by Tim | Feb 15, 2010 | God, The Gospel |
One of the comments to my last blog was: While God certainly has the right to dictate His own terms, I think that this argument causes many people to believe that if God exists that He acts way too arbitrarily to be loving. I personally do not believe that God is arbitrary or unloving, but that perspective can be a natural reaction to the argument that God can set whatever terms He wants. Do you have specific thoughts about those who think God arbitrary, capricious, or unloving? I have some responses to that position about God but they are difficult to state clearly and rely heavily on my personal conception of sin, salvation, heaven, and hell. Great question! I want to dive into it! Here are my thoughts for those who would wonder the same thing (I find myself wondering this as well): I think this is where faith in God is needed. Does God know what He is doing? Can He be trusted to do the right thing? Similar to the relationship between a parent and a child, a child does not always understand why the parent does what he/she does, but that’s because a child is simply a child. We are simply humans. Things may not look “fair” at first from our perspective, but maybe when we start to look at the world through God’s perspective, we realize He really is more than fair. So that this answer doesn’t seem like a “cop-out,” I’d like to see if we can try to gain more of God’s perspective on the matter of sin. According to the terms He...
by Tim | Feb 12, 2010 | God, The Gospel |
Is humanity lost? Have we walked away from God and gone our own way? Is the world really going to hell? Is that fair? Is there any way to return to God? Is God even willing to welcome us back if we tried? Does God require any terms for salvation? Would it even be fair of God to set up terms? Why not just save everyone if He really does love the world? What do you think? Well, not to be rude, but it doesn’t really matter what you think. It doesn’t even matter what I think. What matters is what God thinks. (No one likes to hear this.) And the only way we can know what God thinks is if God reveals that to us. And if He does, our own opinions/feelings/thoughts matter little if they contradict what God says about himself. John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist movement) wrote a commentary on the New Testament, including the book of Romans. In this commentary, Wesley states (emphasis mine): [The Gospel] is the powerful instrument of salvation…by means of faith… The world greatly needed such a dispensation–the Gentiles being in a most abandoned state, and the Jews (though condemning others) are themselves no better…so that all were under a necessity of seeking justification by this method. Why did John Wesley write this? Because it’s what the book of Romans lays out as the condition of the world. The question is, did Paul just write this out of his own thinking? Or is this divine revelation from God? If it’s just his own opinion, there’s no need to affirm...
by Tim | Feb 11, 2010 | God, Our Culture, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
The biggest reason why I left Genesis, my former church, was that I believe that putting one’s faith in Jesus Christ is the only way to God, but I was told that this was narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant to believe and teach this. Of course, I had been teaching this to the youth, and was dismayed to learn that the church felt this was unnecessary and not beneficial to do so. Through this experience, my eyes have been opened to realize that churches like this really do exist out there. Sure, I’ve always known that, but I never thought it was so prevalent that I would actually be part of one. In addition, I discovered that the arguments given to me for why I was wrong for my beliefs would be rather persuasive to anyone who doesn’t read their Bible, which is very scary to me. Because statistics show (and people’s understanding of the Bible show) that most people who go to church don’t read their Bibles regularly. In the weeks that have followed my resignation, I’ve been looking hard at Scripture–and what I’ve found has amazed me. Of course, I knew that Scripture preaches that Jesus is the only way, etc. so that didn’t surprise me. But what has surprised and encouraged me is how powerful, alive, and transforming the gospel is. It’s like I’m experiencing it anew all over again. A re-genesis of sorts. But I lose sleep almost every night thinking about the people who remain at Genesis. Some of them have come to the conclusion that this issue is unimportant, and amounts to nothing more...
by Tim | Jan 26, 2010 | God, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
In this post, I am going to approach this from the argument of reason only (not doctrines of innerancy of Scripture, or beliefs in the inspiration of Scriptures, etc.). Not that I reject those doctrines, but I think it would be fun to look at it from this viewpoint. What does a Christian have at his/her disposal to trust and follow? 1. Scripture 2. Oral tradition from the Catholic Church, which they claim came from the Apostles 3. Opinions of Christians down the centuries 4. Opinions of present-day Christians (i.e. pastors, scholars, etc.) 5. One’s own opinions I would much rather trust and follow what the Apostles/Scripture writers taught in their writings than any of the others on this list when they seem to disagree with Scripture. Why? Simply, the Scripture-writers were there at the beginning of the faith and warned us against others who would come after them and would deviate from their teachings. If you doubt the writers, how much more should you doubt any who follow if their teaching seems to disagree? I believe this is one of the reasons why the Jews had so much difficulty accepting Jesus. His coming and preaching made many of the commands in the Law seem trivial. The Jews refused to deviate from their Scriptures, simply because some man who came thousands of years later showed up. The only way they could entertain the idea of adjusting their view of Scripture is if that person had more authority than Scripture itself. That person would have to be greater than the prophets who wrote Scripture. If Jesus was not truly the...
by Tim | Jan 23, 2010 | God, My World, The Church World, The Gospel |
This is my thoughts from bullet #1 of my previous blog post. I am a Christian. I’ve heard the gospel plenty of times before. I’ve believed in Jesus as a result. But I still need to hear the Gospel. I need it repeated to me over and over, because part of me wants to find salvation in my good works or my spiritual insights or my passion for God or my whatever. I want to think that as long as I try to love God and everyone else, I’m cool. I don’t want to think of myself as a damned, wretched sinner who desperately needs God’s grace. I believe we all need to hear it. We all need to bow our knees before our Savior and humbly worship him. When we get a hold of the Gospel and, more importantly, it gets a hold of us…all of a sudden the style of worship at church or the conveniences of this life are so insignificant. Instead, we fix our eyes on Jesus, and our life is now his to do as He pleases. We stop living for this life, and instead start living for eternity. When this happens, our Gospel message will be more readily received by those we preach it to, because we are actually living it out. Yes, I think it’s just as, or even more, important for Christians like me to hear the Gospel over and over...
by Tim | Jan 22, 2010 | God, The Church World, The Gospel, The Scriptures |
One person explained it to me like this: 1. Christians don’t need to hear it explained or expounded upon on Sunday morning. Most people who show up to church on any given Sunday already know it. 2. And when it comes to non-Christians, other faiths have revelations about God too; Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on truth. 3. It is narrow-minded, judgmental, and arrogant to think that people must become a Christian to be saved. Jesus is surely more gracious than that. 4. People in other religions (Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) may be following Christ through their religion without knowing it is Him they are following. If so, they don’t need to become Christians. 5. Rather than teaching young people that Jesus is the only way to the Father, you should allow them to determine these types of things on their own. It is not our place to say who is or isn’t going to heaven. 6. In light of this, I would not be overly concerned with telling people that Jesus is the only way. . I have also been told: 1. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 2. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. 3. There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they...
