Author Archives: spencer

By Spencer D Gear

How did the news media report on the ‘Rally to Preserve Marriage’ at the church which Margaret Court pastors in Perth, Victory Life Centre, on 24 April 2012?

This is what one of the speakers, Bill Muehlenberg, stated in his article, ‘Shouting Down the Opposition’. He stated:

The mainstream media was of course intolerant as well, refusing to offer balanced coverage. They did come out to video the protestors. Only a few dozen showed up, but the MSM focused on them and their loud shouting, and refused to have anything to do with what was happening inside the venue.

So if you check out and rely upon only the MSM today (see one example I link to below), you would not even know what occurred inside. All the focus was on the noisy militants. There will be plenty of shots on the television news tonight about the tolerance brigade seeking to drown out the meeting, but no coverage at all about what actually transpired inside.

And this is news coverage? This is professional journalism and news reporting? It is like covering a football match and only reporting on one team, with a complete blanket ban of coverage on the other team. But that is a poor analogy, since it implies two equal teams.

At the base of Bill Muehlenberg’s article, he gave the link to the ABC News (Australia) report on the rally, ‘Gay rights protesters rally outside Court’s church’. I took the Christian, Bill Muehlenberg, at his word and found these news items online to examine their coverage:

‘Gay rights protesters rally outside Court’s church’, Yahoo! 7 News, 25 April 2012. This is the identical story to ABCOnline.
‘Gay rights protesters rally outside Court’s church’, Efficient Farming, 25 April 2012. Again the exact story from ABCOnline repeated here.
police.com.au provided a link to the ABCOnline story.

The West Australian newspaper provided a slightly different story but with the same slant – only on the protesters who were demonstrating outside the meeting, ‘Gay marriage sides clash at rally’, The West Australian, 25 April 2012.

Courtesy: The West Australian

This is the email reply I received from one of The West Australian editors:

I have consulted with the reporter who wrote the article. She informs me that the press were not invited into the church. She said she “was barred from entering the church by security staff, who would not let me past the barriers to speak to anyone, so it would have been rather difficult to report on the meeting inside. Also tried to get in contact with Margaret Court, but she did not return my calls.”

I hope this addresses your query.

I have copied below an article from ABC online, which covered the story in a similar way to our reporter.

It sure did clarify my understanding. It gave me another side to the story.

Bill Muehlenberg was complaining about the intolerant, imbalanced view in the mainstream media, giving a link to the ABC news item reporting on this event that only gave coverage of the protesters. According to this news editor from The West Australian, that is the only version that was possible. The journalist had no alternative but to tell about the 70 homosexual protesters outside Victory Life Centre because journalists were banned from entering the church and reporting on the Rally.

This causes me to conclude on this occasion that one Christian gave an uninformed, slanted version of the way things are reported in the mass media. However, I need to observe that any journalist could have interviewed a number of people entering the rally – and they didn’t. Bill Muehlenberg informed me via email that he walked past the mass media journalists and cameras without being interviewed. However, this assumes that reporters knew who Bill was and could identify him for interview.

By the way, this one editor from The West Australian was the only letter of response I received from all of the other media mentioned above. All of these received an email from me.

This is not my opinion about all mass media coverage, but an example of what happened on one occasion that was misreported by a Christian (Bill Muehlenberg).

Marriage cover photo

Courtesy Salt Shakers (Christian ministry)

What is the connection between Christ’s atonement and his resurrection?

ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

Is it too much to say that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is closely linked to his atonement for sin to provide salvation for Christians and that the resurrection of Jesus is critical to our understanding of Christ’s passion?

Evangelical theologian, Wayne Grudem, wrote:

Peter says that “we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Here he explicitly connects Jesus’ resurrection with our regeneration or new birth. When Jesus rose from the dead he had a new quality of life, a “resurrection life” in a human body and human spirit that were perfectly suited for fellowship and obedience to God forever. In his resurrection, Jesus earned for us a new life just like his. We do not receive all of that new “resurrection life” when we become Christians, for our bodies remain as they were, still subject to weakness, aging, and death. But in our spirits we are made alive with new resurrection power. Thus it is through his resurrection that Christ earned for us the new kind of life we receive when we are “born again.” This is why Paul can say that God “made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him” (Eph 2:5-6; Col 3:1). When God raised Christ from the dead he thought of us as somehow being raised “with Christ” and therefore deserving of the merits of Christ’s resurrection. Paul says his goal in life is “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection….” (Phil. 3:10). Paul knew that even in this life the resurrection of Christ gave new power for Christian ministry and obedience to God (Grudem 1994:614).

Isn’t that a delightful summary of how the Christian’s atonement is associated with Christ’s death and resurrection?

A false view of Jesus’ resurrection

But does the nature of Jesus’ resurrection matter? Will John Dominic Crossan’s view (he’s a member of the Jesus Seminar) of the resurrection be adequate for the biblical understanding of Christ’s resurrection? Here are a few samples of Crossan’s understanding of Jesus’ resurrection:

John Dominic Crossan: Wikipedia

‘Mark created the empty tomb story, just as he created the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane’ (1995:184).
‘The authorities know and quote Jesus’ own prophecy that he would rise on the third day. That prophecy is mate to the disciples [Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33; Mt 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:18-19]…. The authorities do not necessarily believe Jesus’ prophecy, but they fear the disciples my fake a resurrection. Therefore, no guard is necessary because Jesus will have been proved wrong (1995:180).
‘The risen apparitions in the gospels [i.e. the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection] have nothing whatsoever to do with ecstatic experiences or entranced revelations. Those are found in all the world’s religions, and there may well have been many of them in earliest Christianity…. I do not find anything historical in the finding of the empty tomb, which was most likely created by Mark himself…. The risen apparitions are not historical events in the sense of trances or ecstasies, except in the case of Paul’ (1995:208).
‘It never occurs to Paul [1 Cor. 15] that Jesus’ resurrection might be a special or unique privilege given to him because he is Messiah, Lord, and Son of God. It never occurs to Paul that Jesus’ case might be like the case of Elijah….. Risen apparitions are, for Paul, not about the vision of a dead man but about the vision of a dead man who begins the general resurrection. It is, in other words, an apparition with cosmically apocalyptic consequences…. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul begins by enumerating all the apparitions of the risen Jesus…. The Corinthians know all about visions and apparitions and would not dream of denying their validity’ (1998:xix, xxviii)

Instead, it is Crossan’s view that is the mythical one. To counter such a view, see, ‘The myth of the metaphorical resurrection: A critical examination of John Dominic Crossan’s methodology, presuppositions and conclusions’ (Anderson 2011).

What really happened at the resurrection of Jesus?

ChristArt

It is very easy to show from the Scriptures that Christ rose from the dead in a physical body. Let’s look at the evidence (based on Geisler 1999, pp. 667-668):

1. People touched him with their hands.

Jesus’ challenge to Thomas in John 20:27 was: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” How did Thomas respond, “My Lord and My God” (20:28).

Jesus said to Mary as she grasped him, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.” Matthew 28:9 tells us that the women “clasped his feet and worshiped him.”

When Jesus appeared to his disciples, what did Jesus say? Luke 24:39, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (ESV). does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”

Do we need any further evidence that Jesus had real human flesh after his resurrection?

2. Jesus’ resurrection body had real flesh and bones.

The verse that we have just looked at gives some of the most powerful evidence of his bodily resurrection: “Touch me and see; a [spirit] does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Lk. 24:39) and to prove that he really did have a real body of flesh and bones, what did he do? According to Luke 24:41-42, Jesus “asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish.” Folks, spirits or spiritual bodies do not eat fish.

Third piece of evidence in support of the bodily resurrection of Christ:

3. Jesus ate real tucker (Aussie for “food”).

As we’ve just seen, they gave him “broiled fish” to eat. He ate real food on at least 3 occasions, eating both bread and fish, (Luke 24:30, 41-43; John 21:12-13). Acts 10:41 states that Jesus met with witnesses “who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

That sounds clear to me. Jesus ate food after his resurrection. People in real bodies eat real food.

A fourth proof that Jesus was raised in his physical body:

4. Take a look at the wounds in his body.

This is proof beyond reasonable doubt. He still had the wounds in his body from when he was killed. John 20:27, “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’”

When Jesus ascended, after his resurrection, the Bible records, “This same Jesus [ie this divine-human Jesus], who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
There’s a fifth confirmation of his bodily resurrection:

5. Jesus could be seen and heard.

Yes, Jesus’ body could be touched and handled. But there is more!

Matthew 28:17 says that “when they saw [horao] him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” On the road to Emmaus, of the disciples who were eating together, Luke 24:31 states, “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” The Greek term “to recognize” [epiginosko] means “to know, to understand, or to recognize” These are the normal Greek words “for ‘seeing’ (horao, theoreo) and ‘recognizing’ (epiginosko) physical objects” (Geisler 1999, pp 667-668).

Because Jesus could be seen and heard as one sees and recognises physical objects, we have further proof that Jesus rose bodily.

Sixth:

6. The Greek word, soma, always means physical body.

When used of an individual human being, the word body (soma) always means a physical body in the New Testament. There are no exceptions to this usage in the New Testament. Paul uses soma of the resurrection body of Christ [and of the resurrected bodies of people – yet to come] (I Cor. 15:42-44), thus indicating his belief that it was a physical body” (Geisler 1999, p. 668).

In that magnificent passage in I Cor. 15 about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of people in the last days, why is Paul insisting that the soma must be a physical body? It is because the physical body is central in Paul’s teaching on salvation (Gundry in Geisler 1999, p. 668). We’ll get to that in a moment.

There’s a 7th piece of evidence in support of bodily resurrection:

7. Jesus’ body came out from among the dead

There’s a prepositional phrase that is used in the NT to describe resurrection “from (ek) the dead” (cf. Mark 9:9; Luke 24:46; John 2:22; Acts 3:15; Rom. 4:24; I Cor. 15:12). That sounds like a ho-hum kind of phrase in English, “from the dead.” Not so in the Greek.

This Greek preposition, ek, means Jesus was resurrected ‘out from among’ the dead bodies, that is, from the grave where corpses are buried (Acts 13:29-30). These same words are used to describe Lazarus’s being raised ‘from the dead’ (John 12:1). In this case there is no doubt that he came out of the grave in the same body in which he was buried. Thus, resurrection was of a physical corpse out of a tomb or graveyard (Geisler 1999, p. 668).

This confirms the physical nature of the resurrection body.

8. He appeared to over 500 people at the one time.

Paul to the Corinthians wrote that Christ

appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me [Paul]also, as to one abnormally born (I Cor. 15:5-8).

You could not believe the discussion and controversy one little verb has caused among Bible teachers. Christ “appeared” to whom? Here, Paul says, Peter, the twelve disciples, over 500 other Christians, James, all the apostles, and to Paul “as to one abnormally born.”

The main controversy has been over whether this was some supernatural revelation called an “appearance” or was it actually “seeing” his physical being? These are the objective facts: Christ became flesh, he died in the flesh, he was raised in the flesh and he appeared to these hundreds of people in the flesh.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead was not a form of “spiritual” existence. Just as he was truly dead and buried, so he was truly raised from the dead bodily and seen by a large number of witnesses on a variety of occasions (Fee 1987, p. 728).

No wonder the Book of Acts can begin with: “After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).

See also my articles on Christ’s resurrection:

(Courtesy ChristArt)

References

Anderson, T J 2011. The myth of the metaphorical resurrection: A critical examination of John Dominic Crossan’s methodology, presuppositions and conclusions, PhD dissertation, May. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, available at: http://digital.library.sbts.edu/bitstream/handle/10392/2847/Anderson_sbts_0207D_10031.pdf?sequence=1 (Accessed 9 May 2012).

Crossan, J D 1995. Who killed Jesus? New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Crossan, J D 1998. The birth of Christianity: Discovering what happened in the years immediately after the execution of Jesus. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Fee, G. D. 1987, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (gen. ed. F. F. Bruce, The New International Commentary on the New Testament), William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Geisler, N. L. 1999, ‘Resurrection, Evidence for’, in Norman L. Geisler 1999, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics, Baker
Books, Grand Rapid, Michigan.

Grudem, W 1994. Systematic theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Whytehouse Designs

Is God responsible for all the evil in the world?

Hitler

(View of a cart laden with the bodies of prisoners who perished in the Gusen concentration camp. Photo courtesy liberatingtheholocaust)

By Spencer D Gear

How does a Christian respond to all of the evil that is happening in the world in relation to the sovereignty of God? Does God cause or allow the following kinds of evil? — The crash of planes that caused the death of many people, the rape of individuals, Hitler’s Holocaust, and multitudes of other horrible events of evil in our world?

I was blessed and encouraged by Bruce Little’s article, ‘Evil and God’s sovereignty’ (Little 2010). It was he who alerted me to John Piper’s statements about evil and the sovereignty of God (see below). Bruce Little spoke of the horror of a 9-year-old girl, Jessica, in Florida who was abducted, raped, and buried alive about 150 yards from her house in Homosassa, FL.[1]

What about the horrors committed by Charles Manson and his group?

How some Calvinists see it

Remember the US Airways flight 1549 that landed on the Hudson River, New York? Of this incident, John Piper, a strong Calvinist, wrote:

God can take down a plane any time he pleases—and if he does, he wrongs no one. Apart from Christ, none of us deserves anything from God but judgment. We have belittled him so consistently that he would be perfectly just to take any of us any time in any way he chooses (Piper 2009)

So God caused the disaster and brought down the plane on the river. That time, all people survived. What about the times when there is evil committed and multitudes of people lose their lives? Using John Piper’s logic, God is responsible for those as well.

This kind of perspective has made its way onto forums on the Internet. There are interesting and challenging perspectives around the www, one example being on Christian Forums, where Calvinistic people make comments like this:

God Is Not The Author Of Evil

When the orthodox Reformer says that God ordains something He means: either God directly causes something or that He permits something (evil) to happen. This isn’t God speaking with a forked tongue (whatever that means). Rather it is a truth taught in scripture. God doesn’t directly cause evil. For this would make Him the author of evil. Rather He permits it (for morally sufficient reasons) to bring about His overall plans and purposes. His permitting evil it is a kind of indirect causing. That is, His permission is a kind of secondary causing not a direct causing…. Nothing happens anyhow or without God’s most righteous decree, although God is not the author or sharer in any sin at all. [1a]

If God is ultimately sovereign, it does cause people to ask, “Doesn’t that make God responsible for all of the evil in the world?”

I (OzSpen) replied with the following:[2]

I’m not sure that John Piper sees it that way. Piper, a prominent, contemporary Calvinist (Baptist), has stated that ‘God has given him [Satan] astonishing latitude to work his sin and misery in the world. He is a great ruler over the world, but not the ultimate one. God holds the decisive sway’ (2008:44).

Elsewhere, John Piper wrote of the event that some have designated ‘Miracle on the Hudson’. This happened on 15 January 2009 when US Airways flight 1549 took off from New York City and encountered a flock of geese. Some of these birds shut down both plane engines when they were sucked into the engines. Captain Sullenberger was an experienced pilot and instead of landing the plane at the airport several miles away, he chose to land the plane on the Hudson River.

From the accounts I have read, it seems that the pilot’s training, experience and circumstances came together and there was a successful landing on the river and all of the passengers survived. The USA nation rightfully gave Captain Sullenberger hero status.

How did John Piper explain this event? Take a read of the article, ‘The President, the Passengers, and the Patience of God’ (Piper 2009), in which Piper explains the sovereignty of God. His theology is:

Two laser-guided missiles would not have been as amazingly effective as were those geese. It is incredible, statistically speaking. If God governs nature down to the fall (and the flight) of every bird, as Jesus says (Matthew 10:29), then the crash of flight 1549 was designed by God.

Then Piper states, ‘If God guides geese so precisely, he also guides the captain’s hands. God knew that when he took the plane down, he would also give a spectacular deliverance’.

So for John Piper, God in his sovereignty was not only responsible for the geese that flew into the jet’s engines, but he guided the hands of the pilot who landed the plane. That plane crash, according to John Piper, was designed by God in God’s sovereignty.

Now apply that view of catastrophe to the Titanic disaster. In one of the most deadly peacetime disasters in history, the RMS Titanic, a passenger liner, sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US. It collided with an iceberg on 15 April 1912 (100 years ago) in the Atlantic Ocean and 1,514 people died.

The Titanic as it departed from Southhampton, UK, April 10, 1912. image courtesy uwants.com.

To be consistent, John Piper’s theology of ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ becomes ‘Disaster on the Atlantic Ocean’ for The Titanic and its passengers. The application has to be that God guided the Titanic’s captain to hit the iceberg. The iceberg was designed by God for the event and 1,514 people were killed by God’s design.

What about the disaster with the twin towers, etc., on 11 September 2001?

Or am I missing something?

ColetheCalvinist replied:

Right. God is ULTIMATELY responsible because He knows what the outcome will be and He could stop it if He wanted to. This is what Piper means by indirect or secondary cause. He’s not the direct cause.
The Reformed view teaches that God positively or actively intervenes in the lives of the elect to insure their salvation. The rest of mankind He leaves to themselves. He does not create unbelief in their hearts. He does not coerce them to sin. They sin by their own choices. The dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism is that it involves God in coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God’s character. – R.C. Sproul[3]

I have had a back and forth with this person in which I made these statements:

If you hold that view of the sovereignty of God, you must live with the logical consequences of such a position. It makes God into a monster who is responsible for my friend’s rape that happened over and over by an employee in a nursing home and the culprit has been charged with rape.

That view makes God morally and causally responsible for 9/11, the drunk who murdered his family and my friend’s repeated rapes.

I read recently of a man who stabbed his sister and decapitated his 5-year-old sister at a birthday party before the police shot him. If I accept your and Piper’s view of God, these acts are ordained by God, what kind of God is He? Can you justify that from biblical teaching?[4]

And,

You said that “God is ULTIMATELY responsible” for the evil people do. That means that your kind of God caused my friend to be raped multiple times by a medical staff person.

It was your kind of God who “is ULTIMATELY responsible” (your words) for the evil any person commits – including the decapitating of a 5-year-old and the twin-towers devastation of 9/11. That might be the nature of your God, but that’s not the God I serve. Your kind of God “is ULTIMATELY responsible” for the Titanic disaster. In your language, “He could stop it” but he doesn’t.

So that makes your God “ULTIMATELY responsible” for the Holocaust and the gas oven slaughters. What kind of a God is He? If that is what he is like by nature, he’s a monster.
So you erect a straw man logical fallacy with this kind of statement:

His sovereign will is His business alone. The secret things belong to the Lord. I am to trust in His infinite wisdom and holiness and go by His revealed will.

So your God’s secret, sovereign will includes the slaughter of people by Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin – and my friend’s multiple rapes.
I think it is time that you reassessed the nature of your God and his relationship to evil in the universe.[5]

God as the creator or authoriser of evil – some Calvinists

John Piper goes so far as to state:

So when I say that everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly I mean that, one way or the other, God sees to it that all things serve to glorify his Son. Whether he causes or permits, he does so with purpose. For an infinitely wise and all-knowing God, both causing and permitting are purposeful. They are part of the big picture of what God plans to bring to pass (Piper 2008:56).

It is not only John Piper, the Calvinist, who thinks like this. Before the time of Piper, Gordon Clark, another Calvinist, was advocating something similar: ‘As God cannot sin, so in the next place, God is not responsible for sin, even though he decrees it…. I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so…. In Ephesians 1:11 Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will’ (Clark 2004:40, 27).

Bruce Little noted that ‘Gordon Clark presents one way of responding to the charge that the Calvinist position leaves God morally responsible for evil even though He ordained it. Clark seeks to smooth out the contradiction by crafting the notion of God’s secret will and His revealed will’ (Little 2010:293). Then Little quotes Clark:

One may speak of the secret will of God, and one may speak of the revealed will of God. Those who saw self-contradiction in the previous case would no doubt argue similarly on this point too. The Arminian would say that God’s will cannot contradict itself, and that therefore his secret will cannot contradict his revealed will. Now, the Calvinist would say the same thing; but he has a clearer notion of what contradiction is, and what the Scriptures say. It was God’s secret will that Abraham should not sacrifice his son Isaac; but it was his revealed (for a time), his command, that he should do so. Superficially this seems like a contradiction. But it is not. The statement, or command, “Abraham, sacrifice Isaac,” does not contradict the statement, at the moment known only to God, “I have decreed that Abraham shall not sacrifice his son.” If Arminians had a keener sense of logic they would not be Arminians (Clark 2004:28).

This sounds more like Clark, the Calvinist’s, illogical view! Little (2010:293) has noted that Clark’s appeal to God’s knowledge does not solve the problem. Why? Because Clark is maintaining that God has two contradictory and incoherent wills! Since God is sovereign, how is it possible for God to have two wills (secret and revealed) for the same event that are contradictory? While Clark admits there is an apparent contradiction in what the biblical text, but his supposed solution fails because it is illogical. Why? Because God’s secret and revealed wills must also apply to Jessica’s death, Hitler and the Holocaust, and the slaughters by Pol Pot (UNICEF estimated 3 million people were slaughtered) and Idi Amin (up to 500,000 people could have been killed under his regime).

Take a read of R C Sproul Jr’s view of God creating sin (this is not R C Sproul Sr) in, ‘Taking Calvinism Too Far: R.C. Sproul Jr.’s Evil-Creating Deity‘. In this article it states that R C Sproul Jr, the Calvinist, asks: ‘“Isn’t it impossible for God to do evil?” He acknowledges that God can’t sin. This isn’t much of a consolation, as Sproul Jr. goes on to say: “I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that he created sin” (p. 54)’.

John Frame, the Calvinist, wrote:

For us, the question arises as to whether God can be the efficient cause of sin, without being to blame for it. The older theologians denied that God was the efficient cause of sin . . . [in part] because they identified cause with authorship. But if . . . the connection between cause and blame in modern language is no stronger than the connection between ordination and blame, then it seems to me that it is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin. Certainly we should employ such language cautiously, however, in view of the long history of its rejection in the tradition (Does God ’cause’ sin?)

Why don’t you take a read of the article about supralapsarian Calvinist, John Piper, ‘John Piper on Man’s Sin and God’s Sovereignty‘.

It makes God into a monster!

What is a better solution to the problem of evil?

There is a very simple solution that those who believe in God’s free will to human beings, have been advocating throughout human history. We find it throughout the Scriptures. The Bible shows clearly that people have the ability to choose between two contrary views such as life and death. See Deuteronomy 30:15-19; Joshua 24:15; Isaiah 56:4; Ezekiel 33:11. The New Testament promotes the same view: Luke 22:32; John 3:16-17; Acts 17:30; Romans 6:16; 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11; 1 Timothy 2:3-4; 4:10; 1 John 2:2; 4:14; 2 John 1:9 and Revelation 22:17.

Of course there are verses that affirm predestination in association with salvation, but that is not contradictory to God’s giving human beings responsibility through free will. Also see ‘Church Fathers on Foreknowledge and Free will’.

When it comes to the problem of evil, there is a simple solution. When God made human beings in the beginning, he gave Adam and Eve the choice to obey or disobey Him:

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16-17).

Adam and Eve chose to disobey, beginning with Eve and the serpent’s tempting (Genesis 3). This tempter is generally accepted as the devil/Satan (see John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 11:3, 14; Revelation 12:9).

Since that time, all human beings inherit original sin, which means that all people have an hereditary fallen nature and moral corruption that have been passed on from Adam and Eve to all of their descendants. Romans 5:12 gives a summary of this view from God’s perspective:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

Some choose to be selfish, angry, steal or get angry (from mild to severe). Other people choose to do horrific things in their sinful actions. Human beings are responsible for horrendous, sinful deeds. It is human beings who commit the Holocaust, rape and murder. Each human being is responsible and will appear before the judgment of God to be judged.

The Judgment of the Dead (Revelation 20:11-15 NIV)

¹¹Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. ¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire (NIV).

The problem of evil, while inherited from birth, cannot be rebuffed with the claim that God gave it to me and caused me to sin. This is one that I’ve heard from some with a former church connection. The facts are that human beings choose to sin as Adam and Eve were their representatives. Adam was our federal head. If we had been there, we would have done exactly what Adam and Eve did. We see this emphasis in verses such as:

Romans 5:18, ‘Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people’.
1 Corinthians 15:22, ‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’.

Geisler & Brooks (1990:32) succinctly state the solution to the dilemma: ‘God is responsible for the fact of freedom, but men [human beings] are responsible for the acts of freedom’.

That is the hope available to all people

(image courtesy ChristArt)

‘For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive’. If you are interested in being made alive in Christ for abundant life NOW and eternal life that can begin NOW, I encourage you to read, ‘The content of the Gospel … and some discipleship’.

So, who is responsible for all of the evil in the world?

We are!

References

Clark, G H 2004. God and evil: The problem solved.[6] Unicoi, TN: The Trinity Foundation.

Geisler, N L & Brooks, R M 1990. When skeptics ask. Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books.

Little, B A 2012. Evil and God’s sovereignty, in Allen D L & Lemke, S W (eds), Whosoever will: A biblical-theological critique of five-point Calvinism, 275-298. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic.

Piper, J 2008. Spectacular Sins: And Their Global Purpose in the Glory of Christ. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books.

Piper, J 2009. The president, the passengers, and the patience of God, Desiring God, 21 January. Available at: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/the-president-the-passengers-and-the-patience-of-god (Accessed 7 May 2012).

Notes:

[1] The article,‘Drifter says he held girl three days’ (CNN, June 24, 2005), states that this atrocity occurred 100 yards from her home.

[1a] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘God is not the author of evil’, ColetheCalvinist, #1, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7654545/ (Accessed 6 May 2012).

[2] Ibid #23.

[3] Ibid #25.

[4] Ibid., #28.

[5] Ibid., #33.

[6] This was originally published as chapter 5 in Gordon Clark’s 1961 book, Religion, Reason and Revelation (The Trinity Foundation, 1986 [1961]).

DIVINE HEALING: IS IT FOR EVERYONE?

(image courtesy ChristArt)

Psalm 103:2-3 (ESV):

Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity,

who heals all your diseases,

No other agency on earth has been able to match the Church’s record of success in caring for the sick and afflicted. How many atheistic hospitals do you know about? How many Buddhist hospice’s have you discovered? At a time when Western culture desperately needs the church’s ministry of healing, it is the charismatic-Pentecostals who proclaim it regularly but it is almost absent or invisible in most churches of evangelical persuasion.

Western health-care has become one of the most secularised fields in the modern world.

Yet because of the cross, Pentecost and the gifts of the Spirit, the healing ministry is available in and through the church.

“It is an astonishing fact that the early Church won the population of the Roman Empire to Christ, at the rate of half a million converts every generation, while it was still a persecuted and illegal sect… Theologian John Jefferson Davis tells us: ‘The high moral standards of the church and its demonstrated compassion for the less fortunate were important features of its life that attracted outsiders. . .’

“Less well known today is the fact that the demonstrated ability of early Christians to exorcise demons constituted a powerful weapon in its evangelistic arsenal. . .

“The Church either has the dynamis of the Spirit or she does not. . .

“We must insist that Biblical, orthodox Christianity includes exorcism and healing, in a proper balance with worship and the Church’s ministries of teaching, evangelism, and charity. This is certainly the testimony of the New Testament. And it is witnessed by the historic Church as well” (Chilton 1987:160-161).

I. A BRIEF THEOLOGY OF HEALING

The basis for divine healing is not all that complicated. Read Isaiah 53:3-6 and Matt. 8:16-17.

A. Healing in the Redemptive Work of Christ

Please note that I will not use the statement, “Healing is in the atonement.” This is very deliberate because when we say, “Healing is in the atonement,” we are tempted to put it on the same level as salvation. “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (I do not believe in limited atonement.) But whoever intercedes for divine healing may or may not be healed. Why is this?

There are two main camps in this discussion:

1. Healing is available on the same basis as forgiveness.

Therefore, all Christians should experience immediate healing for every sickness, the same way they experience forgiveness.

2. Christians are not always healed; therefore, healing cannot be in the redemptive work of Christ.

Both sides are partly right and partly wrong. The problem lies with this kind of misconception: healing in the atonement automatically implies perfect physical health for every Christian who asks for healing. Because many Bible teachers and preachers have adopted this point of view, they have brought confusion, bondage for believers, and have hindered God’s people from receiving the blessing of physical healing.

See my article, ‘Should God heal all Christians who pray for healing?’

3. An examination of Isaiah 53:3-12

This is a prophetic passage concerning Christ’s crucifixion.
Two human problems stand out in this passage: sin and sickness.
Verse 3 prophetically refers to Jesus as a man of pains and sickness. (There is no indication in Gospels that Jesus was ever in any kind of ill health until 24 hours before his death. e.g. Gethsemane, Luke 22:44.)
Psalm 22:1-2, 6-8, and11-18 further describe the physical and emotional aspects of Christ’s overwhelming pain and sickness in prophetic expectation.

Why did Jesus have to suffer such pain and sickness? Isaiah 53 says that he took our infirmities (sicknesses); it is our pain he has borne. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him. By his wounds we are healed.

From this passage it is clear that sin and sickness are borne by Christ on the cross in exactly the same way. I cannot see any other conclusion from this passage.

T.J. McCrossan (1982) in his book, Bodily Healing and the Atonement, wrote:

“In Isaiah 53:4 we read, `Surely He [Christ] hath borne our griefs (kholee–sickness), and carried our sorrows (makob–pains).’ Kholee is from chalah–to be weak, sick, afflicted. In Deuteronomy 7:15 we read, `The Lord will take away from thee all sickness’ (kholee). This word is translated sickness in Deuteronomy 28:61; I Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 1:2; and 8:8. Makob is translated pain in Job 33:19: ‘He is chastened also with pain (makob).’ In Jeremiah 51:8 we read, `Take balm for her pain (makob)'” (1982:17).

When Matthew refers to this passage he uses the words infirmities and diseases (Matt. 8:16-17, NIV; illnesses and diseases, ESV). He then connects the passage with Jesus’ healing ministry while here on earth. They are not griefs and sorrows as in KJV, but illnesses and diseases (ESV).

What does it mean that Christ has borne (nasa) our sicknesses and pains? It is interesting that the same word is used in both Isa. 53:4 and 53:12, “he bore the sin of many.” The Hebrew word, nasa, means to bear in the sense of “suffering punishment for something” (Sipley, 1986:115-116).

A.J. Gordon wrote:

“The yoke of His cross by which He lifted our iniquities, took hold also of our diseases. . . He who entered into mysterious sympathy with our pain–which is the fruit of sin–also put Himself underneath our pain, which is the penalty of sin. In other words the passage seems to teach that Christ endured vicariously our diseases, as well as our iniquities” (n.d., pp. 16-17).

Andrew Murray’s interpretation was:

“It is not said only that the Lord’s righteous Servant had borne our sins, but also that He has borne our sicknesses. Thus his bearing our sicknesses forms an integral part of the Redeemer’s work, as well as bearing our sins” (1934:99).

However, I Peter 2:24 seems to be in the context of bearing our sins for salvation, not sicknesses for healing.

B. Practical Outworking of Healing in the Church

(image courtesy ChristArt)

1. I Corinthians 12:4-14: “gifts of healings” (v. 9)

The risen Christ has given gifts to his church (Eph. 4:7-16). Healing is supposed to be a normal part (not to be over-emphasised or an exaggerated part), but a normal part of the on-going life of the church.

There’s a controversial passage at the end of Mark’s Gospel. The early church, after the Gospels were written, believed that one of the “signs” of the believing community was healing. Mark 16:17 (ESV) reads: “They will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Please note, that I do not accept that Mark 16:17 is part of the canon of Scripture.

However, William Hendriksen’s words provide a wise assessment:

“What, then, must we think of Mark 16:9-20, that is, of the ending? It is an interesting summary of some of the appearances of the risen Savior and of his subsequent ascension and session at God’s right hand. As such it is instructive, for it shows us an early church view – how extensively held cannot be precisely indicated – of these matters. To the extent in which this ending truly reflects what is found elsewhere inside the covers of our Bible it can be described as a product, however indirectly, of divine inspiration. Since it would be very difficult – perhaps impossible – to defend the thesis that every word of this ending is without flaw, no sermon, doctrine, or practice should be based solely upon its contents” (1975:687).

God can and does heal in answer to the prayers of the humblest believer.

2. James 5:14-16. “The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.”

In most normal circumstances, God has directed Christians to be healed through the ministry of elders of the church. Compare Mark 6:12-13.

a. God deals with his people through church eldership ministry.

This is God’s usual way of healing. Anointing with oil is part of the regular pastoral ministry of church elders. Some might say,” What if I don’t have the gift of healing?” That is not the issue. If a person has been chosen (ordained?) as an elder, we know he or she has been divinely gifted to engage in a ministry of healing. The gift goes with the ministry of the elders. The Biblical teaching is straight forward: Elders are involved in the healing ministry.

Can God heal in answer to an individual’s prayer? Certainly! See Phil. 4:6-8; I Thess. 5:17.

b. What is the prayer of faith?

1) It does not refer to positive confession (blab it and grab it). This is forcing the hand of God and is grossly presumptuous, manipulative and has occult overtones. It ignores our need for humility and brokenness before God and, even worse, it also ignores the infinite, sovereignty of God.

2) It is not “claiming the promises.”

Many people think you can choose any Scriptural promise, take it to God in prayer, and claim the answer from God. i.e. He must answer our prayers and give us what we ask. Serious problems with this approach include:

Is the Scripture really a promise at all?
Have we met the conditions God places on it?

3) The prayer of faith is not “obeying the Word.”

It is extremely important to obey the Word of God, but such obedience is not the prayer of faith.

4) Mark 11:22-23 tells us what the prayer of faith is.

How can I have the faith of God? It seems as though it is only by God Himself bearing witness in your heart (inner spirit). If it is God’s faith, it must be God Himself thinking His thoughts through my mind with His own certainty. How does this happen?

I suggest that it happens when my will is in total submission to God and my spirit is open and sensitive to the Spirit of God. It happens in God’s own timing as the elder waits on the Lord. It may happen the first time I go to the Lord; other times it may take many times—persistence. It may happen as I search his word, wait in prayer, or go about my daily duties.

Sipley wrote:

“But when God knows all things are as He wants them, then `a word from Christ’ will be spoken in my heart. I will know what God wants me to do. I will know how God intends to fulfil His promise of divine life in me. I will experience the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, setting me free from the law of death (sickness) in my body. I will not need to try to make myself believe. I will have no doubt. I will be able to pray the prayer of faith for myself or others, and the life of Christ will triumph over sickness in the manner God sees as best” (1986:124).

c. This ministry is performed in connection with confession of sins (James 5:15-16).

It may be sickness because of sin, but not always. See I Cor. 11:30. The effects of unconfessed and unforgiven sin are pervasive throughout people’s lives. People need to confess their sins to the ministering elders and to those whom they have wronged.

God may grace the church with those who are especially gifted in praying for the sick and God uses them for healing. But such a ministry must be carried on within the structure of the local church, never in opposition to or in competition with the local church. There have been gross abuses because of the ministry of “lone ranger” healers or fraudulent healers.

David Chilton says “there is not a shred of evidence, either in the New Testament or Church history, for the independent professional miracle-worker” (1987:165). The freelance healer is not a biblical option. However, a believer may be given “gifts of healings” (I Cor. 12:9, note the two plurals), through gifts of the Spirit in the church. God’s supernatural ways of healing the sick are available today. They are just as relevant as the gift of “faith by the same Spirit,” “prophecy,” or “ability to distinguish between spirits,” etc.

I am reminded of Matthew 7:21-23 (ESV), “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

This is a clear indicator that there will be sham perpetrators of God’s gifts during the church age. However, the counterfeit should serve to point to the genuine, just as counterfeit money would not make sense if there were not the real to imitate.

C. Does God always heal?

God does not always answer our prayers by healing the sick. We must always remember that God is sovereign. “He does whatever he pleases (Ps. 115:3). He is not a genie who does as we tell him. He knows that is best for us. He is the Almighty Lord, the sovereign Creator and planner of all that is good. He is perfectly free to answer us in the way he chooses.

“One of the most important lessons of the Book of Job is that the world does not revolve around man and his perceived needs. The world revolves around God and His plans; the universe exists for God’s glory and pleasure. And God’s purposes transcend our lives, our problems, our hopes and dreams. It can be a bitter pill to swallow, but we haven’t gotten to first base yet if we fail to realize that people don’t come first. God comes first. . God’s ultimate answer to Job boils down to the simple fact that God is God, and Job is not (see Job 38-41)” (Chilton, 1987:168).

The fact that I suffer with sickness is no argument against the justice or mercy of God. If he denies my request for healing, I must rest in the knowledge that I am suffering according to His will. The very same Book of James that teaches on healing, also teaches on the benefits of suffering. See James 1:2-4:

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (NASB).

The modern evangelical heresy that godly people are free from suffering was unknown to the Apostle Paul. Suffering, an evil in itself, can have beneficial, sanctifying effects under the providence of God.

Read Psalm 119:67-71; 2 Timothy 4:20 (“I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus,” didn’t embarrass Paul); Acts 9:16 (fulfilled in 2 Cor. 6:3-10; 11:23-33); 2 Tim. 2:9, 12; 3:12; and I Peter 4:19.

Prayer is nothing more than a request from children to their Father. The power belongs to the Father. The power is not in the request itself or in the person who makes the request.

We must remember the emphasis of Psalm 116:15 (ESV), “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” We will die unless Jesus returns before then.

At some point our prayers will not help because the time has come for our body and spirit to be separated to await resurrection on the last day. God’s ultimate will is not to keep everyone reasonably healthy in this life. Rather, it is to bring all of us, body and soul, into the fullness of the New Creation.

D. What about medicine?

Is it sinful to use “natural” or “human” means to restore health? Certainly not — as long as we do not fall into the same trap as Asa did in 2 Chron. 16:12: He “did not seek the Lord, but the physicians” and so died.

We must realise that all health is given through the work of the Holy Spirit. No doctor has the ability to heal. Dr. Luke is called “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). Paul told Timothy to “use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities” (I Tim. 5:23). There is no hint here that Timothy was living in disobedience or lack of faith.

We need to use medicine prayerfully. It is Christianity that has brought the blessings of modern science and medicine. Modern medicine has its problems and limitations, but it is light years ahead of anything produced by witch doctors.

George Grant wrote:

“The advancement of modern medicine has a direct correspondence with the advancement of the Gospel. Christian nations are havens of medical mastery, guarding the sanctity of life” (in Chilton, 1987:167).

“Guarding the sanctity of life” is being flaunted today with the promotion of abortion and euthanasia.

For over a thousand years Christian churches and monastic communities were the only agencies involved in ministry to the sick. Christians built hospitals and staffed them. They did this while bathing the ministries in prayer. This is a dilemma for the rationalistic atheist. For Christians, it is just being faithful to God’s word. The godly farmer plants, waters, fertilises, prunes, fights off pests and predators – and prays for God to bring the harvest.

So, we can pray for healing (some may be gifted with a ministry of healings, I Cor. 12:9); the elders can pray and anoint with oil (James 5:14-15); we can take medicine. But it is God who proclaims, “I am the Lord, your healer” (Ex. 15:26). He heals according to His good and perfect will.

(image courtesy ChristArt

References:

Chilton, D. (1987). Power in the Blood: A Christian Response to AIDS. Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc., 1987.

Gordon, A. J. (n.d.). The Ministry of Healing. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, Inc.

Hendriksen, W. (1975). The Gospel of Mark (New Testament Commentary). Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust.

McCrossan, T. J. (1982). Bodily Healing and the Atonement. Tulsa Oklahoma: Rhema Bible Church.

Murray, A. (1934). Divine healing. London: Victory Press.

Sipley, R. M. (1986). Understanding Divine Healing. England: Scripture Press Foundation (UK) Ltd.

How about a good laugh for Christians!

(courtesy of ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

What’s the place of humour in the Christian life?

I’m thinking of that verse in Proverbs,

‘A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones’ (Prov. 17:22 NIV).

What about, ‘A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit’ (Prov. 15:13 NIV)?

There is a time for every activity under the heavens, including ‘a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Eccl. 3:4).

Take a read of, ‘What does the Bible say about humor and laughter?’

This might do us good for a very healthy, clean laugh,

“Larry Griswold on the Frank Sinatra Show” (YouTube).
“Two year old takes over the jive“.

Who is the Mormon Jesus [1]

(courtesy ChristArt)

By Spencer D Gear

On Christian Fellowship Forum, Clair, a male Mormon, wrote:

I do know Christ. He is my Savior. He forgives my sins and has rescued me more than once. I love him, and I have come to trust him with my thoughts, problems, failings and hopes. He doesn’t reject me, ever.[2]

But who is the Mormon Jesus who is Clair’s Saviour? Mormon elder, Bernard P. Brockbank, of the First Quorum of the Seventy, stated in, ‘The living Christ’, May 1977, that

it is true that many of the Christian churches worship a different Jesus Christ than is worshipped by the Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There is further evidence of the Mormon’s different Jesus:

In bearing testimony of Jesus Christ, President Hinckley spoke of those outside the Church who say Latter-day Saints “do not believe in the traditional Christ. No, I don’t. The traditional Christ of whom they speak is not the Christ of whom I speak. For the Christ of whom I speak has been revealed in this the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. He, together with His Father, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the year 1820, and when Joseph left the grove that day, he knew more of the nature of God than all the learned ministers of the gospel of the ages.

“Am I Christian? Of course I am. I believe in Christ. I talk of Christ. I pray through Christ. I’m trying to follow Him and live His gospel in my life” (LDS Church News, ‘Crown of gospel is on our heads’, June 20, 1998).

How is the Mormon doctrine of Jesus different from the orthodox Christian view of Jesus as expounded in the Bible? The following are but a few examples of this false doctrine of Christ.

1. How was Jesus conceived?

“When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. He was not begotten by the Holy Ghost. And who was the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle (Body), it was begotten by his Father in heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve; from the

fruits of the earth, the first earthly tabernacles were originated by the Father and son in succession…..Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven” (Journal of Discourses, 1:50-51)

The Bible’s position is: “But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit'” (Matt. 1:20).

Thus the Mormon Jesus is different from the biblical Jesus.

ChristArt

2. Where was Jesus born?

Both OT & NT confirm that Christ, the Messiah, was born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Luke 2:4-16, Matt. 2:1-16; John 7:42). But the Mormons teach that Jesus was born in the city of Jerusalem.

In my copy of The Book of Mormon Alma 7:10 reads,

And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God.

Again, the Mormon Jesus is different from the biblical Jesus.

2 John 7, ChristArt

3. Jesus is a spirit child of a heavenly Father and Mother

The Bible declares that Jesus is God: “For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6)

The LDS Jesus was a spirit child of a heavenly Father and Mother and Jesus had brothers, including Satan.

In this Mormon Gospel Library Lesson, ‘Jesus Christ volunteered to be our Savior’, it summarised this aspect of LDS false doctrine:

1. In the premortal life we were spirit children and lived with our heavenly parents (Hebrews 12:9).

2. Jesus was the firstborn spirit child of Heavenly Father (D&C 93:21) and is the older brother of our spirits.

3. Lucifer, who became Satan, was also a spirit child of Heavenly Father.

4. Heavenly Father called a meeting for all his spirit children. At this meeting he explained his plan for us to become like him. He told us that he wanted us to go to earth to get a physical body. He explained that on earth we would be tested to see if we would keep his commandments.

The Mormon heavenly father was once a human being who “became” God. And all obedient Mormons have the potential to become a god like Jesus and the heavenly Father. We can have spirit children with our eternal wives.

“It is our privilege to so live as to enjoy the spirit of our religion. That is designed to restore us to the presence of the Gods. Gods exist, and we had better strive to be prepared to be one with them” (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:238)

Lorenzo Snow was the fifth president and prophet of mainstream Mormonism. One of his most famous statements was, ‘As man is, God once was: as God is, man may become’. The mormonwiki site states that ‘this short sentence summarizes the traditional understanding of what Joseph Smith taught in the ‘Sermon in the Grove’ and, most famously, in the ‘King Follett Discourse’ (Part 1; Part 2).

Again, the Mormon Jesus is different from the biblical Jesus.

ChristArt

See the article of refutation by Bill McKeever, ‘As God Is Man May Be’.

4. Jesus was married

The NT Scriptures do not indicate that Jesus married, but the LDS documents state:

“It will be borne in mind that once on a time, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and on a careful reading of that transaction, it will be discovered that no less a person than Jesus Christ was married on that occasion. If he was never married, his intimacy with Mary and Martha, and the other Mary also whom Jesus loved, must have been highly unbecoming and improper to say the best of it” (Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, 4:259).

The Apostle Orson Hyde also stated:

Jesus was the bridegroom atthe marriage of Cana of Galilee, and he told them what to do.

Now there was actually a marriage; and if Jesus was not the bridegroom on that occasion, please tell who was. If any man can show this, and prove that it was not the Savior of the world, then I will acknowledge I am in error. We say it was Jesus Christ who was married, to be brought into the relation whereby he could see his seed, before he was crucified. (Apostle Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, 2:82)

The Mormon Jesus is different from the biblical Jesus.

ChristArt

5. What about the doctrine of salvation?

Read this statement carefully from the Book of Mormon to get an understanding of the Mormon view of how to obtain salvation:

For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. (2 Nephi 25:23).

For Mormons, salvation is ‘by grace’ AND ‘all we can do’.

See these articles:

How should Bible-believing, evangelical Christians respond?

ChristArt

No matter how much a Mormon may say that “I do know Christ. He is my Savior. He forgives my sins and has rescued me more than once. I love him, and I have come to trust him,” the LDS evidence affirms that the Mormon Jesus is ANOTHER JESUS.

How am I to respond to a Mormon when he or she proclaims another Jesus? I answer in the same way that Paul taught the Galatians:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-9 ESV).

Paul’s words are strong words and they must be my words to Clair, the Mormon, “Let him be accursed”. I did not invent these words and this result! To be honest to Jesus and biblical Christianity, I must have the same antidote that Paul, the apostle, gave.

This article provides a brief comparison between Christian doctrine and Mormon doctrine to show that Mormonism is not Christian. So my description of Mormon doctrine being anti-Christian is right on target.[3]

I recommend the article, ‘Who is the “Living Christ” of Mormonism?’ by Mormon Research Ministry. For excellent critiques of Mormon false doctrine, I recommend:

Notes:

[1] ozspen reply to cellisut (a Mormon), Christian Fellowship Forum (CFF), Contentious Brethren, “If you only . . .” #12, available from: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=11&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship&tid=118642 (Accessed 7 October 2008). Much of the following I have also made as a reply to cellisut on 30 April 2012, CFF, Bible Study & Discipleship, ‘My hypothesis of the trinity’, #78, available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=77&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship&tid=121124 (Accessed 30 April 2012).

[2] cellisut, CFF, #4, 5 October 2008, ‘If you only . . .’, available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship&tid=118642 (Accessed 30 April 2012).

[3] In another post to me on 29 April 2012, Clair had stated, ‘Spencer, that’s pretty insulting language. Meanwhile, I’m off to attend our church services, to partake the bread and water in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ. I have been asked to offer the opening prayer today, so I had better be early. If you were here, you could come with me’ (Christian Fellowship Forum, Bible Study & Discipleship, ‘My hypothesis of the trinity’, #77, available at: http://community.compuserve.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?msg=121124.77&nav=messages&webtag=ws-fellowship (Accessed 30 April 2012). I, as ozspen, had stated in #76 of this thread: ‘Because Mormonism wants to be seen as ‘Christian’, but many of its doctrines are anti-Christian, it becomes an effort at redefinition. Or, Mormons want to make their cult doctrines look Christian so the slippery definitions come in’.

The youth God squad and healing

Courtesy The Australian

By Spencer D Gear

The Australian newspaper (story from the Sunday Mail) reported on ‘Teen God squad Culture Shifters’ miracle cure claims’ (April 15, 2012). The account began:

CHILDREN as young as 13 claim they have instantly healed hundreds of people using the miracle powers of Jesus on Queensland streets.

The Pentecostal group Culture Shifters in Queensland says it has healed people suffering from cancer and multiple sclerosis and is developing a large youth following.

Children from the group have been approaching people at random on the street, prompting alarm from parents and warnings from doctors for the sick to seek medical attention.

“Anyone who has a medical condition should always seek advice from their doctor,” Australian Medical Association Queensland president Dr Richard Kidd said.

Leaders, aged in their teens and 20s, claim they have also healed an entire football team’s injuries, given hearing to a deaf woman and brought sight to a girl’s blind eye.

What is the verification for this kind of healing? Have the football team’s injuries been checked by a medical practitioner to confirm that the healings are legitimate? What about the healed deaf woman and healed blind eye? How do we know they are valid healings?

The story went on to say that this 160-member group of Culture Shifters is from Christian Outreach Centre, Bridgeman Downs (a northern Brisbane suburb) and is led by Grant Shaw, 27, and his wife, Emma, 23.

It claimed these Culture Shifters were even talking to teens in busy places like the Chermside Shopping Centre.

Some live action

If you want to see these people in action, live, see the report on Today Tonight, ‘Teenage God squad’ (Yahoo!7 News). Viewing these images caused me some concern. It is typical of some of the scenes I have seen in Pentecostal and charismatic churches with people falling and lying spread out on the floor after ‘falling under the Spirit’.

My concerns

Here are some of my concerns:

It is rare for the mass media to report in an accurate and sympathetic manner in most ordinary circumstances with the church. Viewing something as extreme as this is hardly going to attract balanced journalism, in my view.
The mass media can give Christianity a bashing on too many occasions. See ‘Gay rights protest outside Court’s church’; ‘Sometimes. love, even if a gift from Jesus, is not good enough’; ‘Sunday nights with John Cleary: Bishop Shelby Spong’. Therefore, with the Culture Shifters (Teen God squad) there could be a possibility that the media have taken a true event and given some media spin to make it sound like the deluded fanatics are involved in this event.
From the news item and the TV program, there is no way to know if the media are reporting accurately. However,
As a former Assemblies of God minister and Bible college teacher, I can say that I’ve seen some fruit-loopy things happen in the name of being ‘slain in the Spirit’. I have to admit that some of what I’ve seen could have involved another spirit.
I have known a very few people associated with various Christian Outreach Centres and have found them to be reasonable, committed evangelical Christians who love the Lord and are available for the Lord’s ministry through the gifts of the Spirit. They are sane people whose relationship with Jesus is sound.
By the very nature of Pentecostal-charismatic churches, we can expect to see some extreme behaviour – depending on the extent to which the pastors and elders maintain the biblical requirement, ‘But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way’ (1 Cor. 14:40 NIV). We have seen out-there behaviour associated with the alleged Toronto Blessing and the Brownsville Pensacola Outpouring.
However, charismatic manifestations have extended to other churches. An example locally to me is Burpengary Baptist Church (northern Brisbane).

What we need

ChristArt

Part of the problem, as I see it, is the need for verification of what they are doing in a very secular Australia. I do not find anywhere in Scripture where God promises physical healing to all who are prayed for. The secular media love to report failures. Is doing this on the streets risky and could it give false hope? Also, Today Tonight reported that it has not seen any certificates to verify the healings. This is a valid request.

I believe in the God who can heal, but we must never order him when to do this. He’s the sovereign Lord. What do secular people think when they are prayed for and nothing happens?

This raises another issue. It seems to me that the Scriptures teach that the ministry of healing is to be within the church and not taking it to the secular mainstream. The gifts of healing (1 Cor. 12:9, 28, 30) and praying for the sick, anointing with oil (James 5:14) are church ministries within the church. There are good reasons why the Lord has made it this way in a pastoral, caring environment where there also is further support.

Was healing ever an evangelistic tool after the Lord’s resurrection? I know some will turn to Mark 16:15-18 where proclaiming the Gospel is associated with ‘these signs will accompany those who believe’, including laying hands on the sick and they will recover (v. 18). However, Mark 16:9-20 is not in the earliest Greek manuscripts and some other early Greek NT witnesses that we have. It could have been an insertion that was not in the original documents. However, it does seem to indicate that this was an example of the continuing ministry of the church after the death of the apostles.

To address this textual issue, I commend, ‘Irony in the end: A textual and literary analysis of Mark 16:8’.

Conclusion

ChristArt

The gifts of the Spirit do continue into the 21^st century. See my articles,

We need to take seriously the exhortation of Scripture to ‘weigh carefully’ the content of the gifts of the Spirit. The ‘weigh carefully’ message was particularly related to the gift of prophecy. See my article, ‘1 Corinthians 14:29: Weigh carefully’.

There is no way to know if the healing ministry of the teen God squad of the Culture Shifters is genuine without verification of the reality of healings. There is a danger that a wrong emphasis can be given to secular people when there is prayer for healing and no healing takes place. God’s gift of healing is sovereign and according to his will. See my article, ‘Should God heal all Christians who pray for healing?’

Care must be taken to avoid Pentecostal extremes. However, the mass media are not likely to deliver a balanced view of what is happening. Extreme behaviour will attract the media, but balanced treatment can’t be expected from the secular journalists. They have a different agenda. When God heals, it is designed to bring glory and attraction to the Lord.

‘But all things should be done decently and in order’ (1 Cor 14:40 ESV)

What’s the place of logic in Christian apologetics?

(image courtesy Baker Books)

I began a thread on Christian Forums, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’. The response was mostly favourable, but many in favour seemed to drop out of the discussion when there were negative comments like these:

You wouldn’t see me as an advocate of logic, it relies on the mind, and that is secondary to the Spirit.
Logic will never restore a maimed leg.
Logic would fall under the tree of knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life, hence why I don’t have a good opinion of it. It is there at times, but it is not part of conforming to the image of His Son.
The Bible is filled with ‘illogic’. Peter walking on the water, God dying on the Cross, etc.
The use of the Bible doesn’t necessitate logic. It requires faith and proper hermeneutical exegesis. Communicating your findings doesn’t depend on logic, and neither do the other areas you mentioned. It just requires systematic use of the information available, no logic. Logic states, “I think therefore I am”, God states, “I AM”.

What is the role of logic in the use of the Christian mind?

I need to say that I’ve been particularly helped in growing in my faith and use of Christian apologetics by Norman Geisler & Ronald Brooks (1990), Come, Let Us Reason.

Their definitions of logic are:

(1) “Logic really means putting your thoughts in order” (p. 11), or as a more formal definition,
(2) “Logic is the study of right reason or valid inferences and the attending fallacies, formal and informal” (Geisler & Brooks 1990:12).

If logic is the study of correct reason, what do you think is the place of logic in the Christian faith, and especially in apologetics? What’s the point of even raising logic as a necessary part of Christian apologetics?

I am reminded that the term, ‘theology’ is made up of two NT Greek words: theos = God and logos = word or logic. So we might say that theology is the logic of God, or theology is a rational discourse about God (Geisler & Brooks 1990:15).

Is it possible to have a reasonable discussion on an Internet forum, in a church Bible study, or in proclaiming the Gospel and defending the faith, without the use of correct logic?

How do you see logic, reason, the supernatural God and the use of the Christian mind?

Logical fallacies

One of the areas of logic that I’ve had to give more attention to in pursuing research studies and on Christian forums has been the use of logical fallacies. Some that I have seen in various readings have included:

Begging the question, where the conclusion is sneaked into the premises. I note this in my analysis of Jesus Seminar fellow, John Dominic Crossan’s writings. Crossan also uses
Special pleading – the evidence supporting only one view is cited and the other is excluded. Crossan does this with his statements like, in quoting ‘secondary literature, I spend no time citing other scholars to show how wrong they are’. Instead, he only quotes those who ‘represent my intellectual debts’ (Crossan 1991:xxxiv).
Straw man – drawing a false picture of the other person’s argument;
Red herring – evading a question by changing the subject.
Ad hominem – argument by character assassination or personal attack. I see this sometimes in the flaming on this forum, but fortunately the moderators are onto this very quickly.
Genetic fallacy – something should be rejected because it comes from a bad source. I often see this in evolution vs creationist debates where evolutionist states evidence from the Book of Genesis should be rejected because of those fighting fundies (or conservative evangelicals) who want to interpret it literally and they know nothing about science. Genesis is mythology, anyway!

Liberal theology as a hindrance

What I think causes some Christians to balk at the idea of using logic in communication is what is seen in liberal theology using the historical-critical method where people promote autonomous human reason to arrive at conclusions that are contrary with Scripture.

This shows how humanistic reasoning can be abused, but it does not negate the use of logic in our communication. Those who are opposing the use of logic, are engaging in a self-defeating exercise. This is because they are using logic in the sentences they write to oppose the use of logic.

Many things in Christian exegesis, theology, apologetics, Bible study, etc., can be abused. The abuse of something does not negate its legitimacy when used for the correct purposes. One or 10 faulty Fords (motor vehicles) doesn’t make every Ford junk – I drive a Toyota Camry.

Abuse does not exclude legitimate use.

A responder to one of my posts on Christian Forums gave an excellent perspective on this problem of abuse of logic:

See I have a bit of a different thought on the matter. Imagine a pretty girl who is always told she is ugly. Eventually she comes to believe that even though she is beautiful. Similarly, atheists claim the mantle of logic and reason, telling Christians their beliefs are unfounded and go against logic. So Christians come to hate logic and reason not realizing that they can fight fire with fire and that logic goes both ways. We are that girl and we are not ugly.

To all the Christians out there who are reading this, do not fear logic and reason. Logic and reason is not something to be afraid of, embrace it! Pray for a stronger faith and know that God is on our side.

If getting into the negations of our faith makes you weary, don’t! But for those of us who can and do, do not judge us for it. We are part of the Body Of Christ! Do not forget that.[1]

While the use of reason, including logic, can be abused, it does not denigrate the proper use of logic as defined above.

Does the NT endorse apologetics as a legitimate ministry?

Is there a legitimate Christian ministry of apologetics when the ministry gift of an apologist is not mentioned using the word, apologist, in the New Testament?

I observe that these words do not appear as exact words in the NT: Trinity, substitutionary atonement of Christ and inerrancy of the Bible.[2] However, all three of these doctrines are taught in the Bible. So while we use different English words to describe a doctrine, this does not mean that that doctrine does not appear in the Bible.

The same applies with the ministry of an apologist. In discussion on a Christian Forum, a fellow wrote to me,

And by the way, just so you are aware of it, there is no ministry from The Holy Spirit in the bible called “apologetics.” A lot of people make one up, but it is not a GOD given ministry unto the body of Christ for its edification. This is very apparent in the bible, and I’m quite surprised that you would even make mention of it to me, as if you were doing something for GOD this way.[3]

My reply to him included some of the following brief information.[4] We know that there are five ministry gifts of Christ to the church according to Ephesians 4:11-13,

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (NIV).

Therefore, the gifts of ministry Christ gave to the church are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. There is no mention of apologists here, so does that mean the ministry of Christian apologetics is not valid?

A check of Arndt & Gingrich’s Greek lexicon (1957:95) reveals the meanings of apologia, the Greek word for a defence or apologetic. This is what we find:

There is a ministry of apologia (apologetics) involved in giving testimony as Paul demonstrated in Acts 22:1. So presenting one’s testimony can involve an apologetic component.
Phil. 1:7, 16 demonstrate that the ministry of apologia is involved in defendng the Gospel. So apologetics is a sub-set of the gift of proclaiming the Gospel – evangelism.
This is also confirmed in 1 Peter 3:15, the verse that is commonly given as an example of apologetics. If a person is giving an apologia for the hope that he/she has in Christ, then a person is engaging in the ministry of evangelism.

Therefore, the ministry of apologetics is a sub-set of evangelism and could well be an aspect of the continuing gift of apostles. See my article, ‘Are there apostles in the 21^st century?’

Many of the church fathers in the early days of establishing the Christian church were described as engaging in the ministry as apologists in church planting and teaching. Earle Cairns in his book on church history (Cairns 1996),

During the second and third centuries the church expressed its emerging self-consciousness in a new literary output—the writings of the apologists and the polemicists. Justin Martyr was the greatest of the former group; Irenaeus was the outstanding man of the later group (Cairns 1996:105). [5]

Cairns lists these apologists of the early church:

1. Eastern apologists were Justin Martyr (ca. AD 100-165); Tatian (ca. AD 110-172); Athenagoras (one of his publications was about AD 177); Theophilus of Antioch (converted to Christ about AD 180) (Cairns 1996:106-107).

2. Western apologists included Tertullian (born ca. AD 160); and Minucius Felix (wrote about AD 200) [Cairns 1996:107-109].

Therefore, from a biblical and historical perspective, the ministry of apologetics can be agreed as part of the ministry of apostle or evangelist. In my own ministry as a teacher-preacher, I often use apologetics in explaining aspects of my expositions. Here you will read examples of my expository preaching on 1 Peter.

Recommended books

I highly recommend Harry Blamires, The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? (Servant Books). Also Harry Blamires, The Post Christian Mind (Servant Books). Os Guinness’s little book has lots of meat, Fit Bodies Fat Minds: Why Evangelicals Don’t Think & What to Do About It (I have the British edition by Hodder & Stoughton).

Back in 1972, the late John Stott published a wonderful booklet of 64 pages, Your Mind Matters: The Place of the Mind in the Christian Life (IVP). One of his statements was:

I am not pleading for a dry, humorless, academic Christianity, but for a warm devotion, set on fire by truth. I long for this biblical balance and the avoidance of fanatical extremes. I shall urge that the remedy for an exaggerated view of the intellect is neither to disparage it, nor to neglect it, but to keep it in its God-appointed place, fulfilling its God-appointed role (Stott 1972:11).

Conclusion

We cannot read any document without use of logic. So God, the creator of logic, uses logic is providing us with the God-breathed Scriptures to read. All of God’s good things can be abused and this applies to logic.

It is not illogical to believe in the supernatural God of miracles who provides a book by putting His thoughts in order in Scripture.

The ministry of apologetics is a legitimate Christian ministry that may be subsumed under the gifts of apostle, evangelist and teacher.

Works consulted

Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. [6] Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).

Cairns, E E 1996. Christianity through the centuries. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Crossan, J D 1991. The historical Jesus. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Geisler, N L & Brooks, R M 1990. Come, let us reason. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Notes:

[1] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’, Secondtimearound #37, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7651514-4/ (Accessed 25 April 2012).

[2] See also my article, ‘What is the nature of the Bible’s inspiration?’.

[3] Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Logic in Christian apologetics’, ARBITER01 #30. available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7651514-3/ (Accessed 25 April 2012). In this thread I’m OzSpen.

[4] Ibid., #33.

[5] This and the following references are to the 1981 edition of Earle Cairns.

[6] This is ‘a translation and adaptation of Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-Deutsches Wörtbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrigen urchristlichen Literatur’, 4^th rev and aug ed, 1952 (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:iii).

St. Augustine: The leading Church Father who dared to change his mind about divine healing

St Augustine of Hippo (image courtesy Wikipedia)

By Spencer D Gear PhD [1a]

She was “a woman of the highest social standing in her community,” but disaster had struck. She was dying from a disease that would not respond to any known medical treatment. Two choices were available to her: she could have surgery, or she could accept no treatment. Either way, death was inevitable.

On the advice of an eminent doctor who was a family friend, Innocentia chose to refuse treatment for her breast cancer. But that doctor didn’t realize this godly woman had access to resources he knew nothing of.

In a dream she was told by the Lord to “wait on the women’s side of the baptistry until the first of the newly baptized women would approach, and then ask her to make the sign of Christ on the affected breast.” She was instantly healed.

The doctor was amazed. His previous examination showed clearly that the tumor was malignant. What special treatment had she received? He was anxious to hear about the miracle medication.

When he heard her story, his lips and face expressed nothing but contempt, and she was afraid that he was going to begin blaspheming against Christ. The doctor controlled his anger, but sarcastically said, “I had hoped you might have told me something significant.”

Innocentia was shocked by the doctor’s attitude, but her reply was prompt and penetrating: “Well, for Christ to heal a cancer after He raised to life a man four days dead is not, I suppose, particularly significant.”

What makes this testimony of God’s healing power so remarkable is that Innocentia lived in the fifth century when medical science was in its infancy. Anesthetics had not been invented to give to patients before surgery.

Even more profound is the fact that the one who told this story was Augustine, the famous bishop of Hippo in northern Africa and he had believed miracles did not happen in the age in which he lived. This is one of the classic illustrations of the man who dared to change his mind about healing.

Augustine had a Madison Avenue flare. He was “positively angry” that such a great miracle had not been publicized across the city of Carthage. Innocentia had been so silent about the incident that even her closest friends “had heard nothing of the affair.”

Augustine made her tell her story in detail “while her friends, who were there, listened in immense amazement and, when she was done, glorified God.” [1b] The important question is: What caused Augustine to change his mind about miracles?

A. The doubter becomes a believer

This famous bishop and theologian of the church was a man with a checkered career. Before his Christian conversion he was wild and reckless. He indulged in drinking, cheating, stealing, and all kinds of illicit sexual activities. To use his own words, he was “a slave to sex rather than a lover of marriage.” [2]

But he was a searcher for truth. At the age of 32 his life was dramatically transformed through an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Augustine became the most important Christian writer and preacher of his time. His teachings profoundly affected the church for about a thousand years. “Salvation by grace alone” was the foundation of his ministry, preparing the way for the Protestant reformers in the 1500s.

Like many people today, Augustine had a problem with the supernatural. He knew that the miracles of Jesus were real, but he had doubts about whether they could happen in the day in which he lived. He believed “miracles were not allowed to continue till our time, lest the mind should always seek visible things.” [3]

But about four years before his death he changed his mind: “What I said is not to be interpreted that no miracles are believed to be performed in the name of Christ at the present time. For when I wrote that book, I myself had recently learned that a blind man had been restored to sight in Milan . . . and I knew about some others, so numerous even in these times, that we cannot know about all of them nor enumerate those we know.” [4]

Augustine the doubter once questioned: “Why, you ask, do such miracles not occur now? Because they would not move people, unless they were miraculous; and if they were customary, they would not be miraculous.” [5]

Later he revised that statement: “I meant, however, that such great and numerous miracles no longer take place, not that no miracles occur in our times.” [6]

B. Why the change?

At the close of one of his most influential writings, The City of God, Augustine tells of a man who was healed of gout; another was instantly cured of paralysis and hernia; evil spirits were driven out of others by prayer. [7] A youth whose eye had been dislocated from its socket and severely damaged, had his sight restored to perfect condition through the prayers of the believers. [8]

A child, dying after being crushed by an ox-drawn cart, was miraculously “returned to consciousness, but showed no sign of the crushing he had suffered.” [9]

The son of Augustine’s neighbor died, “The corpse was laid out; the funeral was arranged; everyone was grieving and sorrowing.” A friend of the family anointed the body with oil. “This was no sooner done than the boy came back to life.” [10]

In his latter years this prominent church leader was witness to, or heard about, demonstrations of God’s supernatural power that were reminiscent of the New Testament church. He had to admit: “If I kept merely to [telling of] miracles of healing and omitted all others. . . I should have to fill several volumes.” [11]

What caused the dramatic turn around in his beliefs? Augustine explains that it came about when “I realized how many miracles were occurring in our own day and which were so like the miracles of old, and how wrong it would be to allow the memory of these marvels of divine power to perish from among our people. It is only two years ago that the keeping of records was begun here in Hippo, and already, at this writing we have nearly seventy attested miracles.” [12]

In spite of initial skepticism, Augustine faced honestly what was happening in his parish. He had to admit that God was at work in the power of the Spirit because of what he saw. To other doubters he recommended: “At least, such people should investigate facts and, if they find them true, should accept them.” [13]

For Augustine, the transformation in his thinking was amazing. “It is a simple fact, then, that there is no lack of miracles even in our day. And the God who works the miracles we read of in the Scripture uses any means and manner He chooses.” [14]

But for Augustine, miracles were not sent primarily by God to relieve pain (although that was a benefit), or to create a spectacle that would attract crowds, or to provide stories that would make a national best-seller. “Miracles have no purpose but to help men believe that Christ is God.” [15] Miracles demonstrate that Jesus Christ is alive and well – they validate the resurrection. He said “the miracles were made known to help men’s faith.” [16]

The miracle that left the most lasting impression on Augustine and his congregation was one that took place in their church one Easter weekend. “It was no more remarkable than others . . . but it was so clear and obvious to everyone that no one who lives here could have failed to see it, or, at least, to hear about it, and certainly no one could ever forget it.”

A brother and sister who were both suffering from convulsive seizures came to town. “Throughout the city they were a spectacle for all to see.”

On Easter morning before the service, the young man was in the crowded church when he fell down as if in a trance. Fear swept across the congregation. But in a moment the fellow stood to his feet and faced the congregation, perfectly normal and well.

The believers erupted in a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord. Many reported the events to Augustine, and there was a striking similarity in all of their stories: the Lord had performed a miracle before their eyes.

Three days later Augustine stood before the congregation with the brother and sister (he was well; she was still trembling with convulsions), and read the young man’s statement of healing.

The sermon that followed was interrupted by loud cries from the woman who was praying in desperation about her condition. God answered her prayer at that moment. She had the same experience as her brother, fell to the floor as if in a trance, but rose to her feet healed.

Augustine described the scene that followed: “Praise to God was shouted so loud that my ears could scarcely stand the din. But, of course, the main point was that, in the hearts of all this clamoring crowd, there burned that faith in Christ for which the martyr Stephen shed his blood.” [17]

C. Implications

Why is Augustine’s change of mind about healing so significant? First, there are many fine Christians today who believe the biblical-style miracles ceased with the death of the original twelve apostles. Augustine’s writings clearly disagree with that position.

Second, this famous church leader gives a clear example of what Christian maturity involves. He was flexible enough to change his views when presented with evidence that could not be disputed. Like the apostle Thomas (John 20), his doubt was turned to belief by what he saw.

Third, miracles multiplied in Augustine’s ministry and parish when he was open to such supernatural possibilities. There was little to report about physical healings in his writings when he took the position that miracles were not for his time. God requires people to trust Him for the impossible if the miraculous is to occur.

Christians need to stand firm on biblical principles that never change. But there comes a time when one has to be big enough to admit that a personal interpretation was wrong. Near the end of his life, Augustine revised 93 of his writings and changed “anything that offends me or might offend others.” [18] He had the mettle to admit his mistakes in public and make necessary changes. He dared to change his mind about divine healing.

Notes

[1] This article was originally published as, “The man who dared to change his mind about divine healing,” in the Pentecostal Evangel, September 11, 1983, pp. 18-20.

[1a] I completed my dissertation-only PhD in New Testament at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, when I was aged 69 in 2015.

[1b] Saint Augustine, The City of God, translated by Gerald G. Waigh and Daniel J. Honan, volume 24 in the series, The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1954), pp. 437, 488.
[2] Mildred Tengborn, “The Saint and His Saintly Mother,” Eternity (January 1983), pp. 46-47.
[3] John A. Mourant, lntroduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine: Selected Readings and Commentaries, (University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1964), pp. 64-65. Quoting from Augustine’s “On the True Religion,” chapter 25:47.
[4] Saint Augustine, The Retractions, translated by Sister Mary Inez Bogan, volume 60 in the series, The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968), p. 55.
[5] Saint Augustine, “The Advantage of Believing,” in Writings of Saint Augustine, translated by Luaime Meagher, volume 2 in the series, The Fathers of the Church (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1947), p. 438.
[6] Retractions, pp. 61, 62.
[7] City of God, p. 439.
[8] Ibid., p. 441.
[9] Ibid., p. 444.
[10] Ibid., p. 445.
[11] Ibid., p. 445.
[12] Ibid., p. 445.
[13] Ibid., p. 447.
[14] Ibid., p. 447.
[15] Ibid., p. 456.
[16] Saint Augustine, The City of God, an abridged version from the translation by Gerald G. Walsh, Demetrius B. Zema, Grace Monahan, and Daniel J. Honan- Edited, with an introduction, by Vernon J. Bourke (Garden City, N.Y.: Image Books, 1958), p. 513.
[17] City of God (as in endnote 1), pp. 448-450.
[18] Retractions, p. xiii.

What is the nature of the Bible’s inspiration?

clip_image002 Courtesy ChristArt

By Spencer D Gear

Is the Bible a book that contains errors of history, contradictions of various sorts, and can still be described as the authoritative word of God?

There are heretical groups like the Jesus Seminar that want us to believe that ‘Eighty-two percent of the words ascribed to Jesus in the gospels were not actually spoken by him’ (Funk et al 1998:5).

What about John Dominic Crossan’s assessment? (He’s also a fellow of the Jesus Seminar)

What happened after the death and burial of Jesus is told in the last chapters of the four New Testament gospels. On Easter Sunday morning his tomb was found empty, and by Easter Sunday evening Jesus himself had appeared to his closest followers and all was well once again. Friday was hard, Saturday was long, but by Sunday all was resolved. Is this fact or fiction, history or mythology? Do fiction and mythology crowd closely around the end of the story just as they did around its beginning? And if there is fiction or mythology, on what is it based? I have already argued, for instance, that Jesus’ burial by his friends was totally fictional and unhistorical. He was buried, if buried at all, by his enemies, and the necessarily shallow grave would have been easy prey for scavenging animals. We can still glimpse what happened before, behind, and despite those fictional overlays precisely by imagining what they were created to hide. What happened on Easter Sunday? Is that the story of one day? Or of several years? Is that the story of all Christians gathered together as a single group in Jerusalem? Or is that the story of but one group among several, maybe of one group who claimed to be the whole?…

The Easter story at the end is, like the Nativity story at the beginning, so engraved on our imagination as factual history rather than fictional mythology. (Crossan 1994:160-161).

If that is your view of the Bible, what is your view of Christ’s death on the cross and his atonement for sins? Crossan takes offense at the substitutionary atonement:

What are his statements about the nature of Christ’s atonement? His view is that blood sacrifice should not include suffering and substitution and should not include ‘substitutionary suffering’. He stated that ‘worst of all, imagine that somebody brought together sacrifice, suffering, and substitution….That theology would be a crime against divinity’. While it is correct to call Jesus’ death a sacrifice, but ‘substitutionary atonement is bad as theoretical Christian theology just as suicidal terrorism is bad as practical Islamic theology. Jesus died because of our sins, or from our sins, but that should never be misread as for our sins’ (Crossan 2007:140).

Crossan’s presuppositions about the atonement

What are the presuppositions that underlie this theology that opposes substitutionary atonement?

On Christian Forums I was discussing the nature of Scripture when I stated that in about 50 years as an evangelical Christian, I’ve come across a few apparent contradictions, but with some further study all of them have been resolved to my satisfaction.

My starting point is that the God of Scriptures tells the truth and I’ve provided this biblical evidence for this in a previous post on this thread. Since God is the God of truth, we will not tell me a lie or present a real contradiction to me. It may be an apparent contradiction in Scripture from my human perspective, but I’ve been able to resolve/harmonise them to my satisfaction.[1]

Pointless exercise

Ebia’s response was:

Because its (sic) a pointless exercise, like worrying about whether the Maths textbook has got their height of the tower of Pisa correct. No – correct that – a worse than pointless exercise. “resolving” the discrepancies ends up devaluing the actual messages of the texts in order to hang on to some inappropriate notion of truth that reflects a particular cultural hang-up.
Sure, one can convince oneself that anything is not a contradiction if one is prepared to go far enough to do it. The question is whether that’s a good idea.[2]

There was a back and forth between us in which there were differences between us of the meaning of biblical authority.

Ebia responded to another of my posts:

‘Because the discrepancies [in Scripture] tend to exist for a reason; they result from the differences in what different authors are trying to say. A best resolving them risks flattening out the accounts and drowning out those messages, at worst it produces a farce like some of the attempts to harmonize the cock-crow/denial accounts or the resurrection morning accounts. And either way it’s a distraction. In no case does it – can it – do anything actually useful. Assuming that the gospels are “God’s word (TM)”, it’s the gospels as written that are that, not some harmonization of them’.[3]

In another she asked:

What do I take from the letter to Timothy? That scripture is a unique gift from God, useful and reliable for teaching,… And in some sense a living thing. That it has authority in the sense Tom Wright talks about.[4]

I was asking for her understanding of the meaning of theopneustos (‘inspiration’ or ‘breathed out by God’) in 2 Tim. 3:16.

How would you respond to her continuing emphases?

‘You’re going around in circles because you are trying to force an answer in terms of a framework that is not one that I or Tom [N T Wright] accept.

I don’t accept that inconsistency in factual detail is an error in texts that aren’t trying to communicate that level of factual detail (see my Maths textbook analogy) and therefore to keep framing the question on those terms is, to me, to misformed (sic) the question’.[5]

‘It takes two to tango. But the reason we are both going around in circles is that the way you keep framing the question fits your worldview assumptions but not mine, instead of being prepared to consider what I actually have to say.
In particular I don’t share your view that a discrepancy in a factual detail – lets say the name of Joseph’s great-grandfather in the male line – constitutes an error in a meaningful sense.
Tom Wright leaves out what I would want to leave out because it’s the wrong question to be asking.
Of course we aren’t going to agree. Is the only point of a conversation to make people agree with you?’[6]

‘You claim it’s a “conflict with the nature of God”. I don’t agree because I don’t see a discrepancy in factual detail to be an “error” if the concern of the text is not accuracy in that detail but something entirely different.
Your question is “wrong” because it has an underlying assumption about tangential factual details that I don’t share.
It’s a bit like keeping asking “have you stopped beating your wife yet; yes or no?”’[7]

‘Discrepancies [in Scripture] tend to exist for a reason; they result from the differences in what different authors are trying to say’.

Presuppositions imposed on biblical text

I find it impossible to have a rational discussion with this person and her views on the nature of the origin of the Bible because her presuppositions are based on an imposition on the biblical text. The view of Scripture is not that expounded from the Scriptures themselves. This is my assessment:

(1) If we try to resolve the discrepancies in the text, it ends up devaluing the actual messages of the texts is her statement. Her view is that the message of the Bible can contain discrepancies (i.e. errors), but that doesn’t affect the message. My presupposition is that the God of truth does not tell lies and the original documents of the Bible would not have been given by God to contain errors if he is the God of truth and justice as I’ve attempted to show in this article.

(2) Her view is that an inconsistency in factual detail is not an error in texts. That is a loose view of the authority of Scripture that allows or glosses over errors in factual details in the Bible. Therefore, how do we decide which are the factual errors and which are not? Is the ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) creation of the universe and all that is in it, according to the Genesis record, a factual inconsistency when compared with the theory of evolution? Is the virgin birth of Christ and inconsistency or factually true? I find it better to study the Bible inductively – from the biblical texts. Listen to what the biblical text states. There may be statements that I don’t yet understand with my limited knowledge and there may be apparent inconsistencies, but to date I have not found an alleged discrepancy for which there has not been an adequate explanation provided with study.

(3) According to this poster, the discrepancies are there for a reason and are because different authors are trying to say different things. But, what about the God of truth and what he is overseeing? If he is the God of truth, shouldn’t that guarantee the truth of what he superintends, no matter which author is writing?

(4) I ask you: Is ebia on the correct path when she compares my view of wanting to know if the Bible is an infallible document or not, with ‘like keeping asking “have you stopped beating your wife yet; yes or no?”’ Is the requirement to know the origin of the Bible, whether it is infallible or not, in any way like asking, ‘have you stopped beating your wife yet; yes or no?’ I object strongly to such an interpretation of my views. I find ebia to be promoting a weak view of the Scripture and she is trying to justify her view.

I hope you see that this interchange is important because it helps to uncover the presupposition we both have with regard to the Scripture. Ebia believes that the Bible can make errors in tangential factual details and still be regarded as Scripture. My view is that the God of truth and righteousness will always tell the truth and never lie. What he tells us in Scripture is inerrant in the original manuscripts.

See the articles that follow that I have written, except for the first one:

‘Apparent contradictions and inerrancy’ by my son, Paul Gear;

The Bible’s support for inerrancy of the originals;

Can you trust the Bible? Part 1

Can you trust the Bible? Part 2

Can you trust the Bible? Part 3

Can you trust the bible? Part 4

I have a copy of the American edition[8] – and have read all of it – of N T Wright’s The Last Word (HarperSanFrancisco 2005). He begins his preface to the American edition with,

Writing a book about the Bible is like building a sandcastle in front of the Matterhorn (p. ix).

He states that the central claim of this book is

that the phrase “authority of Scripture” can make Christian sense only if it is a shorthand for “the authority of the triune God, exercised somehow through scripture” (p. 23, emphasis in original).

Later, under the heading, ‘Inspiration and “the Word of YHWH”‘, he stated

“Inspiration” is a shorthand way of talking about the belief that by his Spirit God guided the very different writers and editors, to that the books they produced were the books God intended his people to have. This is not the subject of the present book, but we should note that some kind of divine inspiration of scripture was taken for granted in most of the ancient Israelite scriptures themselves as well as in the beliefs of the early Christians (p. 37).

He admits that

many of the accusations not merely of diversity but of flat contradiction arise not from historical study proper but from impositions on the texts of categories from which later Western thought (from, for instance, the sixteenth or the nineteenth century (p. 52).

He explains that

‘the Reformers’ sola scriptura slogan was part of their protest against perceived medieval corruptions. Go back to scripture, they insisted, and you will find the once-for-all death of Jesus but not the Mass, justification by faith but not purgatory, the power of God’s word but not that of the pope…. Nothing beyond scripture is to be taught as needing to be believed in order for one to be saved (pp. 71-72, emphasis in original).

He stated that his major conclusion was

that the shorthand phrase “the authority of scripture,” when unpacked, offers a picture of God’s sovereign and saving plan for the entire cosmos, dramatically inaugurated by Jesus himself, and now to be implemented through the Spirit-led life of the church precisely as the scripture-reading community” (p. 114, emphasis in original).

He goes on to explain that he has argued in this book that

“the authority of Scripture” is really a shorthand for “the authority of God exercised through scripture”; and God’s authority is not merely his right to control and order the church, but his sovereign power, exercised in an through Jesus and the Spirit, to bring all things in heaven and on earth into subjection to his judging and healing rule. (Ephesians 1 sets this out more spectacularly than most passages.) In other words, if we are to be true, at the deepest level, to what scriptural authority really means, we must understand it like this: God is at work, through scripture (in other words, through the Spirit who is at work as people read, study, teach and preach scripture) to energize, enable and direct the outgoing mission of the church, genuinely anticipating thereby the time when all things will be made new in Christ (p. 138).

However, after reading his book, I find that N. T. Wright is skirting around or avoiding the issue of the nature of the Bible and how it was given in the original documents – infallibility or inerrancy are far from his keyboard, but he does admit that ‘the church clearly can’t live without the Bible’ (p. ix). My question is, ‘What kind of Bible?’ Is it one that includes inaccuracies and contradictions, or as ebia, a supporter of N. T. Wright’s view, states that it does not matter if in factual detail there is an error in the texts?

Wright does include in the preface the statement that he has tried

to face head on the question of how we can speak of the Bible being in some sense “authoritative” when the Bible itself declares that all authority belongs to the one true God, and that this is now embodied in Jesus Himself (p. xi).

But how do we know this book is a reliable and trustworthy document? Did the God of truth, perfection and justice (Deut. 32:4; Ps 19:9; John 17:17; 2 Tim 3:16; Rev 15:3-4; 16:7; 19:1-4) who gave us the Bible, give his revelation in a document that includes errors and contradictions in the original manuscripts?

These questions need to be answered and I do not think that N. T. Wright did that in his book on the authority of Scripture, The Last Word (HarperSanFrancisco 2005).

Major problem of omission

After I wrote the above, I sought out reviews of Wright’s, The Last Word. Theologian John Frame measured my theological pulse when he wrote:

By way of evaluation[9]: So far as I am aware, there is no statement in the book that I simply disagree with. And the book contains some excellent insights about Scripture, on its kingdom context, the canon, and Scripture’s relations with tradition, reason, and experience. Wright also has valuable things to say here about biblical interpretation: on how the New Testament fulfills the Old, and on what a “literal” interpretation ought to mean.

But there is a major problem of omission. If one is to deal seriously with the “Bible wars,” even somehow to transcend them, one must ask whether and how inspiration affects the text of Scripture. Wright defines inspiration by saying that “by his Spirit God guided the very different writers and editors, so that the books they produced were the books God intended his people to have” (37). But the same can be said about the books in my library: that God moved writers, editors, publishers, et al., so that the books in my library are the ones God wants me to have. Nevertheless, there are some horrible books in my library (which I keep for various good reasons). So it is important to ask whether inspiration is simply divine providence, or whether it carries God’s endorsement. Is God, in any sense, the author of inspired books?

Wright doesn’t discuss this question, but Scripture itself does. The Decalogue was the writing of God’s finger (Ex. 31:18). The prophets identified the source of their preaching by the phrase “thus says the Lord.” Jesus attributes David’s words to the Spirit (Matt. 22:43). Paul says that the Old Testament Scriptures were God-breathed, i.e., spoken by God (2 Tim. 3:16). And Paul connects this God-breathed quality with the authority of Scripture, indicating that biblical authority is not only the authority of divine power, but also of divine speech.
Or look at it this way: “Word of God” in Scripture, is not merely “a strange personal presence, creating, judging, healing, recreating” (38).” It is all of these things, but it is also, obviously, divine speech (as Wright himself recognizes on 34). When God creates, for example, he creates by speech, by commanding the world to exist. Prophecy and Scripture are “word of God,” not only in their power, but also as speech and language: not only power, but also meaning.

Wright is right to say that God’s word, and specifically Scripture, is more than doctrines and commands. But if inspiration confers divine authorship, and if God’s word is true speech, then it becomes very important, within the context of the kingdom narrative, to believe God’s doctrines and to obey God’s commands. Indeed, as Wright notes, the very nature of narrative poses the question of whether the events described “really happened:” that is, what should we believe about them, and how should we act in response. But then narrative itself implies doctrines to be believed and commandments to obey.7
That is what the Bible wars are about. One can believe everything Wright says about the narrative context of biblical authority and still ask responsibly whether the words of Scripture are God’s words to us. Wright’s book does not speak helpfully to this question, nor does it succeed (if this was Wright’s purpose) in persuading us not to ask it. So, like the worship books mentioned earlier, The Last Word does not discuss what is most relevant to the controversy. It proposes a context, but a context is not enough. Two people who accept Wright’s proposal may nevertheless differ radically on the question of whether the Bible is the word of God.

Many of us would like to get away from the debates of the liberal/fundamentalist controversy. But if Scripture is God’s very word, then we cannot be indifferent to its doctrinal and ethical authority, or silent against attacks on that authority. Wright has done some great work in defending the truth of Scripture, and it is evident in the present volume that he has scant regard for the scholarship of enlightenment skeptics like those of the Jesus Seminar. So he has himself entered into the Bible wars. But are these wars merely contests to see who is the better scholar, or is the word of God itself at issue? If the latter, much more must be said and done (Review of N. T. Wright, The Last Word. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005, by John M. Frame).

How did ebia respond to the above?

You’re going around in circles because you are trying to force an answer in terms of a framework that is not one that I or Tom accept.

I don’t accept that in inconsistency in factual detail is an error in texts that aren’t trying to communicate that level of factual detail (see my Maths textbook analogy) and therefore to keep framing the question on those terms is, to me, to misformed the question.[10]

My response is that it is not I who is going around in circles. Ebia seems to like Tom Wright’s perspective where he doesn’t want to admit to the infallibility of Scripture in the original documents, which affirms the origin of Scripture, which is consistent with the nature of the God of truth who does not lie.

John Frame picked that one well. It is what Wright leaves out that is what I consider of critical importance. Is Scripture truthful (infallible) or does it include discrepancies, even in minor factual details?

However, ebia and I are not going to agree on the infallibility of Scripture because our presuppositions are very different.[11]

Works consulted

Crossan, J D 1994. Jesus: A revolutionary biography. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Crossan, J D 2007. God and empire: Jesus against Rome, then and now. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

Funk, R W, Hoover, R W & The Jesus Seminar 1993. The five gospels: The search for the authentic words of Jesus. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Notes

[1] OzSpen #89, Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Bible contradictions’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7643378-9/ (Accessed 7 April 2012).

[2] #91 ibid.

[3] #93, ibid.

[4] Ebia #99, ibid, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7643378-10/ (Accessed 7 April 2012).

[5] Ibid. #101.

[6] Ibid, #103.

[7] Ibid. #105.

[8] This information I posted as OzSpen at #100, ibid.

[9] He is reviewing N T Wright 2005. The Last Word. New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco.

[10] Ebia #101, Christian Forums, Christian Apologetics, ‘Bible contradictions’, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7643378-10/ (Accessed 7 April 2012).

[11] Ibid., #102.

A false view of Jesus’ resurrection

What really happened at the resurrection of Jesus?

1. People touched him with their hands.

2. Jesus’ resurrection body had real flesh and bones.

3. Jesus ate real tucker (Aussie for “food”).

4. Take a look at the wounds in his body.

5. Jesus could be seen and heard.

6. The Greek word, soma, always means physical body.

7. Jesus’ body came out from among the dead

8. He appeared to over 500 people at the one time.

References

How some Calvinists see it

God Is Not The Author Of Evil

God as the creator or authoriser of evil – some Calvinists

What is a better solution to the problem of evil?

That is the hope available to all people

References

Notes:

I. A BRIEF THEOLOGY OF HEALING

A. Healing in the Redemptive Work of Christ

1. Healing is available on the same basis as forgiveness.

2. Christians are not always healed; therefore, healing cannot be in the redemptive work of Christ.

3. An examination of Isaiah 53:3-12

B. Practical Outworking of Healing in the Church

1. I Corinthians 12:4-14: “gifts of healings” (v. 9)

2. James 5:14-16. “The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.”

a. God deals with his people through church eldership ministry.

b. What is the prayer of faith?

c. This ministry is performed in connection with confession of sins (James 5:15-16).

C. Does God always heal?

D. What about medicine?

References:

1. How was Jesus conceived?

2. Where was Jesus born?

3. Jesus is a spirit child of a heavenly Father and Mother

4. Jesus was married

5. What about the doctrine of salvation?

How should Bible-believing, evangelical Christians respond?

Notes:

Some live action

My concerns

What we need

Conclusion

‘But all things should be done decently and in order’ (1 Cor 14:40 ESV)

Logical fallacies

Liberal theology as a hindrance

Does the NT endorse apologetics as a legitimate ministry?

Recommended books

Conclusion

Works consulted

Notes:

A. The doubter becomes a believer

B. Why the change?

C. Implications

Notes

Crossan’s presuppositions about the atonement

Pointless exercise

Presuppositions imposed on biblical text

Major problem of omission

Works consulted

Notes