity. The question before us is always the same: could this be made up or invented. Remember that biblical critical scholars for several hundred years affirmed that it could be. In fact, they seemed to think making it up so easy they never saw the need to defend their position. To them their anti-supernatural bias wasn’t a bias at all but the obvious position of enlightened “scientific” scholars. Nope, it was bias plain and simple. Before they even got to the text they assumed miracles can’t happen and the biblical concepts of revelation and inspiration can’t be real. This apologetics orientation applies to the theology of the text as well.

I didn’t focus on how the theology did that, but I’m sure an entire book could be written just about that. I hadn’t even thought about such a thing when I initially had the idea for writing the book. I was going to call it Psychological Apologetics, because how the people portrayed thought and acted reflected how real people think and act. The text has verisimilitude in a way no ancient text could have had given there was no such thing as fiction in the ancient world. The Bible reads like straight ahead history and we have only two choices when we come to the text: Either it is true or it is not. In the history of scholarly biblical criticism I referenced, many scholars have wanted to have it both ways. They take some of what Jesus said and did as having actually happened, and some as made up depending on the whim of the scholar. If we don’t accept that the Bible is the inspired work of one Divine author, then on what basis do we accept any of it as authoritative? To me, such an approach is arbitrary and completely worthless. In the title of the great Frank Sinatra song, it’s either all or nothing at all.

The Problem of the Partial Jesus
In the book I call this a partial Jesus, and he’s a real big problem for those scholars, as well as anyone else who only wants a piece of Jesus. This would include Christian heresies like Islam and Mormonism, but also other religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, not to mention Judaism from whence Christianity sprang. I quote Jewish historian Geza Vermes in the book, and he loves certain parts of Jesus, but ignores those parts, for example, where Jesus declares himself to be the divine Son of God who is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). Which brings me to the apologetics of the theology of the Bible. Jesus is the easiest and most obvious example of this, but we find this theological verisimilitude everywhere. I was again reminded of this when I read this passage in Luke 9:

23 And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

The Greek word translated life, psuché- ψυχή, is where we get our word psychology. It’s often translated soul, and means the essence of who we are as persons, all that makes us specifically unique as us, you and me. Modern Christians tend to interpret these verses as Jesus referring to eternal life, what happens to our souls after death, but I think Jesus is referring to something much larger in scope. How many people throughout history have metaphorically gained the whole world, yet are empty and miserable. Such people often ask—Is that all there is? They thought the entire world, everything their hearts could have desired given to them, would be enough to finally satisfy the longing in their being. It wasn’t, and isn’t. I believe Jesus is speaking primarily to this, to life in this fallen world, with the heavenly life to come gravy on the turkey.

The theological genius of this passage and it’s apologetic power comes from its counter intuitive message. If we really want what the whole world could never give us, it’s in somehow denying ourselves, metaphorically taking up the worst instrument of death and torture ever devised by man, and following Jesus. Who says such things! Certainly not the great moral teacher so many of those scholars and religions have said He is. In the words of the great trilimma made famous by C.S. Lewis, Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord. There simply are no other choices. And there are myriad examples of Jesus saying things like this throughout the gospels. We are confronted with a stark, binary choice when we encounter the Jesus we find there: He is either who he said he was, the divine Son of God come from heaven to be the Savior of the world, or he was not. If it is in fact the latter, he has to have been the most diabolically evil person who ever lived. All of his life would then have been a fraud meant to deceive people into believing something that was not true.

Coming back to the passage, when we really grapple with what Jesus is declaring, it gets even crazier. The choice before us is more stark, more binary, and the implications profound beyond words to capture. He’s saying if you want true fulfillment and purpose and hope and joy and excitement and everything you think the world can give you, it’s all to be found in Him! The extra added bonus, the cherry on top if you will, is that we get to live forever in a resurrected body on a redeemed earth where there will be no more suffering, tears, and death. In light of this passage, we can better understand what Jesus is saying in the John 14 passage:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

We Evangelicals are entirely too familiar with this passage to be as utterly blown away by it as we should be. Anyone who wants a partial Jesus needs to be confronted with this passage. If it is true, then He is Lord and Savior. If is not, burn the Bible and run away from it as fast as you can. It is simply either/or. Anything else is, as my father often said, BS.

Theological Apologetics in Redemptive History
The apologetics power of passages like this must not be seen in isolation, as if the argument begins and ends with the trilemma, or the binary choice we are all confronted with when encountering Jesus. What makes the theological apologetic so powerful is seeing it as a thread woven together from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation. The thread of the theological history of redemption weaves together a glorious tapestry of such stunning beauty it would be absolutely impossible to be the mere product of human imagination and ingenuity.

I often marvel at God’s revelation in creation where we sees God’s invisible qualities made visible in material reality (Rom. 1:20). The more science and knowledge advances, the more it is obvious the insane complexity could only be a product than of an Almighty personal God. The only proper response is doxology and dumbfounded silence in the face of such majesty. The inscripturated word of that same God in our Bibles is even more amazing to me than that! Written over 1500 years by 40 or so authors primarily in two languages into 66 so called books, and yet it has a continuity that is breathtaking. The only plausible explanation is one divine author.

The entirety of the history of redemption is found in the first three chapters of Genesis: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. In the words of that wonderful Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song written by Joni Mitchell, it’s all about getting “back to the garden.” And we’re not talking about Woodstock. God created everything good, very good, and he placed the apex of his creation man, in the center of the garden, paradise, which was then promptly ruined by that man. God of course knew this would happen and He had a plan, revealed to us in chapter 3. He’s letting Adam and Eve know they blew it big time, but that their rebellion, and ours, is not the end of the story. Outlining the curse that came as a result, He says to the serpent:

15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

In this one verse is encapsulated all the ugliness in the entire history of the world, and the answer to that ugliness. It is this cosmic drama that plays out so compellingly in our Bibles, and makes it read so real. At the heart of the drama is conflict, one every human being knows exists. There is something profoundly wrong with this world, and us, and we all feel in the depths of our beings there must be an answer. And guess what? We know what it is! Why in the world do we mostly keep it to ourselves? Don’t do that! Be a little annoying for Jesus, and you my just find someone else who’s looking for the answer you’ve found.