Holy Spirit

I remember the first time I played golf.  When I was in high school, I got a job at a local golf course, even though I had never played golf before.  A perk of my job was that I was able to golf for free. So, I figured I might as well learn.  My cousin was back home for a few days and he and another one of my cousins decided to play a few holes.  

I walked up on the first tee box, put my tee in the ground, and balanced my ball on top of it.  As I stood there, I thought about how I had seen guys swing a golf club at the course; I had watched professionals play on TV; I had even played a bunch of rounds of Mario Golf on my Nintendo.  I had seen plenty of examples and figured I would have no problem doing this myself.

I lined myself up with the fairway, stretched a little, took a few practice swings and I was ready to go.  My swing felt pretty good, and the club made decent contact with the ball.  As I watched the ball fly, I could see that it had good distance and I was amazed to see it land right in the middle of the fairway.  Unfortunately, it landed in the middle of the 18th fairway and not the 1st fairway where I wanted it to go.  This taught me very quickly that professionals and video games make golf look really easy, but in reality, it is incredibly hard.  I learned that I didn’t just need an example at which to look but also someone to personally help me be a better golfer.

The last post looked at some of the highlights of the life of Jesus.  Those highlights show Jesus as an incredible God who did amazing things for His followers.  However, for Christians, that’s not all that Jesus’ life is about.  His life is also an example of how Christians are to live their life.  While Jesus made it look easy to live with humility, compassion, and love, anyone who has tried to live out His example knows that it is incredibly hard.  So, like my golf game, Christians need an example but also some personal help to live like Jesus in our world.  In this post, we will examine the help that God has provided in the form of the Holy Spirit.

We see this need throughout the four books of the Gospels.  The Twelve Disciples have Jesus’ example physically with them every day.  They can talk to Jesus and seek advice from Him.  Yet, they only have limited success, especially when Jesus isn’t right beside them.  So, as Jesus prepares to leave this world He knows His followers will need major help.

In John 16, Jesus is explaining and preparing His disciples for His departure from this earth.  He knows this will be hard for them.  He knows they will fail on their own.  So, in verses 7-14, He comforts them by promising a Helper who will come when He leaves.  This Helper will convict them of their sin but also teach and guide them in truth so that they can do what is right.  This Helper will not just show an example but actually dwell inside them (Romans 8:9) and help from the inside (thinking, motivation, emotion) to accomplish external actions.

In John 16:13, Jesus calls this Helper, “the Spirit of truth.”  He is referred to elsewhere as the Holy Spirit.  He is the third member of the Trinity (a concept discussed in previous posts).  In Acts 5:3-4, the Holy Spirit is used in parallel with God, showing that they are the same being.  As alluded to by the name, the Holy Spirit is a spirit and thus has no physical form but, like God the Father, He is a personal being and not just a vague force.  Also in Acts 5:3-4, a couple lies to the Holy Spirit and in Ephesians 4:30 the Holy Spirit is grieved.  These are things only a personal being can experience.

So far, we have seen that this personal spiritual being, the Holy Spirit, is a helper sent to aid Jesus’ followers through conviction of wrong and teaching of truth.  As mentioned earlier, Romans 8:9 explains that anyone who belongs to Jesus has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them to aid by changing them internally.  This is called the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and has a couple important benefits for the Christian.

This indwelling creates a deep connectedness and unity between the Christian with God and the Christian with other Christians, even across societal and cultural lines. (1 Corinthians 12:13)  It is an incredible thing to experience this type of connection with other Christians.  When I visited the Philippines it was amazing to feel the connection with the Filipino believers even though I was only able to spend a little over a week with them and had many language and cultural barriers.  This connection across cultures also means that one does not have to completely give up their culture to become a Christian.  There may be some aspects of the culture that disagree with the Bible and will need to be given up, but overall, the individual can maintain much of their cultural uniqueness and still wholly follow Jesus.  This is not the case for some religions that demand complete cultural uniformity within the religion.  This allows Christianity to peacefully cross the borders of the world to share the love of Jesus.

The presence of the Holy Spirit within the Christian is also a seal or guarantee from God that the individual belongs to God and will one day spend eternity with Him.  (Ephesians 1:13-14) The Holy Spirit is a deposit to give a taste of what is to come in the future for those who place their faith in Jesus.  The Bible Knowledge Commentary describes it this way, “the Holy Spirit is a little bit of heaven in believers’ lives with a guarantee of much more yet to come.”

The Holy Spirit is a powerful helper, but help must be received to be effective.  As a guy I like to work on things and fix things. However, many times fixing things  is not a simple process.  Multiple times I’ve found myself in a situation where I’m trying to work on something but struggling to really accomplish anything.  As every guy probably has experienced at these moments of struggle, my mom and/or girlfriend inevitably walks into the room.  Being a kind, caring lady and seeing my struggle, she asks if I need help.  Of course, I know that I desperately need help because this project is going nowhere.  However, being the prideful guy that I am my answer is always that “I’m fine” and “can get it,” usually in a tone that doesn’t help build up my relationship with the lady.  She may or may not have been able to help me in that situation but, until I am willing to be humble and allow her to help, I will receive no help.  

The same is true of the Holy Spirit.  Help is there but we have to accept it.  There are two main ways that one can receive this help from the Holy Spirit. FIrst, as mentioned a couple times already, one must put one’s faith in Jesus as one’s savior and then the Holy Spirit will come and dwell within them.

Second, as in the story above, one needs to humble oneself and accept help by yielding over control in one’s life.  Ephesians 5:18 uses the analogy of drinking alcohol to explain this.  As one consumes more and more alcohol, thoughts and actions are controlled more by the alcohol and less by the individual.  Paul says that this yielding of oneself to alcohol leads to debauchery, sinful behavior.  We probably have either done it ourselves or know someone who has done something stupid because they were drunk. Paul instructs that instead of giving over control to alcohol, Christians should give over control to the Holy Spirit.  Just like with alcohol, the more of the Holy Spirit that is consumed through prayer, Bible study, worship and service, the more the Holy Spirit can work in an individual’s life.  Then, unlike alcohol, the Holy Spirit’s control will lead to good benefits.

The Bible explains these good benefits of the Holy Spirit as the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.  These are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These are the characteristics that Jesus embodied as He lived out His example on earth.  It is important to note that fruit in this verse is singular.  All these characteristics are being built simultaneously in the Christian, if they are accepting the help of the Holy Spirit.  An individual might find some easier than others but, with the help of Holy Spirit, will be expressing more and more all of the fruit.  

The plan and provision of God is amazing.  In the last few posts, we have seen that God created a world and humans in the world and in relationship with Him.  God cared so much about this relationship that He sent His Son to live and die on this earth to give men access to that relationship and as an example of how to live that relationship. Finally, God sent His Holy Spirit to give men the help they needed to enter into and live out the example of His Son.  God has given us every piece that we need.  We simply need to accept it.

Jesus (Part 2)

It seems recently, there have been a lot of funerals of people somehow connected with me.  My grandfather passed away a little over a week ago.  My friend’s grandmother passed away this week.  Also, a couple people who are connected with my church have died recently.  Funerals are sad times as we miss the loved ones that we have lost.  They are also a time to remember a life and how it was lived.

I wonder what Jesus’ disciples said about His life as they laid him in the tomb. They would have had many good times and miracles to celebrate.  There also may have been a feeling of disappointment.  This man who claimed to be God and Savior was gone.  Peter was obviously disappointed and went back to what he knew best, fishing. (John 21:3) 

Thankfully, we don’t have to conjecture about what Jesus’ disciples had to say about His life. Their thoughts and writings have been preserved in the books of the Bible’s New Testament.  This post will examine what they said about the life of Jesus and their claim that His life didn’t end at that tomb.

Like all of us, the story of Jesus' life on earth starts with His birth.  However, Jesus' birth is incredibly unique.  As was prophesied in the Old Testament (Isaiah 7:14), Jesus was born of a virgin.  (Matthew 1:18-23) Both Matthew and Luke 1:35, explain that this virgin birth was accomplished by the work of the Holy Spirit impregnating Mary.  As was discussed in the last post, Jesus is divine, He is God.  This virgin birth, which is called the Incarnation, allowed Jesus to fully keep his divinity but yet become fully human through Mary and a human birth.  Also, Jesus’ lack of a human father allowed Him to have no sin nature, inborn propensity to rebel against God, and thus allowed Him to live a sinless life.

On a side note, there are some controversial beliefs related to Jesus’ birth. The Miraculous Conception is the belief from Catholic tradition that Mary was also miraculously born without a sin nature. However, there is no support for this in the Bible. Mary is presented as a normal, humble Jewish woman.  Also, there is a teaching that Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life.  Again, the Bible does not support this.  Multiple times Jesus’ brothers are mentioned (John 7, John 2:12) and there is no evidence to lead one to believe these were not Mary's children.

Back to Jesus' life.  As mentioned above, Jesus had no sin nature and, thus, never sinned during His life. Hebrews 4:15 explains that, during His earthly life, Jesus did face temptation just like we face it today. Because of His divinity and lack of a sin nature, however, Jesus never gave into this temptation nor could He have sinned. Both aspects of this passage are extremely important.  First, His ability to be tempted allows Him to relate to the struggles we face today in trying to be obedient Christians.  Second, His sinlessness allows Him to be the atonement for our sin, as will be discussed below.

So, Jesus was born by a miraculous virgin birth, lived a miraculous sinless life and also performed many miracles for others during His life.  The Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; are filled with miracles performed by Jesus.  They speak of the blind, lepers, and cripples being healed; water turned to wine; storms stopped by a word from Jesus' mouth; and, most incredibly, people that had died brought back to life.  These show Jesus’ love and care for men and women, especially the needy, but also show that He was God and the savior prophesied in the Old Testament.  When John the Baptist asks Jesus, through John's disciples, if Jesus was the prophesied saviour, Jesus points to the miracles He had done as fulfillment of prophecy and affirmation that he is savior. (Matthew 11:2-6)

Even with all these miracles, Jesus’ earthly life would eventually end. Most of us have probably heard the Easter story.  Jesus is arrested while He is in the garden with His disciples.  He would face a sham of a trial and eventually be brought before the Roman leader Pilot.  Pilot would find no guilt in Jesus but would bow to the pressure of the public, who cry for Him to be crucified.  Jesus is then beaten and executed in what is possibly the most excruciating method of death devised by men, crucifixion. However, this again was all prophesied in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus’ life. (Isaiah 53)

The death of Jesus was not just foreseen by God but also incredibly important for God's plan. It accomplished three things for those that would believe and follow Jesus in the years to come.  First, Jesus’ death was substitutionary.  He took the punishment that was due to man for man’s sins. (Isaiah 53, 2 Cor 5:21)  Second, Jesus’ death brought redemption for Christians.  Man’s sin has separated him relationally from God but, through Jesus’ death, men can now have a renewed relationship with God.  (Romans 5:10)  Finally, Jesus’ death was a propitiation.  This means it was a payment to fulfill God's righteousness and justice toward sin and appease God's wrath. (Romans 3:25) Jesus’ death on the cross was the means by which God chose to use to open the door of salvation to all men who would put their faith in Jesus.  This salvation will be discussed in more depth in a later post.

This brings us back to where we started.  Jesus is dead and in the tomb.  The disciples are dejected.  However, this is not where the story ends because three days after Jesus’ death another miraculous thing happens.  Jesus rises to life again.  It's important to note that Jesus doesn't just come back as a ghost or spirit but with an actual physical body, renewed and perfect. (Luke 24:36-43)  This gives Christians hope that though someday they will die, they will also receive a new resurrection body.

The resurrection is probably the most highly disputed of all the aspects of Jesus’ life.  It is also the most crucial because, if Jesus is still dead. than He is a failed savior and the Christian is without hope. (1 Corinthians 15:17-19)  While there are multiple proofs used to validate the resurrection, I’ll just mention three here.  First, the tomb was empty.  This seems pretty simplistic but is a valid proof.  There was no body in the tomb.  If Jesus’ disciples stole it, then how did they get past two Roman guards protecting the tomb with their life?  If Jesus’ opponents stole it, then why didn’t they show people the body?  Second, Jesus appeared to over 500 people after the resurrection.  How could this many people agree to perpetuate a lie?  Third, the lives of the disciples were transformed and they started the church.  This is probably the most convincing for me.  Before the resurrection, the disciples were timid and had even gone back to their normal occupations after Jesus’ death.  After the resurrection, these men were on fire to tell people about Jesus, the church was created and experienced rapid growth, and many of Jesus followers were killed for their faith.  The disciples were evidently thoroughly convinced of the resurrection because no one would show this level of passion and commitment for a known lie.

Finally, after appearing to His disciples and many other people, Jesus ascended into heaven.  Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:9 all tell of this miraculous event of Jesus rising in His resurrected body to heaven.  He is now seated at the right hand of God and is interceding with God on behalf of those that follow Him.  (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Overall, the life of Jesus was pretty unique and incredible.  This is the most amazing story in history.  God becomes a man and suffers and dies in order that those who have wronged Him can have a relationship with Him.  What other God has done that for His people?  What other God knows from the personal experience of being human the temptations and struggles His followers face?  Jesus had an amazing life and continues to be an amazing savior and God.

Jesus (Part 1)

One of the things that I love about summertime is that it is also baseball season.  I love watching baseball.  I love following all the stories and stats throughout the season.  There is just something relaxing about sitting and watching America’s pastime.  One of the first things a viewer notices when watching a game is that every batter has a little different way of swinging the bat.  Some stand tall, others bend over.  Some start with the bat high, others low.  Some take a big step, others no step.  There are a lot of different ways to swing a bat.  However, every good hitter must get the bat to contact the ball or they can’t get a hit.  The batter can do a lot of different things, even some incorrect things in their swing, but they must get the bat to hit the ball.  The better and more accurate the contact is, the better the outcome.

Similarly, in Christianity, there are different ways to interpret the Bible leading to different theological beliefs.  There are many things that Christians can disagree on and still be a Christian.  Even if we are wrong in some of our beliefs, we can still be a Christian.  However, just like the batter must contact the ball, there are things that every Christian must believe to be a Christian.  The most crucial of those things is one’s belief in who Jesus is and what He did. That’s why this post will examine who the Bible says that Jesus is.  The better one understands who Jesus is, the better one will be at living out their Christian faith.  That makes the subject matter of this post incredibly crucial.

To start out our discussion of Jesus, we first must flashback to the last post.  One of the things discussed there was the doctrine of the Trinity,  God is one and exists in three persons.  When we think of God, we mainly think of the first person of the Trinity, God the Father.  The Father is not first because He existed first, for all the members of the Trinity have existed forever, but because He has the role as the leader of the Trinity.  The other members of the Trinity, Jesus and the Holy Spirit, submit to and follow the will of the Father. (Luke 22:42, John 16:13)  They are, however, equal members of the Trinity and equally God. 

The attacks on this belief have been numerous, especially among liberal Bible scholars of the past 50-100 years.  One of the most notable attacks was from a group called the Jesus Seminar.  This group of scholars attempted to construct a “true” representation of the historical Jesus.  They used the opinions of the members of the group to decide which information was “historical.”  Using this method, they denied much of the Biblical Gospel and labeled Jesus as a teacher, but not God. However, the bedrock of the Christian faith is that Jesus is God, not just God-like.  If this is not true, then Jesus could not have died for our sin, thereby rendering all of Christianity pointless.

Thankfully, there is substantial Biblical evidence that Jesus is God.  Titus and John both directly refer to Jesus as God. (Titus 2:13, John 1)  Upon seeing the wounds in Jesus’ body after the resurrection, Thomas calls Him, “My Lord and My God.” (John 20:28) 

Paul has much to say about Jesus being God.  Paul proclaims that Jesus is God in Philippians 2:6.  In this passage, Paul states that Jesus was in the form of God.  Jesus has the same essence as God and thus the same physical form before taking on human form during His time on earth.  Paul also states that Jesus is equal with God.  In multiple places,  Paul proclaims Jesus as Lord and exhorts his readers to worship him as God. (Romans 10:9, 13; 2 Timothy 4:18) As a trained Jewish scholar, this would have been utterly blasphemous for Paul to do unless he truly believed that Jesus was God and the Messiah. He would have been completely rejecting his culture and upbringing and figuratively spitting in the face of God.  Paul was thoroughly convinced that what he was claiming was true.  The same can be said of the other disciples, especially since none received any material gain, only loss, from following Jesus and proclaiming Him God and Savior.

Along with this testimony from people that knew Jesus, is the testimony of Jesus about Himself. Based on what Jesus is recorded in the Gospels to have said, there is no doubt that He believed He was God.  He repeatedly referred to himself as the “Son of God” and the “Son of Man.”  These are both titles from Old Testament prophecy that refer to God coming to earth as Savior.  The Jews of Jesus’ day understood that the use of these titles was a claim to be God and sought to kill Jesus on grounds of being a blasphemer. (John 5:18)  

In John 8:58, Jesus says some interesting things about Himself.  He states, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”  In this statement, Jesus makes two claims. First, that He existed before Abraham, who lived well before Jesus’ earthly birth.  Second, the phrase “I am” was not bad grammar on Jesus’ part, but the name that God gave himself in Exodus 3:14.  Jesus is using the proper name of God, which a devout Jew didn’t dare to say,  to refer to Himself.  This was such a clear claim to be God that the Jewish audience immediately grabbed stones to stone Him for blaspheme.  

Jesus is also accused of blasphemy in Mark 2.  Jesus was in a crowded house doing some teaching when four men ripped through the roof to lower their paralyzed friend in front of Jesus.  Rather than just heal the man’s physical condition, Jesus heals the man’s spiritual condition by forgiving his sins.  Once again, this immediately throws up a red flag for the Jewish leaders who understand that only God can forgive sin. So, Jesus miraculously hears their thoughts and  heals the man’s paralysis to prove to them that He is indeed God.

The passages above are just a few examples of Jesus’ claims to be God. There are many others that could be examined.  There is no doubt that He believed He was God and left His audience, and us, with only a few options for what to believe about Him. As C.S. Lewis famously said, Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or Lord.  He has left us with no option to just see Him as a good human teacher.

The Bible is clear that Jesus is God and, as stated above, all of Christianity rests on this belief.  One cannot be a major league hitter unless one can make contact with the ball and one cannot be a Christian unless one believes in Jesus.  That belief starts with confirming that Jesus is God and then expands with the things we will look at in the next post about the life of Jesus.

God (Part 2)

Last week, my girlfriend was writing a paper on one of Plato’s dialogues, The Allegory of the Cave, and since I’m a great boyfriend I was helping her out some.  The analogy takes a very interesting perspective on life.  I won’t dig into the whole philosophy here but Plato’s main premise is that there are many ideas out there about reality based on the shadows of truth we see in the world.  However, there is an ultimate good, which we should be striving to know.  While Plato doesn’t articulate in the story who or what exactly is the ultimate good, in Christianity we believe the ultimate good is God.  Though it’s not wrong to study or understand things of this world, it is of utmost importance that we understand God, at least as best we can with our limited human mind.  So, in this post we will be looking at some of  the basic attributes that the Bible outlines about God.

The first attribute of the God of the Bible is that He is a personal being.  This does not mean that he has a physical form.  The Bible is clear that God is a spirit with no material form. (John 4:24) Throughout the Bible, however, God interacts with men and the world in personal ways.  For example, Exodus 33:11 states that God “spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”  While God is transcendent and not bound to this physical world, (I’ll discuss this a little more later) He is also not a vague force.  Deism views God as a creator who has no part in this world and is just a vague force, like Star Wars, but the Bible presents God as actively involved in the world in a very personal way.

This attribute is important for two reasons.  First, it allows us to learn about Him.  God has definite attributes and characteristics that we can know. We can also learn about what He has done throughout history and even some of what He will do in the future.  Second, we can have a relationship with God.  This will be examined more in later topics but for now I’ll just state it briefly.  Humans were originally created to live in relationship with God.  We have all sinned and messed this up and the point of the Gospel and Jesus’ death is to restore that relationship.  God is a personal being who wants to live in relationship with us and allow us to know Him.

Another core aspect to understanding the Biblical God is the concept of the Trinity.  Many books could be and have been written about this concept.  The exact nature of the Trinity was hotly debated throughout much of early church history.  The basic idea, if you can call it basic, is that God is one being who exists in three distinct persons; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  These are not three different gods, but rather one God in three.  The word trinity is never used in the Bible but the concept is alluded to in many places.  It's seen in the use of the plural pronoun in Genesis 1:26.  All three persons are together during Jesus’ baptism in Luke 3:22.  Finally, both Jesus and Paul allude to the trinity in Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14, respectively. I would use more space to explain this concept but, honestly, I don't fully understand how it works.  I believe it because I see it expressed in the Bible, not because I can grasp it fully.  Other men, smarter than myself, have articulated many more words to explain the Trinity and I encourage you to read their work, if this topic interests you.

Another important group of attributes are that God is self-existent, eternal, and immutable (unchanging).  God needs no other being in order to exist.  In Genesis 1, God is already there before anything was created and He had existed from eternity past.  In Revelation 21, He is seen reigning over the eternal future kingdom.  In Psalm 139:7-12, the Psalmist writes that he can go nowhere the presence of God does not exist.  God is not bound by space or time but exists outside of those parameters.  He is everywhere and everywhen, simultaneously.  

Since, God is not bound by time this means, as James 1:17 states, that his character never changes.  We as humans change because we pass through time.  We age physically and mentally.  The circumstances that we go through in life change us emotionally.  God, on the other hand, does not age.  He sees all circumstances before Him at one moment and thus is not changed by them.  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow because yesterday, today, and tomorrow all exist simultaneously for Him.

God is also omniscient and omnipotent.  First, God possesses all knowledge. Isaiah 46:10 states that God declares the end from the beginning.  He knows everything there is to know or ever will be known because He is the ultimate source of all truth.  Second, God has all power.  Job 42:2 declares that there is nothing that God cannot do and nothing that can stop Him from doing whatever He wants to do.  God is creator and exists outside His creation, thus He is free to do whatever He wills with His creation.  This includes circumventing the laws of nature that He established.

Finally, there is one more group of attributes that will be very important as we move on into other areas of doctrine.  God is holy and righteous.  In a general sense, holiness means to be "set apart."  God is wholly different from creation.  Anselm,  in his 1078 work Proslogion, defined God as "that which no greater can be conceived."  

In 1 Peter 1:15, Peter challenges his readers to be holy as God is holy.  Paul is obviously talking about moral perfection here.  God is perfectly moral.  Everything He does is right and good because He is the creator and ultimate authority.  (Psalm 145:17, Deuteronomy 32:4)  God's holiness and righteousness also means that He cannot be in the presence of those that have sinned and failed to meet moral standards. (Psalm 11:4-6)

This gives us a general outline of some of the important attributes of God.  There are many more that we could discuss and that will arise throughout this study of Christian beliefs.  If one really stuck out to you, I encourage you to dig deeper into it.  As I mentioned early, God created us to know Him and live in relationship with Him.  He wants to reveal Himself to us.

God (Part 1)

Over the past month or so, I've been reading, at a gruelingly slow pace, the novel Moby Dick.  It’s been a little brutal to get through and reminded me why you shouldn't let friends peer pressure you into doing things, especially when they are English teachers. Anyway, this classic story has a very iconic opening line.  "Call me Ishmael."  Immediately, we are introduced to the main character of the story.

The Bible, the foundation of the Christian faith, opens with a similar introduction to the main character.  "In the beginning, God." (Gen 1:1)  Immediately we see that this text is a story, a story about God and his interaction with man and the world.  So, in effect, the rest of our study of the Christian faith will be about understanding who is this God of the Bible.  We will begin though but studying a little about the reality of God's existence and then some of his basic characteristics.

While the Bible assumes that God exists and many people throughout time, from a large variety of religious persuasions, believe that some form of God exists; this belief is not held by all individuals.  Thus, it is important to first lay out a few arguments for the existence of God. I allow that these are just arguments.  There is no 100% proof of the existence or non-existence of God.  If I want to prove the coffee I'm drinking is real, I can show it to you, you can touch it, you can smell it, you can taste it.  You can use your senses to assure that it is real.  You can run scientific tests to prove that, chemically, it is the substance we call coffee.  We can not, however, do these empirical sense related tests to prove the existence of God, for God is not a physical being like us.  Also, even if you could test God with your senses, you could still deny your senses and say that they are lying about true reality, like some philosophers do.  Because of this lack of empirical truth, we must look at the evidence we do have around us and draw the most likely, logical conclusions that we can.

  
Briefly, before we get to the arguments, I admit that what follows is only one side of the argument and only a basic outline, at best, of that side of the argument.  There are many other resources out there if you desire to delve deeper into the question of the existence of God.  "The Reason for God" by Timothy Keller is one of the best that I have read.

While the Moody Handbook of Theology outlines five arguments for the existence of God, I'm going to combine these into two major arguments because I'm just way smarter than a bunch of college academics. (Not really.)  We'll call these arguments the natural and the human because we can look at both nature and ourselves to see that there is a God.

First, we’ll look at the natural argument for the existence of God.  In Romans 1:20, Paul says that the created world should point all who see it to believe that there must be a divine creator.  Whether a person believes in the Bible or not, to look at the beauty and complexity of the natural world around them should cry out that it could not have just happened but that there must be a divine creator.

Before I was a pastor, I spent five years getting a four year degree in chemistry.  (yes, I’m an overachiever)  I really enjoyed studying chemistry and physics and learning about the natural world and how it works.  What always really stuck out to me was the extreme complexity and precision of the world and that everything works just right.  I remember taking my senior chemistry class and being told that everything we had learned in freshman chemistry was wrong because it was a simplification of what is really going on. The more in-depth I got into the sciences, the harder it was for me to believe that this level of complexity just randomly happened.

I’ll give two nerd examples that really stuck out to me.  First, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that we can not know both the location and velocity of an electron at the same moment in time.  If you have taken a basic science class, you know that all matter is made of atoms and atoms are made of a core of protons and neutrons with electrons buzzing around this core.  So, electrons are a basic part of everything around us and yet this principle says it is impossible for us to totally figure them out.  This basic component of our world is more complex than we can understand.

My second example is the mathematical operation called a limit.  Limits are used extensively in physics to generate all the equations and tables that engineers use to build roads, bridges, buildings, and basically everything.   The thing about limits though is that in a way they are just an estimate.  When you take the limit of an equation you are saying that the answer to the equation is so close to a given value, for example 1, that we are just going to use that value as the solution to the equation.  However, the answer is not exactly that value but it is so close that for any practical application, say a bridge, that value works.  Hopefully, I didn’t lose you.  The point is that the world is so complex that we cannot always find, or practically need to find, exact answers.

There are multiple other examples that could be taken from chemistry, physics, and biology.  Like Paul said in Romans, my study of science screamed to me that there has to be a God that designed all this and that that God must be way beyond us.  Now, this argument is not conclusive and other scientists will explain this argument away from a naturalistic and atheistic position but this evidence points me to believe in God.

Along, with the nature argument though there is also the human argument.  The basic premise of this argument is that we have innate knowledge across of all of humanity that we should not have from strictly observing the things around us.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 states that God “has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”  This plays out is two big ways.

First, the mere idea of eternity, timelessness, and a God that is eternal and divine is absolutely different than anything that we can observe in our world.  Everything in our world is transient, temporary, and yet we have conceived of a God that is eternal.  On the surface this sounds contradictory to my previous argument about nature but they actually work together.  Nature points to the absurdity of all this being random and the need for something greater. The innate, implanted by God, concept of eternity and an eternal being answers the quandary that nature raises.

Second, innate concepts of morality across cultures and times points to the reality of a God that dictates morally.  If the theory of Evolution is true and there is no God, then the only moral imperative should be to do whatever most benefits you and helps you to pass on your genes.  However, we all have this concept that there is more to being a good person than that.  We all have a desire to call some things right and some things wrong.  While cultures and religions differ greatly on many things, there is a surprising amount of agreement on basic principles of right and wrong.  There is something inside of us, that cannot be naturally explained, that leads us to think some things are wrong and others are right.  While individuals and groups may suppress this internal morality to greater and lesser extents, it is still there.  Some may argue that it is a learned behavior that has been passed down through time but this fails to explain why the basic concept of what it means to be a decent human are so wide spread.  

The idea of morality as learned behavior also fails to explain why some moral concepts would have been created and passed.  A specific moral example would be self sacrifice.  From a purely evolutionary point of view self sacrifice is stupid, unless possibly when one is preserving a direct descendant.  Yet, self sacrifice is seen as an admirable and good thing in a huge variety of cultures.  How did this concept so vastly infect humanity without being implanted there by God?

Like I said earlier, these arguments are not conclusive and can and have been refuted by many people.  However, I believe that they are strong evidence that tips the scales and leads me to believe in God.  I encourage you to look at the arguments for yourself.  Get some better resources and look at them a little more deeply.  Be convinced of where you stand because the evidence points that way not because emotion and past history make you want to believe a certain side.  Also, come back for the next post to learn a little more detail of who is the God of the Bible.

Foundations (Part 2)

In my last post, which I wrote a long time ago, I discussed the importance of a solid foundation for one’s belief system and the Bible as that foundation for Christians.  I just want to dwell on the Bible for one more post because it is so important.

I wrote last time that the Bible claims to be God’s words and I gave some arguments from outside the Bible for that claim.  However, I didn't go quite far enough explaining what this means.  

The big theological term for my stance on the Bible is “Verbal Plenary Inspiration.” Hang with me. This term defines the belief that God inspired, lead, men to write God’s words and that all the words in the Bible are inspired words from God.  This leads to two other huge points.  First, the Bible is inerrant, everything that the Bible claims to teach historically or theologically is accurate.  Second, the Bible should be interpreted literally, allowing for figures of speech and other such language tools.

Before I lay out the arguments for these claims, let’s talk about construction again for a minute to understand why full inspiration of the Bible is important. Walking on a truss roof is scary, but walking on a rotten floor can be even more scary.  The problem with a rotten floor is that you never know if what you are stepping on is going to hold you.  If you are not extremely careful, you won't find the rotten spots until you are laying on your back in the basement.  It is an incredibly dangerous foundation to walk on. To make it safe you have to rip out the rot and scab in new pieces.

If we say that only parts of the Bible are God’s words and without error, then our fondation becomes like the rotten floor.  What parts are rotten and what parts are solid?  If parts are rotten, then I need to scab in my own ideas to fill those holes.  We replace the objective standard of God with a system we build ourselves.

However, if we hold that all of the Bible is God’s words than we are walking on a solid floor.  We can trust that we won't step on a weak point and fall through.  It allows us to not spend all our time examining the integrity of the floor, not that its wrong to critically examine the Bible at times, but instead use the floor to stand and build on.  If the Bible is the perfect Word of God, our foundation is solid.

I understand that this a controversial topic today, even in the church, and that genuine Christians disagree with me on the points I've made above.  However, it is not just that this stance makes Biblical theology easier, I believe it is what the Bible claims about itself.

Charles Ryrie argues for the complete inerrancy of the Bible with this logic,

“God is true (Rom. 3:4); the Scriptures were breathed out by God (2 Tim. 3:16); therefore, the Scriptures are true (since they came from the breath of God who is true).”

It is important to note that in 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul is referring to all Scripture, the Bible, fitting the inspired criteria.  Also, 2 Peter 1:21 states, that no prophecy comes from man’s interpretation, it is all the Word of God.  So, if we believe that the Bible is all the Word of God, then it is necessary to believe it is all truth because God cannot lie.  I realize that this is somewhat of a circular argument, the Bible arguing for the Bible, but my point is that we must either accept both points and the conclusion or reject all of it. 

I'll end with one final argument for inerrancy, Jesus’ view of Scripture.  Of course, when Jesus spoke of Scripture he was referring to the Old Testament, because that’s all that existed while he was on the earth, however, New Testament authors validate each other as being on par with the Old Testament. (1 Timothy 5:18, 2 Peter 3:15-16) Thus, I think we are safe to expand Jesus’ thoughts to the whole Bible.  

Anyway, in Matthew 5:18, Jesus states that “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”  Jesus is asserting that Scripture is a solid foundation that will stand throughout time.  More important for our discussion is that he doesn't just refer to the general themes of the Bible or general principles but highlights the importance of the most minor of details, the iota and dot.  Jesus is literally referring to the smallest Hebrew letter and a tiny punctuation mark.  Scripture will stand and be fulfilled to the smallest detail.

Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus uses Scriptures to make arguments.  In Matthew 22:32, Jesus makes a point based on the Biblical principle of resurrection.  He is also very careful of his use of verb tense.  A small detail but hugely important in his argument.  In Matthew 22:41-46 and John 10:34, Jesus uses small details from Old Testament passages to make arguments.  Clearly, Jesus cared about the little details of the Bible and that all those little details were true and without error.

If the Bible is not all the word of God and not all without error, then how could Jesus or any of us create beliefs based on the details of the Bible.  There would be no surety that any detail is accurate.  We are left with just the broad principles of the Bible and even those can be slowly eroded away with doubt.  I believe that the Bible is inerrant because that is what it claims to be and that is what Jesus believed it to be.  This then makes it a solid foundation to build a belief system on, live on, and find hope for the future on.

Foundations

This might be surprising to some of you but I really dislike heights. I love rock climbing and I have been cliff jumping multiple times but I still do not enjoy heights. When I was in college, I worked a few summers doing residential construction. One of the things that I hated the most was working on roofs. Roofing of any form is hard work but that's not why I hated it. I would always be incredibly nervous walking on the roof, especially if it was a steep pitch. The worst roofing jobs were when we had to walk on bare trusses and nail down sheeting. This task required moving heavy 4 x 8 foot sheets of plywood while walking on 2 x 4's spaced sixteen inches apart. I was just waiting for that one misstep that would send me crashing through the ceiling and into the second floor of the house. Doing this type of work for a couple summers really put in perspective how "hard" my college studies really were and made it really clear to me why I was in college and not doing manual labor for a career.

I tell that story to make the point that it is good to have a solid foundation under your feet. Life is much safer and more comfortable when you are walking on solid ground and not skipping across planks twenty feet in the air.

The same principle is true as we begin to study together what we believe. We need some solid foundation on which to stand and build our belief system. Many people today have built their belief system on the foundation of personal experience and maybe the experiences of some others close to them. This type of foundation stems from the idea that truth is relative to each individual and thus every individual must build up their own worldview.

Like the truss roof, however, experience is a very precarious foundation. Our experience, no matter our age or how much we have been through, is very limited. There are many gaps of information even in the midst of what we have seen in our life. Many things we experience we just cannot fully understand by logical processing alone. Also, like a roof, experience can only carry us so far until our toes are dangling off the edge and we can only peer into the distance beyond. Experience can be valuable to tell us some things but it only offers a very limited view of what is beyond ourselves. So, if we are to answer the question of “Who is God?” we need something or someone beyond our experience to give us that answer.

This need for an outside source has been understood by man throughout all of human existence. Most cultures and religions have some set of traditions, legends, or a holy book that claims to come from someone beyond the group of humans that exist today. This source is generally some type of God or god-like figure who has come from outside the natural human world to bring the truth to humans.

For Christians, this outside book is the Bible, which explicitly claims to be written by the one God who created and rules over the world. In the Old Testament, there are over 3,800 occurrences of the phrase, "thus saith the Lord" or an equivalent. Each of these Old Testament prophets, authors, claimed to be speaking and writing on behalf of God to give a message to God’s people. By the time of Jesus, the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament had been commonly accepted by Jewish scholars as the Word of God. This view is even confirmed by Jesus throughout his ministry. (Luke 24:44, John 10:35) In the New Testament, Paul makes the claim in 2 Timothy 3:16 that the Bible is the inspired words of God. Later in 2 Peter 1:21, Peter would make the same claim. While these are internal claims and can not make an argument in and of themselves, it is important to understand that these men all believed they were writing God's words, confirmed each other, and were willing to suffer greatly, some even dying, for what they wrote.

Internal claims to be a divine book do not, however, make an ironclad case that a book is divine. Like I said earlier, most religions have some form of teachings that claim to be divine. There are some things however that separate the Bible from other holy books.

First, the continuity of the Bible points to divine origin. The Bible was written over a period of hundreds of years by forty different authors on three different continents. The different books were then collected and compiled in their original form by various groups of Christians during the first centuries AD. (We still have many pieces of manuscripts from this period and close to it.) The Bible was then officially and widely recognized in its current form in the fourth century. Even with this variety in composition and collection, the Bible still follows one main theme with no major contradictions. To see how amazing this is, turn on the news or Sportscenter and notice how hard it is to get even a small group of people sitting in the same room to agree on something.

This continuity issue is huge when you compare it to another book that claims divine authorship, the Quran. The Quran contains the teachings of one man. Those teachings were compiled by one and soon after compilation all manuscripts that varied from the official manuscript and sources were destroyed.

Second, a majority of the Bible describes events that can be archaeologically and historically verified. The Bible describes the actions and events of individuals and groups of people from throughout history and uses these events to teach who God is. It is not simply a collection of sayings. This means the events described can be confirmed by outside sources. One example of this is the Hittite nation often mentioned in the Old Testament. For centuries, this people group was lost to history with the only evidence of their existence coming from the Old Testament. However, in the eighteenth century archeological evidence was found to verify their existence.

The third and final evidence that separates the Bible from other holy books is more personal. As I have studied the Bible over the past few years, I have found nothing that more clearly explains our world. The Bible explains so clearly why we humans behave as we do and the world functions as we experience it. There are also many times where God has used the Bible to guide me through issues in my life with incredible insight and wisdom. I believe there is no other teaching in the world with the richness and depth of wisdom as the Bible.

I encourage you if you do not already buy into the validity of the Bible as God's word to examine it more thoroughly. This post only touches the surface of the argument for the Bible. Remember its important, whether you believe the Bible or not, to have a solid foundation on which to build your worldview. If the foundation is not solid, then you can easily stumble as you build on it.

Finally, going forward I will be using the Bible, without completely discarding experience, as the foundation for finding the truth of who God is and who we are. I will also try as much as possible to give some arguments outside the Bible for my different points because they can only further strengthen our trust in the Biblical foundation.