NEW: Josiah Concept Ministries Monthly Newsletter
This month, we are launching a new feature: the Josiah Concept Ministries monthly newsletter. In this first issue, read about my daughter’s first steps, some commentary on the debate with Matthew Bellisario, how the Pope is realigning the Catholic Mass, and Todd Bentley stepping down from ministry. All that and more packed into four pages!
To print, set your printer to print like a book. Then load two sheets of legal-size paper and go. You’ll need a PDF reader.
Download the file here.
E-mail any comments, positive or negative, on the newsletter to me or comment on this post. I look forward to hearing any and all feedback you may have!
PowerPoint Answer to “10 Questions Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer”
The ridiculous website God is Imaginary has a video entitled “10 Questions Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer.” I’ve taken the time to write a lengthy response to it here. I have jazzed it up with a summary PowerPoint Presentation.
I plan to make PowerPoint responses to all of the God is Imaginary videos in the very near future. Stay tuned!
A Theology of Homosexuality
C. Michael Patton has an excellent post on homosexuality here. I recommend reading it, especially if you struggle with this sin or know anyone that does.
A Theodicy on Natural Disasters
Jeffery Bruce over at Christians in Context had an excellent thought on why natural disasters occur. He doubts that it is a very original thought, and it probably isn’t, but it’s something that I’ve never considered and is very valid.
Bruce points out that all of creation was cursed along with Adam and Eve. Undoubtedly, humans wouldn’t be able to tolerate the resplendent perfection of what God himself terms “very good,” and so all of creation must be made imperfect along with us. It is from this imperfection that things like natural disasters occur.
Personal Testimonies
Although atheists disagree, I think that personal testimony of encounters with God are some of the most powerful pieces of evidence in favor of God’s existence. Although personal experiences are subjective, each run through the filter of one’s own previous experiences, education, and background, the foundation of the Christian religion itself is based upon personal experience.
Moses had several personal encounters with God. First, at the burning bush, then later atop Mt. Sinai. It is through these personal encounters that we got the Law. The apostle Paul had such a personal encounter with God that it changed the way he thought about Jewish Law and made him an ardent defender of the faith that he persecuted.
I remember a good friend’s grandfather telling me about his own personal encounter with God. It was at that friend’s wedding three years ago. He told me that he had died, but that God sent him back for the express purpose of telling everyone that story. And he does; that story is one of the first things he tells everyone new that he meets.
This man is rational and sane, yet he claims to have had this profound encounter with God. Are we just going to dismiss his experience as a hallucination? As the product of a broken mind? Or can we accept this story as true, as an encounter with the living God?
Personally, I favor the third option. An otherwise sane person would know the difference between a hallucination and reality. A crazy person would manifest other signs of insanity. No, I think that the third option best fits the facts as they stand. I believe that he had an encounter with the living God.
Most encounters with God aren’t so dramatic as meeting him face-to-face, as in the above examles. Most, I believe, are had through other people and circumstances in our lives. For example, my wedding was a gift from God. We planned it in less than a month, and everything came together with no fuss whatsoever. Normally, something of that magnitude would have caused numerous snags and problems, but not this time. I believe that that was an encounter with God.
I have a friend who prayed for a sign and drove past a church with a single neon sign that said “HOPE.” He passed that same church each and everyday at the same time and had never noticed the sign before. Maybe it was just a coincidence that he did this time, but I think otherwise. I think that this was an encounter with God.
My wife and I have fertility problems. I was also very sick (and thus faced considerable difficulty) during her ovulation, yet we were able to conceive our daughter on the first try. Maybe that is also a coincidence, but knowing what I know about the human body and how many things have to fall into place for conception to happen, I believe that this is also an encounter with God.
Once I remember feeling unappreciated at work. Even more than normal. An older lady happened to be the only customer around, and she told me what a great job she thought I was doing taking care of her and that she knew I would go far in this life because of my work ethic. She gave me a hug before she left. I felt energized and happy–this was exactly what I needed. This was an encounter with God.
Most encounters with God are just what I have described above–events and people that touch us in a way that we need at that moment. What about you, readers? Have you any personal stories about encounters with God? Would you like to read more personal encounters with God? Sign up for the message board Is God Imaginary and share them in this thread, or just read the stories that others have posted. Comments are disabled here to encourage your visit to the message boards.
Dave Armstrong Makes a Fair Assessment
When I read the title and the opening letter to this piece, I expected a different reaction from Dave Armstrong:
I am coming to believe that this [good works are the inevitable result of saving grace] is one of the most dangerous teachings within the Reformed tradition, because it makes sin to be of little significance. After all, if all your sins have been forgiven – Past – Present – and Future, and nothing can change that – then where is the fear of God within such a teaching? Can one fear to sin because it displeases a Holy and Righteous God if one thinks that no sin can separate them from God? Can’t this kind of belief cause one to treat God as a doormat? . . . This attitude of “its all been done for you by Christ on Calvary” and there’s nothing expected from the Christian, nothing that he can or should do to grow in righteousness and holiness, makes our lives as believers in Christ, our witness to the world as lights shining in the darkness of no consequence. If I think nothing is required of me to continue in the grace of God, I will live haphazardly and not care a hoot about living a godly, faithful life unto Christ my Lord.
I expected him to immediately agree with the writer and denounce Protestantism. However, Dave is full of surprises, as it turns out. In this case, he actually lauds Protestantism for getting something right. He makes a stronger case for the organic whole formed by good works with God’s grace than I ever could, and he makes it from Calvin’s writings. Read the entire piece here.
Another Conversion Story
Atheists often make the argument that your religious beliefs are determined solely by where you live, which is completely untrue. Recently I covered the story of Masab-Joseph Yousef, a Muslim man who converted to Christianity. Yousef is proof that people can throw off the shackles of what they grow up learning in favor of the truth of Christ.
Another conversion story has hit the news, this time an Egyptian Muslim named Maher al-Gohari. The former police officer converted more than 30 years ago, but has now decided to make his profession public. It isn’t illegal in Egypt to convert to Christianity. However, since Muslim law declares that it is unusual to convert to an “older” religion from a “newer” religion, it is nearly impossible for someone to publicly convert to Christianity from Islam.
We pray that God will open up a door for Maher al-Gohari to publicly declare his faith. We also pray that his family will have their eyes opened by Christ, so that they, too, may convert.
Yet another strike against the failed argument that religion is an accident of birth.
Bondage of the Will III: What it Isn’t
In my previous posts on the bondage of the will, I’ve talked about a moral law that exists and that we all break. I’ve then proven that case using Scripture. But I think it is important to take a moment and define what this does not mean. First, it doesn’t mean that people are as evil as they could be all the time. It also doesn’t mean that people are forced to choose evil. Finally, it doesn’t mean that humans are incapable of doing good. (HT: Reformed Mafia for the list)
One of the major objections that I hear from people who are faced with the Biblical truth that they are sinners is that they are pretty good in comparison to most people. Make no mistake: I’m not saying that everyone is as evil as they could be at all times. I have had many conversations with atheists where they like to remind me about all the charities they donate to, about the children in third-world countries that they sponsor, and all the good they did the last week. I would expect nothing less, because people aren’t as evil as they could be; even Hitler had moments of good behavior, I’m sure.
The only way to truly free our wills from the bondage of sin is to believe in Christ. But, that doesn’t mean that until then, God forces us to choose evil. In fact, we choose evil ourselves because we are, at core, selfish creatures. That goes for believers as well as unbelievers.
Bondage to sin also doesn’t mean that humans are incapable of doing good. Anyone is capable of doing good equally–believer or unbeliever. But, because of our fallen natures, our rebellion against God, and the selfish nature we discussed above, humans tend to choose that which brings them the most pleasure. They tend also to forget about everyone else around them when they do that. It is this self-centered attitude from which springs much of the sin we do.
Why Evangelize?
As a Calvinist and a believer in predestination, many people have asked me, “Why do you evangelize?” The logic being that since God is sovereign in salvation, and has predestined all who will come to him, that there is no need to evangelize since no matter what you do, the job will still get done. That, of course, is wrong thinking.
Calvinism holds these three three things true simultaneously: God is sovereign, man is responsible, and Christians are to witness and pray.
Consider what God says to the Israelites before they go into battle for the Promised Land: “The Lord has given your enemies into your hand.” Now, the Israelites didn’t just sit around after that and say, “Why fight the battle? God has already won it for us!” That’s because God doesn’t make things happen in spite of what we do. That’s fatalism. He makes things happen because of what we do.
For an expanded discussion of these truths, check the excellent Parchment & Pen blog here.
Bondage of the Will II: Scriptural Proof
Read the entire article here.
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In my last post on the bondage of the human will, I established the existence of a moral law outside of ourselves. Atheists and theists can agree on the presence of such a law, but we cannot agree on its source. The atheist thinks that memes or evolution produces it; the theist believes that God produces it. Either way, we have arrived at the same point: a law exists.
I also established that man, more often than not, transgresses this moral law. It may be something small, such as a little white lie, or it might be huge, like a murder. Mankind isn’t generally good as many churches today teach. Man isn’t sick in sin, he is dead in sin. Man is generally evil.
The Bible deals with this issue in many places. The first good place to look is Romans 1. Paul begins by talking about the pagans living in Rome at the time, and finishes with this description of them:
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Rom 1:28-32)
Paul immediately follows that with this description of the Christians living in Rome:
Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. (Rom 2:1-11, emphasis added)
So whether the reader is a Jew or a Greek, it doesn’t matter, for both are full of unrighteousness. This careful argument builds until its climax at chapter 3, verse 23: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Paul even includes himself as a sinner in chapter 7:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:18-24)
I think that if we are honest with ourselves, we will see the same pattern in our own lives. We wage a war with our mind to do what is right, but our flesh is weak and we give into it and do what is wrong. That’s every last one of us wretched human beings–we are not sick with sin, we are dead in sin. Look at Ephesians 2:1-3:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (emphasis added)
But it isn’t just us; it is all of creation. It goes back to the Fall in Genesis 3. The Fall affected not just man, but all of creation. All of creation groans under the pains of childbirth (Rom 8:22). And the worst part is, according to the book of Proverbs, we don’t see this: “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits” (16:2). This is why so many churches today preach that man is generally good. And what does Proverbs say about people who are wise in their own sight? “There is more hope for a fool than him” (26:12b).
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