Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 52

22 Historical Confirmations in Two Verses

We're welcoming Tim Barnett, STR's newest speaker, to the blog today. To learn more about Tim, see his speaker page.

Skeptics are notorious for boldly asserting that you cannot trust the New Testament documents. They will point to apparent contradictions or miracles to bolster their claim. I've even heard a well-educated person state that the Gospels were just "made up" by their authors, like a modern-day fictional author. The question is, do we have any good reasons to believe that the Gospels are simply mythology? Or, are there good reasons to believe that they communicate actual events in history?

As you begin reading through the Gospel of Luke, it becomes obvious exactly what kind of literature this is. Just consider Luke 3:1-2. In these two verses it says:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar���when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene��� during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

You might be thinking, what is so special about these verses? Well, within these two verses, there are twenty-two historical references that have been verified by archeology and ancient literary sources outside the Bible. Twenty-two historical confirmations in only two verses! (I have bolded the persons, places, and positions that have been verified).

Do you think the biblical authors were trying to convey real events that took place in history? Absolutely! This is just one of the many reasons that you can trust the Bible.

Links Mentioned on the 5/19/15 Show

The following is a rundown of this week's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

HOUR ONE

Co-hosts: Brett Kunkle and Tim Barnett

Brett Kunkle's speaker page
Tim Barnett's speaker page

Commentary: Thoughts on What Kind of Youth Ministry Is Needed (0:00)

reTHINK Conferences ��� Orange County: September 25-26, Dallas: October 23-24
reTHINK Conference DVDs/downloads: 2013 Conference, 2014 Conference
Odd Thomas and Humble Beast Records
Apologetics mission trips
Restoring All Things by John Stonestreet

Questions:

1. Do you need to remember a specific moment in time you came to faith in order to really be saved?(0:23)

2. Do animals have rights? (0:37)

2. An argument for free will (0:52)

HOUR TWO

Guest: John Stonestreet ��� Restoring All Things: God's Audacious Plan to Change the World through Everyday People (1:00)

John Stonestreet
Restoring All Things: God's Audacious Plan to Change the World through Everyday People by John Stonestreet
The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview
The Point Radio with John Stonestreet
Summit Ministries
Democracy in America by Alexis de Toqueville

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���7:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Challenge: When Did You Choose Your Heterosexuality?

Here���s a challenge I was just asked to respond to:

When did you choose your heterosexuality?

Though it���s a short question, this is actually a more complicated challenge because there are numerous hidden assumptions in this question. What questions would you ask to help your friend clarify his position and get to the bottom of what he is really claiming? What do you think that rock bottom claim is that you should head for? How would you respond to that claim? What other aspects of this issue might come up while you���re both working through this objection?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts! Check back here on Thursday to hear Alan���s response. 

[Explore past challenges here and here.]

Is It Possible That Jesus Is Michael the Archangel?

Here's an answer you might need if a Jehovah's Witness comes to your door.

Where Did Jesus Claim to Be God?

Where did Jesus claim to be God? Jesus made this claim a number of times, and it was very clear to those He was talking to. Jesus didn���t utter the three words, I am God. But He said it very explicitly in the context of His religion and culture. You can see it in the reaction of His enemies.

Monotheism was the central tenet of Judaism. They confessed the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4: ���Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.��� There is only one God, and Jesus, as a good Jew, believed this. He also claimed to accurately teach the Old Testament. So when Jesus answered Philip that to see Him was to see the Father, this was a claim to deity.

Philip said to him, ���Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.��� Jesus said to him, ���Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ���Show us the Father���? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.��� (John 14:8-11)

Some religions may make this claim without it being a claim to deity. But for a Torah-fulfilling Jew, He was telling Philip that He is God.

John recounts Jesus��� conversation with the Pharisees in John 8:58-59. Jesus uses a very specific title that Jews understood was ascribed only to God.

Jesus said to them, ���Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.��� So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

Jesus uses the title ���I AM,��� the name God uses for Himself when answering Moses in Exodus 3:14. The reaction of the Pharisees confirms this is precisely what Jesus was claiming because they tried to stone Him for blasphemy.

John tells us directly that Jesus was making Himself equal with God. Since there was only one God, this was claiming to be God. In John 5, Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders question Jesus about this violation of the law. Jesus claims authority over the Sabbath. Then John tells us in 5:18, ���This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.��� They wanted to carry out the death penalty for blasphemy.

In Mark 2, Jesus heals the paralytic man and forgives his sins. The scribes who were there called this blasphemy because only God has authority to forgive sin (see Isaiah 43:25). This was a claim to be God. Luke records this claim also in Luke 5:20.

In John 10, Jesus again claims to be one with the Father. The Jews question Him, and His answers again elicit an attempt to stone Him. Jesus asks them for which of His good works they want to kill Him. They answer, ���It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.��� And they attempted to arrest Him, but Jesus escaped.

In Matthew 14:33 and 28:9, Jesus received worship, the kind of worship Jews only gave God. Greg explains in more detail in this article.

Finally, Jesus��� claim to be God was the reason the Jews arrested Him and convinced Pilate to crucify Him. In John 19, Pilate tells the Jewish leaders that he finds no guilt worthy of the capital sentence. They answer Pilate, ���We have a law, and according to that law He ought to die because He has made Himself the Son of God.��� Jesus��� violation of blasphemy is recorded in Luke 22:70-71 when He appeared before the Council after His arrest. They had the evidence they needed from Jesus��� own lips. Mark gives more detail of this in 14:62-64. When Jesus answered them, the high priest tore his clothes and declared this was blasphemy.

Jesus said very clearly that He was God.

Finding Truth: Free-Loading Atheists

This week, we���re discussing the chapter ���Free-Loading Atheists��� in Nancy Pearcey���s Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Atheism, Secularism, and Other God Substitutes, which covers the fifth of five principles for evaluating worldviews: ���Replace the Idol: Make the Case for Christianity��� (see links to the previous posts below). 

We���ve come to the final principle in Nancy Pearcey���s Romans-1-based method of apologetics: Make the case for Christianity. After you determine how a person���s worldview doesn���t match reality, and how it contradicts itself, how do you move from there to making a case for Christianity in a way that���s relevant and compelling to that particular individual? Pearcey says, look for ways in which that person is living as if Christianity is true, accepting and acting on ideas his own worldview doesn���t support:

[W]e can get started by identifying those elements that people smuggle in from a Christian worldview. They are showing us where their own worldviews break down and, at the same time, what they find most appealing about Christianity. These provide strategic starting points for framing a biblical worldview attuned to the questions of our day. (p. 221)

As I���ve noted before, Pearcey���s approach leans heavily on the idea that the Christian worldview is appealing, not to mention necessary:

The fact that everyone has to function as though Christianity is true opens a creative opportunity for addressing the secular world. Christianity provides the basis for the way humans can���t help behaving anyway. In making the case for a biblical worldview, a strategic place to start is by showing that it alone gives a basis for the ways we all have to function, no matter which worldview we hold. (p. 224) 

It should give us confidence to know that the words and actions of those we���re trying to reach reveal that they recognize (even if not consciously) that aspects of the Christian worldview are appealing and necessary. Pearcey offered quotes from atheists who ���recognize the limitations and failures of their own worldview.��� Their limitations are our opportunities to explain how Christianity succeeds where other worldviews fail:

In the summer of 2013, a beer company sparked controversy when it released an advertisement for Independence Day that deleted the crucial words ���by their Creator.��� The ad said, ���They are endowed with certain unalienable rights.��� (Endowed by whom?) The advertisement is emblematic of what many secularists do: They borrow ideals like equality and rights from a biblical worldview but cut them off from their source in the Creator. They are free-loaders. Christians should reclaim those noble ideals, making the case that they are logically supported only by a biblical worldview. (p. 226)

It���s this ���free-loading��� that we have to call them on. They���re living as if the Christian ideas of human rights, the scientific enterprise, consciousness, moral and scientific knowledge, even spirituality, worship services, salvation, and God make sense in a atheistic materialist worldview. We need to help them squarely face the implications of their own worldview and recognize that these things only rightly belong in Christianity. Do they want them? They can���t have them without the God of Christianity; it���s all or nothing. They must choose.

I thought the descriptions of how some scientists have spiritualized evolution (e.g., by postulating an evolving, pantheistic-type mind) were fascinating. This drive on the part of atheists to find other ways to fill what they���ve lost by rejecting Christianity, again, reveals the appeal and necessity of the Christian worldview:

What drives religious variants of evolution is a sense that there must be more to reality than the flat, one-dimensional vision offered by materialism. Evolutionists are reaching out for higher dimensions to answer the human longing for greater meaning to life. Those longings are one more expression of general revelation. They are signposts to the biblical God. (p. 241)

What ideas are people trying to illegitimately borrow from the Christian worldview? What ideas are missed when they���re gone? Pearcey answers this question according to what she experienced after giving up Christianity as a student, saying, ���I was acutely aware of what I had lost���:

I had known that my life had a purpose.
I had known that my actions had a significance that would last into eternity.
I had known that the final reality behind all temporal realities is Love.
I had accepted the existence of an objective moral standard.
I had known that God himself spoke to the human race through Scripture���. When I embraced agnosticism, however, the heavens were closed. I was locked in my own mind, limited to my own tiny slot in the immensity of time and space���. [I]t was impossible to know any transcendent or timeless truths. Indeed, it might be impossible to know any truth at all.

Pearcey���s personal story explains her whole approach: She has known what it���s like to lose���and then try to live without���aspects of reality that we all need and desire; and knowing the lack of them, she can see their beauty with more clarity. She doesn���t want us to take these things for granted. We need to show people the God from whom they come.

When someone rejects God, Pearcey says to ask the question, ���If there is no God, what then? What do you think is true, and how would you support it?��� This is what she asked of a student, in order to encourage that student to examine the consequences of her change in worldview:

As she began to study the alternatives, she realized that giving up Christianity was not a matter of merely deleting a few files of doctrine from her mind. Christianity is an entire worldview that undergirds many of the great ideals of Western culture, from justice to equality to universal human rights���ideals that the teenager did not want to give up. (p. 249)

What did you think of this chapter? If you���ve had any conversations as a result of what you���ve learned from this book (or these posts), I���d love to hear about it. Leave your comments below, and read ���How Critical Thinking Saves Faith��� for next Friday. Next week is the final week!

(In this chapter, Pearcey mentions C.S. Lewis���s Pilgrim���s Regress. If you like Finding Truth, you���ll surely like that book, as well. I don���t know how long this deal will last, but today the Kindle version is on sale for $1.99, and you can add the audio version for only $3.99 more.)

Previous posts:

Book Club Introduction (Includes a 15% discount for the book)
Week One: Foreword
Week Two: I Lost My Faith at an Evangelical College
Week Three: Twilight of the Gods
Week Four: False Worldviews Reduce the Human Person
Week Five: Secular Leaps of Faith
Week Six: Why Worldviews Commit Suicide

Twitter: #STRread, #FindingTruth

Articles mentioned in this chapter (see links in the post above for more): 

The Atheist Delusion by John Gray ��� ���[T]he idea of free will that informs liberal notions of personal autonomy is biblical in origin (think of the Genesis story). The belief that exercising free will is part of being human is a legacy of faith, and like most varieties of atheism today, [atheist author Philip] Pullman's is a derivative of Christianity���. Nietzsche���did not assume any connection between atheism and liberal values ��� on the contrary, he viewed liberal values as an offspring of Christianity and condemned them partly for that reason. In contrast, evangelical atheists have positioned themselves as defenders of liberal freedoms ��� rarely inquiring where these freedoms have come from, and never allowing that religion may have had a part in creating them.


A Free Man���s Worship by Bertrand Russell ��� ���Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins���all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.���

Why Religious Institutions Aren���t Taxed

In ���Religious Non-Profits, Plan Now for Tax-Exemption Battles,��� Leslie Loftis explains why religious institutions aren���t taxed:

The actual quote, from one of our earliest and most consequential Supreme Court opinions, McCullogh v. Maryland (1816), states, ���The power to tax implies the power to destroy.��� That mere implication of destruction defeated the government���s right to tax a federal bank in its borders.

Now, 199 years later, a different superior right���citizens��� First Amendment right to free exercise of religion���faces threat of taxation and the implication of destruction.

The argument we must make is rather simple. Take the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment: ���Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,��� and then take this passage from McCullough v. Maryland: ���All subjects over which the sovereign power of a State extends are objects of taxation, but those over which it does not extend are, upon the soundest principles, exempt from taxation. This proposition may almost be pronounced self-evident.���

That government may make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof is a clear statement that the power of government does not extend over the subject of religion. Therefore, religious institutions are exempt from taxation, not by tax code, but by self-evident, sound principles. 

Religious institutions are exempt from taxation because our government has not been given the power to govern religion. This is an expression of the basic principles behind the founding of this country���that is, there is an Authority above the government that has established rights apart from the government, including free speech and freedom of religion. Since these rights were not created by the government���and, in fact, existed before any government existed���our government is restrained from infringing on these natural rights. There are things that are simply not rightly under any government���s control. To reverse this long-standing practice of tax exemption is to wrongly place the government in authority over religion.

It���s not by accident that the question about the tax-exempt status of religious institutions has been raised in connection with the government���s attempts to remake another pre-political institution: the family. When once a government starts gobbling up other spheres of authority, its appetite for control over competing institutions will only grow.

As Loftis explains, the coming debate will center around whether tax exemptions are subsidies, which would violate the Establishment Clause (and also imply the government owns our wealth), or whether taxation would violate the Free Exercise Clause because of its power to destroy. Then, she says, there���s the question of what qualifies as a religious institution. There���s a long road ahead of us. 

(HT: Joe Carter)

Don���t Let Apologetics Kill Your First Love

I love C.S. Lewis���s The Great Divorce, a novel about people in Hell taking a bus ride to Heaven. They���re allowed to stay in Heaven if they choose to, but they find it unappealing for one reason or another. The book is less about the actual Heaven and Hell than it is about the various reasons why people reject God in this life. 

I was listening to an excellent audio version of The Great Divorce the other day, when I was struck by a dialogue between one resident of Hell (formerly a famous artist on earth���the ���Ghost��� in the dialogue below), and a ���Spirit��� of heaven (also formerly an artist). The Spirit was attempting to show the Ghost the beauty of heaven that waited for him, but the Ghost was more interested in something else:

���I should like to paint this.���

���I shouldn���t bother about that just at present if I were you.���

���Look here; isn���t one going to be allowed to go on painting?���

���Looking comes first���. At present your business is to see. Come and see. He is endless. Come and feed.���

There was a little pause. ���That will be delightful,��� said the Ghost presently in a rather dull voice.  

���Come, then,��� said the Spirit, offering it his arm.

���How soon do you think I could begin painting?��� it asked.

The Spirit broke into laughter. ���Don���t you see you���ll never paint at all if that���s what you���re thinking about?��� he said.

���What do you mean?��� asked the Ghost.

���Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you���ll never learn to see the country.���

���But that���s just how a real artist is interested in the country.���

���No. You���re forgetting,��� said the Spirit. ���That was not how you began. Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.���

���Oh, that���s ages ago,��� said the Ghost. ���One grows out of that. Of course, you haven���t seen my later works. One becomes more and more interested in paint for its own sake.���

���One does, indeed. I also have had to recover from that. It was all a snare. Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there, but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn���t stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower���become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.��� (pp. 83-85) 

As people who endeavor to learn how to tell others about the God we love, we all have to guard against being ���drawn away from love of the thing we tell, to love of the telling.��� There is, indeed, a difference between being interested in God and being interested in what we say about Him.

Today, visit your First Love. Come and see. Come and feed.

Links Mentioned on the 5/12/15 Show

The following is a rundown of this week's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

HOUR ONE

Commentary: Why Save the Planet? / Taking Jesus Seriously (0:00)

From Greg's Facebook page ��� "FAQ: What's up with the rooster? A caller years ago had his spiritual guru, who believed that everyone was a reincarnation of an animal, listen to the radio show and he concluded I was a rooster in a previous life."
Flowers May Be Nice for Mom, but They're Terrible for Mother Earth by Jennifer Grayson

Questions:

1. How can Jesus be punished for Adam's sin? (0:26)

Reasoning with Jehovah's Witnesses by Kevin Quick

 2. What questions should we ask when studying the Bible? (0:42)

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl
Never Read a Bible Verse by Greg Koukl
How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart
Prayer by Tim Keller
How to Turn Your Theology into Communion with God by Amy Hall (quoting Tim Keller)
Prayer: Does It Make a Difference? by Philip Yancey
A Simple Way to Pray by Martin Luther (discussed in Tim Keller's book)

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00���7:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Gospel Unity: Reflections on Philippians 2

BACKGROUND & CONTEXT: Philippi was a prosperous Roman colony and the Philippians were Roman citizens, a fact in which they took pride (Acts 16:21). Most likely, there weren���t very many Jews, which would account for the absence of Old Testament citations. With such heavy Roman influence, the Philippian church would have to battle the influences of power and prestige and a hierarchical approach to leadership. 

Paul���s reason for writing this letter is to thank the Philippian church for their partnership in the gospel (1:3-11), particularly for their gift to him (1:5; 4:10-19), and to update them on his current circumstances (1:12-26). This epistle can almost be viewed as a missionary support and update newsletter. In addition, Paul uses the letter to encourage them to further partnership in the cause of the gospel. 

Just prior to chapter two, Paul says that when he receives an update on their progress he is looking forward to hearing how they are ���standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel��� (1:27). Chapter 2 consists of Paul unpacking this idea of ���standing firm in one spirit��� or unity. Unity is achieved through humility (2:1-4) of which Christ is our model (2:5-11). In addition, unity is achieved through their work in the cause of the gospel, as they ���appear as lights in the world��� by holding out ���the word of life��� (2:15-16). Thus Paul is sending Timothy and Epaphroditus to partner with them. 

REFLECTIONS: There were two insights, particularly regarding leadership and community, that arose in this passage. First, we see Paul���s continued emphasis on unity within the body. In this particular passage, Paul points us to Jesus as our example. Jesus was not concerned with status, power, or prestige, as he ���did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped��� (v. 6). Rather, he ���emptied Himself��� and ���humbled Himself to the point of death��� (v. 7-8). For the Roman-influenced Philippians, this message was absolutely radical. It was also necessary for them to understand in order to achieve unity. 

Secondly, we discover that there is nothing that unifies the body like partnership in the gospel cause. In Philippians, the word gospel is used 9 different times. Paul informs the church that they are a light in this world (2:15) because they hold out the ���word of life��� (2:16), the gospel. Paul has poured out his life for this cause (2:17) and wants them to share in his joy (2:18). Fellowship events, potlucks, small groups, and other avenues are helpful things for building unity in the body, but nothing brings unity like partnering in the cause of the gospel. Even as a youth pastor, I saw how true this was. Fellowship events were helpful in building unity in the group, but nothing brought unity like a mission trip where we were immersed in the work of the gospel cause.