Examine Yourself

Are you a Christian? Then do what the Bible says and MAKE SURE! Here is a sermon to help you do just that. The video should play automatically. If that gives you some trouble, go here. Scroll down and look for the green video boxes. The first is a 4 minute sample clip. The second is the full sermon.

I pray this is edifying for you.

Evan

Jehovah's Witnesses

Why You Should Never Tell a JW, "No thanks!"

That might seem like a strange intro for a post, but I really do have a reason for wording it that way. You see, I've realized that when we get people like Jehovah's Witnesses coming to our door to spread their false doctrine, telling them to go away is like saying, "No thanks, I don't have the time or concern to deal with your soul right now, please go infect someone else with your damnable lies." How many of us want to say that? I certainly didn't when one came to my door this Christmas break!

This time I talked to him and asked him lots of questions. If you do not know much about a certain cult (There will invariably be lots of people who belongs to a certain group that you are not familiar with. This is OK! Just ask questions. It is the best way to get information and the best way to find out if they are teaching sound doctrine). Apparently these are really common questions, because he kept saying that all my questions were answered in this little book that he had. He offered it to me, so I took it, wanting to have an authoritative reference book from which to learn JW docrine. It's really small, so I was able to actually read through the whole thing in a relatively short amount of time. What I did was scour through it with an orange highlighter, and marked it up, noticing all the "interesting" things that were said in there.

There were several heresies littered through this book, but I suspect that many Christians would not be able to defend themselves against the lies if a JW should 'witness' to them! It was obvious to me, hearing this man's testimony, that this is what happened with him as he was first approached by JWs. He said that he started seeing things in orthodox Christianity that didn't line up with the Bible. The example he gave was the Trinity! I wonder how many people could defend the deity of Christ and the Trinity from the Bible should someone object (1 Pet 3:15)?

Now, for anyone who might think I'm just being nit picky or overly critical, let me say that this is an absolute essential of the Christian faith, therefore you need to be able to defend it! If you do not believe that Jesus is Divine, you are on a very direct path to hell (John 8:24). You are on the wide road of destruction, and the end does not look good for you. Your Jesus cannot save you. You need to repent and put your trust in the true savior right now. This is not a debatable issue! Yet it is one that JWs deny. They're Christ is not Divine and is a created being; therefore, he cannot save!

It is important to remember to keep things in the proper perspective when dealing with issues such as cult-members coming to your door. They don't have the true gospel; the Christian does. That is a very big deal (Gal 1:8-9)!They need to be evangelized, rather than looked down upon for trying to evangelize others. They're fervor should put anyone to shame who does not pursue the souls of others with the same intensity. Let me encourage you to learn how to defend your faith against the cults, and, furthermore, how to share your faith with cult members so that they realize they are not in the truth and need to be regenerated!

I will do my best to help you to do this is my follow up blog on this topic. Stay strong in the faith. Do not judge in the non-essentials (Rom 14). Do not budge in the essentials. Let's serve the King with our whole hearts.

Home for the Holidays

So I'm home for the holidays! Three precious weeks of freedom. I need to use them well, so I figured I'd spend a little while writing a blog - something I don't do enough. This one is not a really focused blog, just a few little musings about some things that have recently come to my attention.

1) On looking forward to better days

We all know those days we can't wait for. Especially this year around Christmas time that day is obvious. Everyone wants that day when they can rip open their presents to come super quickly. Some of us - yours truly - look forward to said days so passionately that we forget we have been graciously been given this day by God, and all the other days behind us, but not tomorrow. There are no guarantees for tomorrow.

Probably most of us are familiar with the verse in Matthew where Jesus says, "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble" (Matt 6:34). This is speaking of a practical way to tackle everyday life - take it one day at a time! We can apply this principle also to days that are going really well for us. Don't waste your todays looking forward to your tomorrows.

2) On the meaning of what is said

I recently came to the realization that the Bible does not always mean what it says. Now, before you spam me and send me viruses or post evil comments, let me explain. A while ago I had a chat with some guys outside a Harvest Crusade Festival. Their hermeneutic is really interesting. The motto, as I found out later on their website, is "God says what He means and means what He says." I thought, that sounds good. We can finally get away from the allegorically interpretations of Genesis and the gospels and get down to the meat of what the Bible says. Little did I know that they were more than serious about their literalism. Of course, I reject much of their theology (although they do hit the nail on the head in some places), because the Bible simply "doesn't mean what it says" sometimes in the same way that we "don't mean what we say" when we muse that someone "has ants in their pants" or that we are "so hungry could eat a cow" or that our large football playing friends "are tanks."

Apparently to some people, the Bible isn't allowed to use metaphor. "That's what the text plainly says" they will tell you, reminiscent of something I myself have told people many times over. Perhaps you'll be accused of twisting the text to meet your own theology. Foolishness I say. The men in that group at Harvest Crusade actually thought wisdom was a person who stood on rooftops shouting at people (cf. Proverbs)! They then took those verses (which portray wisdom as a female) and combined them with the fact that Jesus is God and that Jesus is called "the wisdom of God." From this they concluded that God was a female. They also concluded that the Bible is Jesus, since both the Scriptures and Jesus are called the Word of God. It has been rightly noted that such wooden literalism could build a fleet of ships! (Mr. Holding's words from his site www.tektonics.org).

Keep in mind that God is called a consuming fire (Deut 4:24), a sun and a shield (Ps 84:11), a rock, a horn, and a fortress (2 Sam 22:3). Perhaps we are to conclude that God is a physical flame. Maybe he's just a huge ball of burning gas. No, no. He is a big metal plate used for blocking arrows with 2 straps in the back to put your arm in. Oh wait, He's actually an inanimate chunk of minerals... for... standing on? You can see how utterly ridiculous this sort of reasoning gets.

So don't twist scripture and turn something historical into something super mystical or secret if it is unwarranted. But come on, when you're reading a Psalm, don't assume that God actually has wings we go under (Ps 17:8). If something sounds weird, check out the context, including the literary context. Word pictures are extremely common everywhere. Paul used them often. Jesus used them often. We should take them as such.

So in that sense I reject the strict literalism of "The Bible says what it means and means what it says."

3) On an old friend's blog

I was going down my AIM buddy list and looking at all the updated profiles. I came across one of an old friend from elementary school. He updates his profile whenever he writes a new blog, and I like reading them to check up on how he's doing. In case you're wondering - not well. He's pretty angry at everything it seems like and has no lack of supply of curse words. This blog was no different, except this one caught my eye because it was named "Karma and Other Meaningless Beliefs." Most of it was angry and insulting (not personally, in general), but he did have some notable points.

Essentially it was a rant about people who basically make up their own beliefs and call themselves "spiritual" but not "religious." The idea here is: what makes you think that all of a sudden you come up with your version of spirituality that has it more correct that everyone else? Most people of course realize the arrogance (and unreliability) of their position and conclude that everyone can pave their own path to God. "I'm not the only right one. I'm just the only person on my path! Everyone else has theirs and they all work!" This, of course, is just plain illogical and a glossing over of the difficulties between opposing views.

My conclusion: We need to gently show people where they have not yet fully thought through their beliefs, help them think through them, and point them to the cross.

There was also a good quote, which I fully agree with him on: "No one can realistically be indifferent to the existence of god." He's right! The common cop outs such as "Hell will be a party!" or "I guess we'll find out when we get there" are not reasonable. It's not fun to be punished. Period. I think that's part of the definition or something. It's also not fun to find out that you are going to be punished for eternity simply because you were too wrapped up in your little sphere of comfortable living to give any substantial consideration to the possibility that God exists and that He will judge all evil. That isn't something you're going to want to find out when you die.

My conclusion: We need to gently show people why Christianity is worth considering, help them consider it, and implore them to accept God's sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins - the only way of salvation.

From the looks of the ending of his post, it's obvious that this is not what my friend had in mind. He is only interested in ridiculing anyone with spiritual beliefs. We don't want to ridicule people, we want to love them and lead them and show them God's forgiveness. That's what this whole season is supposed to be about - God's love for His lost sheep (John 3:17).



Merry Christmas, all!

Continuing an Old Tradition

I thought about writing a blog about everything I'm thankful for (and believe me, there is a lot), but I just thought I'd do something a little different. For all you old-timers, you might remember that I started this blog as a commentary on 1 Corinthians , but got "sidetracked" at chapter 11, verse 1. Quite honestly, there are some verses there that I didn't know what to do with, and I was getting better at finding other things to write about (not a bad thing). Anyway, I thought I'd pick up right where I left off and try to tackle ONE of these verses that deal with obscure areas of church behavior and theology.

Since I left off at verse 1, I think I'll pick up at verse two! That makes sense. Lately I've been quite active on the Facebook boards having nice conversations with my Catholic buddies, and verses like this one just have to come up. Now, if you know anything about Catholicism, you'll know that they rely heavily on their traditions to "interpret" Scripture. Of course, I'm convinced that plenty of the time, no interpretation is needed; it just needs to be read! So let's read it:

Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things
and the traditions just as I delivered them to you.

The Roman Catholic would gladly quote this verse to support their emphasis on tradition in the church. Of course, I don't think this verse can be used to justify such a position for several reasons:
1) Paul is talking about specific traditions he delivered to the Corinthians, not tradition in general.
2) Paul doesn't directly tell us what this tradition is. For all we know the tradition could be a reference to staying faithful to the Word of God!
3) Paul isn't advocating the interpretation of Scripture via tradition! In fact, Paul warned the Colossians to "not be taken captive through...the traditions of men" but rather to base our thinking on Christ (Col 2:8).
4) The tradition could be the very next thing he addresses: the hierarchy of authority in the church and proper conduct during prayer (vv. 3-16). In that case, we have it in Scripture anyways, and still are without need of "tradition"!

And ultimately, tradition is never allowed to violate Scripture, but this is exactly what Catholic tradition does. This is the real reason I do not accept the Catholic idea of tradition, because it's gotten to the point where it goes against the Word of God so much so that I cannot even consider the Roman Catholic Church a Christian church. The works salvation wrapped up in the sacraments of Catholicism is directly forbidden in Scripture (Gal 3:10) and those who preach it (a different gospel) are declared anathema (Gal 1:8-9).

We need to be committing ourselves only to Christ's sacrifice and not trusting in our own righteousness to save us. Silly things like eating bread and drinking wine, getting dunked in water, praying repetitiously, and giving money to the church (among others) do not affect our salvation! Perhaps they are effected by our salvation, but they have no effect themselves on our standing before the just Judge.

I hope this encourages you that you can rest assured in your salvation because Christ has paid the full penalty, and requires no merit from you. I also hope this encourages you to live an all the more full and holy life (Lev. 20:7), now that you Christians are free from the control that sin used to have over you. Now these are definitely some things we can all be very thankful for!!!

Well... it's time to get to some homework. Yes... they assigned us stuff over break... >_<

Giving an Answer

I once was talking to this dude named Blakey who told me that there's no excuse for going a month without blogging. Well, today is day 31, and I don't want the CBC to take away my blog, so I better get crackin'!

Lately the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to have many spiritual conversations that I didn't even actively seek for. The Lord sent them to me, much like he did with Christian. I have done my best to obey 1 Pet 3:15, and I can only pray that it has made an effect in conjunction, of course, with the Lord's grace in allowing me to live a life pleasing to Him.

What I want to do is something I've always wanted to do, which is study the Biblical examples of people who defended the faith, how they did it, and what we can learn from their example.

The first, I think, should be Paul, who was appointed by God to be a missionary to the Gentiles. Hey, that's me! Cool, whats the dude got to say?

I think that possibly one of the most common passages that pops up in Christian apologetics (along with 1 Pet 3:15; 2 Cor 10:5, and Col 2:8-9) is Romans 1:18-20 which says that

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse."

I'd say that's about as clear cut, inconsiderate, straightforward, offensive, and intolerant as it gets folks. No one is without excuse. I often hear people say, "If God existed, he would make it more obvious." This is a wake up call to those people. It IS obvious. The reason you don't believe is because you love your sin more than the truth. God has graciously given you a chance to turn from your ways and run to Him for forgiveness.

Of course, this is to be expected, since we are by nature sinful, do not understand, and do not seek after God (Rom 3:11). So what is a Christian to do? Give up on those filthy sinners? They can't understand anyways, so why bother? No, I don't think Paul would be happy with that. He shows us what his attitude was toward the unbelieving when he visited Athens and reasons with them...

"his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there." (Acts 17:16-17)

So Paul was a straight up street preacher who talked to anyone who would listen! There are a few distinctive traits concerning Paul's style of preaching.

1) He uses logic

Some people erroneously mistake using logic with "leaning on your own understanding" (cf. Pr. 3:5). Sound logic, however, is the wisdom of God, which we should strive for (Pr. 4:5)! For example: every time you read "therefore" in the Bible, the writer/speaker is appealing to logic. "your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore" (Acts 8:21-22). Peter here is telling Simon the magician that his heart is not right with God, so the appropriate, reasonable response is to repent. It naturally follows logically. X therefore Y. Your heart is not right, therefore repent. In Paul's example he uses this kind of logic to denounce idol worship. "We are the offspring of God," therefore "we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising" (29). There's that X therefore Y setup again. See how easy this is?

2) He engages the culture (but doesn't participate in it)

Paul, as he has a chance to speak publicly to a crowd (an example of open air evangelism), lets us know what he has done in preparation for this moment. He says, "I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship" (Acts 17:23). He got acquainted with the culture. He found out what was meaningful to these people. He also found a sort of discussion starter with the "Unknown God" idol, and proclaimed to them who that God is. They thought they might be missing something. Paul noticed this, and filled in the gap. That there is a God they do not know (23), but he can be known (24-26), wants to be known(27), and is not far(27).

3) He appeals to their authoritative texts

In a later verse, Paul reveals to us that he even knows something about their pagan writings! No, Paul would never spend time reading pagan books to see what they say so he can effectively use that as a witnessing tool to win many to Christ... would he? You bet he would, and you should too, within reason of course. Please understand that Paul quotes only one line of one pagan poet(28), uses one line to appeal to their desire to be religious(22) and uses the rest of the passage to proclaim Him who they "worship without knowing"(23). I'm not calling everyone everywhere to have a 1:1:8 ratio, but there is a principle here:

4) He keeps his focus on the gospel

He feeds them God's spiritual truth first and foremost, appealing both to their current status as "religious" people, an authoritative text, and logic to make his case persuasively.

What is his case for? It is but this: that "all men everywhere repent, because [God] has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained." Did Paul preach a repent or burn message? Well... yes and no. Paul preaches repentance and judgment ("...repent, because... He will judge..."), but he doesn't couch it in the typical hellfire and brimstone terminology with hateful words and a condescending attitude that we typically associate with people who preach those things. Let's not lie to people. If someone never believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, that person is not saved. That's the hard truth. This is naturally part of our message. But then again, let's not make the bad news our focus. The gospel is "good news" for a reason.

Paul takes a bit more friendly approach, yet without compromising the hard truths. He says that they are "in all things...very religious" (22) What's he doing here? He is using something important to them to lead into spiritual conversation. He is taking some part of their lives, their culture, and using it to connect to the gospel and preach the good news that men should repent because Christ has been crucified and risen.

Let's do the same.