Something from My Bible Reading This Week

Look down from heaven and see
from your lofty throne, holy and glorious.
Where are your zeal and your might?
Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.

But you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
or Israel acknowledge us;
you, O LORD, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name.

Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways
and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes that are your inheritance (Isaiah 63:15-17).

Isaiah speaks of God's compassion being withheld. Then he shows what happens when God withholds mercy: We wander from God's ways and our hearts become hardened and we do not worship God. So the reason I need God's mercy is not just to be forgiven, but more importantly so that my heart will not be hardened against the greatness and goodness of God.

I'm also reading the story of the Exodus. After one of the plagues, Pharaoh actually acknowledged he had sinned: "Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. 'This time I have sinned,' he said to them. 'The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer'" (Exodus 9:27-28).

But as soon as the crisis was passed, he was unchanged in his opposition to God: "When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. So Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the Lord had said through Moses" (Exodus 9:34-35).

How much of this kind of religion exists in our churches? Indeed, how much of it exists in my own heart? It is common to seek forgiveness from God - even to acknowledge sin. But that's not all there is to God's compassion. When God's mercy is poured out it will soften our hearts to love him and fear him and obey him.

[Update: Paul Tripp says something similar (but better) in a post on Psalm 51: Something Bigger]

Apologetics: Who We Are, Not Just What We Say

Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason has an article on Culturally Aware Apologetics. He writes:

Our current culture is a dynamic amalgam of these two world views--the modern and the postmodern--in collision with each other. As such, there is no one technique that is most effective. Instead, we need a broad, flexible method: the ambassador approach.

He goes on to define an ambassador:

An effective ambassador has three essential skills. First, an ambassador must have some basic knowledge of the character, mind, and purposes of his king. Second, this knowledge must be deployed in a skillful way. There’s an element of wisdom, a tactical and artful diplomacy that makes his message persuasive. Paul says, "Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned, as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person" (Colossians 4:6). Finally, there is character. The kindness, even-handedness, and respect the ambassador shows for those who differ can either make or break his message.

Also on the STR website is the Ambassador's Creed:

An ambassador is…

§ Ready. An Ambassador is alert for chances to represent Christ and will not back away from a challenge or an opportunity.

§ Patient. An Ambassador won’t quarrel, but will listen in order to understand, then with gentleness seek to respectfully engage those who disagree.

§ Reasonable. An Ambassador has informed convictions (not just feelings), gives reasons, asks questions, aggressively seeks answers, and will not be stumped by the same challenge twice.

§ Tactical. An Ambassador adapts to each unique person and situation, maneuvering with wisdom to challenge bad thinking, presenting the truth in an understandable and compelling way.

§ Clear. An Ambassador is careful with language, and will not rely on Christian lingo nor gain unfair advantage with empty rhetoric.

§ Fair. An Ambassador is sympathetic and understanding towards others, and will acknowledge the merits of contrary views.

§ Honest. An Ambassador is careful with the facts and will not misrepresent another’s view, overstate his own case, or understate the demands of the Gospel.

§ Humble. An Ambassador is provisional in his claims, knowing that his understanding of truth is fallible, and will not press a point beyond what his evidence allows.

§ Attractive. An Ambassador will act with grace, kindness, and good manners and will not dishonor Christ in his conduct.

§ Dependent. An Ambassador knows that effectiveness requires joining his best efforts with God’s power.

Apologetics, Truth, Love and Community

Timmy Brister quotes Phillip Ryken on The Best Apologetic for Absolute Truth.

An Apologetic for the Existence of God

The Great Debate: Does God Exist?
Dr. Greg Bahnsen versus Dr. Gordon Stein
At the University of California, Irvine, 1985

Note this is in PDF. HT: From the Study.

Apologetics Resources on My Sidebar

To highlight a couple of apologetics websites that I've recently linked to on my sidebar:

• Bethinking
• Please Convince Me
  

And one that I plan to add in the near future:

• Lee Strobel: Investigating Faith

Friday Fun

Ever need or want to shorten an URL? Check out SnipURL.

Website URLs are long and difficult to remember. SnipURL allows you to "snip" your long URLs into small, friendly and persistent links for sharing and remembering.

Apologetics Resources (continued)

A good-looking Apologetics site by the Southern Baptist's NAMB.

Apologetic Resources

For the rest of the month, I'll be linking to various sites devoted to apologetics. Here's one called C. S. Lewis Society.

Challies on Sproul on Apologetics

Tim Challies liveblogged R. C. Sproul's opening talk at the recent Ligonier Conference. According to Sproul:

The most important tasks of the apologist are these: To defend the existence of God and the authority of the Bible. If we can settle these two issues, the rest will fall into place. We need to learn how to respond to the agnosticism and skepticism around us. We need to make the case that the Bible has its origin in God. If we do this, all other arguments are mere footnotes that can be done by exegesis. These two issues need to be defended clearly and cogently in every generation, and especially in our own.

Friday Fun

Railway to Heaven is a short Room Escape game. The "room" is a cage on a railway track. A train is coming and you are in the cage! You have 90 seconds to find a way to get out.

An Apologetic for the Inspiration of Scripture

The Moral Glory of Jesus Christ: A Proof of Inspiration by William G. Moorehead.

The thesis which we undertake to illustrate and establish is this: That the moral glory of Jesus Christ as set forth in the four Gospels cannot be the product of the unaided human intellect, that only the Spirit of God is competent to execute this matchless portrait of the Son of Man.

What do you think of this line of argument?

Acts 17 and Apologetic Methodology

In Part 3 of John Whitcomb's Contemporary Apologetics and the Christian Faith, he examines Paul's apologetic methodology in Acts 17.

Not only did Paul avoid giving any direct reference to Holy Scripture, he even quoted two Greek poets approvingly (Epimenides of Crete in 28a, and Aratus of Cilicia in 28b). Does this mean that he stepped outside of the realm of revealed truth to argue on the basis of human reasoning toward the God of Christianity? Many seem to think so, but the Biblical facts point in a different direction.

It is very important to recognize that before the Mars Hill confrontation began, Paul had already been "preaching Jesus and the resurrection" day after day in the market place of Athens (Acts 17:18). Thus, his Mars Hill address was not presented in a total vacuum. These Greek thinkers wanted to know more about "this new doctrine" (vv. 19-20).

Furthermore, so far from proving the existence of the God of Christianity, Paul simply and authoritatively declared Him to these men (v. 23). He declared this God to be the Creator and the Lord of the world and of mankind (vv. 24-26). He declared the nearness and thus the accessibility of God to mankind (vv. 27-28), and the utter ignorance of idolatry (vv. 29-30). And, finally, he announced that this great God will some day judge all men through that resurrected man whom Paul had previously named as Jesus (vv. 18, 31); and, therefore, He "is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent" (v. 30).

See also Eric Zeller's treatment (pdf) of the Acts 17 passage. He quotes Robert Reymond:

Only a cursory reading of Acts will disclose that Peter, Stephen, Philip, and Paul, in their missionary sermons to the nations, never urge lost men to do anything other than to repent of sin and bow in faith before the God who revealed Himself in Jesus Christ for men’s salvation. They never imply in their argumentation that their hearers may legitimately question the existence of the Christian God, the truth of Scripture, or the historicity of the death and resurrection of Christ prior to personal commitment. Never do they by their appeal to ‘evidence’… imply that such evidence ‘probably’ vindicates their message… these ‘kerygmatics’ regarded their message as an inconvertible witness, the inherent authority of which renders the believer and skeptic culpable of ‘making God a liar’ (1 John 5:10) when they refuse to believe.

Update: An article at SharperIron on Paul at Athens: Observations for Apologetics by Mike Osborne.

Whitcomb on Apologetic Methodology

John Whitcomb gave a series of four lectures on "Contemporary Apologetics and the Christian Faith" at Dallas Theological Seminary, February 8-11, 1977. These were subsequently published in Bibliotheca Sacra in four consecutive issues beginning in April, 1977. The four articles are available on-line at the Whitcomb Ministries website.

If the New Testament is our infallible guide in such matters, we must conclude that the Christian who will be most effectively used by God in winning people to Christ is not necessarily the one who knows the most about secular philosophy, psychology, history, archaeology, or natural science (important though these disciplines may be in their proper place in developing a comprehensive Christian world-and-life view), but rather the Christian who knows most about God's Word and who humbly seeks God's daily strength and wisdom in obeying it. The best Christian apologist is the best student of Scripture, who, to use the Bible's own terms to describe him, is "accustomed to the word of righteousness" (Heb. 5:13), "a workman who does not need to be ashamed" because he is "handling accurately the word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15), a man who, like Apollos, is "mighty in the Scriptures . . . instructed in the way of the Lord . . . speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus," and thus able by God's Word to "powerfully refute" unbelievers (Acts 18:24-28).

Friday Fun

Somewhere, someone has a holiday. Celebrate every day with the Earth Calendar.

Evidences and Presuppositional Apologetics

Alejandro Moreno Morrison writes on "The Role and Use of Evidence in Reformed Presuppositional Apologetics," Part 1 and Part 2.

Sometimes Christians like to fight among themselves. Apologetic methodology is a case in point. Morrison observes:

An oversimplified, broad (and, in my opinion, misleading) characterization of the major divide in apologetics would picture two contending parties: evidentialism and presuppositionalism; the former making faith depend on evidence, and the latter denying any value to evidence in defending the faith. Although this is a caricature of the debate, it is sad to realize that many people actually hold these views, including some of the educated ones involved in the debate.

Morrison's articles seek to show how presuppositionalism understands evidence, and can benefit from the valuable contributions coming from the evidentialist camp.

His concluding remarks:

Evidence as a direct, positive, demonstrative tool, not merely as a heuristic or complementary tool (as in positive inductive apologetics), has no room in vertical argumentation (from immanent to transcendent). The transcendent God has already worked his way down to make himself present. However, in the horizontal level, evidence is in its jurisdiction and, duly submitted to the Lordship of Yahweh, can militate in the holy war against unbelief, demonstrating the folly of these creaturely attacks against God. This holy war pits the City of God with the Word of God against the city of man and the word of man.

It is now my desire to encourage my fellow Reformed presuppositional apologists to engage in offensive apologetics. I urge them to claim the use of evidence to the Lordship of our God, both developing it and taking advantage of the work already done by our fellow brothers in Christ, giving it the proper scriptural focus and use, and putting it to the service of the kingdom in order to fight the good fight, the holy war, until the King appears to consummate his victory.

Frame on Presuppositional Apologetics

John Frame has a two-part article on Presuppositional Apologetics:

Part 1 of 2: Introduction and Creation
Part 2 of 2: Fall and Redemption; and Summary and Conclusion

Frame asks: "If someone is unwilling to accept Christian criteria of rationality, truth and knowledge, how can the Christian expect him to be persuaded by an argument which presupposes these criteria?" To which he answers:

In the final analysis, this is what we do, and should do, in any argument with someone who differs with us on fundamental standards. We do not, we cannot, reason on his basis or on “neutral” criteria. Rather we reason on our own basis, in hope. And sometimes the argument persuades, despite the other’s resistance to our standards. Now these principles apply very well to Christian apologetics. The Christian apologist, too, must avoid adopting the systems of his opponents, or the pretense of standing on “neutral” ground. He loves Jesus Christ, and therefore he cannot escape being “biased.” His only alternative is to speak the truth as he knows it, in hope and prayer. Nothing can be any more persuasive than that.

Apologetics Methodology

The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry offers a helpful summary of three major approaches to Christian apologetics:

Classical Apologetics: "Classical Apologetics is that style of Christian defense that stresses rational arguments for the existence of God and uses evidence to substantiate biblical claims and miracles."

Evidential Apologetics: "Evidential Apologetics is that style of Christian defense that stresses the miracles found in the Bible, particularly Christ's resurrection, as an evidence for the existence of God and the validity of Christ and His words. It also uses historical evidences to support the veracity of the biblical account(s)."

Presuppositional Apologetics: "A Christian presuppositionalist presupposes God's existence and argues from that perspective to show the validity of Christian theism. This position also presupposes the truth of the Christian Scriptures and relies on the validity and power of the gospel to change lives (Rom. 1:16)."

Friday Fun

What Does Your Phone Number Spell?

March Topic: Apologetics

In keeping with yesterday's post on the so-called "Tomb of Jesus," the topic for the month is going to be apologetics. Here are some of my old posts on the topic:

- The Problem of Evil (Sept. 2005).
- Another Apologetics Resource (August 2005).
- Apologetics and Postmoderns (June 2005).

My Blog Collection: The Tomb of Jesus

Here are a few responses to the recent news story that they have found the tomb of Jesus:

- Adam Omelianchuk, Thoughts on the Resurrection.
- Adrian Warnock, Jesus Tomb Found? I Think Not!
- Andreas Köstenberger, The Jesus' Tomb.
- Ben Witherington, The Jesus Tomb? ‘Titanic’ Talpiot Tomb Theory Sunk from the Start. I like Witherington's line: "My response to this is clear--- James Cameron, the producer of the movie Titantic, has now jumped on board another sinking ship full of holes...."
- More Ben Witherington, Problems Multiply for Jesus Tomb Theory and The Jesus Tomb Show - Biblical Archaeologists Reject Discovery Channel Show's Claims.
- Daniel Nairn, The Jesus Tomb Relic.
- Darrell Bock, No Need to Yell, Only a Challenge for Some who Need to Step Up and Could (expanded).
- Dave Bish, Raise the Titanic!
- David Croteau, NEW DISCOVERY: Not only Jesus' bones, but the Holy Spirit's, too.
- Denny Burk, Darrell Bock and Bart Ehrman Agree!
- Douglas Groothuis, Dr. Craig Blomberg on the Bones of Jesus Controversy.
- Ed @ Our Hangout, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?
- Gene Edward Veith, The Empty Tomb.
- JPS, Tomb of Jesus?
- John Piper on Jesus' Tomb.
- Justin Taylor, A Skeleton in God's Closet? Paul Maier Responds.
- Kerby Anderson, Tales From the Crypt: Do We Have the Bones of Jesus?
- Michael Bells, So-called Jesus' Family Tomb Found.
- Michael Spencer, Resources and Responses to the “Tomb of Jesus and His Family” Story.
- Phil Ryken, Looking for the Living among the Dead, Part 1 and Part 2.
- Pulpit Magazine, The Lost Tomb of Jesus? and Asking the Experts about Jesus’ Lost Tomb.
- Scot McKnight, Was Jesus Married? One More Time.
- SharperIron, ACCC Responds to “Bones of Christ” Claim.
- Spencer Haygood, Well, Here We Go Again...
- Stand to Reason, The Lost Tomb of Jesus.
- Stephen Shields, The "Jesus Family Tomb" Roundup and Much Ado about the Talpiot Tomb - the Claimed Burial Place of Jesus and Family.
- The A-Team, It's Officially Easter Season Again.
- The Point, For Your Convenience.
- Tim Challies, C'est La Meme Chose.

(I'll add more responses, as I come across them)