Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 67

Embryonic Stem Cell Success

This past November I wrote that embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) had not led to any successful human treatments. I was wrong.

It turns out there are several clinical studies that have used stem cells derived from human embryos to successfully treat human conditions. In one case, embryonic stem cells were used to treat patients with macular degeneration and macular dystrophy. Researchers transplanted human embryonic stem cells into the affected eyes and showed measurable improvement. So, I can’t claim that that embryonic stem cells have treated zero conditions.

None of this changes the main points I make on this topic, though. Adult-derived stem cells are still the superior choice. It’s still true that adult stem cells have been far more successful at treating conditions in humans. It’s still true that it’s not necessary to clone human beings with adult stem cells. And, most importantly, it’s still true that treating conditions using adult stem cells doesn't require you to kill innocent human beings.

That's Just Your Opinion

Greg shares how to respond when someone says, "That's just you're opinion" when you're sharing your faith. 

 

From Emergent to Evangelical, through Apologetics

I pray that my friends who drifted out of Christianity by way of the Emergent Church movement would discover what Matt Rawlings discovered:

I became a Christian at 24 after a cancer diagnosis. I had been an atheist for 10 years but came to God on my knees in desperation. I left Capitol Hill (and politics altogether) to learn about Christianity. I attended what many believed was a conservative seminary but had slowly slipped into liberalism by the time I arrived in 1999. I was sold on “higher criticism” (or a skeptical approach to the historicity and inerrancy of Scripture) and joined the then growing “Emergent Church” movement. Within a few years, I was where Rob Bell is now—a soft universalist with a condescending attitude toward conservatives. Yet, I was also spiritually dead and was struggling with depression. I was quickly sliding back into the atheism I had thought I had left behind when I went to my knees to pray for my life in 1997…. 

I opened [The Case for a Creator] with a bad attitude. After all, my seminary professors had told me that “apologetics is dead!” and that “Generation-X and -Y desired experience not ‘answers.’” I was even more resistant when I saw the first few chapters take on evolution. I was convinced Genesis 1-11 was all myth, Darwin had been proven correct and that only nutters questioned it. But after reading Strobel’s interaction with Dr. Jonathan Wells and Dr. Stephen C. Meyer of the Discovery Institute, I realized I had no real counter argument to intelligent design…. 

I was introduced to evangelical Christians who, contrary to the depiction of my then fellow liberal emergents, were not “knuckle dragging, mouth breathers enslaved to a narrow, reactionary faith” but brilliant, loving people engaging the culture with grace and truth. I dove headlong into evangelical theology and conservative Biblical scholarship. I found my faith growing strong and a strong desire to learn more and serve God with more zeal than I ever could have imagined.

Read the whole thing.

If God Could Save Him, God Could Save Anybody

In Greg’s interview with Nabeel Qureshi earlier this year about his book, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus, Nabeel told the story of how David Wood (now of Acts 17 Apologetics—a ministry to Muslims) challenged him to consider the evidence for the truth of Christianity after they met on the debate team in college and became good friends. Nabeel eventually believed, and it’s a great story. But the story Nabeel didn’t tell was how David Wood became a Christian. I knew David became a Christian in jail where he was serving time for attempted murder, but I didn’t know the extent of the darkness he was living under.

If you know someone you think is beyond God’s ability to save, watch this and have hope.

Nabeel became a Christian because David became a Christian. And David became a Christian because Randy, his cellmate, was a Christian. The story David didn’t tell was why Randy was there, in jail, in his cell. But you can hear a taste of this story if you listen here at 0:37:17. 

God’s grace is surprising, and sometimes even shocking.

God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:27-31).

And His power is beyond measure. A change like David Wood’s isn’t humanly possible. But the truth is, neither is the regeneration of any person.

When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:25-26).

We have a God “who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist,” for whom all things are possible.

Challenge Response: Sexual Orientation Never Changes

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Strengthen the Basics in 2015

I’ve noticed this unfortunate truth about myself as a fallen human being: When I drift away from reading the Bible or praying, it’s difficult to start up again. I don’t understand why this is, but coming back to it is like fighting my way through a field of molasses. I resist it. I avoid it. None of this makes sense to me since I often feel more spiritually and intellectually satisfied, more peaceful and in awe of God, after I seriously pray or read the Bible. I enjoy it once I start. I’m certainly never sorry I’ve spent my time that way, and yet for some crazy reason, when I’ve been away from it, I resist coming back.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you might experience this, too. The best way I’ve found to fight this is to work at creating strong, consistent habits in both Bible reading and prayer in order to avoid the uphill battle of stopping and starting over and over. Maintaining a spiritual habit is much easier than starting one, so it’s best to start it once and then maintain it day by day for the long term.

To help you with this in 2015, I’m recommending two free apps that have been indispensable to me:

The Bible Companion App : This app tracks your consistency (I work to keep every day checked off in the ten-day display at the top of the app!) as well as your reading. What I love about this app is that I’m able to work my way through the Bible in whatever order I prefer, and it can show me at a glance what I’ve read and what I have left to go so I never lose track. When every book in the Bible is finished, I simply reset them to zero and start again. (You can reset one book at a time, as well, in case you want to follow a plan that involves something like what I describe in the first paragraph here.) 

There are a few other bells and whistles (you can now set and track goals for things like prayer and time spent reading other books—both helpful!), but I love the simplicity of it. It works, it’s motivating, and it keeps me faithful. To learn more about what it can do, see their instructional videos—although, it’s simple enough to figure out most of it on your own.

PrayerMate : I wrote about this app back in October, and I’m still thrilled with it. You use this app by creating categories (family, work, friends, etc.) and then adding individual prayer requests into each category as you think of them. Each day, PrayerMate assembles a collection of prayer subjects, according to how many you’ve requested it show you from each category. This means you don’t have to be afraid to add new prayer subjects into the app because your daily list will never get too long—it always remains roughly the same length as you rotate through all the requests for each category, a few at a time.

You can designate certain prayers for certain days of the week, easily archive prayers, and look back at what you’ve prayed for recently. You can even subscribe to a feed of prayers from or for certain organizations. (Learn more about how to use it here.)

May God bless your new year through prayer and the Bible!

Challenge: Sexual Orientation Never Changes

Here’s a challenge Alan hears a lot:

Doesn’t the fact that numerous “former homosexuals” have gone back to living gay lives prove that it’s impossible for a person’s sexual orientation to change?

What are your thoughts on this one? Leave your comments below, then Alan will respond on Thursday.

[Explore past challenges here and here.]

How Do You Make a Biblical Case for the Trinity?

Brett explains how to make a biblical case for the Trinity.

 

The Top Ten Videos of 2014

Yesterday I posted the ten most popular posts of the year. Now here are the ten videos that got the most views in 2014:

10. Discussing the Age of the Earth with Other Christians

9. Challenge Response: Morality Comes from Us

8. Challenge Response: You Can’t Say Nothing Comes from Nothing

7. Challenge Response: Didn’t Jesus Say He Wants Christians to Kill All Non-Believers?

6. Challenge Response: Shouldn’t Christians Retreat [from the “Gay Marriage” Issue?]

5. Challenge Response: That’s a Fallacious Slippery Slope Argument [against Same-Sex Marriage]

4. Challenge Response: Jesus Can’t Be God

3. Challenge Response: You’re Not Adopting Babies

2. New Ambassador for Christ Video

1. A Motivating Mormon Role Play

I didn’t include the challenge videos in my list last year, but this year I thought, why not? But since they ended up taking up so many slots, here are three bonus videos: 

11. Did Adam Have Libertarian Free Will?

12. What Are Some Good Tactics to Use When Engaging Cult Members?

13. What Apologetics Books Would You Recommend?

The Top Ten Posts of 2014

Here’s a look back at 2014 through the ten most popular posts of the year:

10. Christianity’s Uniqueness – “In reply to the critics who claim Christianity was just a copy-cat religion among the ancient religions, it's helpful to take a look at how an ancient adherent of these pagan religions viewed Christianity.”

9. You’re Not Really Pro-Life Unless… – “The objection that pro-life advocates or organizations aren’t really pro-life because they don’t also advocate [fill in the blank] is one you’ll encounter. Scott Klusendorf responds to this ‘single issue objection’ in The Case for Life.”

8. Bart Ehrman’s Latest Book – How Jesus Became God – “[T]he basic explanation Ehrman gives for how Jesus became divine…[is] built on late dating the New Testament documents and citing precedents of such teachings. I found it implausible and completely unpersuasive.” 

7. Lord, Liar, Lunatic…or Legend? – “[T]here's a ‘quadlemma’ to answer, and Tom Gilson has written an excellent new article in Touchstone. He considers this fourth possibility in an interesting way.”

6. How Same-Sex Marriage Will Affect Friendships – “Matthew Franck explains the unintended effect same-sex marriage will have on friendships in our society.” 

5. A Warning from the Death of Christian Britain – “Craig Hazen’s comments in Biola Magazine on a book by Callum G. Brown titled The Death of Christian Britain should serve as both a warning and an encouragement to us.”

4. The Myth of Hate – “The most common misconception about Christians and homosexuality is that Christians hate homosexuals. Though there are some things Christians have done to contribute to this impression, it’s largely untrue.”

3. What Would Polygamy Do to Society? – “Dr. Morse explains how equality and freedom suffer in polygamous societies.” 

2. What’s Missing in Son of God – A review of the film: “One can’t leave out this aspect of Jesus, for it’s only when this strength and authority is present that we truly feel the impact of the unexpected grace He shows to the weak, the hurting, and the sinners—when He welcomes little children and heals unclean women. It’s commonplace to see a mother stoop down to bless a child. It is quite shocking when the King of the universe takes time out of His day to do it. The greater the condescension, the more striking the love and kindness. When filmmakers show only kindness and leave out authority and strength, much is lost.”

1. Gordon College Will Lose Accreditation over Behavioral Standards – (Please note the updates at the end of the post.) “[J]ust as having a sexual behavior standard for people with opposite-sex attractions is not an act of discrimination against heterosexual people, so having the same standard for people with same-sex attractions is not an act of discrimination against homosexual people. But the commission won’t see this because our culture is no longer capable of making a distinction between ‘sexual identity’ and behavior.”