Rick Mattson's Blog, page 10
March 25, 2020
Invitation to Consider the Trustworthiness of the Gospels, Part 2 of 8: Monotheism
Hi again. In my prior post I suggested the possibility that faith and reason belong together. This may seem strange to some but the idea goes all the way back to Jesus himself who said, “Though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand . . .” Jesus was essentially saying, “Use your head. Examine ...
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Invitation to Consider the Trustworthiness of the Gospels, Part 1 of 8: Evidence and Faith
Introduction: Normally I write brief blog posts. But in this special series I go more in-depth on an important topic, the trustworthiness (reliability) of the four Gospel accounts of the life of Jesus in the New Testament (NT): Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Even with the added depth I’ve tried to keep the posts accessible and not overly technical. Hello. ...
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Invitation to Consider the Trustworthiness of the Gospels, Part 4 of 8: An Apology to the Wounded
The prior post on Multiple Sources is here. I hope you are tracking along in our study. It’s meant on my part to be an accumulation of smallish arguments that add up to something convincing by day’s end. I leave it to you to judge whether or not I’ve been successful. And I realize the general topic of trustworthiness in ...
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March 1, 2020
Hearing God’s Voice in Evangelism
Mingling in the throng at a local charity event a few months ago, I seemed to get a prompting from the Lord: “Go talk to MC (Minnesota Celebrity).” I obeyed the prompt. But as I started toward MC’s position, he immediately disappeared into a crowd of other celebs. Darn. Must not have heard that prompt correctly. I said to the ...
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January 22, 2020
The Five Thresholds of Conversion
In their excellent little book, I Once Was Lost, Doug Schaupp and Don Everts talk about the stages or “thresholds” that people go through in their journey from unbelief to belief. The first threshold is to trust a Christian. Most people come to faith through a relationship with a believer. You as the believer establish a friendship with a person ...
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November 3, 2019
Creation/Evolution Part 1: The First Critical Question
I’ve been an actor in the following scene hundreds of times. I’m in a dorm lounge or college classroom, or I’m serving on a panel or in a public debate, and someone asks about the relationship between science and faith. Great question! I love talking about this topic. So I’m off to the races on the compatibility of science and ...
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July 29, 2019
In Evangelism, Climb Out of the Boat . . .
In my prior post I suggested that when it comes to the business of evangelism, we Christians don’t “bring Jesus” to others. We’re not salespeople. Rather, we’re detectives, investigators. Our job is to discern what God is already doing in the lives of those around us, then get involved. But how? How do we participate in this work of God? ...
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July 5, 2019
God Gets There First
A kindly man in my neighborhood, Gene, has not spoken to me, nor I to him, in 25 years. Our disassociation is not due to any animosity I’m aware of but, most likely, to simple neglect. Recently, things changed. Gene traversed the vast chasm separating us – our back alley – to initiate contact. He came to tell me the ...
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June 15, 2019
Naming Jesus
I met John at a golf tournament, and at some point in our four-hour tour of 18 holes together, we talked religion. This always happens. I bring it up in one form or another by mentioning church, prayer, hymns, Bible, religion in the media, or my job in ministry. On the 7th hole he asked what I do for work. ...
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May 16, 2019
Slippage Part 5 of 5: Is the Ancient Faith Dismissible?
In my prior post I shared about Sean and how his new found progressive religion reshaped the entire faith of his upbringing. Here is my response to Sean: Since traditional Christianity was no longer relevant to Sean – and even seemed to block the pathway toward his ideals of justice and compassion – he merely dismissed it. But it seems ...
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