Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 28
January 6, 2016
The Deity of Christ and the Reality of the Trinity
Sometimes things that confound us have a simple side to them. In a certain sense, this is true with the Trinity. The mystery may be confounding, but the biblical facts on the matter are really not that hard. The only thing required is a clear definition, then a little Bible ���kitchen work.��� That���s what I���ve provided for you in this month���s Solid Ground.
In part one of The Trinity: A Solution, Not a Problem, I discussed the significance of the Trinity, the problem of the Trinity, the definition of the Trinity, and the alleged contradiction of the Trinity. In this second part, I resolve the question of the deity of Christ (and therefore strengthen the case for the Trinity) by going back to the text, letting God���s Word speak for itself:
My method is simple: provide clear scriptural support for each element that is essential to the definition of the Trinity as it applies to the person of Christ. There are three components. One, there is only one God. Two, Jesus is a distinct person from the Father. Three, Jesus is fully God. We know this because Jesus is called God, He possesses divine attributes, and He exercises divine privileges.
January 5, 2016
When Homosexuals Show up at Church
At a recent event, I was asked how Christians should respond when those who identify as gay or lesbian come to their church. A common answer to that question suggests the Church should be ���affirming.��� That, however, usually means saying homosexual behavior is not sin. There���s no need to jettison biblical doctrine, though. We can be affirming of people without affirming behaviors the Bible prohibits. That���s what we���re supposed to do with anyone who comes through our church doors. Therefore, treat those who identify as gay or lesbian exactly like we treat any guest. Here are three quick points related to that approach.
Welcome homosexuals to your church. That doesn���t mean just letting them in, but also making them feel welcome. Greet them, tell them you���re glad they���ve come, help them find a good seat, and invite them to other church functions (picnics, concerts, Bible studies, etc.). After all, you should be excited when guests show up at your church. Assuming the pastor is preaching the Word of God, you want non-believers to hear what���s preached from the pulpit. You also want them to experience fellowship with a community of believers. This, of course, applies to any non-believer who visits your church, not just those who identify as gay or lesbian.
Church leadership is off limits, though. Practicing homosexuals can���t participate in positions of influence (worship team, teaching team, etc.). This is not a special rule for homosexuals. It applies to all church attenders. Anyone engaged in ongoing, unrepentant sin is not fit for leadership.
This rule does not apply to Christians who merely have same-sex attraction but choose to obey Scripture���s sexual guidelines. These brothers and sisters in Christ should be treated like other believers. They can participate in leadership roles at the church. That���s because they are like other believers in one sense: They have sinful proclivities just like any other Christian. Their particular temptation happens to involve same-sex attraction.
I have these tips, as well as many others, in my book, The Ambassador's Guide to Understanding Homosexuality.
January 4, 2016
Does Sentience Give Us Value?
Alan explains whether our value is derived from being sentient creatures.
January 2, 2016
Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?
Not long ago, I gave a presentation on the historical evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus at the University of Waterloo. This was a great event put on by Power to Change with many Christians and non-Christians in attendance.
Immediately following my talk, there was a Q&A time where people could text in their questions to a phone number that was on the screen. One particular question that came up that night was, ���Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?���
This is such a common question that I thought I would sketch a brief outline of my response.
First, the answer is ���No!��� Extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. Claims���extraordinary or otherwise���only require evidence. If there is good evidence to support the resurrection of Jesus, then it is completely rational to hold that Jesus rose from the dead.
Second, the question needs to be asked: Why does the adjective applied to the claim need to be the same adjective applied to the evidence? For example, do hilarious claims require hilarious evidence? Of course not! So even though the claim that ���extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence��� may sound catchy, there isn���t any good reason to think it's actually true.
Furthermore, whenever this claim comes up in conversations I always have a question ready. I ask, ���What would count as extraordinary evidence?���
Clearly, whether or not a particular evidence is extraordinary will depend on how the person defines extraordinary. If by extraordinary they mean ���really good,��� then I think the evidence for the resurrection meets that expectation. Certainly, I believe that the evidence I offered for the resurrection���namely, the burial, the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples��� belief���is extraordinary.
If by extraordinary they mean ���supernatural,��� then I think the evidence surrounding the resurrection includes that as well���although I don���t think it must. ���Natural��� evidence���like the observation of an empty tomb���can lend itself very nicely to a supernatural explanation when taken in conjunction with other evidence���like the post-mortem appearance of Jesus after his death and burial.
Think of the claim that the ���universe came from nothing.��� Almost all physicists and cosmologists agree that at some point in the finite past the universe begin to exist. In other words, there was nothing���no time, space, matter or energy���and then there was something. This could certainly be taken as an extraordinary claim of the supernatural variety. That is, of course, unless you have a naturalistic bias that excludes the supernatural before looking at the evidence. But notice, all the evidence for the beginning of the universe is completely natural���second law of thermodynamics and the cosmic expansion of the universe. Obviously this argument could be fleshed out in much more detail, but I think, at least in principle, we have clear example of how natural evidence could support a supernatural claim.
In all honesty, I believe that this slogan is often used as a smoke screen to hide behind. Rather than deal with the universally accepted evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus, the skeptic simply throws up his hands and claims that the evidence isn���t extraordinary enough for him. In other words, they set the bar for so-called ���extraordinary evidence��� impossibly high, and then when the evidence won���t meet their unrealistic expectation, they simply dismiss it with a shoulder shrug.
Don���t let people get away with making such a vacuous claim. Hold their feet to the fire and make them define what they mean by extraordinary evidence and get them to defend why extraordinary claims must require extraordinary evidence.
January 1, 2016
There���s No Such Thing as Ordinary Life
Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.... It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. (Colossians 3:17-24)
It���s the beginning of the new year, and it���s tempting to think that only our big plans for this year matter. Jeanne Harrison reminds us that every action of each day is meaningful if done to the glory of God:
The truth is sometimes I really love ���whatever I'm doing,��� and sometimes I really hate it. Isn't that life in every season? There are parts we relish, parts we tolerate, and parts we despise. Parts that make us laugh and parts that make us cry and parts that make the veins in our forehead pop out. And yet through all of it, God urges, ���Whatever you do...do it in MY name! Do it for MY glory! Do it to serve Me.��� Verses 23���24 actually go on to promise that we will receive a reward when we work with our whole hearts as unto the Lord.
Do you realize what that means? It means there is value in the most menial corners of our lives. It means we have purpose, always. We have the opportunity to worship, always. I meditated on these verses all day long, as I scrubbed dishes and cleaned countertops. I thought about Jesus as I checked homework and brushed hair and swept floors and packed lunch boxes. And right around the time I was pulling that little lint trap out of the dryer, I felt it. Overwhelming gratitude���.
In my stale little laundry room, I felt the staggering weight of God's generosity���that He would allow me to be part of His story, that He would redeem the most insignificant moments of my day, that He would stoop down to take a gift out of my dirty hands.
Standing in my laundry room, I realized that I serve a God so generous that He's willing to make ordinary moments sacred.
Read the rest of her post, and take heart! We have purpose, always.
(HT: Tim Challies)
December 31, 2015
December 30, 2015
Go Overboard in Our Holiday Celebrations? Bah, Humbug!
A few years ago, I read a Christianity Today article titled ���Go Overboard Celebrating Christmas.��� A provocative title, especially given the Evangelical tendency to decry materialism and consumerism this time of year. Of course, those warnings are important to heed, but sometimes warnings and alarm and outrage are the entirety of our message to the world. So the author���s perspective was a breath of fresh air:
Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism.
Celebrate the stuff?! I could imagine such a message rubbing Evangelicals the wrong way. As if an exhortation to embrace celebration and gifts and food is inherently selfish and therefore wrong. If that���s your first impulse when you hear this, let me suggest a helpful distinction to free you up a bit from what I think is a distorted view. We must distinguish between selfishness and appropriate self-interest. This distinction is vital to grasp. Self-interest is not wrong. Do you desire food and shelter? Do you wish to take care of your loved ones? I hope so. Are these just greedy, selfish desires? Of course not. Indeed, appropriate self-interest is assumed by Jesus. How does He tell us we ought to love others? As we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39).
I���m reminded of C.S. Lewis's explanation in his essay ���The Weight of Glory���:
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive���. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.
Does self-interest have limits? Of course. When appropriate self-interest is abandoned and we move into selfishness, we have crossed the line into sin. Paul tells us, ���Each of you should look not only to your own interests [appropriate self-interest], but also to the interests of others��� (Phil. 2:4). But selfishness must be dealt with within the individual���s heart and not merely pawned off on the ���stuff���:
At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin [is] not resident in the stuff. Sin is found in the human heart���in the hearts of both true gluttons and true scrooges���both those who drink much wine and those who drink much prune juice. If you are called up to the front of the class, and you get the problem all wrong, it would be bad form to blame the blackboard. That is just where you registered your error. In the same way, we register our sin on the stuff. But���because Jesus was born in this material world, that is where we register our piety as well. If your godliness won't imprint on fudge, then it is not true godliness.
So in your holiday celebrations, go overboard. Did not God go overboard for us?
Some may be disturbed by this. It seems a little out of control, as though I am urging you to ���go overboard.��� But of course I am urging you to go overboard. Think about it���when this world was ���in sin and error pining,��� did God give us a teaspoon of grace to make our dungeon a tad more pleasant? No. He went overboard.
December 29, 2015
Challenge: The Disciples Didn���t Believe Jesus Is Divine
Here���s another challenge from ���40 Problems with Christianity���:
[The disciples] never agreed with Paul���s concept of Jesus as being divine. Anything written in the Bible to suggest that they did is probably a result of later editing by some of Paul���s followers. Such a belief would have been an exceptional departure from the Jewish faith.
How would you respond to this one? Be careful to follow the line of thought here so you can evaluate it: Would a Christian idea���s ���exceptional departure��� from the Jewish faith prove it wasn���t believed by the Jewish followers of Jesus? Can you see an unspoken assumption behind that reasoning? What reasons do you have to think the disciples did think Jesus is divine? How would you respond to the charge of ���later editing���?
Answer this challenge in the comments below, and be sure to see Tim���s video response on Thursday.
December 28, 2015
How Do We Know If God Is Speaking to Us or If It's Just Our Inner Conscience?
Can we trust that the inner voice in our head is God?
December 26, 2015
December Newsletters: Hell and Our Work in 2016
Tim���s, Brett���s, and Alan���s December newsletters are now posted on the website:
Is Eternal Punishment Just? by Tim Barnett: ���This young Christian schoolteacher took issue with the idea that a loving God would send a person to Hell for eternity for a finite number of sins committed while on earth. ���It just doesn���t seem right,��� she exclaimed.... At first blush, this question seems to resonate with our moral intuitions concerning justice and fairness. However, at the heart of the question lies a fundamental misunderstanding about man and God. Specifically, we minimize the seriousness of man���s sin and guilt, and we distort the perfection of God���s holiness and justice.��� (Read more.)
Despair in 2016? Never. God Will Do Big Things by Brett Kunkle: ���[T]he modern university is an intellectual wasteland, as well as a moral mess. This is the chaos our young people walk into as they attend secular universities across the country. A cause for concern? Absolutely. If we don���t win students��� hearts and minds before they head off to college, the secular culture will. A cause for despair? Never. No matter how bad things get, nothing will put Jesus Christ back in the grave. We can be confident the gates of Hell will not ultimately prevail against His church (Matt. 16:18). So I���m not despairing, I���m redoubling my efforts.��� (Read more.)
Still Following Jesus by Alan Shlemon: ���Before returning to the Father, Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations and teach them to obey His commands (Matt. 28:19-20). Although I live 2,000 years later and 7500 miles away, that Great Commission still animates my life today.��� (Read more.)
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