# articles

title: When Transgender Children Are Harmed by the People Who Intended to Help Them
topic: Philosophy
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/28/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/when-transgender-children-are-harmed-by-the-people-who-intended-to-help-them
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Here’s a heartbreaking story out of Australia about a boy and his mother who circumvented the law (with the “help”&nbsp;of doctors) in order to start his transitioning process at age 12. He has since decided he wants to be a boy after all, but now he has to have surgery to reverse results of the hormone treatments.</p>

<p>Our culture assumes that love demands we affirm and enable people’s choices no matter what, but that’s not <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/what-does-god%E2%80%99s-love-look-like#.WcwP3NN95R0">what love is</a>. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”&nbsp;(John 15:13), and sometimes, dying for the sake of others means accepting their anger and abuse when, <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/true-compassion-is-determined-by-the-mind-not-by-feelings#.WcwQidN95R0">for their good</a>, you don’t give them what they’re asking for. The doctors who should have been looking out for this boy’s best interests ended up tragically harming him. And there will be many more like him because <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/how-to-help-transgender-children#.WckpytN97OR">70%-80%</a> of children who report transgender feelings spontaneously lose those feelings after puberty, without any medical treatment.</p>

<p>People on both sides of this debate want to help the children involved; the question is merely <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/how-to-help-transgender-children#.WckpytN97OR"><em>how</em> to best help them</a>. If you find yourself in a debate with friends on this topic, I’ve recommended clarifying this distinction for them with a question like this one:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I really appreciate your desire to be gracious and help people. That’s a great motivation, and I share that with you. Since we both want to help transgender people, here’s my question for you: Hypothetically, if it were the case that people are actually <em>harmed</em> by denying their biological gender, would you still encourage them to do so?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>And then perhaps share this video with them.</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="vqSdcvIz4VI" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vqSdcvIz4VI?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>
</div>

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title: Encountering a Relativist
topic: Christian Living
author: Tim Barnett
date: 10/23/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/encountering-a-relativist
content:
            <div> 
		<p>“Prove to me that objective morality exists!”&nbsp;That’s how a recent conversation started between a very bright 11th grader and me.</p>

<p>I was recently invited to speak to a religious studies class at a Catholic High School close to where I live. I spoke on the problem of evil, followed by a Q&amp;A. After the bell rang and the students were dismissed for lunch, I began packing up my stuff. That was when a fascinating conversation took place.</p>

<p>One of the students who had attended my talk brought his atheist friend, John, to see me. John had heard about my talk - although he wasn’t able to attend - and was eager to ask me a question. After very brief introductions, John said, “So I hear you believe in objective morality.”</p>

<p>I replied, “You heard right.”</p>

<p>He said, “Prove to me that objective morality exists!”</p>

<h2>Know the Challenger</h2>

<p>Let’s pause here for a minute. At this point in the discussion, I wasn’t entirely sure where this challenge was coming from. I needed more information.</p>

<p>I said, “I’m happy to give you some reasons for why I believe in objective morality, but before I do, I want you to answer a couple questions for me.”&nbsp;He agreed.</p>

<p>I asked, “Are you a moral relativist?”</p>

<p>John said, “Yes!”</p>

<p>This was very instructive. A <em>moral relativist</em> holds the view that there are no morally objective right or wrong answers that apply in every time, in every place, and to every person. Moreover, moral opinion is person-relative. Conversely, a <em>moral objectivist</em> - sometimes called a <em>moral absolutist</em>, though I don’t like that term - holds that moral truths are independent of what anyone believes.</p>

<p>Once I knew John’s view about morality, I had another question for him. I said, “Last week, Stephen Paddock booked a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas and opened fire on a crowd of 20,000 concertgoers. As a result, he killed 58 people and injured over 500. This was one of the most deadly mass shootings in American history. <em>Was it evil?”</em></p>

<p>John immediately shot back, “Do you mean, do <em>I personally</em> believe it’s evil?”</p>

<p>I replied, “No, I’m not merely asking for your personal moral opinion or if it’s wrong <em>for you</em>. In fact, I’m not interested in your personal preferences. I’m asking if the action <em>itself</em> was evil.”</p>

<p>Looking very uncomfortable, he replied, “Well, I don’t think I can answer that.”</p>

<h2>Narrate the Conversation</h2>

<p>At this point in the discussion, I wanted to <em>narrate</em> what was just said so that it wasn’t missed. John couldn’t bring himself to condemn mass killing - an obvious moral abomination - as an objective moral evil. How could this be? Is John a sociopath? Does he not care about the wellbeing of others? No, John’s not a sociopath. I’m sure he loves and cares for his family and friends. Something else was going on.</p>

<p>John was guarding turf. He knew the <em>implications</em> of giving me an honest answer. Only a few minutes into our conversation, I already knew two important things about John. First, he’s an atheist - his friend introduced him as “my atheist friend.”&nbsp;Second, he’s a moral relativist.</p>

<p>Now put this information together with his response to my question. If John admits the Las Vegas shooting is evil, then he refutes both atheism and moral relativism.</p>

<p>In fact, that’s exactly what I told him. I said, “You know that if you were to call the Las Vegas shooting an evil act <em>in itself</em>, then you would be affirming objective morality. In fact, if even one objective moral truth exists (e.g., regarding the Las Vegas shooting, or molesting a little girl, or torturing a baby for fun), then objective morality exists and relativism is false. Furthermore, if there are objective moral laws, then there is an objective moral Lawgiver.”</p>

<p>To my surprise, John agreed with my assessment. However, rather than call a moral atrocity, like the Las Vegas shooting, objectively evil and face what for him was an unwelcome conclusion, he denied that such acts are really evil in the first place.</p>

<p>I could tell that John wanted to call this an objectively evil act, but his atheism wouldn’t let him. Sensing his discomfort, I switched gears a little bit.</p>

<h2>Show Objective Morality by Pointing at It</h2>

<p>As promised, I wanted to make a positive case for objective morality. The primary reason why I know objective morality exists is <em>by my immediate awareness of it</em>. Some truths are known by following a series of facts or a line of reasoning to a conclusion. However, there are truths that are known by immediate experience.</p>

<p>The easiest way to show that something exists is to <em>point at it</em>. John and I were in a classroom filled with chairs. Turning to the chair closest to me, I asked John, “How do I demonstrate to you that this chair exists?”</p>

<p>Answering my own question, I said, “If I want to show you that this chair exists, I just have to point at it. Once you see it, you know it exists. And unless you have a good reason to believe your sense experience is being tricked, you are justified in believing that the chair is an objective feature of this room.”</p>

<p>In fact, the natural realm and moral realm are on the same footing. Just as we believe in the reality of the external world based on our <em>immediate sense experience</em>, we believe in the reality of the moral world based on our <em>immediate moral experience</em>.</p>

<p>Furthermore, in the absence of a reason to mistrust our immediate awareness of the objective <em>physical</em> world (e.g., evidence that we are in the Matrix or just brains in a vat being stimulated by electrodes), we are justified in believing in a realm of objectively-existing physical objects - like chairs in a high school classroom.</p>

<p>Likewise, in the absence of a reason to mistrust our immediate awareness of the objective <em>moral</em> world, we are justified in believing in a realm of objectively-existing moral values and duties.</p>

<p>So, how do we show that objective morality exists? We do the same thing - <em>point at it.</em></p>

<p>We do this by describing clear-case examples of moral atrocities, and then asking if the action is evil. If it is, then objective morality exists. For example, is it evil for a man to lure a toddler away from her parents at a restaurant and violently rape her in the restroom?</p>

<p>This approach trades on the notion that we are all moral creatures and we live in a moral universe. Therefore, even if we profess relativism with our lips, we cannot help but “see”&nbsp;objective morality.</p>

<h2>Raising the Price Tag</h2>

<p>My discussion with John did not end with him becoming a Christian or even with him explicitly affirming objective morality. That wasn’t my goal in that short conversation. Instead, I put a stone in his shoe. I did my best to show him the <em>intellectual cost</em> of atheism. Every time I described another morally repugnant action, I could see an internal struggle taking place. He wanted to join me in affirming these as objectively evil. Sadly, John’s commitment to relativism wouldn’t allow it.</p>

<p>John was willing to pay an awfully high price tag. And I made it my goal to make sure he knew it. He was forced to deny an obvious feature of reality: objective morality. However, objective morality - yes, even moral evil - is at home in the Christian worldview. That is, we can explain it rather than explaining it away. As we like to say at Stand to Reason, Christianity is the best explanation for the way things are.</p>
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title: The Cost of Becoming a Christian Affects the Way People Hear Our Arguments
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 10/18/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-cost-of-becoming-a-christian-affects-the-way-people-hear-our-arguments
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I came across an <a href="http://rzim.org/just-thinking/bare-before-the-gospel/" target="_blank">article</a> Nabeel Qureshi wrote a couple of years ago and thought it was a good reminder of how we should view people who challenge our belief in Jesus:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Years after I became a Christian, I considered the events surrounding my conversion and wondered why I had not responded to Christ earlier. The answer came quickly: there was so much I had to give up to become a Christian. Of course, I never said “I’m not accepting the gospel because of what it will cost me.”&nbsp;Rather, the cost colored the way I received and processed the gospel.</p>

<p>Because of my own path, I know well that simply addressing thoughts is not enough to present the gospel; I must respond to a questioner’s heart. When a Muslim questioner comes to the microphone, I have the bizarre privilege of seeing my younger self trying to attack me. And I am reminded again that as I experienced the love of my friend who won my trust while sharing the truth with me, so must I address both the heart and the mind. I have to address not only the intellectual component of my challenger’s questions but also evince the truth that he is, in fact, already broken, and there is only One who can restore him. The irony is that I am answering his question for a single purpose: while he is asking it to tear me down, I am answering it to build him up.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Following Christ will cost a person his whole life. Do not forget the effect this fact will have on the way people hear and consider your arguments. Have mercy, and be patient. The Bible says of Jesus, “A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out”&nbsp;(Matt. 12:20). As people who represent Jesus, we are to have His gentleness and compassion. So, as Nabeel said, when someone is challenging you in order to “tear you down,”&nbsp;remember you are there to build him up.</p>
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title: Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant
topic: Announcements
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/16/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/well-done-good-and-faithful-servant
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Nabeel Qureshi went to Heaven today. He was a Christian apologist, a convert from Islam. Justin Taylor has <a href="https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2017/09/16/nabeel-qureshi-1983-2017/" target="_blank">written a beautiful post</a> about Nabeel. Greg <a href="https://www.str.org/podcasts/interview-nabeel-qureshi-seeking-allah-finding-jesus-originally-aired-march-25-2014#.Wb3UutuZMWo" target="_blank">interviewed Nabeel</a> about his book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Allah-Finding-Jesus-Christianity/dp/0310527236/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1505623162&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=seeking+allah" target="_blank"><em>Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity</em></a>.</p>
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title: Ten Easy Ways to Start Meaningful Dialogue
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/19/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/ten-easy-ways-to-start-meaningful-dialogue
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Twice in the past week I’ve been asked how to start conversations about spiritual matters with non-believers, so it looks like this has been on people’s minds! The article below was written by <a href="http://www.jfaweb.org/steve-wagner/" target="_blank">Steve Wagner</a> (formerly of Stand to Reason, now executive director of the pro-life organization Justice for All), and it was part of the supplemental material that came with the video study for Greg’s book <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK316" target="_blank"><em>Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions</em></a>. We now offer <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DVD064" target="_blank">an updated <em>Tactics</em> video study</a> with new videos and supplemental material, so I thought it would be a good idea to repost Steve’s thoughts from the original material here.</p>

<p>(If you’re interested in reading more by Steve, you can get a free digital copy of his book, <em>Common Ground without Compromise</em>, <a href="https://hbmm.wordpress.com/about-common-ground-without-compromise/" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p>

<p>Ten Easy Ways to Start Meaningful Dialogue</p>

<p>By Steve Wagner</p>

<p>The key to entering a meaningful conversation is to look for opportunities, then start the conversation by building a bridge with a friendly opener. The following list gives helpful tips for striking up conversations with non-believers.</p>

<p>1. Be alert to circumstances where people might like to talk.</p>

<ul>
	<li>Waiting rooms (doctor’s office, car repair, DMV)</li>
	<li>Social events (receptions, dinner parties)</li>
	<li>On-campus locations (central quad, classes, library, computer center, student union)</li>
	<li>Lunchrooms</li>
	<li>Instant messenger forums</li>
	<li>Chat rooms or web forums</li>
	<li>Coffee shops</li>
	<li>Carpools</li>
</ul>

<p>2. Ask a question: “What do you think about...?”</p>

<p>3. Show interest: “Can I ask your opinion about something?”</p>

<p>4. Ask for help: “There’s something on my mind. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”</p>

<p>5. Express concern: “I can’t believe this happened!”</p>

<p>6. Express amazement: “Did you hear about...?!”</p>

<p>7. Get to know people.</p>

<p>Get better acquainted with your friends and co-workers. Don’t make the mistake of assuming you know where people stand unless they’ve had a chance to tell you. Use questions like “What do you mean by that?”&nbsp;or “What do you think about...?”&nbsp;in order to gather information and show genuine interest in someone else’s ideas. Don’t presume you know what they’re thinking. You might be surprised by what you learn.</p>

<p>8. Talk about current events.</p>

<p>Use the common obsession with news to initiate a conversation on meaningful topics. Government decisions, natural disasters, human rights violations, war, elections, foreign relations, cultural events, business mergers, and even sporting events all could be points of access to conversations that touch on values, ethics, or religion.</p>

<p>9. Read newspaper and newsmagazine articles.</p>

<p>Whether we like it or not, most public discourse happens in short articles surrounded by large photographs, images, or graphics of some kind. Use all of these things to your advantage. Use a recent article to express concern about something. Or ask someone sitting nearby what they think about a recent turn of events. Ask, “Did you see the photo of the terrorist bombing in Time today? Why do you think this keeps happening?”&nbsp;or “Have you read Anne Quindlen’s article in Newsweek on abortion? What did you think of it?”</p>

<p>10. Discuss current movies or recent TV programs.</p>

<p>Most of our friends feel like they’re on safe ground discussing movies or last night’s prime-time special. This makes the latest movie a great opportunity to discuss issues, especially if it is a drama people are taking seriously already. Ask, “Did you see this movie? Did you like it?”&nbsp;Then, listen closely to their response. When it’s your turn to share your opinion, offer a question or observation about a fundamental issue raised or a point of view advanced by the film, and then toss the ball back to the other person for their response.</p>
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title: A Story of Suffering
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/11/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-story-of-suffering
content:
            <div> 
		<p>We Christians don’t talk enough about suffering. Suffering is a fact of life, <a href="/w/christians-you-will-suffer" target="_blank">even for Christians</a>, and we need to be <a href="/search?q=suffering" target="_blank">ready for it</a>.</p>

<p>I wrote <a href="/w/why-it-isn-t-naive-to-trust-god-in-your-suffering" target="_blank">yesterday</a> about how, first, the cross gives us objective grounds for trusting in God’s sovereignty and love, regardless of our circumstances. And second, our experience of God’s faithfulness over time strengthens our confidence and trust. And since we can see God’s faithfulness in others’&nbsp;experiences as well, when we’re thinking through how to intellectually deal with and experientially face suffering, it can be helpful to listen to Christians who have been there before us.</p>

<p>A follower of Stand to Reason recently sent us his wife’s story. Her name is Trisha Dyvig, and she was gracious enough to allow us to share it with you.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>2010 was a year of many tears for me. Tears of joy and tears of great sorrow.</p>

<p>It began in June when my husband and I found out we were pregnant. We have two beautiful boys that we adopted as babies, but this was my first pregnancy. To say I was ecstatic would be an understatement.</p>

<p>Then our world came crashing down on us in September. I went in for my 18-week ultrasound and was devastated when I was told that my water had leaked at some point, that no fluid was left around the baby, and delivery was imminent. My first thought was just total disbelief. And then pure agony. What was God doing?</p>

<p>For the next seven weeks, I defied all odds and didn’t deliver. Then, on October 27th, at exactly 25 weeks pregnant, I was admitted to the hospital for what we hoped would be a nine-week stay. But shortly after I was admitted, the monitors showed I was having contractions and I was rushed back for an emergency C-section. That afternoon we welcomed our precious baby girl, Eliza Grace, into the world. Weighing in at only 1½ pounds and 13 inches long, she was incredibly tiny but perfectly formed. God in His great mercy had allowed me to sustain my pregnancy to the point that I got to meet my daughter and see how He had fearfully and wonderfully made her.</p>

<p>The NICU staff fought hard for her, but after an hour of being worked on, we were told she was not going to live. They unhooked her tiny body from all the tubes and wires and placed my baby on my chest. And that is where she spent the next three hours, until she quietly passed from my arms into the arms of her Heavenly Father.</p>

<p>Eliza’s short life impacted me dramatically. I have been a Christian since I was young, but I’ve never really been challenged in my faith - until I was standing at the grave of my baby girl. At that moment, I had a choice to make. To turn to the One who gave and took away, or turn away from Him. And I chose to cling desperately to my Father. I got into the Word with a new fervency. It was no longer just words on a page, but truth and life.</p>

<p>As I sought to learn more about God through His Word, one thought kept popping up over and over - this isn’t how it is supposed to be. But I came to conclude that nothing in this world is. Too often as a Christian I get into the habit of thinking I deserve good days and easy paths. But that isn’t what God has promised me. As I read the Word, I saw numerous times how faithful Christians suffered and the ultimate suffering of Christ on the cross. Suffering and pain are part of this fallen world. But those of us who trust in Christ can have great hope that God is using our pain to draw us closer to Him. I’ve taken great comfort from 1 Peter 1:6-7, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”&nbsp;God is using this tough time in my life to bring me to Him and shape me into who He wants me to be. It hurts, but I trust that it is for my good and His glory.</p>

<p>My time in the Word has also been opening my eyes to how I can glorify God through my grief. And I can’t do it if I’m not trusting God with <em>His</em> plans for my life. He wants me to “trust in the Lord with all my heart, and lean not on my own understanding”&nbsp;(Proverbs 3:5). To trust even though I don’t always understand why He has chosen certain paths for me to walk. To trust that “in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to His purpose”&nbsp;(Romans 8:28). I bring Him glory when I stop relying on myself and fully rely on the One who made me.</p>

<p>I’m sad that my story didn’t end with the “happily ever after”&nbsp;that I was hoping for. It’s hard to think about all the things that might have been if Eliza would have lived. But the good news about my story and Eliza’s story is that it isn’t done. Instead it is “to be continued.”&nbsp;For my time here on earth is just a dot on the timeline of eternity that I will have to spend with my daughter and my Lord.</p>

<p>So whatever your stress may be, whether it is something big like grief or just the little day-to-day things that weigh you down, bring it to the Lord. Seek Him through His Word. He wants you to trust His plan for you. And, to quote my sons’&nbsp;<em>Jesus Storybook Bible</em>, to remember that God loves you with a never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Christianity is <a href="/w/christians-you-will-suffer" target="_blank">honest about suffering</a>, and it’s solid enough to bear the weight of your suffering because Jesus is solid enough. To learn from more stories like this one, I recommend Randy Alcorn’s book <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/If-God-Good-Faith-Suffering/dp/1601425791/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1502508026&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=if+god+is+good" target="_blank">If God Is Good</a></em>.</p>
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title: How to Work on Your Character
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/07/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-work-on-your-character
content:
            <div> 
		<p>First Peter 2-3 says God called us to Himself “so that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light,”&nbsp;and in context, Peter is focusing on our conforming our behavior to the beauty of God’s character. We’re told to “keep [our] behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that...they may because of [our] good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”&nbsp;We’re to be willing to suffer for the sake of righteousness, without reviling others or uttering threats, because “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.”&nbsp;We’re to “be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.”&nbsp;And if, when we conform an aspect of our character to God’s character, “[we] should suffer for the sake of righteousness, [we] are blessed.”</p>

<p>It’s at this point that Peter says the famous apologetics phrase: “And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”&nbsp;Notice that your defense begins with your obedience to Christ as your Lord. As you become more like Christ, yes, you will suffer, but your good deeds will also “proclaim His excellencies,”&nbsp;and this will lead to curiosity from some and a chance to make a defense of the truth about Christ.</p>

<p>Never has character been more important for <a href="https://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">ambassadors for Christ</a> than it is now. The people of our culture are depending more and more on feelings and impressions, rather than arguments, for building their belief structures. This means that the beauty of God they see in <em>you</em> matters a great deal, and we all need to be cultivating that beauty, “putting to death”&nbsp;our sin by the power of the Spirit (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+8&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Rom. 8</a>).</p>

<p>Tim Keller spoke at the New Canaan Society on the topic of “<a href="https://youtu.be/DQgxuDl8DXs" target="_blank">How to Change Deeply</a>.”&nbsp;Killing your sin starts by being able to recognize your sin, and we only have the strength for <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/humility-needed-see-jesus#.WbBrv9N94Xp" target="_blank">that kind of humility</a> if we’re secure in the fact that we’re united to Christ, chosen and loved by Him on the basis of His perfect work, and free from God’s condemnation:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If the basis of your self-image is that “I’m a good Christian,”&nbsp;not “I’m in Christ,”&nbsp;that “I’m an obedient, decent, moral person,”&nbsp;not, “I’m righteous only in Him,”&nbsp;unless you really know who you are in Him, you will not be able to admit what’s wrong with you...</p>

<p>Jesus is the only one who can really get the stain [of sin] out. And Jesus went to the cross to get that stain out. You need to know that, if you are going to face what’s still wrong with you - that He’s taken it away. There’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So I’m only here to say, don’t be afraid to get back into the muck. Admit what’s wrong with you, use grace on it. If you can’t handle looking at your sin, go back to the grace. The more you see your sin, the more you’ll be forced to see the wonders of His grace.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Often, we don’t realize how much we <em>are</em> depending on our identity as “a good person”&nbsp;until we come face to face with an ugly sin and feel guilt and fear. When that happens, don’t hide from the truth about your sin; instead, remind yourself of the Gospel. In other words, don’t try to convince yourself your sin is not quite as bad as it looks; rather, increase your understanding of the Gospel as being great enough to cover that sin. Rest in that. Your experience of God’s grace, and your trust in Christ’s work for your unshakable acceptance by God, will grow deeper every time this happens.</p>

<p>It’s worth listening to Keller’s entire message below.</p>

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title: Reasoning with Someone Who Doesn’t Want to Reason
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/23/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/reasoning-with-someone-who-doesn-t-want-to-reason
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Someone asked us recently, How do you reason with someone who doesn’t want to reason?</p>

<p>Of course, the short answer is that you can’t. But maybe you can still reach that person. Effective <a href="https://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">Ambassadors for Christ</a> need to have a variety of tools in their toolbox. Witnessing and talking about the Bible and the Christian worldview isn’t always about reasoning because people don’t always have rational reasons for the things they believe. Here are some ideas.</p>

<ol>
	<li>Some people are simply unpersuadable - at least at the moment. Maybe the only thing you can do right now is <a href="https://www.str.org/articles/a-stone-in-his-shoe#.WZ2xTHd95R0" target="_blank">put a stone in their shoe</a>. Give them something to think about, and hopefully God will use it down the road to open them a bit. Sometimes we’re the sowers and the harvest is way down the road with someone else.</li>
	<li>Use the <a href="http://subsplash.com/strquickreference/v/905b3f3" target="_blank">Columbo tactic</a> to probe why they believe what they do and won’t engage the reasons you’ve given them. You may be able to find a way in that way.</li>
	<li>Especially in online engagements or conversations in a group, you may not be getting through to the person you’re engaging, but others are watching and listening. It could be that God will use what you say for someone else. Be faithful and trust Him for the purposes He has.</li>
	<li>Some people are skeptical of Christians because they’ve seen a lot of bad examples or they’ve been hurt by the church. Sometimes your example of living a faithful, authentic Christian life is what’s needed to build trust.</li>
	<li>People sometimes don’t have rational reasons for what they believe; they have heart reasons. A person on the STR staff mentioned a mother in his congregation who he knew to be a faithful Christian. When her son told her he was gay, her views on what the Bible teaches about homosexuality turned on a dime, and she suddenly believed that it affirmed homosexuality and same-sex relationships. Our staff member realized she was concerned about her son feeling love and not being rejected by her or the church. She thought she needed to reinterpret the Bible to do that. What she needed was to experience love and grace and to realize that these things don’t require compromise on the Bible’s teaching. All of that required love, relationship, and time. Take the time to understand why someone might believe what they believe.</li>
	<li>Sometimes the straightforward Gospel is what’s needed. Yes, we need to be ready with an answer, and more often than not we have to address the barriers to belief that people have. But don’t forget the healing power of the Gospel, the good news that our sins are forgiven. The <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/the-back-of-the-book#.WZ2rvXd95R0" target="_blank">Back of the Book tactic</a> recognizes that all people are God’s creatures so we know certain things are true about everyone. Deep down, everyone knows they’re guilty, and they’re looking for unconditional love. The only true source of that is Jesus, who loved us while we were still enemies and offers us grace and mercy. That speaks straight to the heart and can appeal to someone when appealing to their mind doesn’t work.</li>
</ol>

<p>Finally, be sure you’re engaging people in love. It’s really easy to slip into loving the truth to the extent that we forget our first job is to love our neighbor. People need to know we are interested in them more than we are in making a point. In the Gospels, Jesus had compassion on sinners. He called them to Himself and to leave their sin, but He typically dealt with them gently and kindly. His anger was reserved for the religious leaders who should have known better because they had been entrusted with the prophetic message about Him. Keep His example of love and compassion in mind at all times.</p>
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title: Revisiting the Same-Sex Marriage Issue
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 09/08/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/revisiting-the-same-sex-marriage-issue
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The people of Australia <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/asia/australia-same-sex-marriage-verdict/index.html" target="_blank">will be voting soon</a> on the question of whether or not their government ought to change the definition of marriage. The vote itself won’t be legally binding, but the prime minister has said he will introduce same-sex marriage legislation if a majority votes for it.</p>

<p>In light of that, here are some links to past posts on same-sex marriage that you might find helpful as this discussion heats up again, especially if you’re Australian. (The first link contains a collection of links to more posts, along with an excerpt from each. Reading through it will give you a good overview of all aspects of the topic and point you to where you can learn more.)</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="/w/understand-the-same-sex-marriage-issue" target="_blank">Understand the Same-Sex Marriage Issue</a></li>
	<li><a href="/w/same-sex-marriage-challenges-and-responses" target="_blank">Same-Sex Marriage Challenges and Responses</a></li>
	<li><a href="/w/it-s-not-about-equality" target="_blank">It’s Not about Equality</a></li>
	<li><a href="/w/-love-is-love-isn-t-enough" target="_blank">“Love Is Love”&nbsp;Isn’t Enough</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MC129" target="_blank">SSM Quick-Reference Guide</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://subsplash.com/strquickreference/s/615f344/" target="_blank">SSM Quick-Reference Guide Videos</a></li>
	<li><a href="/w/is-same-sex-marriage-a-good-policy-decision-" target="_blank">Is Same-Sex Marriage a Good Policy Decision? (Video)</a></li>
</ul>

<p>You can read about the situation in Australia <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/07/asia/australia-same-sex-marriage-verdict/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>. One line in the article is worth commenting on:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“This is a debate in the public sphere about (LGBT people’s) worth in society, their value and that’s a hard debate to be a part of,”&nbsp;Brady said.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>It’s heartbreaking that people feel this way, because the definition of marriage is not determined by anyone’s value, nor is it a statement about anyone’s lack of value; it’s merely a claim about <a href="/w/only-one-question-what-is-marriage-" target="_blank">what marriage <em>is</em></a>. Why does it exist? What is it for? What are the consequences of changing it? (See the links above.) These are the questions the debate should be focused on, not questions about personal value and worth. Marriage doesn’t exist to acknowledge people’s worth. Marriage exists to regulate the kind of union that creates children, and it does so because the kind of union that creates children has real public consequences. In other words, the government has a unique interest in man/woman unions because of the unique public consequences that union naturally produces.</p>
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title: Our Hope Is Holiness
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 08/15/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/our-hope-is-holiness
content:
            <div> 
		<p>During my time speaking and writing about homosexuality, I’ve met many people who once identified as gay or lesbian and now no longer do. They claim to follow Jesus and believe He has transformed them.</p>

<p>Some people are skeptical of these reports. When I share these stories, they ask me, “But do they still have same-sex attraction?”&nbsp;I presume these people believe that if you still experience same-sex attraction (SSA), then no change has occurred; you’re still a gay man or woman, and the Christian claim of transformation is a farce.</p>

<p>Here’s how these skeptics are mistaken.</p>

<p>Even if 100% of those who no longer identify as gay or lesbian continued to experience SSA, it wouldn’t matter. That’s because our hope for homosexuals is not <em>heterosexuality</em>, but <em>holiness</em>. We’re not praying they become straight, but that they’re led straight to Jesus. If, as a result of their relationship with Christ, their SSA diminishes and their opposite sex attraction increases, then that’s great. But even if they don’t experience <em>any</em> change in their desires, there is still the same reason to celebrate. That’s because that person has confessed their sin, turned from their rebellion towards God, and now strives to live for Jesus. They have been adopted into the family of God and are joint heirs with Christ. The Holy Spirit has renewed their spirit and now they will live forever with their Creator. What wonderful news!</p>

<p>That they still might experience sinful desires (whether homosexual or other) is no surprise at all. In fact, it’s expected. Becoming a follower of Jesus doesn’t guarantee you a life free from sexual temptation. There’s no promise you won’t struggle. In fact, the opposite is true. God promises us <a href="http://www.str.org/articles/prosperity-or-persecution" target="_blank">trials, difficulty, persecution</a>, and temptation (1 Cor. 10:13; Heb. 2:18, 4:15; Jam. 1:14).</p>

<p>I remember when I committed my life to Christ at California State University in Long Beach. My anatomy professor had been sharing Christ with me. I walked into his office, expecting to challenge him with more questions, but walked out having taken a step of faith to follow Jesus. Did my temptations disappear during his office hours? No. Was I walking free from inappropriate sexual desires when I left? No. Did a life without sin become easier? No.</p>

<p>Did anything change? Of course! With the Holy Spirit in me, I felt convicted of sin, I desired to obey Christ, and I had the power to resist temptation (1 Cor. 10:13; Gal. 5:16-17). But the temptations I experienced before were still present. In fact, trying to live the way Christ expected me to live was even more challenging as a believer. Before following Jesus, it was easy to live by simply satisfying my desires. After committing my life to Christ, however, it became hard because I had to resist my sinful desires. His standard was higher than my own. I needed (and still need) His help.</p>

<p>The same is true for the person who once identified as gay or lesbian and now no longer does. Though they have been adopted into the family of God, their temptations don’t disappear. They still have desires (some good and some bad) and the free will to satisfy or deny them. What’s changed is that they are no longer slaves to those desires, but slaves to righteousness (Rom. 8:18). They don’t have to succumb to their cravings, but have God’s strength to overcome them.</p>

<p>That’s what Jesus taught us to do at the cross. He denied His own will (to avoid crucifixion) to do the will of the Father. Jesus describes discipleship in the same way. We are also asked to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him (Matt. 16:24). Christ provides us not only with His example (1 Pet. 2:21), but also with the power to do it.</p>

<p>Don’t just take my word for it. Talk to someone who no longer identifies as gay or lesbian, but identifies with Christ. Ask them if they’ve been transformed. I’m sure they’ll be happy to tell you what God has done in their life.</p>
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title: An Overview of the Story of Reality
topic: Announcements
author: Greg Koukl
date: 09/13/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/an-overview-of-the-story-of-reality
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Take four quick minutes and get an animated overview of my new book, <a href="http://store.str.org/productdetails.asp?ProductCode=BK421" target="_blank"><em>The Story of Reality</em></a>, with this brand new, bite-size, completely engaging motion graphic. Then forward it to all your friends (I think you’ll see why). Thanks!</p>

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title: Ambassador Training Is Essential
topic: Christian Living
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 09/12/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/ambassador-training-is-essential
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Ambassador training is essential for every believer. That’s because Christians are identified as ambassadors for Christ and are commissioned to proclaim God’s offer of reconciliation to all people (2 Cor. 5:20). That’s our identity and mission. Every believer is an <a href="https://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">ambassador for Jesus</a>, but what does it take to be an effective one to Muslims?</p>

<p>Think of political ambassadors to a country. What do they typically do? They <em>learn</em> and then they <em>engage</em>. They learn about the people group, and then they engage that people group. They take time to study the people, the demographics, their language, their culture, their foreign policy concerns, and many other aspects about the people and their country. Ambassadors can draw upon that knowledge to more carefully craft their message.</p>

<p>The same should be true of ambassadors for Christ. In the case of reaching Muslims, we should learn about their faith, their culture, their authoritative writings, their doctrines, and many other things about Islam. That way we can draw upon that knowledge to more carefully craft our message, which really is God’s message - His offer that anyone can be reconciled to Him.</p>

<p>I recently recorded a five-session DVD that will help achieve that end, and it should be available by the end of the year. It will compliment my <em><a href="https://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BK331" target="_blank">Ambassador’s Guide to Islam</a></em> book to equip believers to be effective ambassadors for Christ to Muslims.</p>
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title: Truth, Love, and the Nashville Statement
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/05/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/truth-love-and-the-nashville-statement
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The <a href="https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement" target="_blank">Nashville Statement</a> on the biblical vision of sex and sexuality was released last week. Shortly after, a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20171001005324/http://www.christiansunitedstatement.org/" target="_blank">statement in opposition</a> was released. That statement emphasizes the importance of love and unity in embracing a new move of the Holy Spirit calling Christians to reinterpret the Bible’s teaching on sexuality.</p>

<p>Love and unity are, of course, important values. But they aren’t more important than truth and the biblical authority on what is true.</p>

<p>Rejecting the Bible’s teaching and redefining what Christians have believed for 2000 years is not unifying. Christians, by definition, assent to live under Christ’s authority and His teaching. That’s the basis of Christian unity. His teaching is every word of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, not just the red letters. Jesus’&nbsp;teaching on sexuality begins with His creation of Adam and Eve, and He affirms this design when He speaks of marriage (in the red letters). Jesus’&nbsp;teaching on sexuality continues in many passages throughout Scripture, and nowhere is it hinted that sex outside of the union of one man and one woman is part of His design. To reinterpret that is to reject the authority of Christ’s teaching, which is fundamental to Christianity and Christian unity. It’s actually those who call themselves Christian but do not teach what the Bible teaches on sexuality who are abandoning unity.</p>

<p>It’s not loving to withhold the truth from people who desperately need God’s transforming grace in their lives. It’s not loving to withhold the truth from people who are broken and in need of God’s healing mercy. To let people continue in their sin, to hurt themselves in this life and for eternity, is quite the opposite of loving. It’s the epitome of love to call someone from their sin to reconciliation with God and wholeness living by His design. Jesus didn’t leave us in our sin. He loved us by being truthful about our sinful state and providing the only way to be truly whole and free.</p>

<p>Jesus gave us the most exclusive truth to follow because He is the only Way, Truth, and Life; but He offers it inclusively and broadly to all people who would follow Him in truth. Christians share the truth in love because we are sinners who have experienced transforming grace and mercy.</p>

<p>You can read more <a href="/w/a-reformation-the-church-doesn-t-need-part-1" target="_blank">here</a> about why the reinterpretation of the Bible’s teaching on sexuality is wrong, and read <a href="/w/following-jesus-to-compassion" target="_blank">here</a> about the important of both truth and love.</p>

<p>Rosaria Butterfield <a href="https://cbmw.org/the-nashville-statement/rosaria-butterfield-why-i-signed-the-nashville-statement/" target="_blank">explains</a> perfectly what the discussion on the Bible’s teaching on sexuality is actually about - it’s about very significant issues, not only the issues in view in our historical time and place.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The issue is not primarily homosexuality; it’s Scripture.</p>

<p>The issue is not primarily gay marriage; it’s whether “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart”&nbsp;(Hebrews 4:12).</p>

<p>The issue is not whether people are good-intentioned and sincere in desiring things that God forbids.</p>

<p>The issue is whether we all bear the sin of Adam, inheriting an unchosen moral deformity, an energy of opposition to God, a rebellion that bequeaths to us a sin nature that we cannot erase on our own terms and by our own hands.</p>

<p>The issue is whether Jesus rose from the grave, is alive today, and whether His blood and love and resurrection makes any wit of difference in how you fight the original sin that distorts you, the actual sin that distracts you, and the indwelling sin that manipulates you.</p>

<p>The issue is whether you can trust the Bible to tell you who you are, who God is, and which way is up.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Intrinsic Human Value Is the Same for All and Can Never Be Lost
topic: Philosophy
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/25/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/intrinsic-human-value-is-the-same-for-all-and-can-never-be-lost
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christians believe in the intrinsic value of every human being because we’re created in God’s image. Nothing negates that image and the value it instills in every human being, not even sin. Every human bears that value throughout his or her life. This is why anything that violates that value is evil and sin.</p>

<p>Because we are Christians, we revile abortion, condemn racism, reject euthanasia, and denounce murder no matter who the victim is. I’ve been thinking about how several news stories are connected because the running theme is how this value was ignored to justify evil done to people.</p>

<p>A university professor stated that the status of the unborn in the womb depends on what the mother will ultimately decide to do with it - it’s a human being if she lets it live, but it’s merely a clump of cells if she aborts it. And Iceland is “eradicating Down syndrome.”&nbsp;Of course, they’re not eradicating the condition; they’re eradicating the unborn children with the condition.</p>

<p>Racists rallied because they believe their skin color makes them more valuable than other human beings. They and other groups vandalize, injure, and murder because they’ve dehumanized other people because of their skin color or because of what they believe.</p>

<p>Charlie Gard in England was denied possible life-saving medical treatment because the government determined his life wasn’t worth living because it lacked certain qualities they deemed essential for his life to have value worth living.</p>

<p>Last year, gay men and women were shot down in a nightclub because someone concluded their sin invalidated their human value.</p>

<p>A human being comes into existence the moment the egg is fertilized. No one’s desire for that baby changes its status as a valuable human being. If it’s human, there’s no justification for aborting it; if it’s not human, then there’s no justification needed to abort it for any reason. It only matters what it is - a member of the human race, and in virtue of that alone, it deserves protection.</p>

<p>Race has been used as an excuse throughout human history to subjugate and abuse other human beings. The Bible tells us that all of us trace our lineage to one man and woman that God created. Race isn’t relevant, then, to value because we all bear God’s image and share our ancestry to God’s original creation. We are all equally valuable human beings. And certainly the views we hold don’t make some less worthy than others, deserving abuse.</p>

<p>Quality of life can’t negate intrinsic human value. We bear God’s image, and that gives lives value even when they are fraught with illness and disease. Our obligation is to care and protect the weak and vulnerable, not end their lives because the quality is deemed a low standard. And the government, especially, should not be empowered to make such a declaration. We cannot declare some lives are unworthy of life because we fear that life will be difficult to live.</p>

<p>All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. While we call people to be reconciled to God, it doesn’t follow at all that some sins make some people less worthy, less valuable. In fact, it’s in virtue of every person’s inherent value as God’s creation that we cannot condone sin but also believe that every one of us is so loved that Jesus gave Himself to redeem us out of our sin. The Bible doesn’t devalue people by identifying our sin. God calls us to admit our sin precisely because we are His valuable and loved creations and He wants to reconcile us to Himself. And even rejecting this offer cannot negate someone’s intrinsic value.</p>

<p>Because the Bible tells us that we are all God’s creations with equal dignity and value, this is why Christianity as a worldview is superior to every other when it comes to supporting human equality. Materialism has a hold on our world right now. Humans are understood to be merely products of random, meaningless, physical processes. The only value and dignity possible is subjective, whatever someone chooses to assign. That kind of value can be granted and revoked - and it is every single day. That kind of worldview cannot support equality for every human being. Even if the biblical worldview hasn’t been followed consistently by some who claim to be Christian, it doesn’t mean it has failed; it means it hasn’t been followed consistently.</p>

<p>We need to look closely at worldviews to see what follows from living them consistently. Materialism justifies deeming some lives less valuable than others because there is no value other than what we subjectively assign. Not all religions place the high value on human life that Christianity does. The Biblical worldview is the only foundation for valuing each and every person.</p>

<p>Human beings are special because they aren’t accidents of evolution, but intentional, special creations by God, who placed His own image on us. He desires our fellowship. We are so loved and valued that He offers us a relationship that’s not dependent on our living up to a standard; by mercy and grace He offers it to us freely.</p>

<p>Tim Keller sums it up this way in <em>The Reason for God</em>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The Christian Gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The Christian Gospel answers the deepest cry of our hearts - to be loved and accepted, to be valued unconditionally.</p>
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title: Rethinking “God Hates the Sin but Loves the Sinner”
topic: Theology
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 08/30/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/rethinking-god-hates-the-sin-but-loves-the-sinner-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>“God hates the sin but loves the sinner.”&nbsp;That’s what we’re tempted to tell non-believers, especially our friends who identify as LGBT. The Bible teaches that every person is guilty of crimes against God and deserves to be punished, but that message doesn’t give non-believers a warm, fuzzy feeling. So, we attempt to soften the blow of this bad news with a cliché.</p>

<p>There are at least two problems, as I see it, with this statement. One is practical, and the other is theological.</p>

<p>The practical problem is that many people who identify as LGBT have told me they have a hard time making sense of this statement. In their mind, being gay is who they are, not just what they do. Plus, the word that stands out the most from that sentence is “hate.”&nbsp;They think, <em>If God hates the sin, then God hates me. And my Christian friends? They probably hate me too.</em> In other words, we intend to communicate that we love them and God loves them, but the cliché often has the opposite effect.</p>

<p>My suggestion for how to communicate love is not to <em>say</em> something, but to <em>do</em> something: treat them with love. Find ways to show you love them by how you act towards them. Chances are, you have many non-Christian friends or family that you treat in a loving manner. Whatever you do with them, you can do with your friends who identify as LGBT.</p>

<p>My theological concern is that the cliché is doctrinally ambiguous. It makes it sound like God is merely angry with sin, but not you. To be sure, is it true that God hates sin? Yes. Is it true that God loves sinners? Yes.</p>

<p>But sin does not exist on its own. It has no moral quality apart from the person who commits it. Sin doesn’t sit on a sidewalk. You can’t find it floating in the air. It’s not a goo that gets on you. Therefore, God is not going to punish some abstract thing called sin.</p>

<p>Sin is inextricably tied to a personal being with moral culpability. Sin is something <em>you</em> have done. The guilt falls on <em>you</em>. That’s why God is angry at <em>you</em>. God’s wrath is directed at <em>you</em>. He’s going to punish <em>you.</em></p>

<p>That’s the bad news.</p>

<p>The good news is that God does love sinners and He’s done everything to keep them from getting what they deserve. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,”&nbsp;writes Paul (Romans 5:8). Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends”&nbsp;(John 15:13). Then He willingly succumbed to crucifixion on our - sinners - behalf.</p>

<p>The next time you’re tempted to repeat the hate-the-sin-but-love-the-sinner cliché to someone, simply tell him the Gospel instead. That’s better news anyway.</p>
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title: Principles to Guide Your Relationships with Transgender Friends
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 09/15/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/principles-to-guide-your-relationships-with-transgender-friends
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Greg and I recently did a Facebook Live discussion about navigating transgender issues. Our goal was to give Christians some principles that will guide them in their relationships with people who identify as transgender. We also answered a few questions submitted through Facebook. Check out the video below, and then read some of the related sources we have on this topic <a href="https://www.str.org/publications/solid-ground-september-2016-transgender-truth-and-compassion" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.str.org/article/navigating-transgender-discussion" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>

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title: Is Reading the Bible Morally Equivalent to Watching Game of Thrones?
topic: Christian Living
author: Tim Barnett
date: 08/29/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-reading-the-bible-morally-equivalent-to-watching-game-of-thrones-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A friend recently raised this question to me: Why do Christians make a big deal about watching nudity, graphic violence, and sexually explicit content on <em>Game of Thrones</em> when the Bible they read is full of similar content?* The implication is, reading the Bible is morally equivalent to watching <em>Game of Thrones</em>. Therefore, if watching <em>Game of Thrones</em> is immoral, then so is reading the Bible.</p>

<p>To demonstrate that reading the Bible is morally equivalent to watching <em>Game of Thrones</em>, you would need to show that there are <em>morally significant</em> parallels between the two. The person who raised the challenge seemed to think he had done that by pointing to similar <em>content</em> in both (e.g. violence, murder, rape, incest, sex, etc.).</p>

<p>There are at least <em>three</em> obvious differences between reading the Bible and watching <em>Game of Thrones</em> that demonstrate they are not morally equivalent.</p>

<p>First, the act of reading and the act of watching are completely different. Isn’t there an obvious difference between <em>reading</em> about a sexual assault in the newspaper and <em>watching</em> the same person being sexually assaulted on video? Isn’t there a difference between reading about the latest beheading from ISIS and watching <em>the very same</em> beheading on the Internet? The answer should be obvious. Reading the sentence, “Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain”&nbsp;is completely different from watching two people get completely naked and simulate having sex in high definition from multiple camera angles. Men aren’t buying up Bibles by the millions to satisfy their lustful desires as they <em>read</em>. No, they are flocking by the millions to pornographic websites to satisfy their lustful desires as they <em>watch</em>. This is because watching an immoral act is categorically different from reading about an immoral act.</p>

<p>The next point is tied to the first.</p>

<p>Second, there is a difference in <em>motivation</em>. We need to ask <em>why</em> people are reading the Bible and watching <em>Game of Thrones</em>. Again, the answer isn’t hard. Television shows, like <em>Game of Thrones</em>, are meant to titillate and entertain by reducing immoral circumstances to <em>objects of enjoyment</em>. The Scripture does not do that. The wickedness we read about in the Bible is meant to be an <em>object of moral education</em>. Namely, we learn about God’s anger towards wickedness and the consequences of human sin.</p>

<p>So reading about wickedness for the purpose of <em>education</em> is different from watching it for the purpose of <em>entertainment</em>. We don’t enjoy reading about wickedness; we <em>grieve</em> it.</p>

<p>Therefore, reading about immoral acts for education, whether it’s the holocaust, sex-trafficking, or immoral acts in the Bible, is not remotely similar to watching immoral acts for entertainment. Motive matters!</p>

<p>Third, the values associated with these specific behaviors are entirely different. Television shows like <em>Game of Thrones celebrate</em> libertine sexual values, violence, and assorted vices. That’s why the producers include these scenes in their shows. They know this will entice the audience and increase viewership.</p>

<p>Conversely, the Bible doesn’t describe wickedness to celebrate sinful acts. Rather, it records sinful acts to <em>condemn</em> them. The Bible judges these things as immoral, which is why many people take issue with Scripture. It consistently inveighs <em>against</em> their proclivities, where Hollywood glorifies them.</p>

<p>*I passed the question along to my colleagues Greg Koukl and Alan Shlemon to get their ideas. This response is an amalgamation of our thoughts.</p>
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title: How to Respond to Alleged Bible Contradictions
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Tim Barnett
date: 08/16/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-to-respond-to-alleged-bible-contradictions
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Yesterday, Greg and I hosted a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/standtoreason93/videos/1444148139014074/" target="_blank">Facebook Live event</a> on the issue of alleged Bible contradictions. Our goal was to equip viewers with some helpful tactics in dealing with the charge that the Bible is full of contradictions. We hope this training session will give you greater confidence in the reliability of the Bible. (For more on this, see “<a href="https://www.str.org/blog/is-the-bible-full-of-contradictions#.WZOyznd95R1" target="_blank">Is the Bible Full of Contradictions?</a>”)</p>

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title: Believing Biblical Doctrines Requires Humility, Not Arrogance
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 09/14/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/believing-biblical-doctrines-requires-humility-not-arrogance
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christians who believe the Bible teaches Jesus is the only way of salvation or the traditional view of sexuality, sex, and marriage are often labeled arrogant. The idea that someone knows the truth and someone else is wrong is interpreted as arrogant. No doubt, there are plenty of Christians and purported Christians who are prideful and express this—it’s tragically easy to forget sometimes that we are sinners only saved by grace and mercy through Jesus. And for that, we should examine ourselves and repent.</p>

<p>But these views about the Bible are not arrogant; in fact, they’re humble. When we become Christians, we place ourselves under God’s authority and His teaching about reality. Our beliefs, wills, and behavior should conform to His will. We also join the Body of Christ, the church, which has been seeking to understand God’s revelation for 2000 years. There’s a body of teaching and understanding that is mainstream. Sure, there are disagreements, but Christians should and usually do treat each other with charity where a difference of interpretation about the text is understandable. But there’s a large body of beliefs the church has held where there’s been widespread and long-held agreement. Many great and brilliant Christians have gone before us trying to understand God’s revelation for us. There’s a huge corpus of biblical teaching that Christians have agreed on over those 2000 years. And in humility, we approach that body of teaching called orthodoxy, taking instruction and realizing, if we disagree, that we should have excellent reason to do so and be open to correction.</p>

<p>That’s the humble posture Christians take when we will not be swayed by modern cultural norms or new unpersuasive and untested interpretations of Scripture. It’s actually quite a stunning posture for Christians to say the church has been wrong for 2000 years or our culture is so superior that the church’s teaching should conform to it.</p>

<p>Of course, standing in the mainstream of Christian orthodoxy doesn’t mean we’re right. But it’s a posture of humility to let what Christians have believed about God’s revelation about reality for two millenia inform and guide us.</p>
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title: What You Can Do to Support Religious Liberty
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/31/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-you-can-do-to-support-religious-liberty
content:
            <div> 
		<p>When it comes to protecting religious liberty as a natural right, you might not be a lawyer, or a judge, or even a government employee, but you’re here on the Stand to Reason website because you want to learn how to make a persuasive case for the truth to the people you interact with throughout your day, and this is something you can do for religious liberty. You may not speak to thousands of people at a time, but you are indispensable. Every conversation matters. Every changed mind makes a difference. And all of those differences made by all of us together add up.</p>

<p>In “<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450087/religious-liberty-under-attack" target="_blank">The Continuing Threat to Religious Liberty: What���s at Stake and What to Do about It</a>,”&nbsp;Ryan T. Anderson (co-author of <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Debating-Religious-Liberty-Discrimination-Corvino/dp/0190603070/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1504066232&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=ryan+anderson" target="_blank">Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination</a></em>) describes the three cultural changes that have led to the current threat to religious liberty:</p>

<h2>A change in government:</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>A presumption of liberty has been replaced with a presumption of regulation. Citizens used to think that liberty was primary and government had to justify its coercive regulation. Now people assume that government regulations are the neutral starting point and citizens must justify their liberty.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>A change in sexual values:</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>What started as a liberationist movement - asking for the freedom to live and love, be it with contraception or abortion, same-sex relations or transgender identities - now demands that other people support, facilitate, and endorse such choices: that Hobby Lobby’s insurance cover them, that Catholic hospitals perform them, and that various professionals celebrate them.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>A change in how religion is practiced and our understanding of religious liberty:</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>As Americans become less religious, they care less about religious liberty, for people are most vigilant to protect the rights that they themselves want to exercise. At the same time, a form of secularism has challenged the role of religion in public life, arguing that religion is appropriate inside the four walls of a house of worship but not on Main Street or Wall Street. The result has been an ever more naked public square...where religion is viewed as a merely private affair with no public relevance.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of Anderson’s <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450087/religious-liberty-under-attack" target="_blank">article</a> to see his recommendations as to how we can argue for religious liberty in light of each of these changes in our culture. One of those recommendations stood out to me as being particularly relevant to STR regulars:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Any effective long-term response, therefore, cannot merely be about religious liberty or limited government. Ultimately, our goal should be to convince our neighbors that what we believe about sex is true. In the meantime we need to convince them that what we believe is at least reasonable and poses no harm to others, and thus that there’s no reason for the government to penalize it...Conservatives need to explain why we believe what we believe in terms that our neighbors can understand.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you follow Stand to Reason, this is precisely the skill you’ve been working on, developing the <a href="https://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed" target="_blank">knowledge, wisdom, and character</a> needed to clearly explain all aspects of the Christian worldview in a way others can understand. Now Anderson is calling you to action. In the end, the people you talk to may not agree with you, but just hearing a reasonable explanation and defense can be enough to take some of the angry passion out of this debate and open the way for continued free speech and a more civilized public square.</p>

<p>Are you ready to take on the highly controversial issue of sexual morality? Can you explain why the Christian view of sex is not only reasonable but also beautiful? You can start preparing <a href="https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2017/02/27/a-better-story-god-sex-and-human-flourishing/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/sexual-expression-is-a-worldview-issue#.WadSFdN95R0" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Navigating the Transgender Discussion
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 09/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/navigating-the-transgender-discussion
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s more common today to meet people who identify as transgender. That creates unique challenges for young believers who want to know how to relate to transgender people at school, work, or social gatherings. Many wonder whether they should keep these relationships and, if they do, how not to compromise their biblical convictions.</p>

<p>Fortunately, the ancient words of Scripture provide principles that can guide our modern relationships and their unique challenges. While these five principles may not apply in every situation, they are intended to be general guidelines that can help believers navigate their relationships with people who identify as transgender.</p>

<p>#1: Make your friendship a high priority. If your friend identifies as transgender, move towards him, not away from him. Relationships are bridges that allow us to show love, tell the truth, express compassion, or share the Gospel. Too often, transgender people feel alienated from Christians. By pursuing your friendship with them, you’ll communicate you love them, something discussed in the next principle.</p>

<p>#2: Love them. Transgender people desperately need our love. Startling data suggests that 41% of transgender people attempt to commit suicide. That’s much higher than the 1.6% of the rest of the population who attempt suicide. Our transgender friends are hurting inside. Knowing this truth should motivate us towards compassion.</p>

<p>Loving them should seem like obvious advice, but it’s often forgotten. When Christians remember to “love,”&nbsp;they often express it by telling their transgender friends, “God loves the sinner but hates the sin.”&nbsp;The only word they hear, though, is “hate.”&nbsp;They think <em>you</em> hate them and <em>God</em> hates them too. Although you use this cliché with the intention of communicating love, it produces the opposite effect. If you want your transgender friends to know you (and God) love them, don’t <em>say</em> something; <em>do</em> something. Love them. Show them you love them by your actions. Treat them the same way you treat your other friends. That will show you love them and, since you’re a Christian, that God loves them too.</p>

<p>Remember, it’s Christians - more than secular culture - who should show love to transgender friends. It’s our worldview that teaches that everyone - including people who identify as transgender - are made in God’s image, intrinsically valuable and deserving of dignity and respect.</p>

<p>#3: Be wise with names and pronouns. Should you call your transgender friends by the names/pronouns they give themselves (assuming those names/pronouns are gendered opposite of their biology)? This is probably the most complex and controversial question. My answer is: It depends. Ask yourself, <em>Am I a trusted influence and a loving friend to them?</em> If the answer is no, then you are not the one who should try to correct them. Call them by whatever name they ask you to call them. This would apply to most acquaintances, whether at school, work, or a social gathering.</p>

<p>If, however, you are in a close friendship with someone who now claims he is transgender, then I would say it’s fair to discuss your feelings about the matter with each other.</p>

<p>This principle is similar to one we follow at church. You, as a believer, are not called to speak into <em>every</em> other Christian’s life. You may know of a sin committed by a Christian, but that doesn’t mean you’re the person who should admonish him. We reserve accountability or loving criticism for close friendships, family, our pastor/leader, or accountability partner.</p>

<p>We even follow this principle with non-Christians. If you hear a stranger at the gas station swear, you don’t rebuke him. Likewise, you don’t rebuke an acquaintance at school, a co-worker, or someone you meet at a party. We reserve such correction for relationships with people we’re close to, people who trust us because they know we care for them. I’m suggesting we apply a similar approach to transgender people.</p>

<p>#4: Don’t put family rules on those outside the family.<strong>*</strong> We can’t <em>expect</em> non-Christians to act like Christians (1 Cor. 5:9-13). We might long for our non-believing friends and family to live by biblical standards, but we shouldn’t try to make that the focus of our relationship. Believers are called to hold other believers - those <em>inside</em> the church - to biblical standards. God is responsible for judging those <em>outside</em> the church (1 Cor. 5:13). Instead of trying to manage your transgender friend’s behavior, focus on a higher purpose, the next principle.</p>

<p>#5: Make Jesus the issue. Instead of trying to make your transgender friends follow biblical guidelines, make it your goal to invite them to follow Jesus of Nazareth. After all, being transgender should not be your ultimate focus. Even if your transgender friends return to the gender of their biology, their eternal destiny is still in jeopardy. Your hope for your transgender friends should not be to change their <em>gender</em> identity, but their <em>spiritual</em> identity. We want them to accept the Gospel. Once the Holy Spirit indwells them, He will transform them from the inside out. That transformation, by the way, will not merely be a change in their body, but a change in their soul.</p>

<p>*I owe the expression of this principle to Larry Osborne, pastor of North Coast Church.</p>
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title: Hell Interrupted—Part 1
topic: Theology
author: Tim Barnett
date: 09/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/hell-interrupted-part-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p><strong>By Tim Barnett and Greg Koukl</strong></p>

<p>You may not have noticed, but Hell is not as popular as it used to be. Simply put, the doctrine of Hell has fallen on hard times.</p>

<p>Jehovah’s Witnesses have long denied Hell, at least the everlasting punishment part at the heart of the classical view, along with Seventh Day Adventists, each teaching that, in the final judgment, the unrepentant wicked will be snuffed from existence—annihilated.</p>

<p>Currently, however, it’s not just those on the theological fringes who are rejecting the idea of Hell as eternal conscious torment, but also respected evangelicals like theologian John Stackhouse and the late Anglican, John Stott, venerable rector emeritus of All Souls Church in London.</p>

<p>In recent years, opposition to the doctrine of endless punishment by those who are rethinking Hell has gained enough popular momentum that “conditional immortality”—also known as “annihilationism”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup>—has begun to make significant inroads into mainstream Christianity.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup> This trend must be answered, for two reasons.</p>

<p>First, in our view the Gospel itself is undermined to some degree when Hell gets the short shrift. Though some consider extinction of self-consciousness a weighty sentence for earthly wrongs, it pales in comparison to never-ending conscious torment. The good news is only as good as the bad news is bad, and in Scripture eternal happiness and everlasting joy are balanced against the alternative—eternal misery and everlasting anguish. Indeed, Jesus put the calculus precisely this way, as you will soon see.</p>

<p>Second, and more importantly, Paul makes it clear that shepherds in the church must be “holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching,”&nbsp;and also must be able “to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict”&nbsp;(Titus 1:9). There is little question in our own minds which view has been “in accordance with the teaching”&nbsp;historically when it comes to the question of Hell. Here’s why.</p>

<h2>The “Catholic”&nbsp;Faith</h2>

<p>Over 130 years ago, W. G. T. Shedd opened his classic work on Hell, <em>The Doctrine of Endless Punishment</em>, with these words: “The common opinion of the ancient church was that the future punishment of the impenitent wicked is endless. This was the catholic faith [i.e., the faith of the entire church]; as much so as belief in the Trinity.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> Indeed, Shedd points out, there was <em>more</em> unanimity in the ancient church on Hell’s eternal torment than there was on Trinitarianism.</p>

<p>Further, the conviction of the early Christians flowed seamlessly from the OT rabbinic tradition of the time, with the schools of Shammai and Hillel both holding to the doctrine of eternal punishment, as did the Jewish synagogue in general throughout the entire first century.<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> Later, the medieval church as well as the church of the Reformation—both Lutherans and Calvinists—were of one mind on the doctrine.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup></p>

<p>It is possible for traditional teachings to be in error, of course. However, when Paul says that elders must hold fast to the faithful teaching, and when the writer of Hebrews calls the doctrine of “eternal judgment”&nbsp;an “elementary teaching,”&nbsp;part of the very “foundation”&nbsp;of instruction about Christ (Heb. 6:1-2), and when the vast chorus of the church faithful understood that Hell was a place of everlasting conscious suffering, then any departure from that “catholic faith”&nbsp;must be justified by a clear and unambiguous appeal to Scripture.</p>

<p>Making our case for the classical view, though, carries with it a liability. In one sense we find it a bit awkward to be the champions of perpetual punishment, everlasting suffering, and endless torment. We want you to know, then—just for the record—that we find no joy in this. It’s hard to think of a doctrine more painful to consider, more frightening to contemplate, or more bizarre to imagine than the classical conception of Hell. It is, in John MacArthur’s words, an “appalling truth.”</p>

<p>However, what we like or don’t like is hardly the point. “Emotionally, I find the concept [of eternal suffering] intolerable,”&nbsp;John Stott confided, “and do not understand how people can live with it without cauterizing their feelings or cracking under the strain. But our emotions are a fluctuating, unreliable guide to truth and must not be exalted to the place of supreme authority in determining it.”<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup></p>

<p>Quite right. Taking counsel from our feelings on a revolting topic like everlasting torment is perilous, since we inevitably stumble into the error of sacrificing God’s justice on the altar of His love. But that will never do since both God’s love and His justice are grounded, so to speak, in the same thing: His goodness. Goodness informs both God’s mercy (through love) and God’s punishment (through justice) and neither can be sacrificed without sacrificing God’s noble character.</p>

<p>Thankfully, these are not in conflict in the Christian Story since both find their perfect harmony in the cross where God is both <em>just</em> and <em>justifier</em> of those who have faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26). On Calvary God simultaneously expresses both His holiness and His compassion.</p>

<p>In the end, we side with C. S. Lewis who wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom.”<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup> Stott adds, “As a committed evangelical, my question must be—and is—not what does my heart tell me, but what does God’s Word say?”<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<p>We agree. Our only legitimate course of action regarding the nature of Hell is to answer the question, “What does God’s Word say?”&nbsp;So to Scripture we shall turn.</p>

<h2>Sheep and Goats</h2>

<p>There is a simple reason for the near unified voice of the church for over 1500 years regarding the unending torment of Hell. Those believers were convinced it was Jesus’&nbsp;own view. Christ the appointed Judge made clear the price that would be paid when His gavel fell. “He took it upon Himself to sound the note of warning,”&nbsp;Shedd points out. “He, the Judge of the quick and the dead, assumed the responsibility of teaching the doctrine of Endless Retribution.”<sup id="fnref:9"><a href="#fn:9">9</a></sup></p>

<p>Note, for example, Jesus’&nbsp;depiction of the final judgment at the end of the age found in Matt. 25:</p>

<p>But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on the left. (31-32)</p>

<p>The sheep, blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for them (34). The goats, however, face a terrible sentence:</p>

<p>Then He will also say to those on His left, “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”&nbsp;(41)</p>

<p>Jesus concludes His parable with a simple summary of the judgment: “These will go away into eternal punishment,”&nbsp;He says, “but the righteous into eternal life”&nbsp;(46).</p>

<p>What are we to make of this crucial pronouncement? At first glance the meaning seems unambiguous. The sheep experience blessedness forever and the goats experience punishment forever. The parallelism is clear-cut. The duration of the conscious experience for the first group—everlasting joy—is the same as the duration of the conscious experience for the second—everlasting torment. That is the plain sense of the passage, the ordinary meaning of the words, and the natural reading of the text.</p>

<p>Conditionalists, though, claim otherwise. Most recognize that eternal life and eternal punishment are both never-ending, after a fashion. They take the phrase “eternal life”&nbsp;in its ordinary sense—an ongoing, conscious, everlasting <em>experience</em> of life—but they take the term “eternal punishment”&nbsp;to be eternal only in its <em>consequence</em>—that the goats’&nbsp;<em>non-existence</em> continues forever. “After all,”&nbsp;conditionalist Preston Sprinkle writes, “when Hebrews 9:12 refers to our ’eternal redemption,’&nbsp;it most probably doesn’t refer to a never-ending act of redeem<em>ing</em>, but to the never-ending redemption that results from God’s saving work.”<sup id="fnref:10"><a href="#fn:10">10</a></sup></p>

<p>Though some might be tempted by Sprinkle’s point, it falters for a number of reasons. First, Sprinkle is only half right about Hebrews. Agreed, the passage does not refer to a never-ending <em>act</em> of redemption. It refers, rather, to a never-ending <em>state</em> of redemption (“having obtained for us an eternal redemption��), which state is <em>subjective by nature</em> (unlike annihilation). Keep in mind that being “redeemed,”&nbsp;like being “saved,”&nbsp;is not only an event, but an ongoing <em>conscious experience</em>.</p>

<p>Second, notice further that the “eternal redemption”&nbsp;of verse 12 secures for us the “eternal inheritance”&nbsp;of verse 15. The two go together, the <em>eternal conscious experience</em> of redemption making possible the <em>eternal conscious enjoyment</em> of the inheritance.</p>

<p>Finally, a simple appeal to common sense. No one would say that executed criminals are being punished for eternity just because they are dead forever.</p>

<p>No, Hebrews 9:12 does not invalidate the plain sense of Jesus’&nbsp;teaching. Simply put, the conditionalist interpretation of Matt. 25:46 is not a natural reading, but a strained one, especially since the phrases “eternal punishment”&nbsp;and “eternal life”&nbsp;in are in unmistakable, deliberate parallel. The duration is the same for both groups. Only the quality of the conscious experience changes.</p>

<h2>Following the Flow</h2>

<p>Here is the key question: What meaning did <em>Jesus</em> intend to convey in this passage? When we follow the flow of His reasoning starting earlier in chapter 24, His meaning is unmistakable. For two full chapters—97 verses—Jesus delivers a stern warning of final judgment using a series of vivid depictions that make a clear contrast between the fate of the righteous and the fate of the wicked.</p>

<p>In Matt. 24:45-51, the faithful and sensible slave is put in charge of all his master’s possessions, while the evil slave is scourged and banished to a place of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”&nbsp;In the parable of the ten virgins, the prudent are welcomed into the joy of the wedding feast while the imprudent are completely shut out (Matt. 25:10). In the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30), two faithful servants are invited to “enter into the joy of your master”&nbsp;(21, 23), while the wicked slave is thrown into “outer darkness”&nbsp;where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth”&nbsp;(30). Finally, at the last judgment the righteous inherit the kingdom and eternal life, while the wicked are cast out (“Depart from Me”), into a place of “eternal fire”&nbsp;(41) where they “go away into eternal punishment”&nbsp;(46)<sup id="fnref:11"><a href="#fn:11">11</a></sup></p>

<p>The classical understanding that these passages teach conscious, never-ending torment follows smoothly from both the immediate wording of each passage as well as from the general flow of thought of the larger context. The righteous are rewarded, inherit the kingdom, enter into the feast and into the joy of eternal life. The wicked are shut out from the feast, banished to a place of outer darkness where they enter into eternal punishment, weeping and grinding their teeth in the agony of eternal fire.<sup id="fnref:12"><a href="#fn:12">12</a></sup> There is no mystery here; there is no ambiguity. Jesus’&nbsp;meaning is unmistakable.</p>

<p>To sharpen the point, 24 verses into chapter 26 Jesus makes a dark appraisal of the fate of His betrayer: “It would have been good for that man if he had not been born”&nbsp;(Matt. 26:24). How does Jesus’&nbsp;comment square with annihilationism?</p>

<p>If Judas had not been born, then he would not exist. If he were annihilated in judgment, then he would not exist. The last condition would be the <em>same</em> as the first. How could the first be “good,”&nbsp;then, by comparison? No, nonexistence can only be good compared to the everlasting torment of eternal judgment that Jesus had been warning of, time and again, in the previous two chapters. That is the flow of thought. That is the natural reading. <sup id="fnref:13"><a href="#fn:13">13</a></sup></p>

<h2>The Lake of Fire</h2>

<p>Jesus is also not ambiguous about the final abode of the damned. He says they will be banished “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”&nbsp;(Matt. 25:41). What fire is that, exactly? We find the answer in Revelation 20 where John completes the account of the great white throne judgment at the end of history that Jesus introduced us to in Matt. 25.</p>

<p>And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever...Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:10, 14-15)</p>

<p><em>All</em> God’s enemies, then, spiritual and human alike—the devil, the prophet, the beast, the great multitude of the dead before the throne—all are destined for the same place, the lake of fire. Here is the key question: <em>What happens to those thrown into the lake of fire?</em> Do they experience unending conscious torment forever (the classical view), or do they forever cease to exist (the conditionalist view)?</p>

<p>Clearly, neither the devil nor the beast nor the false prophet are annihilated. That’s plain enough. Instead, they are “tormented day and night forever and ever.”&nbsp;Is it not equally clear that, in like manner, the wicked who are thrown into that <em>same</em> lake with the devil, the beast, and the prophet experience their <em>same</em> end? Indeed, that’s precisely what John described six chapters earlier. He wrote that those humans who worshipped the beast...</p>

<p>...will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. <em>And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest, day and night</em>...(Rev. 14:10-11)</p>

<p>This dread sentence meshes perfectly with everything else God’s Word says about the fire of final judgment. John the Baptist warned that Jesus “will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”&nbsp;(Matt. 3:12b). Jesus Himself warned often of the “furnace of fire”&nbsp;(Matt. 13:42), the “eternal fire”&nbsp;(Matt. 18:8), the “unquenchable fire”&nbsp;(Mk. 9:43), and the “fiery Hell”&nbsp;(Matt. 5:22). He likened that fire to Gehenna, where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched”&nbsp;(Mk. 9:48).</p>

<p>Why does Jesus repeatedly say that Hell’s fire is eternal and never quenched? It’s because the task it was meant to accomplish continues forever. A fire that completely consumes what it burns (annihilationism) no longer blazes. <em>Hell’s furnace of fire is everlasting because the fuel for the fire—the wicked—is never consumed.</em> The fire is never ending because the punishing is never ending. That is Jesus’&nbsp;point.</p>

<h2>Clues from the OT?</h2>

<p>Nevertheless, conditionalists push back on this conclusion. For example, some read Jesus and John in light of Old Testament judgment texts like Isaiah 34. Since the imagery of the eternal judgment in Rev. 20 is in some ways similar, for example, to Isaiah’s description of the earthly judgment of Edom, and since Edom was utterly destroyed (annihilated), then the wicked of the great final judgment will share the same fate the argument goes. How do we respond?</p>

<p>Keep two things in mind when you consider this point. First, it’s not unusual for similar imagery to describe judgments that have consequences in different dimensions—temporal and eternal. In Revelation, for example, God lays waste to the nations <em>on earth</em>, then later gathers them together for an <em>eternal judgment</em> at the great white throne. Though both have grave consequences in their own spheres, these are entirely distinct <em>aspects</em> of God’s judgment—one earthly and temporal, the other heavenly and everlasting. Bodies are destroyed and nations laid waste, then souls are sentenced in a final scene of heavenly justice.<sup id="fnref:14"><a href="#fn:14">14</a></sup> The first both precedes and prefigures the second.<sup id="fnref:15"><a href="#fn:15">15</a></sup></p>

<p>Second, God’s truth in the bible is revealed progressively, with subsequent writers fleshing out and completing the partial picture revealed earlier. For example, John in Rev. 20 adds to and expands on what Jesus taught about the final judgment in Matt. 25.</p>

<p>There’s little question that Isaiah 34, for example, paints a picture of ultimate judgment making Edom desolate “from generation to generation”&nbsp;where “smoke will go up forever”&nbsp;from a fire that “will not be quenched”&nbsp;(10). Notice two things, though. First, the people along with their domestic animals (the lambs and goats and oxen and bulls) fall. That is clear (5-7). Second, however, only the <em>land</em> burns day and night, not the <em>wicked</em>. They’re dead.</p>

<p>Its streams will be turned into pitch, and its loose earth into brimstone, and its land will become burning pitch. It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will go up forever; from generation to generation it will be desolate. None will pass through it forever and ever. (9-10)</p>

<p>This “desolate”&nbsp;land, however, remains inhabited by pelicans, hedgehogs, owls, ravens, jackals, ostriches, wolves, hairy goats, snakes, and hawks (11, 13-15). Isaiah’s intent, it seems, is to describe a judgment in which people are slain and the land is laid waste <em>as far as human habitation is concerned</em>. It returns to the abode of wild animals. This doesn’t sound a bit like John’s Hell to us—clearly nothing like the lake of fire in Rev. 20. The reason is that each is looking at different, but complementary, facets of God’s judgment, different dimensions of the same judicial act.</p>

<p>Edom’s civilization is destroyed and its land returns to its wild state. It’s the earthly aspect of judgment—physical destruction—that portends an everlasting punishment (“the smoke goes up forever”) that Jesus and John expand on.</p>

<p>We do not dispute that if Isaiah were read in isolation, annihilationism would be a <em>possible</em> inference from the text, though by no means a necessary one. We also do not dispute that there is a kinship between Isaiah’s depiction of judgment and John’s. Both portray ultimate judgment and both trade on the same imagery. Because of this kinship, though, we must insist that Isaiah not be allowed to have the last word. The final word on the final judgment should come from the final chapter of God’s Word. And here John speaks without ambiguity.</p>

<p>Revelation, in a sense, gives the rest of the story, describing the final disposition of anyone from any land—Edom, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the kings of the earth and their multitudes in Revelation trembling before God’s throne as the final gavel falls. These are not annihilated, but rather deported to outer darkness, away from the presence of the Lord, where there is no rest, only weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth as they are tormented day and night forever.</p>

<p>We have much more to say about the shortcomings of conditionalism. We will do that in part two of “Hell Interrupted”&nbsp;in the November issue of <em>Solid Ground</em>.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">John Stackhouse and Preston Sprinkle prefer the phrase “terminal punishment,”&nbsp;though this characterization is a bit at odds with Jesus who depicted the punishment not as “terminal,”&nbsp;but as “eternal”&nbsp;(Matt. 25:46). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">To be fair, conditionalists do not deny Hell outright. Also to be fair, though, by evacuating Hell of its central characteristic—endless punishment for the unrepentant wicked—they have so redefined the nature of Hell that it bears little resemblance to the Hell of classical theology. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">W. G. T. Shedd, <em>The Doctrine of Endless Punishment</em> (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1986; first published 1885), 1. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Alfred Edersheim, <em>The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah</em>, II. 789. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Shedd, 4. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">John Stott, “Judgment and Hell,”&nbsp;in <em>Rethinking Hell: Reading in Evangelical Conditionalism,</em> ed. Christopher Date, Gregory Stump, and Joshua Anderson (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books), 51. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">C. S. Lewis, “The Problem of Pain,”&nbsp;in <em>The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics</em> (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007), 620. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">Stott, 51. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:9">Shedd, 13. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:9">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:10">Denny Burk, John Stackhouse, Robin Parry, and Jerry Walls, <em>Four Views on Hell,</em> ed. Preston Sprinkle and Stanley N. Gundry (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 194. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:10">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:11">Jesus’&nbsp;precise wording is significant: The accursed ones “go <em>into</em> the eternal fire”&nbsp;(41) and “go <em>away into</em> eternal punishment”&nbsp;(46), that is, they are sent away to enter into a fire which burns eternally and into a punishment that lasts eternally. This is not annihilation. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:11">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:12">Jesus describes the place of torment as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth multiple times, sometimes coupled with the location, either “outer darkness”&nbsp;or the “furnace of fire”&nbsp;(Matt. 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30, and Lk. 13:28). Note, there is a <em>conscious experience</em> of profound, <em>ongoing</em> anguish while in the darkness or in the fire. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:12">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:13">I guess one might counter that Judas would experience God’s wrath through some sort of temporal punishment before he is finally annihilated, and this is what Jesus is referring to, but we see no suggestion of that in the text. Further, if that were the case, then annihilation would not be an act of judgment (as conditionalists claim), but an act of mercy, ending Judas’&nbsp;torment much like euthanasia is considered an act of mercy by ending a patient’s torment. No, this is not the plain sense of the text, especially considering Jesus’&nbsp;grave warnings in Matt. 24-25. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:13">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:14">Regardless of how one understands the <em>nature</em> of God’s final sentence in Rev. 20:15 (annihilation or eternal torment), clearly these events describe two distinct elements of God’s judgment. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:14">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:15">Jude cites Sodom and Gomorrah in the same way, their <em>earthly</em> judgment “exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of <em>eternal</em> fire”&nbsp;(7), and “for whom the black darkness has been reserved <em>forever”</em>&nbsp;(13). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:15">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Interview with Dr. Larry Hurtado—Destroyer of the gods
topic: History
author: Greg Koukl
date: 08/16/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/interview-with-dr-larry-hurtado-destroyer-of-the-gods
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>The following is a transcript of an interview with Dr. Larry Hurtado on his book</em> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Destroyer-gods-Early-Christian-Distinctiveness/dp/1481304747/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank">Destroyer of the Gods: Early Christian Distintiveness in the Roman World</a> <em>from the Stand to Reason Podcast, <a href="/w/dr.-larry-hurtado-destroyer-of-the-gods-early-christian-distinctiveness-in-the-roman-world" target="_blank">July 12, 2017</a>.</em></p>

<p><strong>GREG KOUKL</strong>: Christians, I think, pretty much feel like personas non grata in our culture nowadays, and my guest is a specialist in early Christianity. I think understanding some of the things that he has to say about early Christianity is going to help us put our own culture today in a little bit more of a perspective and teach us how to live in a secular context. He is the emeritus professor of New Testament language and literature and theology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and got his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He’s done a lot of writing on early Christianity, and the book that we’re talking about is <em>Destroyer of the god</em>s: <em>Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World</em>. My guest, Dr. Larry Hurtado. We’re glad to have you here. Are you in Edinburgh right now or somewhere in Scotland?</p>

<p>LARRY HURTADO: Yes. I live in Edinburgh. I’ve been here since 1996. I moved here to take the chair of New Testament in the university, and I retired from that post in 2011, but we like the city, and so we’ve decided to stay on.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I’m in the studio with Amy Hall of Stand to Reason, and we both have read your book and we’re very stimulated by it and learned some great things by it. Thank you for it. I think it’s kind of fascinating to learn things about the early church and what early Christians faced in the first few centuries. I started the show saying that many Christians feel nowadays like they’re just not welcome in culture, they’re the odd people out, but according to your work, this was the case from the beginning with Christianity. Can you tell us a little bit as we launch our discussion here on your book? In what ways are today’s times similar to the early Christians in terms of the kind of cultural conflict that we’re experiencing?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Well, I’m talking about the earliest centuries, the first three centuries before the appropriation of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine, which changed the game quite considerably. But in the period before that in the first three centuries, Christianity was a sect, a group that sort of operated on its own that had no public support. Indeed, there was a great deal of disincentive to be a Christian. Hard to find much in the way of economic, social, or political advantage to join the Christian movement in that period, so one of the questions that I think deserves more attention, which I don’t particularly focus on in the book, is, under those circumstances, why did people become Christians? What I really focus on in the book is more particularly how outsiders viewed Christians and what they pointed to as objectionable features.</p>

<p>Early Christianity was, in that setting, not simply odd or different or distinctive, to use the subtitle of the book, but even objectionably so. One of the major things we have to understand is that in the Roman setting, the Roman gods, the larger, multiple gods of the world, were part and parcel of the social fabric, the political fabric, right from the level of the home on up to the level of the empire. Every structure rested upon the authority of the gods and involved validating them. To early Christians following the exclusivist attitude of the Jewish tradition from which Christianity sprang, early Christians were expected not to offer worship to the various pagan gods, to disregard them and indeed, treat them as utterly unworthy beings, so that put them on a very strong collision course, you might say, with those who were concerned to uphold the structures of family, of city, and of society as they saw them. They saw Christians as a threat to the whole social order, to the stability of society and to the empire because in the eyes of everyone else, that structure and stability rested upon recognizing the gods.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I read in your book that it wasn’t just the people in general, it was the government structure, the military, and also individual homes where they had individual deities that people were expected to respect when one visited the home, and the Christians could not participate in just about every level of society then. They were going against the grain. Is that right?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Yes. Every home was in some sense, in their sense of the word, was a godly home. That is, they had deities, household deities that they reverenced, as did cities. Every city had its patron deity, and they were to be reverenced because the notion was that the gods are powerful beings, and they were capable either of blessing or of withholding blessings. So right at the household level, yes, members of the household certainly, both the freeborn people and the slaves would be expected to join at appropriate occasions in reverencing the household deities. They would have a shrine set up, typically, with little images in the house itself, and people would gather to demonstrate their collective commitment to these deities and hoping that they would bless them.</p>

<p>Christians, if they were individual members of the household - slaves, wives, husbands, sons, daughters - they were expected by their faith not to participate in the worship of these deities, and so that immediately would have raised questions for them as to how they juggle their responsibilities. How do they show that they are a loyal member of the family, that they aren’t becoming anti-family, anti-social like some of the cult groups that tried to tear people away from their families? Christians insisted you should stay in your family, stay in your cities, stay in your country, and be as loyal and as honorable a person as you can in that society, but you should not reverence the deities. The problem was that logic just made no sense in the minds of anybody else. How could you possibly be a loyal member of the family or a loyal member of the city without reverencing the gods on whom everything was thought to rest?</p>

<p>In one sense, the early Christians in this period are in some sense ahead of the game in distinguishing between religious affiliation and political loyalty. There’s a sense in which early Christianity is articulating a vision of religious liberty in which your political loyalty is not measured by which gods you signed up to. You could have diversity of religions and all of you still showing some kind of loyalty to the political order.</p>

<p>KOUKL: What you just described strikes me as a condition that is very similar to what Christians face, in the States at least, with the idea of religious pluralism, which plays itself out here as everybody’s equally right, and if you don’t acknowledge the legitimacy of every religious view, then you are considered intolerant or even bigoted because of the exclusiveness. When I say legitimacy, I don’t mean just showing respect that is due people who differ, but I mean the notion that we’ve got to advance the idea that every religion is equally as meritorious or equally as true as Christianity. That’s what we’re facing here. Do you see a parallel between the pluralism now in the West and the kind of thing you just described that the Christians faced in the first three centuries?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Well yes, I suppose, in the sense that early Christianity was an exclusivist religion. That is to say it insisted that there was only one deity who was worthy of worship and all of the other deities were not worthy of worship. I hasten to emphasize that in early Christianity the issue wasn’t whether other gods existed, but whether they were real gods, whether they were worthy of worship. For example, some early Christians said, Oh yes, these other gods of the pagans are definitely beings, but they are unworthy beings. They even sometimes referred to them as demons. The early Christian emphasis on monotheism didn’t consist in the denial of the existence of other gods, but in denying that other gods were worthy of worship and obedience.</p>

<p>That put them in a difficult situation. In the Roman world, there were multiple deities, and the general rule was that all deities are real and all deities are worthy of worship. You didn’t necessarily have to worship every single one of them, but in principle, they were all worthy of worship, and so to object to offering worship to any of the deities was seen as a profoundly irreligious and anti-social. Conscientious Christians were put in a very difficult situation and had to figure out ways of negotiating their existence, so to speak, in families and in their societies in ways that, on the one hand, they didn’t want to cause any more conflict. They didn’t want any more conflict than was necessary, and so sought to try to be obedient and cooperative as best they could, but on certain things could not compromise, and that’s where the trouble arose.</p>

<p>KOUKL: Boy, that just feels so much like circumstances we’re facing here, not just with the broader religious questions, but ethical questions that deal with sexuality, etc. that we’re facing now.</p>

<p>HURTADO: I think personally my own view is that the literature and the practices of Christians in the first two or three centuries are perhaps a more meaningful guide for Christians living in what I would call a post-Christendom situation. That is, a setting, whether in Europe or in North America, where Christianity, as it was in Europe, often, Christianity was the sort of the official state-enforced religion, and that is less and less the case now, or in North America where you didn’t have a state religion, but Christianity was sort of the socially embraced, sort of unofficially embraced quasi-official religious stance. That is no longer the case the way it once was. Christians are once again put in the situation where they’re having to think for themselves, where they have to live out their faith on a voluntaristic basis, not because it’s socially approved or socially promoted, but because they want to.</p>

<p>In that situation, as we move more and more into that situation where Christianity has changed images, it’s sort of the religious free market economy, and Christianity is one option among others, and you are a Christian pretty much increasingly simply because you want to be, not because there’s any particular advantage in being that. In that situation, I think the literature of the first two or three centuries of Christianity is more meaningful than it has ever been before, potentially, and indeed, probably more meaningful than some of the classic texts that have been relied upon so much more like Augustine, or Calvin, or Thomas. With great respect to these teachers, none of them lived under the conditions that I’m talking about. It was people rather like Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, and Tertullian, and Origen.</p>

<p>KOUKL: Polycarp.</p>

<p>HURTADO: The authors of this period who wrote the kind of texts that I think would probably be much more instructive for Christians today. The trick being, so to speak, what they sought to do was to be as winsome a family member or citizen as they possibly could be while preserving the integrity of their religious confession. That’s a very interesting kind of difficulty that requires some real thought and some real discussion, resources, collaboration, in doing that.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I love the way you put it that the Christians sought to be as winsome as they could be while preserving the integrity of their own commitment to Christ.</p>

<p>HURTADO: The point is they couldn’t bring to bear political pressure or economic pressure. They couldn’t bring to bear any kind of coercion in that setting. Subsequently, of course, Christians could. Once Constantine approved Christianity and adopted it, Christians were able, and in my judgment regrettably, did take up the opportunity to punish unbelief, to use state coercion, political coercion, even violence in some cases against non-Christians, Jews, pagans, and others, in a misguided attempt to try to reinforce Christian faith by force. In the early centuries, Christians had no such force that they could use, even if they wanted to. They were forced simply to defend their faith by reason, by argumentation, and by the demonstrable moral quality of their lives and their readiness to live by what they said.</p>

<p>That again, it seems to me, is instructive for Christians living in the modern Western society today not to resort to laws, or coercion, or threats, or whatever, but instead to articulate and express Christian faith verbally in ways that are clear, that are meaningful, and hopefully superior to alternative views, and very importantly, then to live out the values that they profess. I’m thinking of the Roman physician, Galen, who was an important figure of the time the second century, and Galen was a pagan, a philosopher, and a physician. And in one of his writings he remarks that these Christians, he said who haven’t studied philosophy, they haven’t gone through the course of philosophical training that he thought was necessary to be a good Stoic, but he said, “But these Christians exhibit the kind of virtues in their behavior that we associate with philosophical training.”&nbsp;He said, “I don’t buy their beliefs at all, but it’s amazing that they can live out these virtues that we ordinarily associate with philosophical training.”</p>

<p>It was in some cases the persuasiveness of the Christian teaching, and message, and reasoning, but in many other cases it appears it was the moral quality of Christian life, that they were ready to live by what they said. For example, they practiced the kind of sexual discipline expected of their men that everybody expected of women. Everybody in the Roman world expected a married woman to be chaste and virtuous, but there was a different standard for men. Early Christians insisted that men had to live by the same standards as women. Early Christianity really effectively erases the double standard, and in a variety of other ways, as well, they exhibited a kind of behavior that struck people, even if they couldn’t buy their beliefs, that struck them as very impressive.</p>

<p>AMY HALL: Dr. Hurtado, you make the case in your book that most of what we think of when we think of religion today is actually a result of the innovations of Christianity, so what are some of the ways that Christianity changed the way that we view religion? In your book, you have four categories. Can you give us an overview of those four categories that you cover in this book?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Well, one of them is the notion that there is a single God. As I say in the book, if you were to go into the street with a microphone and ask people, Do you believe in God?, and phrase it that way, you would probably get unobjectionably one of three answers: Yes, no, or I’m still thinking about it. Nobody would think to ask you what is actually the prior question, which is, What do you mean? Which of the gods are we talking about? In the West, even atheists presume that there’s only one god to disbelieve. That is a result of the influence of Christianity. In the Roman world and in most of the world down through history, people have always imagined that there were multiple gods. There are multiple forces of nature, there are multiple emotions, for example. It typically seemed reasonable to imagine that behind them all were a multiplicity of divine beings, but it’s the influence of early Christianity and subsequent Western culture that has created this notion of a single deity.</p>

<p>One of the other things that is often the case that people, whether they like religion or not, will say religion involves dos and don’ts. Some people object to that, saying, I don’t like religion because it’s all about dos and don’ts. And other people say, Yeah, my religion does tell me how to live. That again is a weird notion. In the Roman world, you did not think of the gods as telling you how to live your life. The gods were there for protection or for the opposite of protection, so you placated them, you appeased them, you tried to keep them on your side, but you didn’t think of what we would call religion as a source of behavioral instruction.</p>

<p>The exceptions to that were Judaism with its emphasis on the Torah and the teaching of the laws of God, which cover various ways of behaving. And early Christianity absorbs that in a modified form, of course, but they absorb basically the idea that the one true God, who is the God of the Old Testament for them as well, the God of Israel, is a God who has behavioral standards that He expects people to live by. That notion was a new one.</p>

<p>We think of religion also as involving sacred texts, typically, but again, in the Roman world, it doesn’t. Religion doesn’t involve reading texts, or writing texts, or disseminating texts, with the exception, again, of Judaism and of early Christianity. Early Christians accepted the practice of regularly reading Scriptures in their settings, but also writing texts such as the writings we have in the New Testament and many others. By my count, in the first 200 years or so of Christianity, we probably have 150 to 200 books written that we know about by Christians, composed for the purpose of disseminating their faith.</p>

<p>One of the other things that is characteristic of early Christianity, which has influenced our way of thinking of things, is the notion that your religious identity is distinctive; it is different in principle from your ethnic identity. So on a census, for example, you might be asked what is your nationality, and you might say Greek or Filipino. It might say what is your racial background, and you might say white European or black African-American. And then there’d be another question asking what is your religious orientation, and you can put down any of the options available. That seems perfectly normal to us, but in the ancient world, your religious affiliation was given to you with your birth certificate. You were born into a particular people. Those were your gods, and it really wouldn’t occur to you to forsake them and exchange them for somebody else’s gods.</p>

<p>HALL: To follow up on what you were saying about the texts, one thing I thought was really interesting that you said was how remarkable and unique it is that we have the writings we have, because there are a lot of atheists who will say, If Jesus had really existed we would have had - Everyone would have been writing about Him, and since nobody was writing about Him except for these few people, then therefore He didn’t exist. You made a case that it’s amazing that we do have the writings that we have. Can you tell us about that?</p>

<p>HURTADO: I’ve sometimes referred to early Christians as textual maniacs. They were crazy about reading texts as part of their worship, which wasn’t a regular thing in the ancient world. They wrote texts. They invested huge amounts of resources in writing, composing, copying, and disseminating texts when you stop to think that every copy of every text had to be made one pen stroke at a time. We run them off on a Xerox machine or printing press today effortlessly, but in the ancient world, every copy of every text had to be done by hand one pen stroke at a time, and we know that Christians were fantastically involved in copying and disseminating their texts. It’s part of the reason why we have such a disproportionate number of copies of Christian texts that survive from the ancient world, very disproportionate to the percentage of Christians.</p>

<p>HALL: Didn’t you say something about how the fact that we have the four Gospels written by different people was unusual?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Yes. I can’t think of really the same sort of concentration. If we think of the Gospels as being biographical-type writings, that is, sort of linear narratives of the career of Jesus, I can’t really think of any other figure from antiquity who attracts the same number of biographical accounts written within such a short period of time. Augustus, Julius Caesar, great figures who dominate the world stage at the time don’t have the same kind of explosion of biographical literature devoted to them. You have little short accounts by Suetonius, or Tacitus of the Caesars, but very short things by comparison, not full books devoted to them like we have in the Gospels.</p>

<p>It’s good that we have multiple Gospels because we’re able to compare them with one another and see where they’re making different emphases, choosing different material to relate, and so on. If we only had one Gospel, we’d be in great difficulty, but the fact that we have four allows us to compare them, allows us to engage in the kind of critical historical work that historians like to practice. And the enormous textual resources that early Christianity provides allows us to study and say more about early Christianity than about perhaps any other religious movement in the Roman world.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I wanted to ask you, Doctor, a little bit about your comments about the ethics of the early church, and you strike a number of different points where their ethics were completely counter to the ethics of the culture, which made them stand out in one sense in a negative way. You later talk about that turning into something attractive for people, but you’ve already talked about their sexual mores a little bit, of the culture and how Christians were different, showing that men had to be just as chaste as women. And I guess that also applied to the variety of kinds of sexual experiences that men were able to have. You also talk about the practice of Romans exposing their children to the elements to die, the female infants in particular, and Christians’&nbsp;generosity in taking in those children, and their multi-ethnic approach. Can you say more about that that set the Christians apart ethically from the culture?</p>

<p>HURTADO: You have to say, it isn’t always necessarily a case of nobody else in the Roman world ever said anything like what early Christians said. I wouldn’t want to say that at all. We do have a lot of examples, of course. There are many, many things in which early Christianity says things that they simply derive from the Jewish matrix from which they sprang and echoed emphases in things like sexual behavior and so on that they derive from their Jewish parentage, so to speak. Likewise, there are some similarities to some of the philosophical traditions of the day, particularly among some of the Stoic teachers such as Epictetus or Musonius Rufus. However, two things that need to be pointed out: One is in the case of Stoic philosophers, for example, as indicated by Galen’s comment that I cited earlier. They really didn’t expect most people to live strenuously by the kind of strict sexual behavior that they may have advocated, except those who committed themselves to the life of philosophy.</p>

<p>In their mind, in order for a man, for example, to confine his attentions to his own wife and not have sex with slave girls, or prostitutes, or slave boys, that was really asking a lot, and so they believed that probably a person really had to commit themselves to the life of philosophical discipline in order to do that. They didn’t try to change the sexual behavior of the society at large. Here’s where the difference comes in. Early Christianity, in the words of the Doobie Brothers, took it to the streets. They expected this kind of sexual behavior that they taught of all of those who were baptized. Whether people always lived up to it or not, that was the teaching. That was the expectation. And you knew if you were a Christian, [and] you weren’t living by these standards, you knew that you were being a disobedient Christian. In terms of being a social movement, early Christianity is distinctive. It takes some ideas that are shared with some other people of the time, but it puts a power and a force to them that doesn’t really have an analogy in the ancient world.</p>

<p>One of the things for example, infant exposure. We know also that there were some people - again, some of the Stoic philosophers such as Musonius - who also thought that infant exposure was a bad thing and that it was wrong to kill your own offspring. But there’s no indication that he tried to change the behavior of other people. He simply wrote for his own small circles of disciples and nothing else. Early Christianity condemned child exposure and condemned also pederasty, having sex with children, which was quite common at the time. Slave children were considered fair game, and we actually have references of children as young as five or six years of age being used for sexual purposes at the time by people who were also married, and this is just sort of an additional type of variety of sexual experience for them.</p>

<p>Early Christians condemned it entirely and did so quite volubly, and were known, in some cases when it came to child exposure, were known for basically saying, Instead of throwing your child on the trash heap or drowning it, we will take your child in. Christians were known as people to whom you could take an unwanted child, and they would bring it up.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I had heard somewhere, Doctor, that because of the practice of exposure, especially of female babies and Christians adopting them, that this kind of shifted the dynamic later on when men needed women to get married to, and the ones that - many of those that are now available - were ones that had been rescued by Christians and raised as Christians, and this had a kind of salutatory effect on the society because now these men had to marry Christian women, and the women then often led them to Christ and were effective in seeing their families Christianized. Did I understand that correctly? I’m not sure where I heard that, but it was a while back. Something to that effect.</p>

<p>HURTADO: We don’t have the sociological information that we’d like. We’d like to be able to take surveys of all these people and them to fill out a survey that tells us why they did what they did. It’s an inference that is often made by scholars. We do know that early Christianity attracted a large number of women. It may be that not only a sizable proportion, but perhaps the majority at certain times, of Christians were women. Then we say, Well, why was that? Why were women particularly attracted to Christianity? One of the reasons is, if you’re a woman and you’re expected to confine your sexual activity to your husband, it would probably be attractive to join a religious movement that expected the same kind of chaste behavior of your husband.</p>

<p>KOUKL: That makes sense.</p>

<p>HURTADO: Likewise, yes, we have presumed that even though child exposure was widely practiced, it must have taken its toll on at least many conscientious people to feel that they had to throw the unwanted child who was often a girl on a trash heap, which is literally what they often did, or drown the child. That must have caused people a lot of problems emotionally.</p>

<p>Perhaps the attraction of a religious movement that affirmed the validity of all children, male or female, was an attractive feature. There are a variety of ways in which something of, not only the teachings, but the moral commitment of Christians to live up to their teachings was attractive.</p>

<p>KOUKL: We’re talking with Dr. Larry Hurtado about his book <em>Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World</em>, and you can follow Larry Hurtado at his blog. It’s LarryHurtado.wordpress.com. Dr. Hurtado, what kind of things do you cover on your blog?</p>

<p>HURTADO: The blog is basically related to my professional work, my scholarly work as a New Testament scholar. I sometimes refer to it as sort of leaks from my workshop. I blog about things that I’ve written, and published, and work on. I’ll blog about interesting other publications that I come across or about issues that come up in the field, so it’s pretty well confined to things to do with the New Testament and with the origins of Christianity.</p>

<p>HALL: I was really interested in what you had to say about the ways in which their focus on Jesus was unique. There were all sorts of different ways that played out, including how the Gospels were written compared to other biographical works. Can you tell us how the focus on Jesus by the early Christians was unique?</p>

<p>HURTADO: One of the things we see about the early Christian articulation of Jesus’&nbsp;significance is that there’s an exclusivity to it. Let’s say something like Paul’s letter to the Corinthians in chapter eight; he says there are many gods and many lords in the outer, larger world, but for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. The emphasis on the one God is, of course, the Jew, Paul, echoing the exclusivity of his Jewish tradition, but then without a hiccup, he also adds on a second figure, Jesus, but the same kind of exclusivity. Although there are many demigods, and heroes, and deified emperors, and deified holy men in the ancient world, the concept of a divine human in some sense is widespread and varied. The early Christians are unique in their insistence that there was only one figure. Jesus occupies a unique status - in their language, often at the right hand of God uniquely, and acting as God’s plenipotentiary, in whom, to cite another text from the New Testament, “All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”&nbsp;It’s that uniqueness that is attached to Jesus that is one of the things that sets Him apart from all the other claimants of the ancient world.</p>

<p>KOUKL: As I read those sections of your book describing this, it seems like there was a tension in the way that you were dealing with the material. I don’t know that you used the word Trinity in there at all, but it was as if, as I read it, that there was one God clearly coming from Judaism and then adopted by Christianity. Yet at the same time, there was this Jesus guy who is right up in there, kind of getting the same attention as the one God and blended in. One Lord, for example. Jesus is Lord, this ancient confession, which was loaded with theological significance. How do you cash that out? Do you see that as classical Christianity? Maybe not in a highly developed Trinitarian form early on, but this sense of the distinctness between the Father and the Son, yet at the same time, a unity of nature. Do you think that was being expressed in subtle ways in these early writings?</p>

<p>HURTADO: If I understand what you’re talking about, I’ve referred to the dyadic devotional pattern in early Christianity in which you have worship, and praise, and devotion offered both to God, the Father, in their language, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, in their language. The New Testament writers tend to restrict the word God to God the Father, and use the word Lord for Jesus. This seems to be a terminological distinction that they use in order to make it clear that there are two, but they are intimately related, uniquely related to each other. As I’ve emphasized over the last 30 years or so, one of the most remarkable things is that early Christians not only talk about Jesus in exalted terms, but they offer to a risen, exalted Jesus the same kind of devotional actions as the Father. The same in that they pray to Him, they claim Him, they sing hymns about Him, and so on. They incorporate Him into their worship pattern in a unique way, producing this two-ishness, you might say, this dyadic devotional pattern.</p>

<p>KOUKL: One other thing that stood out for me was as you were describing the early Christians, those first three centuries, you said that there were no images that they used in their worship. There were no altars. There were no sacrifices. There was no priesthood. There were no temples. There were no shrines. I sadly chuckled to myself when I read that because it wasn’t long before all of that began to change in Christendom. How is it that things changed so radically in the organized expression of Christianity so that now we’re back to the images, to the altars, to the sacrifices, to the priesthoods, to temples, to shrines, all of that?</p>

<p>HURTADO: The absence of all those things is quite striking, and actually, I have a good friend, Edwin Judge, who is a very respected ancient historian in Sydney, Australia. He insists quite firmly that you really can’t call early Christianity a religion in the Roman setting because he said it had none of the features that comprise a religion. In the ancient world, religion is basically a set of rituals directed towards the gods, and the essential components of those rituals are an altar, sacrifice, an image by which to direct your attention to the gods, shrines or temples, and often, a priesthood. He said early Christianity had none of those things, so it isn’t a religion. It’s really more like a philosophy because they get together, they read texts, discuss texts. Okay, they pray and they sing hymns, but so did philosophical groups.</p>

<p>When I sent him some early chapters of the Destroyer book, he wrote back and said, “You must not call early Christianity a religion!”&nbsp;I wrote back and said, “I take your point, Edwin, but I’m going to call it a different kind of religion because if I say early Christianity wasn’t a religion, modern readers wouldn’t know what the heck I was talking about.”</p>

<p>KOUKL: What, it seems to me, is being expressed there with the absence of all of these particulars that normally are associated with religion, the emphasis was more on relationship or that intimacy with God that one could have apart from all those trappings. Do I have that right in my understanding of early Christianity?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Well, two things: One, a relationship, yes, very definitely. A relationship with God, not simply bargaining with the deity, or appeasing the deity, or trying to bribe the deity, which is very often the way the sacrificial cultic rituals of the time seemed. You would go into the temple and you would say to a deity, “My wife is pregnant. If she brings forth a healthy child, I promise that I will give you this.” It’s a kind of quid pro quo arrangement with the deity. Early Christianity doesn’t really do that. First of all, they don’t have a sacrificial altar or sacrificial system by which you could do that kind of quid pro quo arrangement with the deity if you wanted to. Instead, yes, there are very strongly relational things that characterize it. It’s a new definition of piety. Piety in the ancient world is basically paying your respect to the gods and fulfilling your obligations to them, but for early Christianity, piety involves, clearly, from the descriptions that we have in the New Testament, a very strong emotive and relational quality that comes out.</p>

<p>One of the things I’ve noticed, for example is it’s very hard - I’ve not been able, actually - to find any statements in Roman era pagan religious texts about the gods loving the world or loving people. I can’t find any references to that. Often the gods are described as kind, or generous, or bountiful, or merciful, or whatever, but specifically to say that the gods love people and love the world, I can’t find an example of that. Whereas such statements about God loving the world or loving people, they’re just ubiquitous in Christian texts. It’s hard to find a page or a book of the New Testament that doesn’t say that at least somewhere. That’s indicative of the very strong emotive and relationship emphasis of early Christianity.</p>

<p>Also, early Christianity is not simply, by any means, a private affair. You are called as a believer. You are baptized and called into a church, that is, a body of believers. And it’s interesting that there are many more exhortations in the New Testament about loving fellow Christians than there are about loving God, such that one could say that the way you show your love for God is by loving other believers. There’s both a horizontal, so to speak, a tight, horizontal dimension to early Christian faith, as well as that vertical dimension.</p>

<p>KOUKL: I want to go back to something you said at the beginning of our conversation. You said that early Christianity is a more meaningful guide to engagement with the culture than post-Constantine Christianity. Can you tell us a little bit more about what we learn from the early Christians about how they engaged that will help us in engaging our own culture now?</p>

<p>HURTADO: Well, I fear I’ll repeat myself a bit, but one thing is that these earliest Christians were unable to presume upon anything. They had no social backing or political backing they could bring to bear upon the situation, no coercion really at all. All that they had was their reasoning ability. They had to persuade people by appealing to them voluntarily. I think that’s, again, the situation that we’re moving into - in my mind, commendably. I’m not really afraid, personally, by the way, I have to say. I’m guilty of being a Christian, but I’m not really afraid of our situation. I don’t really worry about losing all the official trappings in European culture of Christendom, or losing some of the privileged status that Christianity once may have had in the American setting. I don’t worry about that all. I actually think it’s quite a good thing in many respects.</p>

<p>I think Christianity was good for Western culture, but I don’t think that Western culture was good for Christianity. And in areas of the world today, including some of the United States, if I may say so, it seems to me that Christianity has been captured by certain cultural forces, including some that are conservative as well as liberal. I think that to be once again in a situation where Christians have to think for their lives, as a wonderful reference in Eric Osborne, another ancient historian, who referred to this period as a time in which, he said, “Fortunately for our historical inquiries, these early Christians of this period had to think for their lives.”&nbsp;The writings that they produced, the <em>apologia</em>, the defenses of Christianity that they produced, and the appeals that they made to the government and to the society are just very impressive as this small, vulnerable group of people, standing up above the parapet and openly declaring their faith and engaging their society, engaging the philosophical culture of the time, engaging the popular culture of the time.</p>

<p>I think that these texts give early Christians a reason for not being disheartened or discouraged about no longer being in a privileged position. Early Christianity succeeded in spite of its disadvantageous situation, and it’s in these texts that I think Christians today can discover again something of the inspirational examples that they may need in order to be effective Christians in our setting.</p>

<p>KOUKL: Well, that is just a fascinating way to conclude our discussion. Dr. Hurtado, your book <em>Destroyer of the gods</em> is an absolute treasure trove of insight on early Christianity. We are very grateful that you decided to spend some time with us.</p>

<p>HURTADO: Bye-bye.</p>

<p>KOUKL: Bye-bye. What a fascinating conversation.</p>

<p>HALL: I just loved what he ended with, the idea that we can look at the early church and have no fear about our situation because of all that they did and all that they accomplished, knowing God, and it wasn’t a horrible thing. They suffered, but it was a great thing that they did, and they survived as Christians. That’s just so encouraging to me.</p>

<p>KOUKL: Well, I love the line, and I guess I can’t quote it as his because he was citing somebody else, but here it is: “Christians had to think for their lives.”&nbsp;Oh my goodness. Here we are right around our 24th anniversary for Stand to Reason, and there were so many things that were said that encouraged me, as far as our work at STR.</p>
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title: Don’t Neglect God for the Sake of Apologetics
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/27/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/don-t-neglect-god-for-the-sake-of-apologetics
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m reading C.S. Lewis’s novel <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Divorce-C-Lewis/dp/0060652950/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1431478550&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Great Divorce</a></em> again (or rather, I’m listening to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Divorce/dp/B00JPJH18G/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1431478550&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">this excellent audio version</a>). It’s a good companion to <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Screwtape-Letters-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652934/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1499307617&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank">The Screwtape Letters</a></em>, each of them giving insight into the ways we human beings can go wrong. Lewis had a keen grasp of ideas, people, and the intersection between the two—how the former affect the latter and how the weaknesses of the latter can blind them to the former. He saw human nature so clearly—what delights us, what tempts us, and, in this particular book, the various idols (ideas, people, fame, influence, etc.) we’re in danger of embracing above God Himself, at the expense of losing God Himself.</p>

<p>This quote caught my attention:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself...as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist! There have been some who were so occupied in spreading Christianity that they never gave a thought to Christ. Man! Ye see it in smaller matters. Did ye never know a lover of books that with all his first editions and signed copies had lost the power to read them? Or an organiser of charities that had lost all love for the poor? It is the subtlest of all the snares.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Someone once warned me that when you go to seminary, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that studying God is the same as communing with God. It isn’t. Guard your time with Him. If you let apologetics squeeze time with God out of your life, your soul will start to starve, and the results could be <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/apologetics-aren-t-enough-to-connect-you-with-a-person#.WV2uY9MrJR0">disastrous</a>. Don’t get caught up in the excitement of learning and using apologetics at the expense of interacting with God through the normal, everyday means He’s given to us. Pray. Read the Bible. Worship. Do all of these things in community with others. Don’t forget that all of this is about a real <em>Person</em> who can be—and wants to be—known by you.</p>
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title: Engaging Disagreement Agreeably
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/11/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/engaging-disagreement-agreeably
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Discussions with people who disagree with our Christian convictions can be very frustrating because, quite often, people just simply don’t want to be persuaded. They have all kinds of reasons they don’t want to change their minds, but often people are simply obstinate and don’t want to admit they’re wrong. (Gee, I’ve been there—a lot.)</p>

<p>In the June issue of <em>Christianity Today</em>, a professor of law and psychology at Yale Law School, Dan Kahan, offers <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/june/" target="_blank">a few pointers</a> on how to have more productive conversations about differing views. They’re entirely consistent with the tactics Greg teaches, especially the heart of the Columbo tactic: Find out what the other person believes, and try to understand their view and why they believe it. People are often much more open to hearing what we have to say if they feel we’ve shown interest in what they believe and care in understanding them accurately.</p>

<p>Here are Kahan’s tips:</p>

<ol>
	<li><em>“Make it your goal to understand the person, not to change their mind.”</em>

	<p>Essentially, this is Greg’s “stone in their shoe”&nbsp;tactic. Don’t make it the goal of every conversation to persuade someone. Make it your goal to give them something to think about, and talk more later.</p>
	</li>
	<li><em>“Take genuine interest in why someone believes what they believe.”</em>
	<p>This is one of the Columbo questions. Take genuine interest in the person, too. Ask lots of questions, not only about their beliefs, but about them. People are much more open if they&nbsp;think you’re genuinely interested in them and not just making your point.</p>
	</li>
	<li><em>“Try starting off the conversation by sharing what you think is the strongest evidence for the view you disagree with.”</em>
	<p>This shows that you’ve taken care to understand and consider other ideas and indicates that you’re not closed-minded, as some caricature Christians.</p>
	</li>
	<li><em>“Convey that you are open to having your mind changed.”</em>
	<p>Even if you may not be open to having your mind changed, convey that you understand views different form your own and you’ve given them thought. I think being open-minded doesn’t only mean you could change your mind, but that you’re open to thinking about differing ideas.</p>
	</li>
</ol>

<p>If people feel you’ve carefully considered their beliefs and been fair with them, they’re more likely to listen and consider what you believe. This is, of course, true for any topic, but especially true and important when we’re trying to commend the truth of Christianity.</p>
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title: The Gospels Get It Right When It Counts—and When It Doesn’t
topic: History
author: Tim Barnett
date: 08/04/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-gospels-get-it-right-when-it-counts-and-when-it-doesn-t
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone tell me that the Gospels are unreliable. Sadly, they are usually just parroting what they have heard from their popular atheist heroes. In <em>The God Delusion</em>, Richard Dawkins says, “The gospels are not reliable accounts of what happened in the history of the real world. All were written long after the death of Jesus, and also after the epistles of Paul, which mentioned almost none of the alleged facts of Jesus’s life.”</p>

<p>The late Christopher Hitchens agreed with Dawkins. He wrote that the New Testament is “a work of crude carpentry, hammered together long after its purported events, and full of improvised attempts to make things come out right.”</p>

<p>In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cG9Iuc9lbc" target="_blank">recent talk</a>, Dr. Timothy McGrew demolished these assertions. Specifically, McGrew outlined two ways external evidence can be used to corroborate the Bible. First, we could look at non-Christian sources to see if they corroborate <em>major events</em> in the gospels (e.g. Jesus’&nbsp;death by Roman crucifixion). These kinds of sources do exist, but they will only take you so far. There is a limitation on what we can expect from them. For example, a non-Christian source will never admit that Jesus rose from the dead. If a non-Christian source confirmed the resurrection, then it wouldn’t be a non-Christian source. McGrew says,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There is a word for people who became persuaded that Jesus rose from the grave after His death by Roman crucifixion. That word is “Christian.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Second, we could look at <em>incidental details</em> within the Gospels that reveal the writer’s knowledge and reliability in these matters. McGrew continues,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>But by examining the Gospels in detail - seeing how they deal with the details of their contemporary history - we can test the knowledge and the honesty of the four evangelists.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Fortunately, we know a lot about the setting and events of first-century Palestine because we have the writings of first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Using these sources (and others like them), we are able to verify many incidental points of contact. Simply put, the Gospel writers get hard things right. If they didn’t know the contemporary culture, these incidental details would be extremely difficult to fake.</p>

<p>McGrew highlights eight seemingly inconsequential details that confirm the reliability of the Gospels. Let me give you one.</p>

<p>In Matthew 2:22, we are told a tiny detail concerning a tetrarch named Archelaus.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>But when he [Joseph] heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>King Herod had just died, and his eldest son Archelaus was reigning in his place. It was pretty common for a son to take over the reign of his father at that time. But there is an added detail that is thrown into the text. Matthew tells us that Joseph was “afraid”&nbsp;to go to Judea when he found out Archelaus was ruling. We are not told <em>why</em> he was afraid, only <em>that</em> he was afraid. And if this were all we had to go on, we would be left hanging.</p>

<p>However, Jospehus gives us more detail. Josephus recounts a confrontation that took place at Passover between a group of Jews and some Roman soldiers. In <em>Antiquities of the Jews</em> 17.9.3, Josephus writes,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>But those that were seditious on account of those teachers of the law, irritated the people by the noise and clamor they used to encourage the people in their designs. So they made an assault upon the soldiers; and came up to them, <em>and stoned the greatest part of them:</em> although some of them ran away wounded, and their captain among them. And when they had thus done, they returned to the sacrifices, which were already in their hands.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The Jews who stoned the Roman guard ran and hid in the temple. In response, Archelaus sent his whole army to surround the temple and then killed the 3,000 men hiding inside. After killing these men, Archelaus cancelled the Passover festival and ordered all the Jews to return home.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Now Archelaus thought there was no way to preserve the entire government, but by cutting off those who made this attempt upon it. So he sent out the whole army upon them, and sent the horsemen to prevent those that had their tents without the temple, from assisting those that were within the temple, and to kill such as ran away from the footmen, when they thought themselves out of danger: <em>which horsemen slew three thousand men:</em> while the rest went to the neighboring mountains. Then did Archelaus order proclamation to be made to them all; that they should retire to their own homes. So they went away, <em>and left the festival; out of fear of somewhat worse which would follow</em>.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Josephus tells us <em>why</em> Joseph and all the other Jews were afraid. They were afraid because the new ruler of Judea had just ordered the killing of 3,000 Jews. It is quite reasonable to think that Joseph heard the news about these terrible events and changed his course from Judea to Galilee.</p>

<p>Here we have an external story - external evidence - that helps us confirm an otherwise incidental detail from the Gospels. Matthew doesn’t give all the backstory; he only gives a small, insignificant detail. But when we understand the backstory, Matthew is corroborated.</p>

<p>What should we conclude about these corroborated details? The Gospel writers cared about getting the details right - even when it came to incidental details. And if they can be trusted when it comes to small, <em>incidental</em> details, then they can be trusted when it comes to big, <em>important</em> details.</p>
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title: Why It Isn’t Naïve to Trust God in Your Suffering
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/10/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-it-isn-t-naive-to-trust-god-in-your-suffering
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In a <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/why-we-can-pray-our-country-hope#comment-3399946111" target="_blank">recent conversation</a> in the comments section, I was told my trust in God when I’m suffering and not receiving what I’m praying for “appears very naïve”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>AMY: My hope is in God - that He is both sovereign and loving. That is, He is able to do anything in history, and He desires the good of His people and the completion of His plan for history. This is why we can pray boldly. As the <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/why-we-can-pray-our-country-hope#.WY09bnd94Xo" target="_blank">quote</a> [by John Piper] says, “When these two things unite, infinite power and overflowing love, nothing can befall you but what God wills for your good.”&nbsp;Our “good”&nbsp;means becoming more like Christ (according to Romans 8), and you can see throughout the Bible (and history) that God doesn’t usually accomplish this by making our lives comfortable. But we pray boldly (because of His sovereignty and love), even though we probably have very little idea of what is best for us. And if we don’t get what we asked for, we can rest knowing that because He’s sovereign and loving (that He <em>could</em> have given us what we asked for, yet didn’t, and that the reason He <em>didn’t</em> wasn’t a lack of love), it was better for us not to have whatever that thing was. That doesn’t mean we don’t feel sorrow. Just like those who wrote the Psalms, we lament our pain, but we also rejoice in God - His sovereignty, goodness, love, grace, faithfulness, etc., and we trust Him.</p>

<p>COMMENTER:...To say or to imply that whatever happens is God’s will and works within his wisdom and love is naïve. Such belief is no more than a cop out. It’s a cheap way to explain that everything that happens is according to God’s will.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>My trust isn’t just wishful thinking. It results from my confidence in God’s sovereignty and love, both of which He <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/the-gospel%E2%80%99s-answer-to-the-problem-of-evil#.WY09wHd94Xo" target="_blank">demonstrated definitively, objectively, and historically at the cross</a>. It also results from my own past experience. When I look back at what God has done in me through suffering, and how much better I know and trust Him because of it, I can see His faithfulness to me. My highest goal has always been to know God better - intellectually and experientially - and I can see from my own life how suffering has led to a richer knowledge and experience of His grace, His strength and support, and His love. (You can read many such stories in Randy Alcorn’s <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/If-God-Good-Faith-Suffering/dp/1601425791/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2%3Fie=UTF8%26qid=1502413257%26sr=8-1%26keywords=faith+in+the+midst+of+suffering" target="_blank">If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil</a></em>.)</p>

<p>Of course this sounds like nonsense to someone who doesn’t know God. That shouldn’t surprise us. As I said to the commenter:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I don’t expect atheists to find all my answers reasonable - not because the answers <em>aren’t</em> true and reasonable, but because the atheists don’t know God. If you think God either doesn’t exist or is an evil character, then trusting Him will never look reasonable to you. And if you don’t think God is worth knowing, then neither will suffering for the sake of knowing Him look reasonable to you. But there are millions of us throughout history who have found it to be worth it. I link to some of those people <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/christians-you-will-suffer#.WY0-Rnd94Xo" target="_blank">here</a>, who suffered torture, death, disability, rape, terror, and terminal disease. I recently posted a video where Joni Eareckson Tada actually said <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/our-pain-has-meaning#.WY0-iHd94Xo" target="_blank">she wouldn’t trade her wheelchair for anything</a> because of what God brought out of it...Now, if I were you, I would find this reaction Christians have to their own intense suffering endlessly intriguing. What is Tada seeing in God that would allow her to say that?! What have Christians throughout history seen in God that would allow them to say things like that?! What is going on here? I think if I were an atheist, my curiosity about this would kill me. It wouldn’t make any sense at all, and I would be obsessed with trying to figure it out.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Like I said, the fact that Christians <em>do</em> trust God in the midst of their suffering should be intriguing to atheists. What do Christians see in God that makes knowing Him worth any amount of suffering they experience? Christian, every time you trust God in your suffering, you’re making an argument for the value of God, and everyone can see it. I just received a letter from a prison inmate who said, “I thank God for prison.”&nbsp;He’s thankful for prison <em>because that’s where he came to know Christ</em>. Who could hear his words and not wonder about the God who inspired such a statement? This is the God I have dedicated my life to. He has proven His sovereignty and love at the cross, and He has never failed me. This is why I trust.</p>
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title: What Is the Trinity?
topic: Theology
author: Tim Barnett
date: 07/12/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-is-the-trinity-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>[The following article by Tim Barnett is from the revised <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Study-Bible-Students-Trade/dp/1433651173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497932917&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=apologetics+study+bible+for+students&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=seanmorg-20&amp;linkId=d51e5e1f56525dc6b579217b2827d5cb" target="_blank">CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students</a>. Sean McDowell describes all the additions and updates in the new edition <a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/coming-soon-the-revised-apologetics-study-bible-for-students" target="_blank">here</a>.]</em></p>

<p>Few doctrines of the Christian faith are more essential than the Trinity, yet many people are deeply confused about its nature. Sadly, this can prevent individuals from truly knowing God (Jn 17:3).</p>

<p><em>What the Trinity Is.</em> The Trinity is the belief that there is one God, who subsists as three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal persons. While God is one Being, He is also three separate, divine persons.</p>

<p>Though you won’t find the word <em>Trinity</em> in the Bible, the concept is biblical. This doctrine emerges when all of Scripture is surveyed and three essential elements come together. First, there’s only one God. Second, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons. Third, each of these persons is fully God.</p>

<p><em>Element #1:</em> From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible clearly affirms monotheism—that there is only one God. Every morning the faithful Jew would repeat a prayer known as the Shema: “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one”&nbsp;(Dt 6:4). Isaiah also speaks with clarity that there is no God but one (Is 43:10; 44:6; 45:5; see 1Co 8:4). Jesus too affirms this belief when explaining the greatest commandment (Mk 12:29).</p>

<p><em>Element #2</em>: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are clearly distinguished from each other by the way they interact with one other in personal ways. For example, at Jesus’s baptism, as the Holy Spirit descends on the Son, the Father says, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased”&nbsp;(Lk 3:22).</p>

<p><em>Element #3</em>: All three persons of the Trinity are fully God. The Father is repeatedly called God (1Co 8:6; 1Pt 1:3). Paul writes, “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”&nbsp;(Eph 1:3). The Son is called God on numerous occasions (Jn 1:1; Rm 9:5; Ti 2:13-15; Heb 1:8; 2Pt 1:1). For instance, Thomas boldly calls Jesus, “My Lord and my God”&nbsp;(Jn 20:28). Finally, in the inception of the church, Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead after lying to the Holy Spirit since they had “not lied to people but to God”&nbsp;(Acts 5:1-4).</p>

<p>Therefore, if there is only one God, and if the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct persons, and if all are affirmed to be fully God, then the only explanation that makes sense of all the biblical data is the Trinity.</p>

<p><em>What the Trinity Is Not.</em> The Bible does not teach that three beings are one being, or that three persons are one person. The Bible teaches that one divine Being is also three persons. Certainly this is a mystery, but it’s not a genuine contradiction. While beyond reason, it’s not against reason (Dt 29:29).</p>

<p><em>The Trinity and God’s Love.</em> Most people agree with 1 John 4:8: “God is love.”&nbsp;Love is one of the moral perfections that are essential to God’s nature. Without love, He wouldn’t be God. Love necessitates a deep affection for another. But how could God truly be love before he created anyone to love? Only the Trinity makes sense of the perfect, eternal love of God. It is this love that invites us into relationship with Him.</p>
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title: Passing the Baton to the Next Generation—Mentoring Letter August 2017
topic: Christian Living
author: Greg Koukl
date: 08/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/passing-the-baton-to-the-next-generation-mentoring-letter-august-2017
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Just a few weeks ago I suffered another birthday. I can’t bring myself to note the number here except to say it marks the beginning of my third Medicare year. Of course, this is not especially notable, except for the fact that in my case I have two children who are still in grade school.</p>

<p>The rapidly passing years continually remind me of two critical facts pertaining to Kingdom work. Here’s the first one: <strong>The most important generation in the life of the church is always the next generation, not this one.</strong></p>

<p>In my immediate family, that means Abby and Eva. As President of Stand to Reason, though, my concern extends far beyond my own home. It includes yours, too - your children, your grandchildren - as well as a great gathering of young people God is stirring up - a rising tide - who have yet to discover STR, but soon will.</p>

<p>Here’s the second fact I am continually reminded of as I think not only of my children, but of that multitude who need to step up to the task of leading their own generation of ambassadors for Christ: <strong>It is not easy to pass the baton to them<em>.</em></strong></p>

<p>Even with the advantages I personally have immersed in Kingdom work with STR, passing the baton is a challenge that takes conscious effort, intentional planning, and lots of prayer. My girls will not grow as disciples simply because I’ve grown as one.</p>

<p>Part of the challenge is that there is another multitude right outside our doorsteps already evangelizing our kids - street “evangelists,”&nbsp;TV “evangelists,”&nbsp;campus “ministries”&nbsp;of all sorts - announcing a different kingdom, a dominion of deception and darkness led by a different king, the ruler of this world. The sobering reality is that if we do not disciple our children, someone else will. That is a fact. There is no neutral ground.</p>

<p>Here is a thought, though, that encourages me in my own task: God never intended our job to be accomplished alone. We have His grace and we have His Spirit. We also have each other. At STR, we are here for you, just as you and others have been here for STR through generous financial support, prayers, and encouragement.</p>

<p>Earlier in the year I watched in amazement as over 1600 young people gathered in Birmingham for our first reTHINK Student Apologetics Conference in the South. It was the best launch we’ve ever had. Don’t let anyone tell you these kids don’t care about God or Jesus or truth or “Christianity worth thinking about.”&nbsp;No, they are hungry to take our place with the next wave of ambassadors for Christ. They just need our help. And we at STR continue to stay deeply committed to training them and helping you raise them up.</p>

<p>“I discovered STR during my sophomore year of college,”&nbsp;one student wrote us. “I was stunned and delighted by the quantity and quality of the resources on your site. Not only have you equipped me to confidently share the truth of the Gospel, you have shown me how to have compassion on the people I am sharing with.”&nbsp;He went on to tell of the class he’s teaching twice a month on campus with another STR buddy. “We didn’t need a Ph.D. to do what we did. All we needed was to be faithful.”&nbsp;He closed with, “The Lord is using your ministry to reach the hearts and minds of people everywhere.”&nbsp;That’s a powerful statement of what you and STR are accomplishing together.</p>

<p>Sometimes, though, moving forward powerfully as an organization requires giving something valuable away - making a sacrifice to plant a new work that in the long run produces a greater harvest than we could have accomplished on our own.</p>

<p>That’s why in September we are sending out our valuable co-laborer, Brett Kunkle, to build his own enterprise focusing on training Christian young people to face the challenges ahead of them. Brett’s new venture is simply called “Maven,”&nbsp;and you can follow his work as it grows at <a href="https://www.maventruth.com/" target="_blank">maventruth.com</a>.</p>

<p>STR’s own commitment to “passing the baton”&nbsp;remains steadfast and our plans for reTHINK and student missions trips and web-based training and all the rest continue unabated. Indeed, I consider Brett’s new work - just like the work of Scott Klusendorf, Stephen Wagner, and J. Warner Wallace who went out from STR before him - to be another extension of STR’s reach, a sacrifice we make in the present to produce a much greater harvest in the future. And we’ll continue to partner with Brett for special projects, as his schedule permits, as a special member of our extended STR family.</p>

<p>In a very real sense, we are not losing Brett, but freeing him up to be even more effective fulfilling our common goal than he has been in the last 15 years with STR. We trust that the wonderful work Brett has done to advance our vision for passing the baton to the most important generation - the next one - will be fulfilled in even greater measure with the work he is setting out to do now.</p>

<p>As the STR team continues committed to equipping the next generation, we count on your continued support to make that happen, and your generosity allows STR to help you with that difficult job of discipling your own in Christ.</p>

<p>I want to send you a resource for that purpose from STR speaker Tim Barnett’s spectacular DVD on the fine-tuning of the universe. “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God”&nbsp;blends stunning visuals with Tim’s expertise and humor to show you why the “just right”&nbsp;conditions of the universe are no accident, but compelling evidence for God.</p>

<p>Students rave about this presentation and I want you to have it in gratitude for your support this month. <strong>Will you <a href="https://store.str.org/donate.asp">send a generous gift</a> today to equip and disciple the next generation of ambassadors for Christ?</strong></p>

<p>I know you’ll be delighted as you watch this unique DVD, so be sure to request “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God”&nbsp;as you respond with your gift.</p>

<p>Thank you for your partnership and the impact you make for the next generation.</p>

<p>For the next generation,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: The American Church Needs Repentance
topic: Christian Living
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 07/07/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/the-american-church-needs-repentance
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The words of Jesus in Revelation 3:20 are often employed as a call to salvation for individual unbelievers: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”&nbsp;However, many commentators have rightly pointed out that such a reading is a misinterpretation given the context of the passage (remember, <a href="http://www.str.org/articles/never-read-a-bible-verse#.WVNUkjOZNE4" target="_blank">never read a bible verse!</a>). Recently, I heard a speaker highlight the way this passage has been commonly misinterpreted, but ironically, he then offered Revelation 3:20 as a biblical text having to do with prayer, teaching that this is an invitation from Jesus to open ourselves to Him in prayer. Unfortunately, this is another misinterpretation.</p>

<p>So let’s take a closer look at this oft-quoted passage to make sense of its meaning.</p>

<h2>The Background of Revelation</h2>

<p>Revelation has its own distinctive genre, combining several different genres: epistle (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+1%3A4&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">1:4</a>), prophecy (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+1%3A3&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">1:3</a>), and apocalyptic (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+1%3A1&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">1:1</a>). An epistle is a letter, written by a particular author, to a particular audience, under particular circumstances. Knowledge of each will guide the interpretive process. As prophetic literature, it foretells literal future events but must be anchored to that which would be comprehensible to the original audience. Finally, apocalyptic literature employs much symbolism and figurative imagery. Yes, the combination of all three genres into a single genre provides an interpretive challenge.</p>

<p>John authored the book of Revelation (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+1%3A1-9&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">1:1,4,9</a>; <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+22%3A8&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">22:8</a>) during his exile to the island of Patmos, in approximately AD 95. His purpose in writing is to encourage the Church to overcome the trials they are facing under the reign of Domitian. He does this by informing them of the coming confrontation between God and Satan, where ultimately God triumphs, and in this truth, they are to find the strength to continue in faithfulness.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+1%3A19&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Revelation 1:19</a> suggests an outline for the book according to historical progression:</p>

<ul>
	<li>Revelation 1 = “the things which you have seen”&nbsp;(past events)</li>
	<li>Revelation 2-3 = “the things which are”&nbsp;(present events)</li>
	<li>Revelation 4-22 = “the things which shall take place”&nbsp;(future events)</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev+3%3A14-22&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Revelation 3:14-22</a> falls under the section of “the things which are,”&nbsp;or present events, and is addressed to a very specific audience, “the church in Laodicea”&nbsp;(v. 14). History tells us Laodicea was a wealthy city and was widely known as a banking center, medical establishment, and textile giant. However, its major weakness was its lack of an adequate water system.</p>

<h2>The Meaning of Revelation 3:14-22</h2>

<p>Jesus is straightforward as He addresses the Laodicean church: “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot...you are lukewarm”&nbsp;(v. 15-16). The appropriate response from Jesus to the church’s situation is to “spit”&nbsp;them out. In v. 17, Jesus moves into greater detail, acknowledging their material wealth while highlighting their spiritual poverty—“you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked”—in v. 17. His counsel in v. 18 addresses the three areas of Laodicean pride: the “gold”&nbsp;of their financial wealth, the “white clothes”&nbsp;of their textile industry, and the eye “salve���&nbsp;of their medical establishment.</p>

<p>After His harsh “rebuke”&nbsp;(v. 19), Jesus assures the church of His love for them and calls them to repentance. He illustrates His desire for restored fellowship with the church with an analogy: “I stand at the door and knock.”&nbsp;If they hear His voice and invite Him in (“open the door”), Jesus will once again fellowship with the Laodicean believers (“I will come in and eat with him, and he with me”). In short, Jesus calls the Laodicean church to repentance and into restored fellowship with Him.</p>

<h2>Application for the Church Today</h2>

<p>Now we’re in a position to apply these verses properly. Let me suggest just one application for today’s church. The church in America finds itself in a similar situation to the Laodicean church. We are rich, yet complacent. Indeed, many Christians testify to the absence of Christ’s presence in our churches. So what should we do? An important first step is to follow Jesus’&nbsp;command to the Laodiceans: repent. Our churches need to acknowledge the pervasive spiritual poverty within the American church and then repent. In doing so, we too may experience restored fellowship with Jesus.</p>
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title: Living Faithfully and Fruitfully
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/25/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/living-faithfully-and-fruitfully
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In the U.S., Christians have enjoyed a friendly culture for a long time. After all, the United States was born out of Christians seeking freedom to worship as they wished, without government interference. And religious liberty has flourished in America and has had great influence in our society. But that’s changing. Secularism is flourishing, and with it come values that are quite different from Christianity. So faithful Christians find themselves in a foreign land without having moved or been taken into captivity like the nation of Israel. But Daniel’s experience in a foreign land provides a helpful model for living faithfully and fruitfully in a secular society.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.gg-law.com/Attorneys/Scott-J-Ward.shtml" target="_blank">Scott Ward</a> talked with Greg about this recently <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/interview-scott-ward-religious-liberty-and-living-faithfully-secular-culture#.WXKQpNMrJR0">on the podcast</a>, and he wrote about it in an <a href="https://www.gg-law.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/342/2019/10/CLA-Outcomes-Summer-2016-Ward-King-Being-a-Daniel.pdf" target="_blank">article</a> you can find online. Here are his main observations about facing circumstances that would require us to compromise our convictions.</p>

<ol>
	<li>Have faith in God’s sovereignty over our circumstances. God is the author of history, and He’s in control, even when we face hostility and challenges. Stay in the Word, and cultivate that confidence in God’s control.</li>
	<li>Maintain your identity in Christ despite the culture and state seeking to co-opt it. Don’t lose that core fact.</li>
	<li>Be wise and prudent in knowing when and how to engage challenges. Scott identifies some specific ways Daniel did this:</li>
	<li><strong>Creativity</strong> - Daniel found ways of accomplishing the state’s purpose while not compromising. Instead of automatically being confrontational, try to think of ways to comply without compromise. Confrontation may be required at times, but be creative in avoiding it when possible.</li>
	<li><strong>Carefulness</strong> - Be prudent when you see trouble coming. Avoid situations that aren’t necessary, and engage critics with respect.</li>
	<li><strong>Consistency</strong> - “Daniel’s consistent faithfulness was legendary.”&nbsp;It had an effect on his reputation, which allowed him some room to maneuver. Be known for your faithfulness.</li>
	<li><strong>Community</strong> - Be part of your Christian community to encourage one another to be faithful.</li>
	<li><strong>Courage</strong> - Face circumstances that you cannot change, and trust God. Greg has observed that courage in big things is a result of cultivating courage in small things. Be conscientious about cultivating courage.</li>
	<li><strong>Civility</strong> - Daniel always expressed his convictions respectfully without being contentious. “He pursued creative, civil resolutions of conflicts with the state’s requirements.”</li>
	<li><strong>Clarity</strong> - Daniel’s longevity in a hostile culture can be credited to his confidence in God, who doesn’t change, despite the culture that does. Keep that fact clearly in view.</li>
	<li>Daniel was a man of “persistent powerful prayer.”&nbsp;Daniel prayed for himself, his people, and the nations. And this gave him a perspective of God’s redemptive work across time and history.</li>
</ol>

<p>There are examples in the Bible, in addition to Daniel, of Christians who were faithful in the face of hostility. There are also examples in the early church. Greg and Amy recently talked with Larry Hurtado about early Christians living in a hostile culture. You can find the interview <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/dr-larry-hurtado-destroyer-gods-early-christian-distinctiveness-roman-world#.WXJ-PtMrJR0">here</a>. These are examples to instruct and encourage us to be faithful ambassadors for Christ. We need to develop these new skills and perspective as our situation changes. Our circumstances are under God’s control, and our job, as always, is to be faithful witnesses.</p>
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title: Faith Does Not Save You
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 08/02/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/faith-does-not-save-you
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Are you worried that your faith is weak? Don’t worry. Faith does not save you. Jesus saves you. Greg was a guest on a recent <a href="https://www.whitehorseinn.org/show/is-faith-a-blind-leap/" target="_blank">episode</a> of the White Horse Inn podcast, and when they discussed the idea that “it’s not the <em>amount</em> of your faith that saves you; it’s the <em>object</em> of your faith that saves you,”&nbsp;he gave this helpful analogy:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>GREG KOUKL: Just think if you were in the Midwest when the lakes are frozen over, and you’re not sure whether it’s okay to go ice fishing or not, and you think the ice may be thin, and you’re crawling out with very weak faith; but listen, if the ice is thick, you’re in good shape. You’re safe.</p>

<p>MICHAEL HORTON: It’s all about the ice.</p>

<p>GREG KOUKL: Exactly. But if you’re trouncing out there with all the faith in the world, and you’re on thin ice, you’re going to get wet...We’re not saved by faith; we’re saved by Jesus. Faith is the hand that receives what Jesus offers. It connects us with that which Jesus does, but the object is really, really important.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Your feelings of faith (i.e., trust in God) will vary because that’s just the way we humans are. If you’re trusting in your feelings of faith, then when those feelings are weak you’ll focus your efforts on increasing those fickle and powerless feelings and be no better off than you were before. But if you’re trusting in Jesus, then when your faith feels week you’ll be driven to look at <em>Him</em>, and you’ll find that He is holding on to you, no matter how weak you are. It’s <em>His</em> work and strength that matters, not yours. As Michael Horton said in the episode, “Weak faith grasps a strong savior.”</p>
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title: Why We Can Pray for Our Country in Hope
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/04/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/why-we-can-pray-for-our-country-in-hope
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Maybe you’ve noticed our country needs prayer right now. Despite the incredible gifts we’ve been given in our founding documents—our form of government, the Bill of Rights, the stated commitment to the idea that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”—even countries with the most lofty of ideals are damaged by sin. Kind of like us. Even the best of us. We love and pray for our sinful neighbors, and so we love and pray to our <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/pray-to-the-god-of-grace-today#.WU12xxMrJR0">God of grace</a> for our sinful country.</p>

<p>I came across a <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/prayer-changes-peoples-wills" target="_blank">sermon</a> by John Piper that reminded me why we can pray in hope. Here’s the conclusion:</p>

<blockquote>
<h2>1. Stand in Awe of Christ’s Lordship</h2>

<p>Stand in awe of the Lordship of God and his Son Jesus. Paul had said, “I urge you to strive in prayer <em>by the Lord Jesus Christ</em>.”&nbsp;Now we see even more clearly that Jesus is the Lord. He is the Lord over the wills of centurions, and commanders, and mobs, and little boys. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. So stand in awe of your Lord Jesus. Worship him. Trust him. Follow him. And count on him to help you in your longings to see people change.</p>

<h2>2. Rejoice That the Spirit Is a Spirit of Love...</h2>

<p>Be glad that the Lord of the universe has a Spirit of love. Be glad that that God has both a powerful Son and a loving Spirit. When these two things unite, infinite power and overflowing love, nothing can befall you but what God wills for your good.</p>

<h2>3. Do Not Neglect Prayer</h2>

<p>Finally, don’t neglect the amazing influence you have in the world for good through prayer. By prayer God calls us to join him in shaping history. By prayer we are to influence the wills of presidents and kings and senators and governors and mayors (<a href="https://biblia.com/bible/esv/1%20Tim%202.1%E2%80%932" target="_blank">1 Timothy 2:1-2</a>). By prayer we are to influence the wills of professors and writers and entertainers and editors and pastors and elders and missionaries. By prayer we are to influence the wills of our friends and our enemies. We are to influence the wills of our children by prayer, and our husbands and wives and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and neighbors and colleagues and fellow students.</p>

<p>The amount of transforming good you can do by prayer is incalculable.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I found the sermon incredibly encouraging. You can read it <a href="http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/prayer-changes-peoples-wills" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: Don’t Forget about Character
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/13/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/don-t-forget-about-character
content:
            <div> 
		<p>The <a href="http://www.str.org/about/ambassadors-creed">Ambassador Model</a> we promote here at Stand to Reason involves knowledge, wisdom, <em>and</em> character. We bookish types tend to get caught up in the knowledge part (“an accurate mind”), and if we’re interacting with non-believers, we’ll seek out wisdom (“an artful method”), but the character portion of the model sometimes gets lost in the shuffle. Jerry Root reminds us in the <a href="http://foclonline.org/answer/what-meant-soul-leader" target="_blank">brief videos</a> below that facing our sin and developing our character by focusing on the Gospel is as integral to being an ambassador of Christ as both knowledge and wisdom.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[S]kills are not the only thing that leadership requires. Leadership requires that there is maturation, developing character, in the life of the leader as well. Stephen Covey, in his book <em>The Speed of Trust</em>, says if a leader doesn’t have skill <em>and</em> character, they will not cultivate trust.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>But sin isn’t the end of any leader’s story, as we see in the examples of so many biblical characters.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>It was the honest awareness of their weakness of character that led them to the place where they were going to be pressed towards Christ...And I think it’s this cultivation of maturity and character that comes from an honest assessment of self, matched with skill, that leads people to trust us as a leader. But the soul of a leader is a person who is developing in character and maturing in Christ.</p>
</blockquote>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="l78Hh06IOKw" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l78Hh06IOKw?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<blockquote>
<p>I believe the soul of a leader can be restored in a fallen world by the constant awareness of our daily need for the Gospel. Jesus forgives us of our sins, and He loves us, and our need for that forgiveness and that love is constant...</p>

<p>Every new challenge will reveal to you some deficiency, and you don’t need to be afraid of that deficiency, but rooted and undergirded by the love of God and His forgiveness, you can take the risk. You can forge ahead courageously. You can assess your performance honestly. You can assess your people’s performance honestly. If they mess up, you can forgive them; you can nurture them like the love of God nurtures you. You’ll be a better leader because of it, and every new challenge gives you the chance to grow deeper in the love and grace of God. And that’s the way the leader is restored...</p>
</blockquote>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="xsDeTXJAaok" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xsDeTXJAaok?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>Along these lines, I’ve been reading Jared Wilson’s <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Imperfect-Disciple-Grace-People-Together/dp/0801018951/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1498240328&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+imperfect+disciple" target="_blank">The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together</a></em>, and I recommend it very highly. The Gospel—looking at Jesus and what He’s done, valuing Him and our obedience to Him more than our sin, and having an experiential knowledge of His grace—changes us in ways that mere attempts to conform ourselves to moral laws never will.</p>
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title: The Powers and Plans of the World Are Nothing Compared to the Power and Plan of God
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 07/20/2017
source:
https://www.str.org/w/the-powers-and-plans-of-the-world-are-nothing-compared-to-the-power-and-plan-of-god

content:
            <div> 
		<p>Are you feeling discouraged by the opposition to Christians and Christianity we’re seeing in the world? I’m reading through the first half of Acts this month (see “<a href="http://scriptoriumdaily.com/james-gray-on-mastering-the-bible/" target="_blank">James Gray on Mastering the Bible</a>”), and I’ve noticed something encouraging: over and over, we see that the powers and plans of the world are nothing compared to the power and plan of God. Not only is His kingdom unstoppable, but even the attempts to stop it turn out to be actions used by God to <em>build</em> it.</p>

<p>In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+4%3A1-31&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Acts 4:24–28</a>, when the disciples are released after being detained by the religious leaders, they say something truly amazing, beginning with a declaration of God’s power:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[T]hey lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it is You who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said,</p>

<p style="margin-left: 40px;">’Why did the Gentiles rage,<br>
And the peoples devise futile things?<br>
’The kings of the earth took their stand,<br>
And the rulers were gathered together<br>
Against the Lord and against His Christ.’</p>

<p>For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Luke (the author of Acts) shows the utter futility of taking a stand against God, for even when the most powerful do so, they’re <em>still</em> doing “whatever God’s hand and His purpose predestined to occur.”&nbsp;In this case, the rulers’&nbsp;stand against God involved the killing of Christ, the pivotal event in God’s plan of redemption.</p>

<p>Here’s another example from <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+8%3A1-4&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Acts 8:1–4</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.... But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.</p>

<p>Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The persecution of the disciples—a powerful attempt to destroy them—merely worked to widen their influence.</p>

<p>And what of Paul (Saul), who was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+9%3A1-31&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">9:1</a>), intent on “ravaging the church”? God simply redeemed Paul for His own, turning him into “a chosen instrument of Mine to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel”&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+9%3A1-31&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">9:15</a>).</p>

<p>And what was the result of God turning the man who was leading the charge against the church into His apostle?</p>

<blockquote>
<p>So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+9%3A1-31&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">9:31</a>)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+12&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">chapter 12</a>, we see a clear contrast between the power of rulers (limited, time-bound) and the power of God (unstoppable, eternal) in the death of Herod. After we hear that Herod “laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them”—killing James and imprisoning Peter, we see how Herod’s power to enact his plan compared to God’s:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>On an appointed day Herod, having put on his royal apparel, took his seat on the rostrum and <em>began</em> delivering an address to them. The people kept crying out, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”&nbsp;And immediately an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and died.</p>

<p>But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. (<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts+12&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">12:20–24</a>)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>What a contrast! Herod’s plans died with Herod, but the word of the Lord continues to this very day.</p>

<p>Whether God radically changes a situation (as He did through the conversion of Paul and the death of Herod) or He accomplishes His own good ends through the evil intentions of men (as He did with the death of Christ), <em>His</em> power is greater, and <em>His</em> plan is the plan that succeeds. Hallelujah!</p>
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title: Is Homosexuality Natural?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/28/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/is-homosexuality-natural-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>[The following article by Alan Shlemon is from the revised <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Study-Bible-Students-Trade/dp/1433651173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497932917&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=apologetics+study+bible+for+students&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=seanmorg-20&amp;linkId=d51e5e1f56525dc6b579217b2827d5cb" target="_blank">CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students</a>. Sean McDowell describes all the additions and updates in the new edition <a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/coming-soon-the-revised-apologetics-study-bible-for-students" target="_blank">here</a>.]</em></p>

<p>The answer to this question depends on how you define “natural.”&nbsp;If natural means genetically or biologically determined, then homosexuality is not natural. Decades of scientific research have failed to find a “gay gene”&nbsp;or a sole biological cause for same-sex attraction. The American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, and even gay researchers recognize that homosexuality cannot be reduced to biology alone. Instead, they acknowledge that social factors seem to play a key role in the development of homosexuality. No evidence suggests that it’s natural for some people to be born gay.</p>

<p>Sometimes “natural”&nbsp;refers to design. Something is natural if it is functioning the way it was designed to function. But homosexual behavior isn’t natural in this sense, either. It goes against the natural function of the body. Male and female bodies can fit together naturally because their genes have fashioned their sexual anatomies to complement one another. Their reproductive organs work together harmoniously to produce new humans—a clear indication that natural design favors heterosexual rather than homosexual unions.</p>

<p>Romans 1:26-27 follows this same reasoning. Paul says that men abandoned the natural sexual function of women and engaged in unnatural sex with men. His words make it clear that homosexual behavior is unnatural because it is a rejection of God’s design for sex. Homosexual <em>desire</em>, then, would also be unnatural for the same reason: it drives people to abandon the natural design and function of human sexuality. Some argue that homosexuality is natural in the sense that God created people that way. But there is no reason to believe this. No major religious tradition teaches or affirms that homosexuality is natural or moral. Though some gay advocates deny that the Bible condemns homosexual behavior, they must resort to interpretive gymnastics that distort the clear and obvious meaning of the biblical text to do so.</p>

<p>Homosexuality <em>is</em>&nbsp;“natural”&nbsp;in one sense, though. It occurs in nature in the sense that some humans do engage in homosexual behavior. Gay advocates argue that if it occurs in nature, then it’s morally appropriate. But to conclude it is moral simply because it happens with some frequency commits an error in thinking known as the <em>is-ought</em> fallacy. Just because a behavior is occurring doesn’t mean it ought to be considered moral. After all, if you accept the natural <em>status quo</em> as moral, then every behavior seems to pass the morality test: murder, rape, and theft all occur in nature. Some animals kill their young or abandon wounded family members. Others cannibalize their mates. These behaviors occur more frequently than homosexuality, yet we wouldn’t give blanket approval to them just because they’re natural in this sense. Rather, these behaviors are the results of sin’s influence on the world (see Rm 8:19-22). Morality, in fact, is often the opposite of doing what comes naturally on this broken planet, and the ability to overcome natural impulses is one of the things that separates humans from animals.</p>
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title: Learn to Explain and Defend Your Religious Liberty
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 08/08/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/learn-to-explain-and-defend-your-religious-liberty
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Every Christian needs to be able to explain what religious liberty is and why it’s important.</p>

<p>It’s ironic that this country traces its origins to people seeking a place for religious freedom and fleeing governments that dictated how they could practice their religious convictions. It’s ironic because we’re at a place in U.S. history where religious liberty is being redefined and isn’t valued, despite being the first freedom protected in our Constitution.</p>

<p>It’s being redefined as freedom to worship and believe what we wish, but not to live out those convictions in the public square, in our daily lives. That’s a radical redefinition because the fundamental principle of religion is finding what’s true about the world, and that informs our significance and guides how we live. Relativism and a new definition of pluralism have led many to believe that religion is a personal preference like ice cream flavors, but most religious traditions make truth claims about the world and therefore have implications for how followers live their lives. These become binding on our consciences. Thus, freedom of conscience and association have flowed directly from religious freedom because our lives are guided by our religious convictions.</p>

<p>We need to be able to explain what religious freedom is and why it’s important because many people no longer have any idea. As secularism in the West grows, many people don’t even know religious people. Their views of religion are shaped by the media, and in many cases, extreme and offensive examples. Many people don’t know what it looks like to see a Christian or other religious person live out their convictions; they have only caricatures. So we need to start from the beginning and explain what we believe is true and why we live it out. And for many Christians, they need to begin by understanding that, too.</p>

<p>I’ve written mostly about “religion”&nbsp;and not Christianity because religious freedom is a general freedom, not just a privilege for Christians. To protect our own religious freedom as Christians, we need to protect the general freedom of other religions, too. This is an American freedom, not a Christian freedom. While Christianity was the majority religion when our country was founded and obviously in view when the Bill of Rights was adopted, there were already citizens who followed other religions, and that’s always been the case. Religious freedom is a shared value, and we cannot plead special privileges for our own religion or it weakens the freedom for others and our own freedom.</p>

<p>The Founders added the Bill of Rights and made freedom of religion and expression the first item on the list because they knew that a government that could deny those two fundamental freedoms was a government that could deny any other freedom. Every citizen, religious or secular, should value that freedom.</p>

<p>Most people understand the value of freedom of expression as expressed in art, even if the art is offensive. Most people would easily see the problem with government restricting an artist from expressing their own views in their art, or with compelling them to create certain kinds of art. This may not be the exact comparison to religious freedom, but I bring it up to illustrate the point that a government who can deny religious freedom can deny another kind of freedom. There���s a close kinship in the freedoms protected in the First Amendment. It’s not only the interests of religious people at stake here. The expansion and empowering of government to violate one right empowers the government to violate further rights, including violating the right to have no religious conviction or practice.</p>

<p>Preventing religious people from exercising their convictions in the public square is a violation just as is forcing people to take a religious vow. The First Amendment protects both sides of that coin - that government should make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, and no establishment of religion. It’s the same right.</p>

<p>So what about religious freedom in the public square? There have been a variety of legal cases in recent years where Christians in business have been penalized for applying their religious convictions in their businesses. Specifically, Christians who have moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage have declined to provide their services for those events. And the justification of the governments who have taken action against them is that they are unjustly discriminating against gay people. In every case, these business people served customers who were gay; it was only when asked to provide their service for a wedding that they objected. They didn’t discriminate against people, they discriminated against an event because it violated their conscience informed by their religion.</p>

<p>In U.S. jurisprudence, the courts have attempted to balance competing interests with religious freedom. The approach has historically been to place as little burden on the person with religious convictions as possible while ensuring the interests of the other party. The rationale for trying to compel these business owners to provide their services for same-sex weddings is based on the comparison of race and sexual orientation. Racial discrimination was widespread and recalcitrant. African-Americans weren’t denied services here and there, but overall. There was no baker, florist, or photographer who would serve them. Because African-Americans could not get services, the government had a duty to compel businesses to serve them. (I’ll note that the overwhelming rationale for discriminating against African-Americans was not religious, even though some abused the Bible and their religion to justify their racism. In these cases of desegregation, the government wasn’t overriding religious liberty, but plain, stark racism.)</p>

<p>There’s no comparison in the cases of Christian business owners not wanting to provide services for a same-sex wedding. First, these business owners have refused services <a href="https://www.str.org/blog/refusing-to-serve-individuals-vs-refusing-to-participate-in-events#.WYlSnHd95R1">for an event, not to individuals</a> - those individuals were previously served by these same Christian business owners. Second, the services are easily obtained from other businesses; there’s no widespread denial of service to gays or same-sex weddings. Since, historically, the government has not restricted the practice of one’s religious conscience in the public square when the interests of the other party could still be served, there’s no comparison to racism and Jim Crow, and there’s no good justification for government compelling business owners to violate their consciences in the practice of their business.</p>

<p>So far the cases in the news have been about Christian business owners, but it’s not just Christians who have an interest in this. Mormons, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews all share similar religious convictions about marriage. It’s not special pleading for Christians, but an interest in the rights of all religious business owners.</p>

<p>The government is attempting to compel religious people to violate their conscience and denying them the religious freedom to live out their convictions in the public square in other ways. There are attempts to force Catholic hospitals and pro-life doctors to perform abortions. There are attempts to force nuns and businesses to provide insurance that covers abortions. Christian schools that have a statement of faith and ethics standard are being coerced by government to drop those distinctives and be like every other public institution.</p>

<p>Religious people aren’t just cherry-picking their rights claims, singling out same-sex weddings. They’re seeking to live out their convictions, and the changing values of our society are infringing on their rights. These aren’t new beliefs that believers are conjuring up; they are widely held principles going back centuries. And the historical understanding of religious freedom is being challenged in the courts to restrict, limit, and compel people to violate their consciences.</p>

<p>As we explain to others the importance of our religious convictions and religious freedom, share the Gospel. After all, the reason Christians (and other religious people) have the freedom to live out their convictions is because they think they’re true. Not just true for us, but true about the world. We want to persuade, not force, others to share our convictions because the answers matter and are of ultimate significance.</p>

<p>Two good articles to read on this topic and begin honing your ability to explain and defend your religious liberty:</p>

<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450087/religious-liberty-under-attack" target="_blank">The Continuing Threat to Religious Liberty</a> by Ryan T. Anderson</li>
	<li><a href="http://dailysignal.com/2017/06/22/civil-debate-on-religious-liberty-and-discrimination-leads-to-good-conversation/" target="_blank">Opposite Sides of Cultural War Meet to Debate Religious Liberty and Discrimination: Here Is What They Said</a> by Christine Roe</li>
</ul>
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title: All Truth Is God’s Truth
topic: Philosophy
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/all-truth-is-god-s-truth
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Imagine an atheist chemist in the 19th century using scientific methods to study water. After conducting his experiments, he concludes water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. In other words, he discovers water is H<sub>2</sub>0. He used secular scientific principles to gain a piece of knowledge previously unknown to the world. Is his discovery anti-Christian? Does it violate biblical truth? Is this new piece of knowledge against God?</p>

<p>The answer to all those questions is a resounding “no.”&nbsp;The scientist discovered something true about the world we live in. Although he didn’t use a biblical or religious source, this does not detract from its credibility. If something is discovered to be true, it is true for you, it is true for me, and it’s true for God. A scientific discovery made by an atheist scientist is just as true as the biblical teaching that God is love or that Christ died for our sins. All truth is God’s truth, regardless of how one gains that knowledge.</p>

<p>That’s because scientific research is an epistemological method. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s a tool for discovering knowledge about the world we live in. It’s important to remember, though, it’s only <em>one</em> tool and <em>not the only</em> tool.</p>

<p>We can learn about ourselves, the world, and the universe through various methods. We can use testimony (reports from other people), logic (2+2=4), introspection (what am I experiencing inside me?) the scientific method (observation and experiments), historical investigation (studying written reports from the past), and divine revelation (the Bible). Knowledge gained from any of these methods is <em>equally</em> true. In fact, God has made these methods available to us. This entails the following three things.</p>

<p><strong>#1: The scientific method should not be contrasted with biblical revelation.</strong> As mentioned above, a scientific discovery is not anti-God or unchristian. Knowledge gained from experiments and observation tell us true things about the world that even God believes are true. That’s why it’s frustrating when science is pitted against faith. There’s nothing anti-scientific about the Christian worldview.</p>

<p>In fact, we should expect that knowledge gained from observation of our world will conform with knowledge from divine revelation, whenever the two overlap. For example, modern cosmological evidence indicates that the universe began to exist at some point in the past. This fact, however, was taught in the first chapter of Genesis several thousand years ago.</p>

<p>This should not surprise us. God speaks through Scripture, which we refer to as special revelation. He also speaks through His created world, which we call general revelation. Both are from God and should validate one another as long as they are properly interpreted, which brings us to the second point.</p>

<p><strong>#2: Both scientific results and biblical revelation need to be interpreted.</strong> I hear the phrase, “Science tells us that...”&nbsp;on a regular basis. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but science doesn’t tell us anything. It’s not a person and can’t speak. <em>People</em> perform experiments and make observations. Then they record the results. Those results, though, are interpreted in different ways by people with different worldviews.</p>

<p>That’s why it’s important to distinguish between scientific data and its interpretation. For example, scientific investigation has revealed that bats have two bones in their forearm, just like humans. That’s what the data reveals. Some interpret that data as evidence that both bats and humans have a common ancestor and that Darwinian evolution led to a similar forearm structure. Others interpret that as evidence that both bats and humans have a common Designer who used a similar structure in both creatures.</p>

<p>There’s also a need to interpret when reading Scripture. I often hear Christians claim, “God clearly says that...”&nbsp;about some theological dispute. It might be clear what words are in a biblical passage, but what the words mean (their interpretation) is another matter.</p>

<p>Please don’t misunderstand me to be saying that the Bible is cryptic or everyone’s interpretation is equally valid. That’s not my point. God is clear about His message in Scripture. Some verses that are disputed, though, require more careful interpretation.</p>

<p><strong>#3: Christians should learn to embrace all methods of discovering truth.</strong> Most people aren’t Christian and don’t consider biblical claims to be true. If we want to be savvy ambassadors for Christ, we must learn to use knowledge gained from Scripture <em>and</em> secular methods like science. That way we can persuade people using whatever sources our audience considers authoritative.</p>

<p>Understanding the dual nature of God’s revelation—in Scripture and the created world—helps to avoid the mistake of pitting science against faith, builds our credibility with others, and leverages sources of authority that many non-believers consider credible. All that matters because our goal is the Gospel, to make it known to everyone.</p>
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title: What Does the Bible Say about Homosexuality?
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/06/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-does-the-bible-say-about-homosexuality-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>[The following article by Alan Shlemon is from the revised <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Study-Bible-Students-Trade/dp/1433651173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497932917&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=apologetics+study+bible+for+students&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=seanmorg-20&amp;linkId=d51e5e1f56525dc6b579217b2827d5cb" target="_blank">CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students</a>. Sean McDowell describes all the additions and updates in the new edition <a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/coming-soon-the-revised-apologetics-study-bible-for-students" target="_blank">here</a>.]</em></p>

<p>In both the Old Testament and New Testament, the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is sinful. Some of the most notable passages on the topic include Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; and 1 Timothy 1:10. The Romans passage is probably the most complete statement on the subject, for there the apostle Paul says, “Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. The men in the same way also left natural relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error”&nbsp;(Rm 1:26-27). Not only does this passage condemn both male and female homosexuality; it explains why homosexual behavior is wrong. Simply put, it violates God’s design for sexuality. Men were designed to function sexually with women, a fact consistent with human anatomy.</p>

<p>The Bible also implies that homosexuality, like other sins, can be overcome. Paul reminds the Corinthians that although some of them were homosexuals, they changed: “Some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”&nbsp;(1Co 6:11; see vv. 9-10 for context).</p>

<p>Some gay advocates try to deny that homosexuality is sinful by noting that Jesus never said anything about it. But Jesus’s silence is irrelevant since He was quiet about several issues that are addressed and prohibited elsewhere in Scripture. Nevertheless, what the Bible <em>doesn’t</em> say about homosexuality may in some cases be just as important as what it does say. First, the Bible doesn’t say that homosexual behavior is the worst sin. Though it’s a serious offense to God, we shouldn’t heap special condemnation on homosexuals or feel compelled to make homosexuality the special focus of our witness to the world.</p>

<p>Second, the Bible doesn’t instruct us to be opposed to homosexual <em>people</em>. It’s opposed to homosexual <em>behavior</em>. While we should vigorously oppose public policies that try to promote homosexuality in culture, we’re called to a relentless love toward all sinners regardless of their particular struggles. This also means we shouldn’t treat Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction as if they have the plague. It’s important to support them in their battles, just like we’d support a Christian struggling to overcome gossip, lying, or an addiction to pornography. The Bible also doesn’t prohibit friendship with gays and lesbians. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5:9-12 that we are called to judge and avoid <em>unrepentant Christians</em>, not people of this world. We can believe homosexual behavior is wrong and still have kind and congenial relationships with practicing homosexuals, just as Jesus would have done.</p>

<p>Finally, the Bible doesn’t call homosexuals to heterosexuality, but to holiness. Repenting from homosexuality is not about becoming straight (some choose celibacy) but becoming righteous in God’s eyes. What homosexuals need is a pardon from God. They receive that by trusting in Jesus. As the Holy Spirit takes up residence in their lives, God can change their desires by renewing them from the inside out.</p>
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title: Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 07/19/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/do-christians-and-muslims-worship-the-same-god-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>[The following article by Alan Shlemon is from the revised <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Study-Bible-Students-Trade/dp/1433651173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497932917&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=apologetics+study+bible+for+students&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=seanmorg-20&amp;linkId=d51e5e1f56525dc6b579217b2827d5cb" target="_blank">CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students</a>. Sean McDowell describes all the additions and updates in the new edition <a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/coming-soon-the-revised-apologetics-study-bible-for-students" target="_blank">here</a>.]</em></p>

<p>Some people argue that since Allah is simply the Arabic word for God, Muslims worship the same God as Christians. But “God”&nbsp;is not God’s name. In the Bible God’s personal name is “Yahweh,”&nbsp;whereas the Islamic Qur’an gives God’s name as “Allah.”&nbsp;The generic word “God”&nbsp;is more like the title of a position than the name of an individual. The position is a <em>what</em>, but the one filling the position is a who. Think of it this way: In a political campaign, each candidate (the <em>who)</em> vies for a single office (the <em>what</em>). Though multiple people compete for the same general position, only one person can fill the role.</p>

<p>Christians and Muslims seek to honor God while believing that different <em>persons</em> occupy that office. They believe in the same <em>what</em>—a deity who created the universe, administrates history, and judges human actions and motivations—but they believe differently in <em>who</em> fills that role. For example, Christians worship Jesus as divine Savior of the world because the Bible teaches that He is God’s Son become man. The disciples worshiped Him after He walked on water and calmed the storm (Mt 14:33), and they worshiped Him after His resurrection (Mt 28:9,17). Even angels were commanded to worship Jesus (Heb 1:6).</p>

<p>Muslims, on the other hand, regard Jesus as a mere man who happened to be a beloved prophet. They believe equating Jesus with God commits Islam’s most serious crime, the sin of <em>shirk</em> - worshiping someone other than Allah. What Christians regard as the greatest good (worshiping Jesus), Muslims consider the unpardonable sin. If Christians by definition worship Jesus as God, while Muslims condemn to Hell any who worship Him (Surah 5:72-73), the two groups cannot worship the same deity. The Bible and the Qur’an offer conflicting descriptions of God. This shows the error of the claim that Christians and Muslims worship the same God.</p>

<p>Another important point must be addressed. Worshiping the <em>right</em> God is only part of the story; worshiping the right God the right <em>way</em> is the rest. Paul noted that though the Jews worshiped God with sincerity, they did not pursue Him “according to knowledge”&nbsp;of Christ (Rm 10:1-4). Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “True worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth”&nbsp;(Jn 4:23). His mention of “true worshipers”&nbsp;presupposes there are false worshipers, even among those who acknowledge the God revealed in the Old Testament. James notes that even demons believe in the true God, but it does them little good (Jms 2:19).</p>

<p>The important thing is not that we worship God <em>our</em> way, but that we worship God <em>His</em> way, believing of Him the things He says of Himself. Since the first century, God’s way has only been through Jesus. This is what Jesus and His disciples taught. Access to God comes only through His appointed Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God. This truth is incompatible with any form of Islam.</p>
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title: Counsel for Loving Same-Sex-Attracted Christians
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Melinda Penner
date: 07/26/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/counsel-for-loving-same-sex-attracted-christians
content:
            <div> 
		<p>An <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2017/june/finding-my-true-self-as-same-sex-attracted-woman-obergefell.html" target="_blank">article</a> in <em>Christianity Today</em> written by Bekah Mason provides some very helpful counsel for how Christians can love and be supportive of other Christians who experience same-sex attraction.</p>

<p>Mason answers the question: “So how can we better hold law and grace in an effective tension that allows us to maintain our convictions and also show love?”&nbsp;She says of both extreme and unbiblical responses,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>In the end, both legalistic condemnation and progressive license left me seeking more contentment and completeness than either could offer. One group had fallen short of acknowledging the genuine nature of my feelings and the other had overlooked the very real conviction I held about human sexuality by explaining it away as “residual guilt from my legalistic childhood.”</p>
</blockquote>

<p>She offers five suggestions for how Christians can be both faithful to the Bible and loving friends to Christians who experience same-sex attraction:</p>

<h2>1) You don’t have to understand the struggle to be supportive</h2>

<h2>2) Take the time to learn about the struggle—and the person struggling</h2>

<h2>3) Make sure you aren’t expecting more (or less) from people than Jesus does</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>[I]f you lean left on this issue, understand that your “blessing”&nbsp;to embrace same-sex attraction actually places a greater burden on us than the one Jesus gives us in our celibate devotion to him. His command to love and obey him is a light and easy burden, and I have found more peace, joy, love, and contentment by keeping all of my relationships rightly ordered than I ever did in seeking to fulfill my own desires in a relationship with another woman. By contrast, if you are more conservative in your convictions, understand that seasons of struggle with sexual identity are not necessarily a tumble into sin or a lack of faith on our part.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>4) Be an advocate for people who are same-sex attracted</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>Although it’s important to advocate for us by condemning hateful and homophobic comments and actions, advocacy also involves being a mentor, an accountability partner, and a prayer warrior.</p>
</blockquote>

<h2>5) Remember that marital love is not the highest form of love</h2>

<blockquote>
<p>The highest love is agape love, not eros love, and agape is available to all, which means God isn’t withholding the best of himself from single Christians. He offers all of himself and his love to all people.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>At STR, we’ve taught people to engage the topic of homosexuality with both <a href="http://store.str.org/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=DVD057" target="_blank">truth and compassion</a>. I really appreciate Mason’s counsel because it encompasses both and gives us some practical ways to love and encourage Christians who need to be welcome in the church, and also ways of correcting two opposite but wrong responses.</p>
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title: An Exciting New Journey Ahead
topic: Announcements
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 08/03/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/an-exciting-new-journey-ahead
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Sometimes God’s work in our lives is dramatic and instantaneous—the sudden softening of a heart, the breaking of an addiction, a miraculous physical healing. However, often the Spirit’s work is slow and steady, leading us in a “long obedience in the same direction,”&nbsp;as author and pastor Eugene Peterson says. The latter path is the one I’ve been on for the last 43 years.</p>

<p>My parents came to Christ when I was an infant. God saved me at the young age of five. I was discipled in a Christian home and heavily involved in the local church throughout my childhood and youth. In junior high and high school, I was highly active in youth group. My youth pastor became a tremendous mentor, and during my junior year of high school, I committed my life to full-time ministry. For the next 13 years, I served as a volunteer youth worker, a part-time junior high pastor, and a full-time pastor of student ministries. In 2003, I joined the staff of Stand to Reason as the Student Impact Director. Through it all, I’ve learned innumerable lessons, gained a wealth of experience, and made my share of mistakes. But by the unspeakable and undeserved grace of God, I have tried to serve Him faithfully in ministry.</p>

<p>The last 14 years of ministry at Stand to Reason have been absolutely tremendous. I trust the Lord has used my efforts to impact students, but I’m certain He has significantly shaped my life along the way. Before I ever joined the STR team, God used Greg Koukl to mentor me from afar through STR’s ministry. After joining the team, STR’s impact on me multiplied exponentially. I grew leaps and bounds in my capacity to love God with my mind by thinking more carefully. I grew in my ability to defend the faith. I grew in my skills as a teacher and communicator. Indeed, I cannot adequately express all the different facets of spiritual and ministry growth I’ve experienced. Every step of this journey, the STR family has been by my side, guiding, challenging, encouraging, and supporting me. And it is only because of the Lord’s impact on my life through STR over the last 14 years that I can take the next step of obedience.</p>

<p>On September 1st of this year, I will begin a new adventure. After working with students around the country for the last 27 years, I’m absolutely convinced the church needs to redouble her efforts in discipling the next generation. In particular, there is tremendous void of youth ministries and youth parachurch ministries that are wholly dedicated to training up Christian young people to know God’s truth deeply, to apply it to every single area of life, and proclaim it to an increasingly-hostile culture with courage and compassion. Our youth desperately need more worldview teaching, more training in theology and apologetics, and more mentoring in bringing the truth of Christ to our culture. For these reasons and more, I will launch <a href="https://www.maventruth.com/" target="_blank">MAVEN</a> in September, a new organization completely dedicated to training youth and the people who train youth—parents, youth workers, pastors, and educators. Through MAVEN, I want to exponentially expand what God can do in the lives of our children and students.</p>

<p>As I’ve wrestled and prayed through this new vision, the support of my STR family has been crucial. To be sure, for us it is not a parting of ways, but a sending out. Of course, it’s a bittersweet moment for my family and me. However, I’m pleased to say that STR will continue to build on the youth work we’ve started together through the <a href="http://www.rethinkapologetics.com/" target="_blank">reTHINK</a> apologetics student conferences. Indeed, we are allies in this ongoing effort, and I look forward to doing my part as I speak and teach at the Orange County reTHINK Conference this September. But there is vast amount of work with youth that needs to be done, so we don’t need fewer individuals and ministries, we need more. May the Lord raise up a hundred more ministries like Stand to Reason <em>and</em> a hundred more like MAVEN.</p>
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title: An LGBT Defense Misses a Biblical Point
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 08/08/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/an-lgbt-defense-misses-a-biblical-point
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Living for Jesus isn’t easy. His moral standards are high. If we want to be His disciples, we must deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him (Luke 9:23). For Christ, the cross literally meant giving up everything, even His own life. He denied His own will to do the will of the Father. God expects no less from us.</p>

<p>Although Christ’s moral demands in Scripture are difficult to follow, we’re still required to obey Him. Some people, however, want to change the demand. Instead of either submitting to or rejecting the Bible’s requirements, they want to change them. Advocates of pro-gay theology take this approach. Although Scripture clearly prohibits homosexual behavior (Lev. 18:22, Rom. 1:26-27, 1 Cor. 6:9, etc.), they claim it only opposes abusive, exploitive, or coercive homosexual sex acts such as gang rape, master-slave sodomy, and pederasty. Homosexuals today don’t engage in such abusive acts. Their relationships are loving and consensual, we’re told. Therefore, the biblical prohibitions don’t apply to them.</p>

<p>Pro-gay theology advocates are missing the Bible’s point. It doesn’t matter <em>why</em> you might engage in a behavior, only <em>that you do</em>. In other words, what Scripture prohibits is the behavior of homosexual sex, regardless of why you engage in it. For example, it doesn’t matter if you’re curious about homosexuality and you just want to experiment. Homosexual sex in that case is prohibited. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man in a prison population and the only sexual outlet is another man. Scripture forbids homosexual sex in that case as well. It also doesn’t matter if you experience same-sex attraction, even if you were born that way. Homosexual sex is off limits in that case, too. What Scripture prohibits is homosexual sex, no matter your reason for engaging in it.</p>

<p>Consider another sexual sin, the sin of adultery. It doesn’t matter why you might find yourself in an adulterous relationship. It’s a sin no matter how you got in bed with someone who’s not your spouse. If you’re married to person A, person B is off limits. Person C, D, and E are also off limits. They’re off limits for <em>any</em> reason. It doesn’t even matter if you “discover”&nbsp;that they’re your soul mate. Sex with anyone other than person A is sexual sin. Period. That’s because according to the Genesis account of creation, when it comes to sex and marriage, it’s about one man with one woman becoming one flesh for one lifetime. Adultery and homosexuality violate that design.</p>

<p>Modern pro-gay theology advocates argue that the Bible knows nothing of loving, consensual homosexual relationships. Even if that’s true, it doesn’t matter. The Bible prohibits homosexual sex, regardless of why you might engage in it. It categorically prohibits same-sex relations of <em>any type</em> and for <em>any reason</em>.</p>

<p>Similar reasoning is used to justify being transgender. I argue that Scripture teaches that humans are supposed to identify with the gender that is consistent with their biology. If you’re biologically male, then you should identify as male. If you’re biologically female, then identify as female. Every time the Bible addresses people crossing gender boundaries, it speaks negatively of it.</p>

<p>For example, Deuteronomy 22:5 says, “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.”&nbsp;The purpose of this prohibition is to maintain the distinction of the two genders established by God in the Genesis account of creation (e.g. Gen. 1:27 “...male and female He created them”).</p>

<p>To sidestep this moral demand, some claim that Deut. 22:5 is merely about cross-dressing and doesn’t address a person with a transgender identity. Again, this misses the point. The Bible isn’t saying that cross-dressing is prohibited unless you have a bona fide transgender identity. It’s not talking about your beliefs about gender or claimed identity. What it prohibits is a certain behavior—trying to look like the sex that you’re not.</p>

<p>Even the context doesn’t help those who are attempting to reinterpret the biblical text. The verse before Deuteronomy 22:5 is about helping a neighbor’s donkey and the verse after prohibits killing a mother bird. There’s no exception made for a transgender identity or any other motive. The verse simply entails an unqualified prohibition against trying to appear like someone of the opposite sex.</p>

<p>It’s important to recognize what people who are attempting to reinterpret the biblical text are trying to do. They want to sidestep the moral demands of Scripture which, let’s face it, is something every one of us is tempted to do to justify our sin. As Christ said, anyone who wants to be His disciple must deny himself and take up his cross. That means giving up our own will, and that’s not easy to do. God hasn’t left us, however, to muster up the strength on our own to do His will. He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness. With His strength, we can deny ourselves and do the will of the Father.</p>
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title: Are Singles Condemned to a Life of Loneliness?
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/29/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/are-singles-condemned-to-a-life-of-loneliness-
content:
            <div> 
		<p><em>[The following article by Amy K. Hall is from the revised <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Apologetics-Study-Bible-Students-Trade/dp/1433651173/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497932917&amp;sr=8-9&amp;keywords=apologetics+study+bible+for+students&amp;linkCode=sl1&amp;tag=seanmorg-20&amp;linkId=d51e5e1f56525dc6b579217b2827d5cb" target="_blank">CSB Apologetics Study Bible for Students</a>—available on July 1. Sean McDowell describes all the additions and updates in the new edition <a href="http://seanmcdowell.org/blog/coming-soon-the-revised-apologetics-study-bible-for-students" target="_blank">here</a>.]</em></p>

<p>Everything changed when Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins. As the Holy Spirit worked to give people faith in Him, Jesus, who never married, became the head of a new, growing family. Through Him, the Father adopted us as His children (Eph 1:5), and our separation from God came to an end.</p>

<p>No Christian is alone. God is gathering us as “a people for His possession, so that [we] may proclaim the praises of the One who called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pt 2:9). We’re now siblings in God’s family (Mt 12:48–50; Eph 1:5). Every person in the church is a vital member of one body, with Christ as our head (1 Co 12:12–31; Col 1:18). We are “living stones” being “built together” into one building around Christ, the “cornerstone” (Eph 2:19–22; 1 Pt 2:2–6). These images of the church depict a profound interdependence, a providing for one another’s needs according to our various gifts, which we’re told is necessary for “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness” (Eph 4:12–13).</p>

<p>Both Jesus and Paul spoke of (and lived) a life of singleness for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Mt 19:10–12), describing singleness as an opportunity for us to be “devoted to the Lord without distraction,” free from the concerns of married life (1 Co 7:32–35), able to focus on worshiping God and serving our neighbor. Far from being a life of loneliness, we connect deeply with those in our church family through this kind of service.</p>

<p>Jesus’s actions defined love for us: “This is how we have come to know love: He laid down His life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 Jn 3:16). He who washed the feet of His beloved disciples said, “The greatest among you will be your servant” (Mt 23:11). As a single person, you are free to give and receive this deepest and greatest form of love in the church, the kind of love modeled for us by Jesus Christ, the kind of love that creates eternal bonds with others within our new, permanent family.</p>

<p>Marriage is only temporary (Mt 22:30). It was created to be a shadow—that is, a symbol—pointing to the truth of an eternal reality, the union of Christ and the church in the resurrection (Eph 5:22–33; Rv 19:6–9). Some of us may not have the shadow (marriage and children) now, but we will all one day have the greater reality it’s pointing to (an eternity united to Christ), and the glories of that eternal reality will far exceed those of the temporary shadow. That is your future. In your present, your church family, with all the difficulties and joys you would find in any family, calls you away from loneliness and into its life.</p>
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title: Are the Prayers of Two or Three People More Powerful Than the Prayers of One?
topic: Theology
author: Tim Barnett
date: 06/08/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/are-the-prayers-of-two-or-three-people-more-powerful-than-the-prayers-of-one-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you have grown up in the church, you have probably heard Matthew 18:20 quoted during a prayer meeting. It is taken as a promise that when believers gather in groups of two or three, Jesus will be present among them <em>and</em> God will answer their prayers. Jesus says, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”</p>

<p>Is that <em>really</em> what this verse is promising? To find out, we need to look at the specific context of Jesus’&nbsp;words in Matthew 18. Whenever we want the <em>meaning</em> of a passage of Scripture, it’s crucial that we understand the <em>context</em> of the passage. When the context is ignored, it’s very easy to misuse or even abuse a passage.</p>

<p>So, what is the nature of the “gathering”&nbsp;in verse 20? Is it a prayer meeting? Is it a worship meeting? No, this passage is actually dealing with <em>church discipline</em>.</p>

<p>Read it for yourself. In verse 15, Jesus lays out the steps to reconcile and restore a brother who has sinned against you. Jesus says,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, <em>take one or two others along with you</em>, that every charge may be established by the evidence of <em>two or three witnesses</em>. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (Matt. 18:15-17)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>When someone takes one or two others along with them, there will be <em>two or three witnesses</em>. This idea actually comes from the Old Testament (Deut. 19:15), when legal cases needed to have two or three witnesses to establish a matter.</p>

<p>In our text, Jesus is drawing a connection between church discipline and this Old Testament judicial practice. Jesus is communicating the idea that the church has authority to remove a brother on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Jesus knew that removing someone from the congregation would be a very difficult thing for any church to do, so He promises His presence in that judgment. Therefore, when using the expression “when two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them,”&nbsp;He is telling them that He is with them in these judicial matters. Moreover, since Jesus has given them this authority, it’s as if Jesus expelled them from the congregation Himself.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, this verse is not about prayer. It’s about church discipline and trying to restore a brother. But let me make one final point about prayer specifically. It is absolutely true that God is with Christians when they gather in groups to pray, whether it’s 3 or 3,000. Yet, God is also with individuals when they pray by themselves. Just a few verses before the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says, “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you”&nbsp;(Matt. 6:6).</p>
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title: Seeing the Unseen: The Nature of Spiritual Warfare
topic: Theology
author: Greg Koukl
date: 07/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/seeing-the-unseen-the-nature-of-spiritual-warfare
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Sometimes, if you know what to look for, you can “see”&nbsp;something that is invisible; you can see the unseen. It’s not a parlor trick, but a valuable spiritual skill. And it’s not that difficult if you know what clues to look for. I’d like to show you what those clues are.</p>

<p>First, though, a foundational matter. I am convinced that most Christians do not understand spiritual warfare. Either they are unaware of the unseen battle or, if they do recognize its importance, they do not focus on the central issue but instead are distracted by a secondary concern. In military terms, they have been taken in by a feint. Here is the feint.</p>

<p>Some Christians think of spiritual battle in terms of power encounters with the devil (or demons) where prayer of a certain sort is the principal weapon employed to defeat, or at least to neutralize (“bind”), the powers of darkness. Curiously, Jesus never taught this approach. He never told us to pray to devils. Instead, He taught us to ask the Father to “deliver us from the evil one”&nbsp;(Matt. 6:13).<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>I certainly do not mean to minimize the importance of prayer in any area of our Christian lives, especially this one, but to invite you to see something you might not have noticed. When it comes to spiritual warfare, the New Testament emphasis is not on prayer-infused power encounters, but on something completely different, and if we miss that, then I think we miss the heart of it.</p>

<h2>The Invisible Battlefield</h2>

<p>We live in a world made by an invisible Being and this world is thick with invisible things. They are all “around us,”&nbsp;in a sense, but not immediately obvious to many since the visible realm is so much more imposing.</p>

<p>In 2 Kings 6:15-17, the prophet Elisha’s attendant saw something in the visible realm that overwhelmed him—the Syrian army encircling their city with <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/interlinear-bible/strongs/?t=nas&amp;ll=h&amp;sn=05483">horses</a> and <a href="http://www.biblestudytools.com/interlinear-bible/strongs/?t=nas&amp;ll=h&amp;sn=07393">chariots</a>. “Alas, my master!”&nbsp;he said. “What shall we do?”</p>

<p>Elisha, though, was not shaken. He saw a deeper reality in the unseen realm.</p>

<p>“Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Elisha then prayed and said, ’O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’&nbsp;And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”</p>

<p>Elisha saw something his servant did not see: the enemies of God surrounding the city were themselves surrounded by a massive invisible force arrayed behind the scenes for Elisha’s protection. The prophet was able to see the unseen.</p>

<p>Of course, there was no non-miraculous way for Elisha’s servant to see into that realm. He needed help. In our case, though, there are passages in the New Testament that tip us off, giving us clues to help us detect details of a world Elijah had access to. There is an invisible army arrayed against us, too, and sometimes—if we are alert—we can track its maneuvers.</p>

<p>I want you to consider a familiar passage that contains an insight you may not have thought about before. Here is that passage:</p>

<p>Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. (Eph. 6:11-13)</p>

<p>In this text, Paul tells us we are at war. He acknowledges the reality of opposition in the visible world (“flesh and blood”), but instructs us that the more fundamental conflict is at a deeper level in the invisible realm (“the heavenly places”). This you already know.</p>

<p>Here is what you may not have seen before. Paul also tips us off that the enemy operates according to specific strategies he calls “schemes”—battle plans, of sorts, that inform the devil’s tactical maneuvers. Being clothed with the proper armor allows us to “stand firm”&nbsp;against his schemes, resisting the devil’s subterfuge.</p>

<p>Can we know anything about those schemes? I think we can.</p>

<h2>Weapon One</h2>

<p>I want you to consider a quartet of verses that add up to a sobering truth alerting us to the principal way Satan advances his army in the spiritual battle.</p>

<p>We know that we are of God, and that <em>the whole world lies in the power of the evil one</em>.&nbsp;(1 Jn. 5:19)</p>

<p>And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, <em>who deceives the whole world</em>. (Rev. 12:9)</p>

<p>And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case <em>the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving</em> so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.&nbsp;(2 Cor. 4:3-4)</p>

<p>The Lord’s bondservant must not be quarrelsome, but...patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the <em>knowledge of the truth</em>, and they may <em>come to their senses</em> and escape from <em>the snare of the devil,</em> having been <em>held captive by him to do his will</em>. (2 Tim. 2:24-26)</p>

<p>It may not have occurred to you how complete the enemy’s penetration into the minds of men has been, but these passages make it unmistakable. According to the New Testament the entire world is in the devil’s deathly grip. He holds people captive to do his bidding by trickery and deceit, blinding the minds of those who are perishing, keeping them from coming to their senses and seeing the world the way it really is.</p>

<p>Jesus warned that the devil “is a liar and the father of lies”&nbsp;(Jn. 8:44), employing ruses even Christians are vulnerable to. When we come to Christ we have a new spirit, true enough, but our minds are still filled with Satan’s foolishness, the lies we readily believed that “deceived”&nbsp;and “enslaved”&nbsp;us (Titus 3:3), as we walked “according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air”&nbsp;(Eph. 2:2).</p>

<p>A key element of our own rescue, then, is reversing the process. We are to “lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of <em>deceit,”</em>&nbsp;and “be renewed in the spirit of your <em>mind</em>, and put on the new self which...has been created in righteousness and holiness of the <em>truth</em>. Therefore, laying aside <em>falsehood, speak truth</em> each one of you with his neighbor...”&nbsp;(Eph. 4:22-25). Do you see the emphasis?</p>

<p>Not surprisingly, then, the very first step in arming ourselves for battle against the devil is to gird our loins with <em>truth</em> (Eph. 6:14). And when we engage the battle with God’s “weapons of warfare [that] are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses,”&nbsp;we attack those lies and lay waste to them, “destroying <em>speculations</em> and every lofty thing raised up against the <em>knowledge of God</em>...”&nbsp;(2 Cor. 10:3-5).</p>

<p>Note: nothing about binding and loosing here. No spiritual wrestling match hinted at in these verses. Rather, the bulk of the biblical testimony takes us in an entirely different direction. As I have written elsewhere:</p>

<p>[The devil] gains ground by craftiness and secrecy, and he destroys by lies, accusation, enticement, and subterfuge. If you doubt him, beware. Stealth is his weapon. Satan happily stays in the shadows where he can do his dark business undetected.<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>The principal weapon at the enemy’s disposal allowing him to gain ground in the spiritual conflict, then, is not power but deception. Thus, if the basic strategy for Satan’s spiritual assault is spreading lies, then the most potent weapon we can wield in the battle against him is its opposite: spreading truth. The counter to lies—the answer to deception, the antidote to deceit—is truth. I conclude, then, that <em>spiritual warfare is much more about truth encounters than it is about power encounters.</em><sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<h2>Seeing the Unseen</h2>

<p>So, we are at war. We battle otherworldly forces in the unseen realm with weapons that are effective to oppose the spiritual strategies and demonic plans in play against us. Our job is to resist those schemes by exposing them, doing everything we can to stand firm by opposing lies with truth.</p>

<p>There is another angle, though, another key insight you must not miss, a clue that allows us to unveil the unseen schemes.</p>

<p>A person who can see will not easily stumble into a ditch, even a small one. He’ll walk around it. A blind person, on the other hand, will walk right over a cliff because no matter how deep or wide the abyss, <em>he does not know it is there</em>. In the same way, Satan can foist a very big lie on the world—one so obvious that thoughtful Christians easily see through it—yet the world at large will be oblivious to it because they cannot see it. They have been blinded.</p>

<p>And here is the clue, the “tell,”&nbsp;the giveaway that reveals the scheme and helps inform our own counteroffensive against it in the battle. Look for the big spiritual lie that seems completely transparent, the obvious ploy that appears ridiculously ham-handed, the massive ditch that can’t be missed but the world doesn’t seem to see, the abyss the blind masses fall into without giving it a second thought. Find that and you will find the scheme.</p>

<p>If you wonder why anyone would buy into such an obvious spiritual error, if the gullibility of the throng perplexes you, if you catch yourself saying, “This makes no sense,”&nbsp;then you have probably stumbled onto a scheme. You have identified a maneuver in the battle, since the only explanation for such lack of spiritual perception is spiritual blindness, and we now know who is responsible for that.</p>

<p>Let me give you a few examples.</p>

<h2>Three “Schemes”</h2>

<p>The first scheme is easily revealed by answering this question: What single religion in our culture has the suffix “phobia”&nbsp;attached to it to protect it from criticism? Is it “Hindu-phobia”? “Jew-phobia”? “Buddha-phobia”? “Christian-phobia”? Hardly. It’s “Islamophobia.”&nbsp;The word has become a fixture in the social lexicon, showing up not only in Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary, but also in Merriam-Webster, the English Oxford Dictionary, and the Cambridge English Dictionary, to name just a few.</p>

<p>Why is this significant? Because Islam is currently the most dangerous religion in the world. On September 11, 2001, what <em>Time</em> magazine called the bloodiest day on American soil since the Civil War, 2,996 lives were snuffed out by Muslim terrorists. Yet within a few short months Islam somehow achieved most favored religious status in the West. Over the last 16 years since then, Muslims—following a tradition clearly taught in the Koran and endorsed by hundreds of millions of Muslims and respected Muslim clerics—make headlines weekly with acts of murder, mayhem, and mutilation all over the globe, yet any public criticism of that faith is labeled bigotry.</p>

<p>Ironically, even New Atheist Sam Harris sees the problem (not every non-believer is blinded by every lie). He once tweeted, “Islamophobia. A word created by fascists, &amp; used by cowards, to manipulate morons.”<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>

<p>Not only is Islam the most dangerous religion in the world, it is also the mortal enemy of Judaism and Christianity. Hmmm. Maybe I have an overactive imagination, but does anyone else see a scheme slipping past the eyes of the spiritually blind?</p>

<p>The second scheme has been around for a long time, but people continue to be taken in by it, despite it’s obvious absurdity. This con has gone through a number of iterations over the years, but it still boils down the same simple notion: There is no truth.</p>

<p>Claiming there is no truth is a kind of “end around”&nbsp;the whole who-is-right-about-religion debate. If there is no truth to begin with, then feuds about what religion is true would be pointless. There’s no sense fighting about who has the right answer when there are no right answers to begin with.</p>

<p>This tack is appealing in part because it’s meant to engender a kind of tolerant peace and harmony between people. That is the point of the clever “COEXIST”&nbsp;bumper sticker—clever, but ultimately contradictory. Everyone is “right,”&nbsp;in a certain sense (“true for you”). In another sense, though, a whole bunch of religious people are wrong if they think their own view is true in any deep way.</p>

<p>When people say there is no truth, I often wonder how they want me to respond to their own statement. I think they want me to believe them, but the minute I’m tempted to think they might be on to something—the minute I start agreeing with them, in other words—I run into a problem. I cannot give the nod to their relativism, since that would be the same thing as saying their view were true, which is the one thing they will not allow me to say. You see the problem. You can also see how the idea that there is no truth cuts the legs right out from under the Great Commission.</p>

<p>Notice the pattern. Something of spiritual significance is going on in the visible realm that is obviously false, and the response of the rank and file is obviously wrong-headed, but they don’t see it. Why? Because there is a ploy, a ruse, a scheme in the unseen world working blindness among the masses. And the spiritual consequence of this blindness is devastating.</p>

<p>The third scheme is front and center at the moment. Two thousand years ago, Jesus made a simple observation about the created order: Humans are made male and female. From that observation He drew some fairly common-sense conclusions about the nature of sex and marriage: one man, with one woman, becoming one flesh, for one lifetime (Matt. 19:4-6).</p>

<p>Jesus was not trading on His Divine authority here, or even on His superior perception. No special clout nor spiritual shrewdness is necessary to see what is self-evident. Rather, Jesus was making a pedestrian observation about something that nature (and nature’s God) had clearly dictated: There are males and there are females and each was made for the other. Nowadays, though, this simple truth is no longer clear to multitudes. In fact, it is aggressively repudiated by hordes of otherwise intelligent people.</p>

<p>Why is the obvious no longer obvious? Why is Jesus’&nbsp;observation lost on so many (including countless Christians, sadly) when it comes to gender and homosexuality and a host of other sexual adventures? And what accounts for the intensity of the opposition towards those who see what others are blind to? It’s not something natural; it’s something supernatural. This lie is driven by a hidden power in an invisible place.</p>

<p>The gender/sexuality controversy is ultimately about neither. Rather, it is about who is in charge—the creature or the Creator, the Potter or the clay.</p>

<h2>Out of the Shadows</h2>

<p>You can see the significance of each of these lies from the perspective of spiritual combat. Each is a scheme to blind and deceive regarding something spiritually significant.</p>

<p>Islam is a threat to religious liberty the world over and is a special menace to the “people of the book,”&nbsp;Jews and Christians. Relativism undermines all attempts to separate truth from lies, giving free rein to the father of lies. The “gender wars”&nbsp;takes personal choice to near comical extremes and places those who advance God’s view of sex and marriage right in the crosshairs of the spiritual conflict.</p>

<p>Here is the key. If you want to see the unseen, look for something spiritually dramatic going on in the visible realm that is so obvious everyone else should see it, but they don’t. That is the tipoff. That is the “tell.”&nbsp;That is the giveaway letting us know we’re dealing with an area where the enemy has doubled down.</p>

<p>Others are blind to the ruse since it’s driven by spiritual forces of darkness in a realm they cannot perceive, but we can. We can see the scheme, we can marshal our forces of truth at that point, we can do everything within our means—wisdom and truth and the grace of God—to “stand firm.”</p>

<p>I will close with this word from former slave trader turned hymnist and pastor, John Newton, taken from his first public service at St. Mary Woolnoth, London, December 19, 1779. His text was “...speaking the truth in love...”&nbsp;from Eph. 4:15:</p>

<p>The Bible is the grand repository of the truths that will be the business and the pleasure of my life to set before you. It is the complete system of divine truth to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken with impunity. <em>Every attempt to disguise or soften any branch of this truth in order to accommodate it to the prevailing taste around us either to avoid the displeasure or court the favor of our fellow mortals must be an affront to the majesty of God and an act of treachery to men.</em> My conscience bears me witness that I mean to speak the truth among you.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup></p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Of course, when Jesus encountered demons directly, He dealt with them directly. Two qualifiers, though. First, rarely if ever do we encounter demons directly as Jesus did. A different dynamic is in play, day to day, for us. Second, when a demon-possessed fortune-teller harassed Paul, he ignored her for days before casting the demon out (Acts 16:16-18). Direct confrontation, it seems then, is the exception, not the rule.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Gregory Koukl, <em>The Story of Reality</em> (Grand Rapids, Zondervan: 2017), 85.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">This is the reason why defense of the truth—apologetics—is a vital component of the church’s spiritual battle strategy.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Tanya Basu, “What Does ’Islamophobia’&nbsp;Actually Mean?”, <em>The Atlantic</em> [online], Oct. 15, 2014.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Jonathan Aitken, <em>John Newton—From Disgrace to Amazing Grace</em>, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 272, emphasis added.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
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title: What Does Humility Look Like?
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/22/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/what-does-humility-look-like-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Not long ago, I wrote about how “<a href="http://www.str.org/blog/humility-needed-see-jesus#.WUSBUBMrJR0" target="_blank">Humility Is Needed to See Jesus</a>,”&nbsp;saying it’s the key to so many different aspects of the Christian life. But what does humility look like? Tim Challies compiled a list of “<a href="https://www.challies.com/10-sure-marks-of-humility/" target="_blank">10 Sure Marks of Humility</a>”&nbsp;from the book <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Godly-Mans-Picture-Vintage-Puritan-ebook/dp/B0174T1SR8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497662311&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+godly+man%27s+picture+glh" target="_blank">The Godly Man’s Picture</a></em>, and here are four of them:</p>

<blockquote>
<p><em>A humble person complains about his heart, not his circumstances</em>. Even when he faces difficulty, his greatest grief is the state of his heart. Where a hypocrite loves to boast about his goodness, the humble soul is always aware of his badness. Even Paul, who had the immense privilege of being caught up to the third heaven, cried out, “Wretched man that I am!”&nbsp;The more a Christian grows in knowledge, the more he becomes aware of his ignorance, of his lack of faith, and the more he cries out for God’s grace.</p>

<p><em>A humble person praises God in times of trouble</em>. He praises God even in times of great difficulty and refuses to condemn God for bringing such painful circumstances. With Abraham he says, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”&nbsp;With Job, he always refuses to charge God with any wrongdoing, for it is the Lord who gives and the Lord who takes away.</p>

<p><em>A humble person is content to be eclipsed by others</em>. He is willing to have his name and his accomplishments eclipsed by others so that Christ can be magnified and God can be glorified. He deliberately does battle with the ugly sin of envy, saying often, “Let me decrease and let Christ increase.”&nbsp;A humble Christian is content to be put aside if another can take his place and bring greater glory to God.</p>

<p><em>A humble person will stoop to the lowest person and lowest tasks</em>. He will give time to the lowest person and he will give attention to the most undesirable tasks. He prefers to swab the sores of Lazarus than to enjoy the treasures of the rich man. He does not insist that he is too noble or too holy for anyone or any task, but willingly “associates with the lowly”&nbsp;(Romans 12:16).</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is challenging, no? Read the rest <a href="https://www.challies.com/10-sure-marks-of-humility/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
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title: So Many Religions—What Do We Do?
topic: Christian Living
author: Tim Barnett
date: 06/30/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/so-many-religions-what-do-we-do-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>If you do a Google search, you will quickly learn there are roughly 4000 religions in the world. Most of us are at least aware of the five major world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and the New Age movement.</p>

<p>The existence of so many religions has prompted some to wonder how they should respond. If there are so many, can we actually say that only one is true? Isn’t this an arrogant position to take?</p>

<p>Well, I’m going to tell you what we <em>can’t</em> do. And then I’m going to tell you what we <em>should</em> do!</p>

<h2>What We Can’t Do</h2>

<p>Let’s start with what we <em>can’t</em> do. We can’t say that all religions are <em>true</em>. To illustrate this point in my talks, I get two people from the audience to try to guess what I drive. After receiving two <em>different</em> descriptions of my car, I ask, “Can both descriptions be true?”</p>

<p>Obviously, they cannot both be true since they make <em>contradictory</em> claims. For example, my car cannot be a <em>red Honda Civic</em> and a <em>gray Toyota Prius</em>. Therefore, without even looking at what my actual car looks like, we can say with certainty that both cannot be true. That is, at least one description is wrong. In the same way, all religions cannot be true <em>because they teach contradictory things—they make contradictory truth claims about the world.</em></p>

<h2>What We Should Do</h2>

<p>Here’s what we should do: <em>Test religious claims to see if they correspond with reality. And start with Christianity.</em></p>

<p>In the previous illustration, we were able to say that both beliefs about my car cannot be true. That’s simple logic.</p>

<p>But I think we can say even more than that. We can determine if one religion is actually true. Specifically, we can <em>test</em> to see whether the religion corresponds to reality.</p>

<p>If you want to know if either description about my car is true, then you will need to find out if either claim <em>matches up with reality</em>. In other words, check the parking lot. This is a way of <em>testing</em> to see whether a belief is true or false.</p>

<p>We can test Christianity in the same way. In fact, the apostle Paul <em>challenges</em> you to. Paul boldly states, “And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith”&nbsp;(1 Cor. 15:14).</p>

<p>C. S. Lewis put it this way, “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”</p>

<p>If Christianity is false, it’s of <em>no importance</em> because ultimately we are all still left in our sins without a savior. It doesn’t deliver on its central claim - <em>salvation for whoever believes in Him.</em></p>

<p>But if Christianity is true, it’s <em>infinitely important</em> because it would mean that God - the Creator of the universe—has come to us on a rescue mission. The apostle Paul says, “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”&nbsp;(Rom. 5:8). But how do we know He paid for our sins? God raised Jesus from the dead. Speaking to the Athenians at the Areopagus, Paul says, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed; <em>and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead”</em>&nbsp;(Acts 17:30-31).</p>

<p>An awful lot hinges on the truthfulness of Christianity.</p>

<p>At the end of the day, you will need to explore the evidence for yourself. I can’t do it for you. In University, I went through a season where my faith was challenged. I had to put Christianity to the test. And after years of studying the evidence, I have come to believe that it is <em>really</em> true. My prayer is that you will too.</p>

<p>You can watch my 13-minute talk on this question below.</p>

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title: A View More Troubling Than Pro-Choice
topic: Bioethics
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/06/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/a-view-more-troubling-than-pro-choice
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Most people are familiar with the two traditional positions on abortion: pro-life and pro-choice (I’m not comfortable with these terms, but let’s go with them now for the sake of simplicity). There’s a somewhat in-between view, however, that is troubling. I call it the modified pro-choice position. The person who holds this view believes the unborn is a valuable human being, so they are pro-life in that sense. They still feel, however, that the law should permit women the right to choose an abortion. Their view is expressed by the statement, “I’m personally against abortion, but I don’t think we should make it illegal.”</p>

<p>This is a view that many politicians and, indeed, many Christians hold. When you think about it, though, it’s a disturbing view. In fact, I’d say it’s even more disturbing than the view held by the ardent pro-choice advocate who works at Planned Parenthood. Let me explain why.</p>

<p>When you ask people who hold this view why they are “personally against abortion,”&nbsp;they typically respond with some version of, “Well, I believe life begins at conception,”&nbsp;or “I think abortion kills a baby.”&nbsp;Think carefully about what they’re saying: They think abortion kills a little human baby, but they don’t want a law that makes killing little human babies illegal. Really? Why not? Creating such a law seems like the obvious response.</p>

<p>I know that if you are pro-choice, you’ll say there are many reasons why such a law should not exist. But I’m not talking about pro-choice people who don’t believe the unborn is a valuable human being. To them, the unborn is something else, and therefore killing it would <em>not</em> be tantamount to murder. Even though I vigorously disagree with such people and think they’re horribly misinformed, I can understand why they would favor abortion given their view of the unborn.</p>

<p>I’m talking about pro-life people who believe the unborn is a precious little child, morally equivalent to a four-year-old girl. Why would they not want a law that protects these little girls from having their limbs ripped from their bodies? To believe that such a violent act should be an option to mothers and protected by law is—to me—unfathomable. It’s a more troubling view than to be pro-choice and to defend abortion.</p>

<p>I’m guessing they wouldn’t think this way with any other behavior they personally object to. “I think human trafficking is abusive, exploits women and children, and wrongly treats people like property, but I don’t think we should make it illegal.”&nbsp;What about their objection to rape, kidnapping, and genocide? I’m guessing they wouldn’t give people the freedom to choose those behaviors, but with abortion it’s okay. That’s why the modified pro-choice view is troubling, more troubling than merely being pro-choice.</p>
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title: Good Fathers Are an Apologetic for a Good God
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/20/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/good-fathers-are-an-apologetic-for-a-good-god
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Fathers are a picture of God to their children. That’s what Dr. Scott Keith said to me when I interviewed him <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/interview-scott-keith-being-dad" target="_blank">last week on the STR broadcast</a>. I don’t know about you, but that makes me nervous. Children will develop their view of God in part by their view of Dad. Being a father myself, this is a critical reminder for me.</p>

<p>Dr. Keith’s <a href="https://shop.1517legacy.com/collections/books/products/being-dad" target="_blank">book</a> helped me recognize the importance of emphasizing grace and Gospel over and above law and being authoritarian in my parenting. It also explains how good fathers are an apologetic for a good God. The following paragraph from his book highlights this key point.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Yet the father is by design the point of powerful grace in the house; his absence means that the apologetic picture in the modern house is bleak. Children are created to look to the dad in the house as a picture of God. God is powerful. God is authoritative. God is credible and worthy of trust. God is gracious. God is kind. God forgives. These, too, are the qualities that we apply to a masculine man. The picture is complete. If the father is dismissed as passive and impotent and he is not to be admired, then maybe God is nothing to write home about either. But the reverse is also true: if dad is a foggy picture of God and is good, strong, and gracious, then maybe God is good, strong, gracious, and maybe He cares about me, too. Strong men create strong and gracious fathers who, in turn, serve as an apologetic for a strong and gracious God who loves and saves freely.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>There are no neutral fathers. No matter what, we leave an impression about God to our kids. Check out my <a href="http://www.str.org/podcasts/interview-scott-keith-being-dad" target="_blank">interview</a> with Dr. Scott Keith, or get his <a href="https://shop.1517legacy.com/collections/books/products/being-dad" target="_blank">book</a> to learn more. If you’re a father (or planning to be one), this is important stuff.</p>
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title: 5 Ways to Share Christ with Ease and Impact—Mentoring Letter June 2017
topic: Tactics and Tools
author: Greg Koukl
date: 06/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/5-ways-to-share-christ-with-ease-and-impact-mentoring-letter-june-2017
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Let’s face it. Talking to others about controversial things isn’t easy - and issues like God and Jesus and the Bible and morality and sin and salvation and Heaven and Hell are about as controversial as they come.</p>

<p>I know the concern. You don’t want to get in over your head. You don’t want to come across odd. And you don’t want to get into a fight. I share these same sentiments with you, and these are all noble concerns...unless they secure our silence. If they keep us on the bench, they’ve gotten the best of us, and that’s not good.</p>

<p>Over time I’ve discovered some ways to make the task less troublesome, though. I’ve worked out a few principles I think will make a tough job easier, and I’d like to pass them on to you. The first one is the most important, and you’ve probably heard it from me before, but it bears repeating.</p>

<p>Ask Questions. Lots of them. Your first step in any encounter should be to gather as much information as possible. It’s hard to know <em>how</em> to proceed - or even <em>if</em> to proceed - unless you first get the lay of the land. You need “intel,”&nbsp;so to speak, and friendly queries get it for you.</p>

<p>When you need to buy some time to catch your wits, ask a question. When you face a challenge you’re not sure how to deal with, ask a question. When the conversation bogs down and you think it best to move in a new direction, ask a question. Whenever you’re in doubt about how to move forward, <em>ask a question</em>.</p>

<p>Slow Down and Simplify. On a flight back from the midwest I listened while a Christian brother in the row directly behind me vigorously shared his faith with passengers on either side. I was glad for the effort (my wife and I both were praying for him), and he made some fine points, but his conversation ranged from young-earth creationism to Armageddon. That’s a lot to have to swallow to get to Jesus.</p>

<p>Remember, your goal is to put a stone in his shoe, not a boulder. If controversial issues don’t come up, don’t bring them up. Major in the majors. Don’t try to move too quickly or cover too much ground when tackling tough topics. Take complex concerns step by step and piece by piece. Break them into smaller parts and try to make headway on only one part at a time.</p>

<p>Contextualize. I always look for ways to frame my points in terms of the other person’s interests, discipline, or profession. For example, once when an attorney asked me why he needed Jesus, I used a courtroom scene to make my point. This move made the point more persuasive because he saw it in light of things he already knew or procedures he was already familiar with.</p>

<p>Contextualizing your points by tying your comments or explanations to relevant parts of the other person’s world establishes common ground - and is an important tactical skill of an effective ambassador.</p>

<p>Be Nice. Solomon reminds us of something we already know, but still need to be prodded on...often: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger”&nbsp;(Prov. 15:1). Later he adds, “Sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness”&nbsp;(16:21). Obvious stuff, but easily overlooked. Start out brash and thrashing about, and things will turn sour in the end. Start sweet, though, and you’ll probably end sweet.</p>

<p>Do everything you can, then, to help friends feel comfortable with the process. Don’t get mad. Don’t show frustration. Don’t look annoyed. Keep your cool. The more collected you are, the more confident you’ll appear and the more persuasive you’ll sound.</p>

<p>Trust God. No matter how <em>clever</em> you sound, everything you say will turn to dust if God’s Spirit is not in it. No matter how <em>poorly</em> you think you’ve acquitted yourself, even the most meager effort can turn to gold if God decides to move. Never presume on God either way. Be faithful in the moment, then let God do His part - which is all the rest. I’m not saying you need to “tune in”&nbsp;to the Spirit. Encounters don’t usually work that way. Rather, simply do what you can, then trust in God’s sovereign control.</p>

<p>The very first time I ever shared Christ was less than 24 hours after I’d committed my life to Him. It was a long conversation, I felt entirely inept (I was), my close friends were fuming, and I thought it was a complete wash. It wasn’t. Four years later, out of the blue, I discovered what God had been doing that afternoon, and it was something I never would have guessed. It happens all the time.</p>

<p>And because God is at work in the hearts and minds of people you meet, you need to be ready. That’s why I want to send you my special talk, “<strong>The Columbo Tactic: How to Maneuver with Grace in Any Conversation.</strong>” It gives you a two-step plan you can use to launch spiritual conversations and engage with grace and confidence no matter how aggressive, powerful, or educated your opposition.</p>

<p>It’s the simplest tactic imaginable, but a true game-changer. This talk on CD is my gift to you in warm appreciation for your generous gift this month.</p>

<p>Can I count on <a href="https://store.str.org/donate.asp">your donation today</a> to equip and mobilize more Christian ambassadors like you? Your gracious support is especially needed now as we enter the lean summer months.</p>

<p>Be sure to request “<strong>The Columbo Tactic</strong>” as you make your gift. Your friendship means the world to me...and is making a real difference in the lives of many.</p>

<p>On your team,</p>

<p>Gregory Koukl</p>
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title: Don’t Make This Mistake as an Apologist
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/14/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/don-t-make-this-mistake-as-an-apologist
content:
            <div> 
		<p>What Michael Ots has to say to apologists in this video is so important.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>I think one mistake that apologists can make is that we can be so busy explaining the <em>truth</em> of the Gospel, we can lose sight of the wonder of the Gospel...</p>

<p>An apologetics talk shouldn’t simply be about dismantling people’s objections, but there should be a positive attraction to the person of Jesus that comes through it...</p>

<p>As apologists, let’s soak ourselves in Scripture, let’s remind ourselves afresh daily of what Christ has done for us, and then let’s seek in all that we do to be commending Christ to others.</p>
</blockquote>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="87U9CFQ7E" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/87U9CFQ7E?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>

<p>I wholeheartedly agree. As I wrote <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/do-you-convey-sense-your-love-jesus-your-apologetics#.WUDfkRMrJR0">last year</a>, “Our goal ought to be to immerse ourselves in Jesus so well and so often that His love and grace can’t help but come out of us as part of our apologetic arguments.”&nbsp;We all need to spend more time thinking about the beauty of Jesus and His Gospel. To that end, I recently read <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Deeps-Reveling-Excellencies-Jesus/dp/1433526409/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1497423587&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=gospel+deeps" target="_blank">Gospel Deeps: Reveling in the Excellencies of Jesus</a></em> by Jared Wilson, and I recommend it very highly to you. Here’s what Wilson reminds us:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>To study the gospel, then, in all its wonders and effects, is to better see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”&nbsp;(2 Cor. 4:6). This is all that we might love him. That we might know his love and love him.</p>
</blockquote>
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title: Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia
topic: Christian Living
author: Melinda Penner
date: 06/12/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/anniversary-of-loving-v-virginia
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Today marks the 50-year anniversary of an important case decided by the Supreme Court. Loving v. Virginia was a case brought by an interracial couple against the state of Virginia for the law banning interracial marriage. This is a decision worth commemorating because it was one more step in banning unjust laws that discriminated against people based on race.</p>

<p>All people are created in God’s image, and race and skin color is an immutable, non-moral characteristic that doesn’t diminish that intrinsic value. Our laws must reflect that and uphold equality and justice.</p>

<p>In recent years, though, Loving v. Virginia has been used to support same-sex marriage. The rationale places race and sexuality on the same legal and moral footing. Frank Beckwith makes an excellent point in this <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/05/1324" target="_blank">legal analysis</a> that refutes the parallel being drawn between banning interracial marriage and same-sex marriage. The parallel, of course, trades on the obvious offense of the former in our history and the sense of fair play and equal rights that good people cherish. But the parallel drawn is a false one, though there is a parallel that actually works <em>against</em> the proponents of same-sex marriage.</p>

<p>Proponents of same-sex marriage claimed that legal efforts to clarify the definition of marriage was a ban on same-sex marriage, but that wasn’t the case at all. A ban requires something already be in effect, have a history of practice. Same-sex marriage wasn’t being banned, and that’s a significant difference with the supposed parallel with interracial marriage. That was a ban in fact.</p>

<p>Legal restrictions against interracial marriage was a revision to millennia of human history. Race had never been part of the definition of marriage, so the efforts to ban it were revisionistic, not an effort to conserve and protect marriage as an institution. Of course, same-sex marriage is also revisionistic, overthrowing the definition of marriage for all of human history. And this is, ironically, the actual parallel between the two.</p>

<p>Opponents of same-sex marriage weren’t seeking to ban any practice of common law well-established in human history, such as was the case in banning interracial marriage. It was a revision of current law, just as the efforts to legalize same-sex marriage were revisionistic and revolutionary. In both cases, those that sought to protect the institution of marriage from revision were consistent in the efforts to keep marriage from being fundamentally changed, to maintain a definition well-established in law.</p>

<p>So there is a parallel between the two, but not the one advocates of same-sex marriage think there is. The parallel isn’t in their favor because the two efforts compare in their efforts to <em>change</em> the institution of marriage. Based on that legal parallel, it actually illustrates how revolutionary and, frankly, cavalier such efforts were to fundamentally redefine an institution that has served humanity and society very well since the dawn of human history.</p>

<p>All human beings, no matter their race or sexuality are intrinsically valuable, created in God’s image, deserving of respect and justice. The question is what justice requires in regard to marriage. Since the parallel between interracial and same-sex marriage fails, treating people justly doesn’t require granting marriage rights to same-sex couples as it does interracial couples. Justice requires treating equals equally, and in this case the <em>couples</em> just aren’t equal in a legal way. Saying that justice doesn’t require us to treat all couples equally does not undermine in the least bit affirming the full equality and value of all people who deserve equal protection and justice under the law as individuals.</p>
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title: Albania’s Hope Is the Gospel
topic: Arts and Culture
author: Alan Shlemon
date: 06/08/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/albania-s-hope-is-the-gospel-1
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s been said that a man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air...but only one second without hope. Having just spent the week in Albania, I was saddened to hear that many young Albanians lack hope. Their country is reeling from the effects of communism, jobs are scarce, and their prospects for a prosperous future, even with a college education, are slim.</p>

<p>The Church faces its own challenges there. Albania became the world’s first atheist country shortly after communists took control of it post World War II. It wasn’t until 1991, when communism fell, that its people were free to express their religious identities. As a result, the evangelical church in Albania is only 25 years old. It’s estimated there are less than 15,000 Protestant Christians in the entire country (although there are also Catholics and Orthodox Christians).</p>

<p>Surprisingly, the church where I preached, one of the largest churches in the capital of Tirana, is composed primarily of Albanians in their 20s and 30s. There are believers in their 40s and older, but they are the minority. The body of Christ is extremely young in this country.</p>

<p>That also means the opportunity for the Gospel is great. Of the 3 million Albanians in the country, approximately 70% of them are Muslim, 20% Orthodox, and another 10% Catholic. The majority of these groups, though, are nominal. The country is mostly secular. Faithful Muslims and Christians are uncommon in Albania. The Church has a lot of room to grow.</p>

<p>It’s not just Christians who are looking to transform the country, though. Muslims from Turkey also have their sights set on Albania. Having ruled the land for 500 years under the Ottoman Empire, Turks are eager to revitalize the largely nominal Muslim population. Each day I walked through downtown Tirana, I passed by a huge mosque that was under construction, funded by Turkey. It’s situated in the heart of the city, next door to the Albanian Parliament. Once it’s completed, it will be the largest mosque in the Balkans. Muslims hope to breathe an Islamic spirit into the largely secular state.</p>

<p>My hope, however, is for the Gospel to transform individual Albanians. If individual Albanians are changed in this way, it can affect the moral fabric of the culture and result in better politicians, lawmakers, businesses, and society in general. Not only can these changes give young men and women hope for a more prosperous future, but it can also promote freedom and a better chance for the Gospel to thrive.</p>

<p>My opportunity to serve in Albania arose through a local Albanian Christian who is extremely well networked in the country. Because of his contacts, I could teach theology and apologetics each day I was there. I spoke at both university campus groups and church groups (including delivering Sunday’s sermon).</p>

<p>Not only was I able to teach Albanian believers, but I also had the chance to engage many non-Christians that regularly attend campus meetings. Nominal Christians, nominal Muslims, skeptics, and atheists all came and were willing to challenge me with questions.</p>

<p>It was an excellent time of ministry as well as learning for me. My trip helped me get a firsthand glimpse of the impact of communism and state-sponsored atheism. Most importantly, though, I could better understand Albania, the people, and the challenges believers face in making disciples in their country.</p>

<p>It reminded me of Paul’s epistle to the Roman church where he writes, “So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ” (Rom. 15:19). The region of Illyricum includes the modern region of Albania. Paul continues, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known…” (Rom. 15:20). There’s no question there are many places in Albania where Christ is not known, so it was a privilege to present the Gospel, teach theology and apologetics, and engage seekers in that country. I’m always humbled by these small opportunities God gives me to participate in His grand plan.</p>

<p>May God continue to make His name known among the nations and may we be faithful to allow Him to use us in His plan.</p>
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title: Our Pain Has Meaning
topic: Christian Living
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/23/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/our-pain-has-meaning
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Greg Koukl, Peter Kreeft, and Joni Eareckson Tada all appear in this short film on suffering. Joni, who was paralyzed in a diving accident at the age of 17, has this to say about her suffering over the decades:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>There are a lot of people who think I’m a strong person, and I’m not. I am such a weak person...But when I start to feel overwhelmed, I’ll say, “Oh God, I have no strength for this day, but you do. I have no resources, but you do. May I please have your resources? May I please have your strength? I can do all things through you if you strengthen me. Please let me borrow your smile for the day.”&nbsp;And honestly, before the morning has hardly begun, I’ve already got a perspective on the day. I’ve already got peace in my heart and a mission to accomplish. And it’s because I’ve been pushed up against God, and God has shown me some deep things about His purpose and Himself that, for me, are so satisfying, so pleasurable, I wouldn’t trade the wheelchair for <em>anything</em>...</p>

<p>God is a God of intention. He’s got a purpose, a meaning, and everything He puts His hand to is brimming with intention and meaning. So we can rest assured that although the purposes for suffering might be hidden from us in this present life, His reasons are always wise, they’re always specific, and they’re always good.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>For now, we trust that He does have <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/if-god-good-why-there-evil-and-suffering#.WUsB5xMrJR0" target="_blank">reasons</a>. We trust because He has proven Himself to be <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/the-gospel%E2%80%99s-answer-to-the-problem-of-evil#.WUrx_BMrJR0" target="_blank">trustworthy</a>. That doesn’t erase the pain, but it does give it meaning, even if we never discover the particular <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/don%E2%80%99t-trust-god-to-protect-you-from-pain#.WUrxvxMrJR0" target="_blank">purpose</a> of a particular pain in this life. We trust for now, and we look forward to the day when seeing Him face-to-face brings an end to all our suffering.</p>

<p>I’ve always been in awe of people like Joni Eareckson Tada. What must she know about God through her suffering that would cause her to say she wouldn’t trade her wheelchair for <em>anything</em>? That is the God I want to know.</p>

<div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9" data-embed-id="ST8mxrOpYuM" data-styles="{&quot;width&quot;:&quot;100%&quot;}" style="width:100%"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" class="embed-responsive-item" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ST8mxrOpYuM?rel=0" tabindex="0"></iframe></div>
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title: Two Theological Misunderstandings behind Objections to Deathbed Conversions
topic: Theology
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/21/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/two-theological-misunderstandings-behind-objections-to-deathbed-conversions
content:
            <div> 
		<p>I’m sure you’ve heard an objection like this before: “According to Christianity, a person can live a horrible life—cheating, stealing, whatever—but then if he trusts in Jesus right before he dies, he goes straight to heaven. How is that fair?”&nbsp;I think there are two serious misunderstandings of Christianity behind this objection, and if you’re aware of those misunderstandings, the objection can serve as an excellent opportunity to explain the Christian view of God and the Gospel.</p>

<p>First, think about what’s driving this objection: A person whose life turns around as a Christian at age 15 will then spend the next 70 years doing good, but what does the deathbed convert have to show for himself? He has done <em>nothing</em> to make up for his sin! Hence, the unfairness—the second guy certainly does not deserve to receive anything from God. Do you see the theological misunderstanding yet? In terms of paying for your sins, there really is no difference between becoming a Christian at the age of 20 and becoming a Christian right before your death—in <em>neither</em> case do you “make up for your sins.”&nbsp;In <em>neither</em> case do you deserve anything from God. There’s a theology of works standing squarely behind this objection, but the truth is that the first man is saved by grace alone, just as the second man is. The first man’s salvation is as much of a scandal as the second man’s—unpaid for (by the man) and undeserved. It’s just that the second man’s case makes it absolutely clear to everyone that salvation is by the sacrifice and merits of Christ alone, not by our works—that is, it clarifies the <em>Gospel</em>, which is why it causes people to object.</p>

<p>Between the two men, it might even be the case that the deathbed convert would understand and appreciate God’s grace <em>better</em> as a result of having a more accurate understanding of who is responsible for his salvation than the man who is tempted (as we all are) to think his 70 years of service earned him something. As Jesus said to the Pharisees who were disgusted by a repentant sinner who kissed Jesus’&nbsp;feet, the better we understand God’s forgiveness, the better we will love Him:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?”&nbsp;Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”&nbsp;And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.”&nbsp;Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+7%3A41-47&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Luke 7:41-47</a>)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Second, I strongly suspect there’s an assumption lurking in the background of this objection that the profligate life is the <em>better</em> life—i.e., the deathbed convert pulls one over on God by enjoying whatever he wants in life until the very last minute, while the guy who reins in his sin to follow God’s commands is a sucker who misses out on fulfilling his desires—and all for nothing, for he too could have waited until the last minute in order to have it all.</p>

<p>But here again is a misunderstanding—the same misunderstanding we see expressed in Jesus’&nbsp;parable by both the prodigal son (when he leaves his father’s home) and the older brother (when he resents the prodigal son’s return):</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“But [the older brother] became angry...and said to his father, ’Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’&nbsp;And he said to him, ’Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”&nbsp;(<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15%3A11-32&amp;version=NASB" target="_blank">Luke 15:28-32</a>)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Both the younger and the older brother thought life with their father consisted of rule-following drudgery. The younger brother rejected the rules and sought a “better”&nbsp;life of following his desires. The older brother begrudgingly focused on earning points with his father. They both missed the truth that real joy lay in being with their father and receiving his love: “Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.”</p>

<p>Those who are concerned that the deathbed convert is pulling a fast one by sinning as much as he likes and getting everything he wants, and that the seasoned Christian is missing out on the “fun”&nbsp;of sin as he slaves away in obedience, miss the fact that <em>real joy lies in living a life with God</em>. The deathbed convert is the one who has missed out, not the seasoned Christian. He has missed out on an entire life of peace with God, of getting to know Him, of enjoying Him, of seeing the proof of His wisdom and love through obedience, of avoiding the pain that results from sin, of the freedom of having his guilt removed, of deepening his own soul through the spiritual means God has provided. The seasoned Christian rejoices that the deathbed convert has joined him under God’s astonishingly beautiful grace, but he does not envy him.</p>

<p>Ultimately, the objection to deathbed conversions reflects both a theology of salvation by works and a belief that a life of Christian obedience is a substandard life of drudgery under a joyless taskmaster. Put those two misunderstandings together, and becoming a Christian must look to the objector like a grim prospect indeed. What an opportunity to explain to him our absolute need for grace and the truth that God is a loving Father!</p>
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title: Can We Stop Saying Hitler Was a Christian Now?
topic: Other Worldviews
author: Amy K. Hall
date: 06/16/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/can-we-stop-saying-hitler-was-a-christian-now-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>A new book titled <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Monsters-Supernatural-History-Third/dp/0300189451/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=1497574640&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich</a></em> details the occult practices and pagan worldview of the Nazis. From a <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/did-hitlers-obsession-with-the-occult-lose-him-the-war/" target="_blank">review</a> in <em>The Spectator</em>:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Professor Kurlander traces supernatural belief in Nazi Germany to the counter-cultural, mystical theories which abounded in <em>fin-de-siècle</em> Austria and Weimar Germany. Helena Blavatsky’s Great White Brotherhood of hidden Mahatmas in Tibet, and Rudolf Steiner’s theories of anthroposophy and bio-dynamic blood and soil agriculture were two such strands.</p>

<p>Central to the Nazis’&nbsp;mystical beliefs was World Ice Theory, propounded in the 1912 book <em>Glacial Cosmogony</em> by Hanns Hörbiger. This held that white ’Aryan’&nbsp;man was not descended from the apes, as were other inferior races, but rather came from ’divine sperma’&nbsp;brought to earth by meteors. These developed into the godlike Supermen of the ancient civilisation of Atlantis-Thule which employed parapsychology and mystical electricity ’like Thor’s hammer’. Atlantis was destroyed by ’icy moons’&nbsp;crashing into earth, and refugee Supermen established Buddhism and Hinduism in Tibet and the Himalayas and Shintoism in Japan. Jesus Christ was a White ’Aryan’&nbsp;of Atlantean descent, as were the Knights Templar and the Cathars, who held the mysteries of ancient Thule in the Holy Grail. The white Supermen were locked in a struggle for mastery with the ape-like ’Tschandala’&nbsp;or ’monstrous humanoids’—Jews, Slavs, blacks and ’mongrel breeds’.</p>

<p>This overtly racist worldview was believed in by Hitler, Hess, Himmler and other senior Nazis...[World Ice Theory] also justified genocide, horrific medical experiments and mass population displacements, and convinced Hitler that ’Nordics’&nbsp;could tolerate cold better than ’Slavs’, with dire results at Stalingrad. Himmler wasted much time and money on research into magic rays which he hoped would find oil and gold in the Rhine.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Read the rest of the <a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/did-hitlers-obsession-with-the-occult-lose-him-the-war/" target="_blank">article</a> for more details on the occult practices the Nazis thought would help them win the war. Clearly, the Nazis were not operating under a Christian worldview.</p>
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title: How Aristotle Can Help Christian Morality, Part 3
topic: Philosophy
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 06/01/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-3-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Christian ethics ought to appropriate Aristotle’s eudaimonistic resources into its ethical project (see <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-1#.WSiSmBMrJR0">Part 1</a> and <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-2#.WSiZYRMrJR0">Part 2</a> of this series). With C.S. Lewis as our guide, let’s explore what this might look like.</p>

<p>First, eudaimonism (i.e., the classical view of happiness) can help us return to the positive biblical vision of human flourishing grounded in God Himself. Lewis explains our contemporary problem in the opening lines of his essay “The Weight of Glory”:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>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.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Happiness, as commonly construed today, is highly counter-intuitive to Christian ethics. The insights of ethical eudiamonism can help in returning to a biblical view of happiness. As Lewis states, “If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics <em>and is no part of the Christian faith”</em>&nbsp;(emphasis mine).<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>Secondly, eudaimonism can counter-balance an overemphasis on deontological ethical theory. Christianity has been influenced by modern moral philosophy (Kant in particular) with its emphasis on actions and rules and little importance given to virtue. Much of the motivation for Christian ethics can be summed up by that impervious Christian bumper sticker which boldly proclaims, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.”&nbsp;Thus, the focus is almost entirely on doing the right thing instead of being a good person.</p>

<p>However, Lewis counters such thought, stating, “We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> By and large, Christians have lost an understanding of what virtue is and how it is attained. Yet, this is central to ethical eudaimonism. According to Lewis, “right actions done for the wrong reason do not help to build the internal quality or character called a ’virtue,’&nbsp;and it is this quality or character that really matters.”<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> Eudaimonism, with its emphasis on virtue and character, can assist Christian ethics in reasserting the spiritual disciplines to a place of prominence in order to cultivate good people.</p>

<p>For these reasons, Christian ethics ought to appropriate eudaimonistic resources into its ethical project. In doing so, Christians will be able to offer a more compelling vision of the moral life that is also more faithful to the biblical witness. And the church can cultivate men and women with such rich character, whose very lives point powerfully to the source of all goodness, God Himself.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">C. S. Lewis, <em>The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses</em> (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2001), 25. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Ibid., 26. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">C.S. Lewis, <em>Mere Christianity</em>, 77. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Ibid., 77. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: How Aristotle Can Help Christian Morality, Part 2
topic: Philosophy
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 05/31/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-2-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>In this post (see Part 1 <a href="http://www.str.org/blog/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-1#.WSiSmBMrJR0">here</a>), I want to answer the question, “Is ethical eudaimonism (i.e., the classical view of happiness) compatible with Christian ethics?”&nbsp;First we must ask what it means for two views to be compatible. Compatible does not mean the entire set of propositions found in one view must be logically consistent with the entire set of propositions in another. Two views are compatible if there is enough commonality that would enable one view to appropriate core aspects of a second into its own view. In other words, two views may be different yet not contain fatal contradictions amongst their central claims, making them mutually inconsistent.</p>

<p>This is what we find with ethical eudaimonism and Christian ethics. Indeed, two central components of eudaimonism seem to fit nicely within a Christian ethical framework: 1) <em>eudaimonia</em> as the ultimate end of man, and 2) virtue as a primary constituent of <em>eudaimonia</em>. Let's examine the compatibility of each component with the biblical view.</p>

<p>An examination of the Old and New Testaments provides us with a striking parallel to the notion of <em>eudaimomia</em>. In the Old Testament, we find prophet after prophet warning the people of Israel how life can go wrong. In contrast, they use the word <em>shalom</em> to indicate how life is supposed to be, a life that is flourishing. Cornelius Plantinga captures the Old Testament meaning of <em>shalom</em> beautifully:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets call <em>shalom</em>. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or a cease-fire between enemies. In the Bible, shalom means <em>universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight</em>...Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be. [Emphasis in the original.]<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>This theme is echoed throughout the Old Testament. Listen to the Psalmist:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he mediates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season. (Psalm 1:1-3)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Certainly, we cannot miss the eudaimonistic appeal of the Old Testament writers. “In sum, <em>shalom</em> is God’s design for creation and redemption.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>

<p>The New Testament continues to paint this eudaimonistic picture. The Sermon on the Mount is rich with eudaimonistic language, as Jesus examines the question of which life is the good life. In the Beatitudes, the Greek term used for “blessed”&nbsp;is <em>makarios</em>, which “is virtually synonymous with <em>eudaimonia</em>, and was used as such by Aristotle and the ancient eudaimonists.”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup> According to Jesus, “blessedness,”&nbsp;the goal of Christian ethics, is human flourishing.</p>

<p>Of course, flourishing, for the Christian, is essentially connected to God. Indeed, God Himself is the ultimate ground of human flourishing. As the Psalmist says, “God is my good”&nbsp;(73:28). He is our highest good, our ultimate end. The Early Church Fathers, eudaimonists themselves, wrote eloquently of this “beatific vision”&nbsp;of God. Augustine states:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>[God] himself is the fountain of our happiness; he himself is the end of all of our longing. In choosing him, or rather, since we had lost him through neglect, in re-choosing him...we strive toward him by love, so that by attaining him we might rest, happy because we are perfected by him who is our end. <em>Thus, our good, the end which is extensively disputed among the philosophers, is nothing other than to cling to him</em>. [Emphasis mine.]<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>The second area of compatibility is the conception of virtue found in ethical eudaimonism. Again, an examination of the Scriptures reveals a biblical parallel. Returning to the Sermon on the Mount, we find Jesus not only giving an account of what is the good life but also who is the good person. According to Jesus, the good person is the virtuous person. Just as the biblical Greek term <em>makarios</em> mirrors <em>eudaimonia</em>, the biblical Greek term <em>dikaiosune</em>, which Jesus uses to describe the good person, is almost identical to <em>aretê</em>, the word the ancients used for virtue. Dallas Willard offers a paraphrased translation of <em>dikaiosune</em>: “what that is about a person that makes him or her really right or good.”<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup> This seems to capture both ancient and contemporary notions of virtue quite well.</p>

<p>On a eudaimonistic view, how does one become good or virtuous? Virtue is habituated. One’s goodness is the sum total of appropriate habits. Right habits establish right character. In Christian ethics this is the role of the spiritual disciplines. As Paul states, “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness”&nbsp;(I Timothy 4:7). Willard explains:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>The disciplines are activities of mind and body purposefully undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself, as we “yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God,”&nbsp;as Romans 6:13 puts it.<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>Thus, spiritual disciplines, such as study, fasting, and prayer,<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup> are the Christian means to developing a life of virtue or righteousness. Again, eudaimonism finds compatibility with Christian ethics.</p>

<p>While ethical eudaimonism and biblical ethics are compatible, on my view the latter seems to offer a more robust ethic. Therefore, it is preferable. Let me briefly enumerate my reasons here.</p>

<p>First, Christianity offers a more plausible account of the grounding of ethics. Properly moral systems must be adequately grounded. Eudaimonism is grounded in human nature (Aristotle) or in the agent’s relevant community or tradition (contemporary eudaimonists). Thus, we have a very different account from the Biblical picture, which begins not with man but with God. According to the biblical view, ethics is grounded in the nature and will of God. Goodness is an essential property of God, and thus God provides us with the proper grounding of morality.<sup id="fnref:8"><a href="#fn:8">8</a></sup></p>

<p>Secondly, Christian ethics makes better sense of objective moral obligations. It seems that moral obligations are the kind of thing owed to persons. Moral rules are personal commands that imply a proper authority which provides such commands. God seems to be the proper authority for moral rules, as He is the only morally perfect being.</p>

<p>Thirdly, Christian ethics seems to better account for the deontological elements necessary for a properly moral system. Not only does a Christian ethic provide an account of virtue and moral goodness, but it also offers clear moral guidance in the form of moral rules, like those found in the Ten Commandments.</p>

<p>In the next and final post, we’ll tie this all together.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Cornelius Plantinga, <em>Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 10. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2">Ibid., 16. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3">David Horner, “The Pursuit of Happiness: Why Christian Ethics Should Be Eudaimonistic”&nbsp;(an unpublished paper delivered at the 2003 Evangelical Theological Society’s annual meeting), 33. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4">Augustine, <em>City of God</em>, X.3, in <em>Political Writings</em> (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1994), 73. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5">Dallas Willard, <em>The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Live in God</em> (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1998), 145. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6">Dallas Willard, <em>The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives</em> (San Francisco: Harper &amp; Row, 1988), 68. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7">See Willard’s book, <em>The Spirit of the Disciplines</em>, for a thorough treatment of the spiritual disciplines. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:8">For further discussion of the grounding question, particularly in relation to an argument for God’s existence, see C.S. Lewis’&nbsp;book entitled <em>Mere Christianity</em> (New York: Simon &amp; Schuster, 1980) or J.P. Moreland’s book entitled <em>Scaling the Secular City</em> (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), particularly chapter 4. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:8">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: Responding to Pride Month with Genuine Love
topic: Sexuality and Gender
author: Tim Barnett
date: 06/21/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/responding-to-pride-month-with-genuine-love
content:
            <div> 
		<p>It’s LGBT pride month. As I write, there are LGBT pride parades and other festivities happening across North America and abroad. And every year more and more people are joining the celebration. In fact, many Christians and whole church congregations are using this as an opportunity to demonstrate their <em>love</em> for the LGBT community.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, most people in our society—including some Christians—are confused about genuine love. They conflate acceptance and affirmation with love. Therefore, the people who <em>do not</em> affirm LGBT values are, by definition, unloving. But this is clearly mistaken.</p>

<p>It is possible to truly love someone, but <em>not</em> accept and affirm their ideas or behavior. We do this all the time. We all have friends and family members that we love dearly even though we disagree with—and even oppose—their behavior or ideas.</p>

<p>Let me give a very personal example. A friend of mine is in the midst of divorcing his wife. His actions are having detrimental effects on his wife and young daughter. I think what he’s doing is wrong; therefore, I cannot support it. However, some people in his life are supporting—and even celebrating—his decision.</p>

<p>Does it follow that because I don’t affirm his actions, I don’t love him? I don’t think so. In fact, it is precisely <em>because</em> I love him and his family that I cannot affirm his decision.</p>

<p>We are called to love our neighbor—including my LGBT neighbor. This isn’t a mere toleration of the person. No, this is genuine, heartfelt love. The kind of love that is kind and gentle, not arrogant or rude.</p>

<p>We should be the first to defend the LGBT community against mistreatment, abuse, and unjust discrimination. <em>Every</em> member of the LGBT community is made in the image of God. Therefore, each one is intrinsically valuable and should be treated with the utmost dignity and respect. Anything less is wicked.</p>

<p>Shame on anyone who professes to be a Christian but gives the impression—by their words and actions—that God doesn’t love those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. Let me say unequivocally that God loves them. In fact, He died for them.</p>

<p>So, what does <em>genuine</em> love look like?</p>

<h2>Love by Abhorring What Is Evil</h2>

<p>Writing to the Church in Rome, Paul says, “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor”&nbsp;(Rom. 12:9-10). Please don’t miss what Paul does here. Right in the middle of describing what <em>genuine</em> love looks like, he inserts a crucial command: abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good.</p>

<p>At first read, this insertion may seem out of place. It isn’t. We need to be reminded—even commanded—that genuine love doesn’t merely affirm or celebrate wrongdoing. We all have the inclination to <em>accept</em> sin rather than <em>abhor</em> it. And it’s that acceptance that is wrongly championed as love.</p>

<p>For example, the Corinthian Christians were proud of their acceptance of a couple engaging in sexual sin. They didn’t abhor this sinful behavior; they accepted it. More than that, they were boasting in their tolerance (1 Cor. 5:6).</p>

<p>Does this sound familiar? It should. This is the stance of many churches today.</p>

<p>Now notice Paul’s response. When he discovered their sexual immorality, he didn’t <em>accept</em> it; he <em>abhorred</em> it. Paul writes, “For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already <em>pronounced judgment</em> on the one who did such a thing”&nbsp;(1 Cor. 5:3). And what was his motivation? He did this so that they might “be saved in the day of the Lord”&nbsp;(1 Cor. 5:5). Paul modeled <em>genuine</em> love in the context of making a right judgment.<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>Paul reiterates this point to the Corinthians a few chapters later. He says. “Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth (1 Cor. 13:6). Genuine love should never <em>celebrate</em> wrongdoing. It doesn’t go to parades for wrongdoing. It doesn’t wave flags, and shout and cheer at wrongdoing. On the contrary, it recoils and mourns at wrongdoing.</p>

<h2>Love by Holding Fast to What Is Good</h2>

<p>True love doesn’t support and celebrate wickedness. Rather, it holds fast to what is good. This is not an easy thing to do. The culture is working hard to pull you away from what is good. And it won’t stop at mere acceptance of evil. No, the culture demands that you celebrate it. And if you don’t, ironically, you will be called unloving and bigoted.</p>

<p>There is a price to be paid for standing for what is good, beautiful, and true. But there is <em>also</em> a reward. The apostle Peter says,</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. (1 Pet. 4:12-14)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>In a world marred by sin, it will always be unpopular to abhor evil and hold fast to what is good. But this is what genuine love demands. Anything less is a counterfeit love because it communicates to the world that sin isn’t a problem and that repentance isn’t necessary.</p>

<p>This month, while the world celebrates LGBT Pride, choose to love your LGBT neighbor by being a light to the world. As an act of love, do something kind for them. Invite them over for dinner. Treat them to a movie or sports event. Laugh together. Spend time getting to know each other. But don’t compromise your convictions.</p>

<p>Jesus modeled this best.</p>

<h2><strong>W</strong>hat Did Jesus Do?</h2>

<p>Jesus loved sinners. This is good news because we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Quite often Jesus would spend time hanging out with sinners, but He always called them to repentance.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”&nbsp;But when He heard it, He said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ’I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’&nbsp;For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”&nbsp;(Matthew 9:10-13)</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Jesus—the most loving person that ever lived—did not affirm people in their sin. Instead, He called people He loved to turn from their sin. Jesus loves us just <em>as we are</em>. But He doesn’t want to leave us <em>where we are</em>. He wants us—all of us—to repent. This is how genuine love works.</p>

<p>Sometimes we need to be reminded about simple, spiritual, bedrock truths. When you feel the world’s pull, remind yourself to abhor what is evil, cling to what is good, and then go out into the world and model Jesus.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">I realize that this text is specifically concerning believers. But the principle that sincere love does not affirm or celebrate sin applies universally.<a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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title: How Aristotle Can Help Christian Morality, Part 1
topic: Philosophy
author: Brett Kunkle
date: 05/30/2017
source: https://www.str.org/w/how-aristotle-can-help-christian-morality-part-1-
content:
            <div> 
		<p>Where is the moral depth in the contemporary evangelical church? Have you ever looked around at the church, pastoral leadership, or even your own life and wondered why they seem to look so different morally from the first-century church and early Christians? Why is it that contemporary Christian thought on ethics and morality seems so thin? In the next few blog posts, I’d like to examine some ancient discussion on virtue and see if there are insights to help the church recapture a richer and fuller vision for our moral life. Given the utter brokenness of the morality of American culture, the church has a tremendous opportunity to lead the culture forward in thinking morally and living life well. So, let’s start with an ancient ethicist, Aristotle.</p>

<p>According to Aristotle, man is a rational agent and his actions are always done for particular reasons. We act purposefully. Thus, for Aristotle, all human activity is directed toward some end (<em>telos</em>) and seems to seek some good. Aristotle’s observation of the teleological structure of rational human action (<em>praxis</em>) serves as a vital step in the development of his ethical view.</p>

<p>For Aristotle, the logic of teleology seems to be pushing us toward some ultimate end that is “complete without qualification.”&nbsp;Why? If there is no ultimate good that grounds all other goods, then our inferential chain suffers from an infinite regress of goods. In her book <em>The Morality of Happiness</em>, Julia Annas concurs: “[A] single final end is what is required to make sense of a single life as a whole. Once I start reflecting on my ends, the thought goes, there is nowhere to stop until I reach the end which my life as a whole is aimed at reaching.”<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1">1</a></sup></p>

<p>Aristotle describes the ultimate end, the <em>summum bonum</em>, that all of human activity is aimed toward:</p>

<blockquote>
<p>“Now happiness, more than anything else, seems complete without qualification. For we always choose it because of itself, never because of something else. Honor, pleasure, understanding, and every virtue we certainly choose because of themselves, since we would choose each of them even if it had no further result; but we also choose them for the sake of happiness, supposing that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, by contrast, no one ever chooses for their sake, or for the sake of anything else at all.”<sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2">2</a></sup></p>
</blockquote>

<p>In contrast to contemporary notions of happiness as mere pleasure, the classical view of happiness (<em>eudaimonia</em>) was a rich concept equivalent to the idea of “human flourishing”&nbsp;or “the good life.”&nbsp;Aristotle observes that happiness is the one end for which there is no other end beyond it. Therefore, on his view, happiness is the proper end of all human action.</p>

<p>But how does one bring about happiness or human flourishing? What is required to achieve <em>eudaimonia</em>? Aristotle argues that the cultivation and exercise of virtue (<em>arête</em>) is central to achieving <em>eudaimonia</em>. In the <em>Nichomachean Ethics</em> he states that “the human good proves to be activity of the soul in accord with virtue...”<sup id="fnref:3"><a href="#fn:3">3</a></sup></p>

<p>According to Aristotle, a virtue is a habituated disposition to act. Therefore, we acquire virtues by practicing virtuous acts. “We become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions.”<sup id="fnref:4"><a href="#fn:4">4</a></sup> After the virtues have been “habituated”&nbsp;through practice they become settled dispositions in the soul of the doer.</p>

<p>Aristotle contrasts the virtuous person with the <em>enkratic</em> person. Such an individual may do the virtuous thing but it is not the result of having a stable disposition of character. In a sense, they just “happen to get it right.”&nbsp;However, their actions lack the intentional nature of a truly virtuous act done by a truly virtuous person.<sup id="fnref:5"><a href="#fn:5">5</a></sup></p>

<p>Moreover, virtue is not only right action flowing from a habituated disposition. Aristotle argues that true virtue entails an affective aspect, as well. There is an appropriate attitude and motivation that accompanies right action. The virtuous person loves the good and thus, the virtuous act is done for its own sake.</p>

<p>Furthermore, Aristotle fills in this account of the role of virtue with his doctrine of the mean. According to Aristotle, the morally virtuous life is moderated by “the Golden Mean.”&nbsp;In other words, virtue “is a mean between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.”<sup id="fnref:6"><a href="#fn:6">6</a></sup> The mean balances virtue between two extremes. For instance, when we examine the virtue of courage we come to see that it is balanced between the appropriate feelings of fear and confidence. Too much confidence leads to rash action, yet too much fear leads to cowardice. The individual who has attained the virtue of courage avoids both vices when he experiences the appropriate amount of fear or confidence in a particular situation. Figure 1.1 lists several examples of virtues and their corresponding vices in excess and deficiency.</p>

<h6>Figure 1.1 Virtues and Corresponding Vices According to Aristotle</h6>

<table class="table" style="margin-bottom: 1rem;">
	<thead>
		<tr>
			<th scope="col">Activity</th>
			<th scope="col">Vice—Deficiency</th>
			<th scope="col">Virtue—Mean</th>
			<th scope="col">Vice—Excess</th>
		</tr>
	</thead>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td><strong>Facing loss or death</strong></td>
			<td>Cowardice</td>
			<td>Courage</td>
			<td>Rashness</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td><strong>Bodily appetites or pleasures</strong></td>
			<td>Insensibility</td>
			<td>Temperance</td>
			<td>Intemperance</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td><strong>Giving money</strong></td>
			<td>Stinginess</td>
			<td>Generosity</td>
			<td>Extravagance</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td><strong>Retribution for wrong</strong></td>
			<td>Injustice</td>
			<td>Justice</td>
			<td>Revenge</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

<p>Although virtue for Aristotle is necessary for achieving happiness, it is not sufficient. He states that “it seems possible for someone to possess virtue but be asleep or inactive throughout his life, and, moreover, to suffer the worst evils and misfortunes. If this is the sort of life he leads, no one would count him happy, except to defend a philosopher’s paradox.”<sup id="fnref:7"><a href="#fn:7">7</a></sup></p>

<p>Furthermore, Aristotle observes that some of the goods we come to possess are the result of good fortune. They simply do not come to us as a consequence of virtue. However, once we are in possession of these goods our character will determine whether we put them to good use or not. In addition, when misfortune strikes, virtuous character will enable us to prosper even under such conditions. Thus, even though it is not sufficient for <em>eudaimonia</em>, moral virtue remains necessary to human flourishing.</p>

<p>The strength of Aristotle’s ethical view is its concern with moral character. In the next post, we’ll see how Christianity is compatible with Aristotle’s insights and actually completes his account with a robust biblical vision.</p>

<aside class="footnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
	<li id="fn:1">Julia Annas, <em>The Morality of Happiness</em> (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 33. <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:1">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:2"><em>NE</em>, Book I, Chapter 7, 1097 b 1-6 (p. 8). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:2">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:3"><em>NE</em>, Book I, Chapter 7, 1098 a 16 (p. 9). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:3">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:4"><em>NE</em>, Book II, Chapter 2, 1103 b 1-2 (p. 19). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:4">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:5"><em>NE</em>, Book II, Chapter 4, 1105a 22-26 (p. 22) <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:5">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:6"><em>NE</em>, Book II, Chapter 7, 1107a 2-3 (p. 25). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:6">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
	<li id="fn:7"><em>NE</em>, Book I, Chapter 5, 1096a 1-3 (p. 4). <a class="reversefootnote" href="#fnref:7">&nbsp;↩</a></li>
</ol>
</aside>
</div>

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