Who believes in fairytales?

Atheists believe that Christians believe in fairy tales.

So who is the one believing in fairytales?

Atheists mostly ascribe to the Big bang theory. So some explosions happened billions of years ago, they believe?

So what exploded, what went bang if there was nothing? How do you get to billions of years, so time always existed?

There had to be something that exploded? Where did that something come from? You do know that science has established there was a starting point.

So how did it start and where did stuff that set of this origin come from?

So we are to believe “Chance+Nothing+Time= Everything”

For there to be Chance there has to be more than one option, so in what way was there options?

So what caused Chance to take a specific option?

So how did nothing change into something?

So how did Time come to be, seeing that basically we calculate our time by the earth’s movement? There were no planets to move before the bang.

So Chance cannot be without something.

So something cannot be without Chance.

So Time cannot be without something.

His way or the Highway.

Recently I have found that many "Christians" are dropping out of the race. One thing I have found common among most of them is the notion that "someday God will intervene" or "something spectacular will happen."

They will think of things like:

The ministry will open up, some sin will be dealt its final blow or maybe they will experience complete joy and peace. Most fall by the way side because they had some expectation that was never fulfilled.

It makes me think of the phrase “What dreams may come?” I still have no idea what is really meant by it but, it’s a sentence which can make you meditate for hours.

Every single person ever created dreams of “that someday…”

When that day never arrives or seem that it will never arrive we go into a tailspin of doubt, bitterness and anger. All these emotions becomes overwhelming and saturates our very being, until it spills over into our actions and it just can’t be contained anymore. This is when harsh things are done and said.

The root of the problem is our expectations which are influenced by our misunderstanding of what Christ has promised and how we live in a relationship with Him.

We might be convinced that God has given us some promise.To us personally or to Christians in general and we cling to it for dear life, only find that it’s the Titanic and we sink into despair.

Our hope is lost our anchors rope gets cut because we have built our faith on sand and not on Christ.

We create our own dream-world where our besetting sin is defeated once and for all, where the monster of depression is given the death blow, or the day the phones rings and you land your dream job.

Christ has won the final victory on the cross against sin, by breaking the separation that it created between man and God. He gave death its final blow when He rose from the dead.

He has poured our glasses full until overflowing.

Turning against God and tossing His word aside because we have not received what we perceived to be promised is childish and rooted in pride.

God has promised and He will deliver but, only that which he promised.

That besetting sin we struggle with is like the AA guy says, is never completely killed until you are. If you are an alcoholic you will be one until you die.

If you are inclined to lie, you will fight telling a lies for the rest of your life. If you yearn for more, greed will always stalk you. If you lust has bitten you the poison will always be in your system.

While we are in this world we will always be surrounded by temptations and temptations will always be in our hearts. We are called to run the race to persevere till the very end. Christ never said it would be easy, he never said we will have complete freedom here on earth. Sin will always eyeball us and unfortunately we will fall into its trap and often set the trap ourselves.

We are called to arms we are instructed to put it on and never take it off.

Christ has given sin it death blow and it will die within us on the day of the Lord, when He returns, in the mean time we must fight unbelief, we must admit that this how it is.

We must fight daily for our faith and Christ daily gives it to us.

Our faith must not be built on our perceived ideas of how things should be but, rather on what the Bible say they are.

Importing things in our framework of faith that is not Clearly taught in scripture is folly of the highest order.

Let us say you struggle with depression and it keeps on coming back and meds does help but, it totally messes with your emotions and it does not add to your quality of life. Somehow in a prayer meeting you get convinced that Christ promises to take that depression away but, after years you still suffer from depression. Do you still hold to that conviction or do you consider that maybe you “heard” wrong? Do you allow this belief that Christ said He will cure you overshadow your whole relationship with Him?

Let us say you struggle with lustful thoughts and pray urgently to Christ and ask that he will take it away from you, you look at scripture and see that it teaches that if you pray according to His will and in His name He will answer your prayer but, after years lust still rears its ugly little head in your life. Do you start doubting Gods promises and question your faith?

We come to the topic of unanswered prayer mingled with “does God still speak to us?”

Or is our problem more basic than that?

We must go and search for our answer not in “Airy Fairy land” but, in the “Where the tyre meets the tar land.”

Our problem started and a more basic level, we came to the Bible with an “Extra-Biblical Theology”

We had been influenced with the humanist world where everything is man centred. While God is the focus and everything revolves around Him.

We have without noticing it been influenced with worlds view of how our lives on earth should work and what the purpose of life on earth is. We have come to see the physical world as the most important thing there is while the Glory given to God is the most important thing.

Some will say our spiritual lives are the most important, which in a sure way is true but, if not explained we also fall into heresy.

Our spiritual life and our physical life are to revolve around God. How we are spiritually in our relation to God is reveal in our physical life.

So if we build our relationship with Christ on the wrong doctrine we short-circuited the relationship and everything else falls out of whack.

Then if we pull the circle even smaller, on what do we base our doctrine. This is then the most important step.

If we build our doctrine on the wrong base we will ultimately expect the wrong things from God.

A false expectation from God leads to disappointment which leads to bitterness which leads to dark side.

Christians, who lose their faith, never had real faith because they clung to wrong doctrine or recognised the right doctrine but, rejected it because it did not square with what they wanted to believe.

The basis for our faith should not be our perception of what life should be like. Our faith must not be built on our own ideas on how God should be like. If we do this we end up with a man made God which is man centred instead of God centred.

God should not be understood by what we see in the nature and then try to use that as our basis on how God is. This will be total folly. Nature even if it was perfect is not God and we are also fallible so our perception is also messed up.

So we have to find a different source to find out what God is like and how we must stand in relation with Him.

This is where the Bible comes in. In this modern age the Bible has come under severe attack. Ever since it has existed someone has tried to show the Bible as false and lacking all credibility.

Mostly this attack on the Bible has come from sceptics who don’t want to believe. Some if not most attack it because they rebel against an authority over them.

So do we abandon our create expectations?
No we don't, our expectations actually underestimates God's ability. We must come in line with what He has truly revealed and stand firm on the true Biblical promises and test our preconceived ideas to what God has already revealed.

 

How He loves us.

The baby home is open!!!

Thoughts about Inerrancy.

I have been doing some more digging and believe that my first impression of Craig Evans was a bit off. Here is a some questions which he answers and makes me rethink my first opinion I had of him, which I discussed in this post.


Undoubtedly if you ever explored this blog you will come to see I have a very high view of scripture.

Our view of scripture determines all that we believe. If we view scripture as mere words of man we may just as well declare our local glossy magazine our book of faith.

The way we understand what the Bible is, determines how serious we take it.

There are very different views on scripture. We can see it as inerrant in its original transcripts or we can say it is a human book pure and simple.

Both these views have pitfalls. The question is “Is there a middle ground?”

I do not think so, either it is the word of God or it is not. Others would say that there is a middle ground and if you take ever side you are going too far.

You can also say that if you follow the doctrine of inerrancy to it’s a logical conclusion you will arrive at an unscientific place or at full blown liberalism.

These past few days I’m being delving into what Dr Craig Evans has to say. He has a very unique take on the whole thing which warrants more investigation.

If I understand him correctly he will not defend the Bible as historical inerrant but, what the Bible sets out to do it accomplishes.The Bible brings us the good news of Christ and how we might be saved.

He would not agree with the Chicago statement of inerrancy then. Would he?

I’m still checking it out but it does seem on face value that he takes the Bible seriously and that he believes that Jesus physically died and rose again. I will then place him under the wider evangelical umbrella but, not under the traditional group.

He makes a very good case that we must take all the differences in the synoptic gospels seriously. He seems to be a very competent and thoughtful scholar. What I do think is that he gives up to much ground. I see many points where he could have defended the reliability of the Bible.

What I do appreciate of him is that he does a very in depth study of everything he is just a wealth of information. Not a grain of laziness in the man.
Although I think that my view of scripture is pretty much the same as Norman Geisler, I think his answers and explanations of some difficult passages are a bit shallow and he doesn’t really answer many of the concerns.

I admit I have limited resources on both these men and pray that I will be able to acquire more in the future. In all I’m not satisfied with either ones handling of the issue.

Craig Evans gives to much ground to the sceptic and it seems that Norman Geisler isn’t really listening to them. I wonder what Kaiser will say. I have read his book on the reliability of the Old Testament documents and his approach was very balanced. He takes the critics very serious but, he makes a strong stand. Don’t take me wrong when Evans decides on this hill he will die on, he makes a stand. 

My quest is to sift all these thoughts running around in my head and find out which way is the best.

Giving up ground on the issue on inerrancy is not to be taken lightly. My question is it even necessary. In the past it has been proven on many occasions that the Bible is reliable.

Many times the historicity of the gospel is taken in question because of many differences between the synoptic gospels. The problem is that these differences do not impact basic doctrine.

Many times the sceptic is are simplistic about the perceived discrepancy. They take it at face value while on other occasions they fire both barrels of the shotgun if we dare take the Bible at face value.

The sceptics always seem to fire off all the alleged discrepancies in the gospels and then claim “superior number of arguments wins” while each individual argument and accusation must be handled on its own.

This is one of the problems with debates. For some or other reason the liberal will list his long lists of complains and the “evangelical” just gives an answer that is weak and vague, they sometimes try to explain a principle to answer similar arguments but, never answer the point made by the liberal. Maybe it is the way debates are done but, why not for once just answer the man’s question straight down the middle? If I look at Norman Geisler’s stuff I think he will actually do it, the problem is sometimes even I can spot the holes in his argument.

I’m probably being a bit to forward, I regular keyboard warrior. My question is why not take the dog by the scruff of the neck and manhandle the opinion, say it like it is, answer the critic, go at him toe to toe. Or do we have no real answer or witty comebacks?

I think the problem is not as simple as just saying we are inarticulate or not assertive enough when it comes to debate ting these issues.

Most debates between evangelicals and liberals always have the evangelical starting off on the back foot, defending an already weaken position.

For starters they almost never bring in the ancient tradition, on who wrote the gospels. It is a great big debate yes but, why have we resigned from that fight. Many scholars have written against the historical teachings on who wrote the gospels. They doubt the accuracy of these traditions. The question is must they not proof their case to us, are they not attacking a very old tradition handed down through generations? Are these persons who wrote about this tradition not closer to the original authors in time and culture?

The case is made that these guys seen as the writers traditionally could not have written such great literature and that just 3% of the people living in Israel at that time could read what to say of being able to write such well edited gospels.

Let us look at the traditional writers then.

The Gospel of Matthew was said to be a tax collector appointed by the Romans , would the Romans appoint a illiterate man as tax collector?.

The Gospel of Mark was written by some companion of Peter. Mark according to tradition wrote the Gospel according to what Peter told him. Peter was one of the leaders of the church a man of great influence. The church was very large over five thousand and there was added to their number daily, is it not possible that out of this large crowd Peter could find such a writer as Mark.

The Gospel Of Luke, according to tradition he was a companion of Paul and that he also was  a kind of doctor, is it also such a far fetch dream that he could have been well educated just as Paul? Is it so far fetch that a doctor could read and write?    

Then we get to sequence of the gospels. The modern view is that Mark was written first after that Luke and Matthew. So how do they devise such a sequence? Well they look at all synoptic gospels and seen that a lot of material over lapses. Sometimes exactly. So they come to the conclusion that they must have copied from each other or used a common source. They even gave the source a name “Q”.

The question is then this, why could they not all been written independent from each other? Why could they not just have been writing the same story from three prospective and why could the overlapping parts not be because they are telling the same story.

Bart Ehrman makes a very strong case, he says that even if you take a lot of eyewitnesses and let them write what exactly happened that you wouldn’t get two accounts that is remotely same to the extent that the gospels are similar.

This is a very strong argument, the problem is this cannot be the only argument, I believe he would add a few. The problem is what about inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was He not the one who inspired the writers to write accurate accounts?

The other question is why accept the viability of the “Q” source which has no proof accept the similarities between the gospels and reject the historical account of the possible existence of the Hebrew gospel?

Has the liberal scholar not infringed on the evangelical scholars so much that we have fallen to the winds of chance, while we believe in the God who created that wind.

We have abandoned to many outposts, it is time to take stock and decide which ones are to be retaken.

In a real sense I agree with Craig Evans, the Christian faith is grounded on the factual death and resurrection of Christ and not on the Bible. The problem is that the Bible is the source that ultimately proofs it and explains it.

Over simplification is very dangerous. The minimal facts approach is great for short debate and discussions but, not enough for deep, sustained Christian life.