Month: July 2015

Our Dangerous Familiarity With Scripture

Is there a danger in our society where Christianity is normative? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If your household is like mine, my wife and I do frequently discuss the Bible and what it means for us, particularly when we are going through a difficult time, which we all go through. We also contrast it with others we see who fail along the journey and ask what they did wrong and how we can avoid it. One thought that comes to my mind is that too many people who call themselves Christians just aren’t taking Scripture seriously enough. The sad thought is that every one of us to some extent falls into that category.

You see, we will share with our neighbors and on Facebook and on our blogs and web sites about the glorious truths of Christ. We will talk about how His power is in us to work and to bring about the Kingdom. We will even listen to Christian songs that sing that message and sing those same songs in our church service. We will stand up and we will cite the creeds in our church services as if to say that we give full support to them and back them entirely. Many of us will stand up for the Inerrancy of Scripture and say that we fully believe that which is written in the Bible.

We’re good at talking.

We’re not so good at walking.

You see, we’ve become in some ways so familiar with the text that it no longer strikes us as radical in any way. Our Biblical morality has become normative for many cultures in many ways. We don’t realize how much of a change it is to dare suggest that a person should not be a slave, that a woman has value in herself, that sex is something sacred for marriage, that we should want to give to the poor, etc. Even many atheists today will agree to some of the claims before. (Probably you’d only find the most resistance on the third one) These have seeped into our background knowledge so much that we don’t realize it. Many people do not realize they are living with a Christian morality and frankly, we don’t even realize it.

When it comes to the story of the Bible, we’ve grown up with so many cute Vacation Bible School and Sunday School lessons on this that we have not got to have the shock value. We grew up thinking this is the way not only that the world is but that it has always been. The surprise of it has never been taught. Unfortunately also, we’ve made God detached in this one. We don’t really talk about who God is at all or what He intends to do in us. We talk about what He will do for us and very rarely does that seem to include personal holiness. Instead, it most often means things like providing comfort and peace when we need it and He’ll come when we pray because we’re in a bind. We don’t see Him as a day to day reality in our lives. It’s almost like we look and say “Well yeah, I know God is there and He loves me, but so what? Look at what’s going on in my life.”

We must really ask ourselves if we’re saying “So what?” to our worldview.

What does it mean when we talk about God? The great work of Jesus was that He gave us access to God, and yet we don’t really bother to learn anything about this God He gave us access to. How many of you men would like it if your wife treated you like just a paycheck so she could get the things she wants at the store and did not come to really know and appreciate you as a person? (And how many of you wives are doing just that?) How many of you women would like it if your husband only came to you when he wanted sex but just showed no interest in you otherwise? (And how many of you husbands are doing just that?) Yet too often, this is how we have treated God, you know, the being we say is the most awesome and wonderful and majestic one of all. The one who has all the power to do what He wants, all the knowledge to know what the right thing to do is, and is all present meaning He sees everything. Oh yes, we also believe He’s going to judge us at the end of our lives and everything we have done, thought, or said, will be called to account.

Tell you what. Let that last part sink in for awhile before moving on.

Everything. There are no exceptions.

Every. Single. Thing.

As I thought about this, I remembered a meme my wife put up that is a sentiment I have shared many times that a marriage cannot be 50-50 but 100-100 and I thought “Could it be that we do not seek to give all we can in our marriages when we don’t even do that with God?” In fact, it looks like we more often than not seek to give the bare minimum. Let’s consider a line like “You should not have sex before marriage.” We can look at that and say “Okay. I get it. No sex before marriage.” But then the rationalizations come in. “Yes, but what constitutes sex? Does this mean I can do absolutely nothing truly intimate before marriage?” It’s like we want to get as close to that line before we cross it. It’s practically thinking that we suspect God is holding out on some joy and keeping it from us.

Why on Earth would you give God the bare minimum? Do you think He’s going to waste what you give to Him? Do you think that if you give money or time or service to Him that He will waste that? Do you not realize that your actions in this life really show the world what you think of God? If your actions do not match up with your words, you can be sure that the people will go with your actions instead of your words.

Now some of you can say “God is going to judge me, but I’m saved so I get to spend eternity with Him.” Well to begin with, that’s just taking advantage of the grace of God. It’s saying “I’m already covered so this sin is no big deal.” That despite the fact that any one sin is enough to require the death of the Son of God so you can be forgiven. Sorry, but to Him, it’s all a big deal and if you do not see sin in your life as a big deal, then frankly you are not taking God seriously. You must also realize on the bright side that if you do take it seriously and come to Him and ask Him seriously for help as you repent, that He will help you.

Still, let’s suppose as we have good reason to that it is true that you will make it into His Kingdom. How you spend your life here will determine how much you will enjoy eternity the next life. So let’s look at you men again who might say “Look. I mainly value my wife for sex, but I love her still and our marriage is fine. What’s the big deal?” To begin with, I’m not sure why you would want your marriage to be described as “fine” when it should be described as awesome, but if you treat your wife as a sex object, you can certainly get a lot of jollies down here, but if you’re married to a Christian, that Christian is the temple of God and you will get called to account for how you treated that temple.

Your capacity to enjoy God in the next life could be greatly lessened by your failing to appreciate Him in this life.

Let’s also add in the case of Jerry Walls. Walls is a Protestant who believes that we shouldn’t have jettisoned the idea of purgatory. God has to make us holy somehow and he doesn’t see a guarantee of a sudden zap when we die. There will be a time of waiting according to Walls where God will purge our unholiness out of us.

Let’s suppose that that is true.

If so, do you not realize that living a life of sin means you will be further and further from experiencing the joy of the Kingdom because you lived so long in contradiction to it? I’m not sold on Walls’s idea yet, but it does make me look at myself and say “Am I taking sanctification seriously? Am I taking holiness seriously?” We can often act like our wrong doesn’t really matter to God and on what basis do we normally do it?

Feelings and experience.

“Sure. I did this thing I normally shouldn’t have, but I didn’t feel awful and the sky didn’t come crashing down around me so it must not be any big deal to God.” If personal experience and feelings were a guide to holiness that was surefire, I suspect many of us would be living better. Unfortunately, how we feel in a situation is often a result of not just that situation but a lifetime of training our emotions and feelings a certain way. They become repetitive. We can numb ourselves to any idea that we are doing something wrong by just ignoring it. That’s one reason so many guys can get caught in internet pornography. They ignore the one feeling and they emphasize that other feeling that certainly feels oh so good to them.

But for that, judgment is still coming. You will stand before God.

Again, let that sink in for a bit before moving on.

And what are the consequences of not taking Scripture seriously and thus not taking holiness seriously? Look around you.

How many of you live lives that the rest of the world will look at you and say “Wow. That’s what I want my life to be like.” How many of you husbands would have your wives be able to wake up and say “My husband is just so much like Jesus it’s a joy to be married to him.” (And wives, if you are saying that, are you indeed giving him your very best like you should give your best to Jesus?) How many husbands get up and say “I love my wife so much that I am willing to die for her at this moment.” (And if you say that, dying is no doubt difficult to do for someone, but are you willing to also live for them?) Again, many of us seek to give the bare minimum in our marriages. That could be why the divorce rate is so high.

Okay. I know there are times that a divorce is Biblically allowable. I also don’t think the claim is true that it’s just as high for Christians as it is for non-Christians since it’s my understanding that Christians who regularly worship and pray and read the Bible together and thus seek to live out a Biblical worldview have a much lower divorce rate. Despite that, divorce is a tragedy. Even if it is Biblically allowable, divorce is a tragedy. Our hearts should weep when we hear about it taking place in the church again even when we think it needs to be done. In fact, at our house, unless we’re discussing it in a context like this, we never use the word. It is simply “The d-word.”

This also includes our sex lives. Isn’t it a shame that we look at sex in our culture and the Christians are seen as the prudes who don’t really enjoy sex? We Christians should be the ones who are enjoying it the most. (Adding in if we are married of course.) If you want the world to look at your marriage and see it as something that they should desire, that will include your sex life in it. Sex is a covenant making activity and it serves the role in marriage of renewing the covenant as it were with your spouse. You come in and give everything you have to your spouse and leave yourself totally vulnerable to them. Yet in that vulnerability, there is to be the greatest of joy for you come knowing you are fully accepted and loved. Christians should in fact corner the market on having great sex and too often, we don’t.

What do you take the time to enjoy the most? Peter Kreeft spoke about one of his sports teams in baseball he likes once and said sometimes he worries he’s more of a fan of them than he is a fan of Jesus. How many of us could say likewise? How many of us follow our favorite sports team with more devotion and excitement than Jesus. Now some of you might call foul (pun intended) on me in this saying that you know I’m not a sports fan. Fair enough. Could I be more interested in a game I am playing at the time? Could I be more interested in a TV series I am watching at the time? Unfortunately, looking at the state of my prayer life, I think I could often say that yes, some things are more appealing. Could it in fact sometimes be that the ministry of Jesus is more appealing than Jesus Himself?

To get back to judgment, some of us will read and say, “Yes. I know I need to get things right, but judgment is off in the distance.”

For some people in Chattanooga, judgment came suddenly yesterday. I am not saying that their deaths was God’s judgment on them. Not at all. I am saying that they woke up yesterday morning I’m sure thinking they had the rest of their lives ahead of them. They had time to do things they meant to do. They had time to tell their loved ones that they loved them. They had time to play with the kids later on. They had time to show their spouse how much they appreciated them.

But they didn’t.

Before the day was over, they unexpectedly stepped into eternity.

And what guarantee do you have that the same won’t happen to you today?

We often look at our world and wonder how it got the way that it did. The idea of redefining marriage would have been unthinkable decades ago. Now it’s normative to most people. We can actually rip apart a baby in the womb and have people that will defend and celebrate it. Many of the things we were sure would never happen have in fact happened and as I tell people as an apologist, it really blows my mind the things that I have to defend today because I never would have dreamed someone could think otherwise.

This did not happen because the world did what the world does.

This happened because the church did not do what the church is supposed to do.

Do we really think this would have happened if we were taking the claims of Christ seriously? Do we really think this would have happened if we had properly informed ourselves on our worldview? Do we really think this would have happened if the church had more consistently lived what it believed? No. The blame falls on our heads for not doing the job of standing up and contending for the faith and we will be called to judgment for that.

In fact, we often talk about caring for the poor in Christianity. You know who’s job that is in Christianity? Yours. It is not the job of the government to take care of the poor. It is the job of the church to do that and the reason the church is having such a hard time is we decided to ask Caesar for his help. Do we really think that Christ is so weak and incapable that His church would need the help of Caesar to do what He had told them to do? The sad reality is yes, yes we do in fact think that. We can know we think that because that is in fact what we did.

Please also understand I am not going hard on everyone else and ignoring myself in all of this. I do take a serious look at myself and ask if I’m doing all that I could be. Of course, we can all always do more. None of us will live perfectly, but if I really do think God can help me in my struggle with sin, that He can empower me to live a holy life, that eternity of bliss with Him is the best thing that can possibly be, and that He will be my judge one day, I should take it seriously. If I believe the Bible is from Him and the commands in there are true, I should take that seriously.

Am I? Good question.

Are you? Also a good question.

Think about it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/18/2015

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Marriage. It’s all in the news today. It’s amazing that what has been argued by some as just a piece of paper is at the same time being argued as essential for the homosexual movement. What is it about marriage that has sparked such a debate? What is marriage? Is it just a connection of two people in love, or is it something different? How could we ever know? In order to answer these questions, I decided to have a scholar of marriage come on my show so this Saturday, I am honored to be bringing you Glenn Stanton.

GlennStanton

Glenn T. Stanton is the director of Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs and a research fellow at the Institute of Marriage and Family in Ottawa. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the world. Stanton served the George W. Bush administration for many years as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program.

Stanton is the author of five books about marriage and families, including “Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society,” “My Crazy, Imperfect Christian Family” and “Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting,” which was featured on C-SPAN BookTV. Stanton has also been interviewed on the Los Angeles NPR show, “AirTalk.” He is also a contributing author to nine others.

His latest book, “Loving My (LGBT) Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth,” explores how Christians should interact with gay or lesbian neighbors in a Christ-honoring way. He is also the author of “The Ring Makes All the Difference,” and “Secure Daughters, Confident Sons: How Parents Guide Their Children into Authentic Masculinity and Femininity.”

Stanton is a graduate of the University of West Florida with graduate degrees in philosophy and history. He now makes his home in Colorado Springs with his wife and five children.

We’ll be talking with Stanton about the SCOTUS ruling first to determine what his stance is on the matter and why he thinks the way he thinks. What are Christians to say about this? Does having something be the law of the land mean that it is actually true, or is this a case of trying to redefine something?

We’ll also then talk about what difference marriage really makes to a society and to a person. Many people today are wanting to live together before getting married. After all, why would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive? We also have a problem with a culture that readily turns to divorce. What role does sex play in a marriage? What difference does it make how you live your marriage if you are married?

These are all important questions and I am honored to have an expert in the field come on, particularly as my own wife and I get ready to celebrate five years together. I hope you’ll be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Doing The Right Thing

What do you do when you don’t want to do what you should do? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Biblically, we all know no one lives life on the mountain always. There will be times of trouble and sorrow. Bluntly, my mood isn’t the best right now. I woke up this morning not really wanting to do anything and there are times then the apologetics ministry becomes a burden. You see, I normally love doing what I do, but there can be times you wish you could go without having to interact with the rest of the world. There are times you wish that the skeptics weren’t there that you had to answer. There are times you wish that you could push the pause button and put everything else on hold. Yet I get up this morning and not too long after waking up, what do I find myself doing? Apologetics.

Note, this can happen even when you’re not really happy with what God is doing in your life. I think too often we go and put on our best church faces because Christians are always to be people of happiness who don’t have problems. Don’t know what Bible you’re reading, but the one I read seems to say a lot to people who have a lot of problems. We live in a world where everyone puts on a face which means we really don’t discuss the problems we have going on. It’s a wonder so many of us can look to study the problem of evil and how to deal with it and try to live our lives as if evil isn’t a reality.

But evil is a reality and we all know of times when it looks like the universe is not working the way we think it should. It is often thought that when God seems silent, the real pain is wondering if He’s even there. I disagree with this entirely. For those of us who know He is there, the real pain is that we know He’s there and He doesn’t seem to be doing anything. The pain is that we know that this is in fact what is good for us at the time and we best learn to grow from it somehow. There are times that quite frankly, the goodness of God is something that is awful.

So here you are and you are one who says He is a servant of Christ and you know your duty and yet there is nothing inside of you that is prompting you to do it really. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. What do you do in this case?

You do your duty.

Our culture has become so feeling-oriented that we look at our world through the lenses of our experience and feelings first. Unfortunately, the hard struggle for us is the Bible doesn’t make many allowances for us. There is nothing that says “Love your neighbor as yourself, unless your neighbor is being a jerk and then you have a pass.” “Pray for your enemies, unless they do this specific evil to you and then you can pray for fire and brimstone to fall on them instead.” “Love your wife or respect your husband, except for those times that they quite frankly are getting on your nerves and then you have an exception.” Imagine how far we can go with this. Rejoice in all things. Pray without ceasing. Study to show yourself approved. Do the work of an evangelist. This is the way, walk you in it.”

Yeah. Go through the book and see all the exception clauses you can find. There’s a story supposedly told that when a famous atheist was dying, a friend of him was surprised to come to see him on his deathbed and find him reading the Bible. When the friend asked the atheist what he was doing he got the reply of “Looking for loopholes.”

We laugh, but we all are looking for loopholes or living like they should be there. “Oh I know Biblically that I should save sex for marriage, but I really love her and we’re going to get married anyway.” “Oh I know Biblically that I should give to the poor, but there’s this item on sale that I really want this week.” “Oh I know Biblically that I am to be loving of my neighbor, but do you have any idea what the jerk did to me?” “Oh I know Biblically that I am to pray, but God is really silent so if He doesn’t care about me why should I care about Him?”

I think we’ve all made statements like this before.

And you know, this all gets harder in light of James 4:17.

“So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”

We have this strange idea that we should do what we feel like doing or don’t feel like doing and get away with zero consequences. We fail to realize that every action we do, big or small, is building up a character, and not just in us, but in everyone around us who we interact with. We do not stop to ask what kind of person we are becoming. We all tend to think we’re the exception to the rule and that reality will treat us differently.

It won’t.

Reality is what it is and we Christians are called to live in accordance with the truth. If we start making exceptions for us, don’t be surprised if the rest of the world starts to think there are exceptions for them too.

So what is it that we are supposed to do on those days when we don’t desire to do what we ought? What are we to do when our every feeling and desire in us is telling us to not do something?

We are to do the right thing.

This is the way of the cross. This is taking it up and following Him. This is dying to our self and knocking ourselves off the throne of God and realizing that we are to live in accordance with what our master teaches and if it doesn’t seem to make sense at the time, we are to still realize that He knows best. If we have to do it while inwardly we are kicking and screaming and gritting our teeth in frustration, well we do it anyway. If we often wait until we feel like serving Jesus or doing anything that He has told us to do, then it is quite likely that we will never do what we ought.

Do you not like that?

Well quite honestly, neither do I.

But reality is not about what I like. Reality is about what is. The truth is Jesus is my Lord and I am to follow Him regardless.

He knows best after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

So You Want To Begin

How does one start in the field of apologetics? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of teaching youth. Since the talk I gave Sunday at the church was the first instance these kids have of being really introduced to apologetics, I thought “What if some of them do want to study more?” If you do, you’re in luck. In our day and age it’s never been easier to do such, but as I said in the talk, it will require work. There is no such thing as success without the effort put forward. So how do you begin?

If you just have the internet, you could start with apologetics web sites. Naturally, I think my blog is a great place to go to. Of course, I’m not the only site. There are two sites you can go to to get a great look at numerous other apologetics sites. One is the ministry of Brian Auten at Apologetics 315. Another site that you can go to is The Poached Egg. The reason I mention both of these is they are largely compendiums of other sites and resources and you can go and keep looking until your heart’s content.

Naturally, there are other web sites that are wonderful resources. There is Tektonics.org, which is the ministry of my ministry partner, J.P. Holding. My father-in-law, Mike Licona, has an excellent ministry built on defending the resurrection at Risen Jesus. William Lane Craig is known for his ministry of Reasonable Faith. There are many many more that you can find online.

While you’re online, you should probably connect with a group of apologists that you can interact with. One such place to go to is the Christian Apologetics Alliance on Facebook, which I am a member of. You will find people of all levels in apologetics there. You will find professionals who have been doing apologetics for years and you will find people who are just starting to learn the skill, like yourself.

As you browse online also, be skeptical of what you see. There are two great sources of misinformation. The first is YouTube. Unless you know the person who runs the channel well and have good reason to think they’re an authority, do not take them seriously. This includes Christians and non-Christians. The second is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the place a lot of people begin, but I will advise you to avoid it like the plague. You have no idea who has edited that Wikipedia entry. There is no reason to think the gatekeepers at Wikipedia are skilled at all the information that is being put up on the site.

Online, you can also find great debates. One great site to go to for debates is Unbelievable? Justin Brierley does an excellent job of moderating the debates that take place and you can find a debate on most any topic that you’re interested in.

Yet one of the best resources you can find is your local library. Look for books published by good publishing houses. If you want to check on that, just go to the publishing house’s web site and see what they say. Of course, not all material that is good is published there, and I say this as one with some published Ebooks, but all things being equal, go with the works published by excellent firms. Try to look at the information about the author. You want to see if the author has a Ph.D. and in a relevant field.

Of course, there are exceptions to this as well. One such exception is that I’d encourage you to check out the writings of Lee Strobel. Strobel has several excellent “case” books and in these books, Strobel introduces you to the leading scholars in the field who he went out and interviewed for his book. This is popular apologetics done right and the excellent aspect of the books is that they will introduce you to other leading minds in the field so that you will know the next place to go.

Eventually, you’ll want to go out and debate some yourself and the internet is the easiest place to do it. Here’s the warning. As you start, you are going to get your tail kicked numerous times. It will happen. You will have to have others come and help defend you. That’s okay. No one starting out studying something like martial arts can expect to defeat all of their opponents. You are going to get stumped many many times. It will happen. You’re just learning. The goal is to use this to drive you in your studies all the more.

Another resource besides books you can also use is find excellent podcasts. (Again, I’m biased, but I do recommend mine.) ITunes University is a great resource you can go to for podcasts where you can listen to seminary courses online. If you’re out driving, it’s a great way to pass your time, as it can be to find courses at your library on CD such as Portable Professor or Modern Scholar.

One mistake many apologists make is to think they have to be masters in everything. Choose one or two select fields and have an emphasis in those fields. By all means, have some knowledge in others, but realize your limitations. If you try to master everything, you will inevitably master nothing. Some of you might like history. Some might like philosophy. Some might want to deal with cults. Some might want to deal with political issues. You could enjoy answering questions relating to science. There are all manner of fields.

In all of this, don’t lose sight of other areas. Be sure to be studying your Bible for your own personal development and not just to win debates. Be sure to work on having a good prayer life. (Something I struggle with admittedly.) Something that can help you in all of this is to find someone who will be a spiritual mentor to you. I have one and I email my mentor at least once every day barring some emergency times so he can know everything that’s going on in my life and offer me advice. Note I said “He.” If you are a man, let your mentor be a man. If you are a woman, let your mentor be a woman.

As you go in this field, you will find that it is a lot of fun and you will also be hopefully growing as a Christian. Apologetics is one of the most important ministries that is out there. Peter Kreeft has said that apologetics is the closest you get to saving the world. If Christianity is true, and it is, its truth is essential to the functioning of our life on this planet. You are one of the defenders of that truth and you are one of the people standing between the opponents of Christianity and your fellow Christians who are not equipped at all to defend themselves. Fight the battle well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

The Importance of Teaching Youth

Who really needs apologetics training the most? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I got to do something that’s one of those privileges that I enjoy in the apologetics field and that’s teaching youth. At my church, I had been invited to speak to the youth group about the importance of Christian apologetics. I did it with the help of a friend of mine who I brought to the meeting with me. Since this friend didn’t go to my church, he played the role of an atheist asking the kids why they should be Christians. Unfortunately, our young Christians were flummoxed early on. That’s when we told the truth. My friend is also a Christian apologist and that led us into the discussion of how we can know that Christianity is true and what difference it makes and not only that, but how much fun it can be to discuss these matters.

In the end, one of the youth said a closing prayer and I think it showed that this was sinking in, at least I hope it was. The leaders at least certainly appreciated it. In fact, this is one of the events I consider the most important. It’s great to talk to adults often on topics such as the resurrection of Jesus. That needs to be done. Youth are our main group we should be trying to reach. The youth are the ones that are about to go into the furnace of college most often and have their faith tested by professors who will be more than happy to debunk Christianity and by moral challenges such as dealing with sexual temptation.

Ultimately, stressing to them that Christianity is true is what it’s all about and they need more than warm fuzzies to know that. They will face hard times eventually and a good feeling will not sustain them and we should all know we cannot produce feelings. If we all lived according to our feelings, our world would be chaos and most of living the good Christian life is learning to overcome wrong feelings and wrong thinking. (And despite this, how many Christians act or don’t act because of their feelings and even turn it into something supposed to be Biblical, like doing something because you “feel led” to do it?)

But what if you have something else that drives you? That will really come into play when those times of struggle come. “Wow. It feels like God is absent now, but I know because of XYZ that He exists and that He cares about me and I know because of this historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.” “Wow. My date is so hot and you know, I really would like to get to see all that she has right now and have some fun with her, but I know that that is not the right thing to do because of XYZ.” “Wow. My spouse is being a jerk today, but I know I am to be the better person and love (or respect) more because of XYZ.”

Those times will come, and those necessities will need to be there. You will need to know how to think properly about the issues.

When you do this, Christianity will become more real to you. Your worship will be better informed. You will get much more out of your Bible reading and study when you see it as a book that contains events that really took place in space and time. You will take your moral responsibility much more seriously when you realize that there truly is a good. Studying believe it or not can also be fun. Yes. There are times I don’t really want to do it, but I suppose for some people, it’s like working out. Many I understand don’t like to work out really but once they get started, they are enjoying it and want to finish. It’s just honestly fun to learn new things about Christianity.

There’s also great joy when you encounter someone who is rather a loudmouth atheist. Now of course not all atheists are like this, but those who are not will be the first to admit that there are too many atheists that they find frankly embarrassing for speaking on what they don’t know about. These kinds do not want to meet a Christian who knows what they’re talking about. Be that Christian.

Also, as my friend and my wife and I discussed afterwards, there will not be many times that you will find that the atheist you dialogue with is convinced. This is sadly par for the course. As I had said in the meeting, I don’t do it for the atheist most of the time. I do it for the people who are watching. Someone might see what is going on in that Facebook thread and really reconsider that there could be good evidence for Christianity and be strengthened in their faith by seeing how weak the opposition is. (This is not to say there are not opponents out there who really do think about the issues and know how to interact well with the arguments, but that for the most part, the objections you encounter are quite weak.)

Friends. The youth have to hear this. They have to. We who are the adults and able to teach are doing our youths a great wrong if we do not equip them with Christian apologetics and if they go to college and fall away or fall away morally through sexual sins or other sins because we have not equipped them, then just like in the book of Ezekiel, we will be accountable for that. Do you really want that on your head? If you still want to ignore teaching your youth what they believe and why, then the question that needs to be asked is not “Why are they not taking Christianity seriously?” but rather “Why are you not taking it seriously?”

We are at war friends and our youth are lined up to be the first casualties. We need for them to know that the life of joy and pleasure is found in more than just sex, music, video games, etc. It’s found first and foremost in knowing God and learning about Him. Christianity isn’t pie in the sky. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s an actual worldview that is meant to shape everything that you think and do. It has something to say about who you date, who you marry, how you behave, how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what you study in college, and every other aspect of your life.

Please be teaching young people at your church apologetics. You could make sure that they enter the blessed presence of God one day by doing so.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Who Are You?

What’s really lying at the core of who you are? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Identity is all in the news now. We have the news about what Bruce Jenner did and of course we have the SCOTUS ruling and then we have this going on in Hollywood, such as the movie Selfless coming out, which I will admit that last one does look intriguing. It’s not a shock that we have questions over identity and the more society normalizes different lifestyles, the more people will start to wonder. What about Christians? Who are Christians today?

I encourage Christians to always remember that who they are is who they will be before the throne of God someday. Non-Christians real identity is who they could be before the throne and if they become Christians, they can reach that potential. If not, they actually become what I prefer to call uncreations. When we speak about who we are today, we need to be careful and ask if what we’re saying about ourselves is what’s going to be at the throne of Christ. It’s far too easy to identify ourselves with the old creation instead of realizing that we are a new creation. We forget the advice of Paul to forget what is behind and strive to what is ahead.

I use the story I’ve heard about David by Donatello. When asked how he managed to turn a slab of material into David, he is said to have responded that he just went to it and took away everything that wasn’t David. I mainly want to look at the point of why I am sharing this kind of story. In the process of sanctification, God is doing the same thing with us. God is taking away everything that is not us. We are meant to be a living sacrifice on the altar renewing our minds. (Note that we renew our minds. God does not do that for us. We have our own role to play.)

The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep jumping off the altar, especially when they experience that little thing we don’t really like, pain.

But unfortunately pain is often the only way we change and if we do not learn to bear up under it, we will often just keep repeating the same lessons. C.S. Lewis compared it to God moving into our houses when we’re more like quaint little cottages not realizing that he intends to live in a palace.

If you’re a Christian, you need to realize that your true identity lies in Christ. It does not lie anywhere else. Soren Kierkegaard had a saying that went “And now Lord, with your help, I will become myself.” This also means that in reality, who we are does in fact turn out to be good. We just have a whole lot of work to do to get to that point. Sanctification is never easy. It’s not mean to be a peaceful and painless process. It hurts because we tend to cling so much to the wrongs in our lives thinking that they define us. They don’t.

If we submit though, and we learn to do that daily, we will have a beautiful end product.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 7/11/2015: Mike Licona

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s dive into the Deeper Waters and find out!

Our podcast returns this Thursday and we have what I am sure is a favorite to you listeners out there returning to be on the show for the third time and that is Mike Licona. What are we going to be talking about? Good question. In fact, that is what we’re talking about. Good questions. I’ve gone to private groups on the internet for awhile now announcing that this show would be coming up and gathering questions on the New Testament and the historical Jesus as I follow a cue from Justin Brierley and have a “Grill-a-Christian” format. This will be just like Mike getting done speaking somewhere and then random questions coming up and we’ll see how he does. Now if you don’t know who Mike Licona is, a brief description follows that is from his web site.

MikeLicona

Mike Licona has a Ph.D. in New Testament Studies (University of Pretoria), which he completed with distinction. He serves as associate professor in theology at Houston Baptist University. Mike was interviewed by Lee Strobel in his book The Case for the Real Jesus and appeared in Strobel’s video The Case for Christ. He is the author of numerous books including The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2010), Paul Meets Muhammad (Baker, 2006), co-author with Gary Habermas of the award-winning book The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Kregel, 2004) and co-editor with William Dembski of Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science (Baker, 2010). Mike is a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature. He has spoken on more than 50 university campuses, and has appeared on dozens of radio and television programs.

Now of course, some more skeptical listeners out there could be wondering if there might be some bias here. Mike is my father-in-law. Am I telling him the questions ahead of time? Nope. Not at all. I like to make things a challenge as much as I can and Mike and I can be competitive at times when we get together. (Watch us play Wii Sports sometime when we visit.) What will happen with the questions is I have them all written out and I will mix them up randomly and draw them out of the hat as it were so that I can’t even tell anyone entirely before the show starts what questions Mike will be asked. That means no doubt that not every question will be answered, but we have two hours and we’ll see what happens in that time and how Mike fares with me in the hot seat.

I think this will be an interview you will enjoy and if you’ve never been to an event like one where Mike speaks at, you’ll get to see what it can be like and how people have to answer questions on the spot. If you’re an aspiring apologist, I hope it will drive you to be even more prepared in all your studies so that if you find yourself in such a situation, you will be able to answer those who question you on the Christian faith.

Be watching your ITunes feed for this one!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Audience Participation Needed

Are you really playing your part? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’re a sports fan, chances are you’ve gone to a stadium or similar venue and seen a game before. At the end of the game, you go home. You might buy some memorabilia or if possible get some autographs but other than that, your part is done. You can easily imagine doing the same if you attend a concert of your favorite band sometime. Another place you can picture your part being done is when you attend the Sunday service at your local church.

Wait. That last one doesn’t fit.

Unfortunately, too many Christians do think that they’re doing their full duty by attending a church service. Some think they’ve upped their duty by attending Bible Study as well. Believe it or not, while many of us hold to the spiritual gifts, there is not a spiritual gift of “Keeping a seat warm in a church.”

Many of you are looking at the world around you and wondering where things went wrong. If you are wondering that, then look in your mirror. That is where you will find the problem. What has gone wrong in our world is not that the world has been the world. That’s what we would expect. What has gone wrong is that the church has not been the church. A large part of it is this idea that we don’t want to offend anyone because if we offend people, well we’re not really showing them the love of Jesus.

You know, the Jesus who called out his opponents in public, shamed them greatly, called them broods of vipers and white-washed tombs, and was such a challenge to that culture that they ended up crucifying Him.

That Jesus.

Too many of us treat Christianity like a spectator sport and our duty is to go to church and then be a good person. (Because you know, so many people in this world avoid the goal of being a good person.) If you think you’re really contributing to the cause of Christ if you do those two things, quite frankly, you’re not. Many people also have an idea that they just need to worry about themselves and their children and forget the rest of the world. You also are part of the problem.

If you were a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc. you would be one constantly. You would seek to live in a way that conformed to your political beliefs and many of you would want to be informed on your beliefs. You would not be one of those just one day a week. If you were a vegan or a vegetarian, you would not lose sight of that if you went to a restaurant. You would remember what you eat and don’t eat and act accordingly. If you’re a husband or a wife, you are not those one day of the week. You are them every day. (And I fear many treat their marriages as a case of giving the bare minimum.) If you’re a parent, you are not a parent just one day of the week. You are constantly a parent.

And yet, Christianity is supposed to be the most important commitment in your life and so many people give it less attention than all of the above.

So what can you do?

Here are some steps.

First off, support. Give your support to the people who need and deserve it. Let’s start with your pastor. Believe it or not, being a pastor really is a hard job, that is, if you’re doing it right. You have administrative duties of the church, budgets to work on, counseling to have to give, preparation all week for a sermon, your own personal study, taking care of your family, and your own spiritual life has to be fed. You know how rare it is to get appreciation as a pastor? That’s why I’ve made it a note to let my pastor know that I appreciate him from time to time. Do it every week and it will likely become something expected. Just out of the blue though, send an encouraging email to your pastor and let him know you appreciate him. It could be the boost that he needs in the day.

This also applies to the people you respect in other fields. There are many of us who look at certain people that we interact with as valuable ones in what we do, and we so rarely take the time to thank them for what they have done in our lives. Don’t assume that it is known. It might not be known. Even if it is known, that little note that shows up from time to time is quite a boost. (I in fact have followed the advice of my own pastor and made a folder called “encouragement” where I put encouraging notes and emails and such that I get so that when I get in a slump later on, I can review them.)

Second, give. There are many ways that you can give. Don’t stop with the bare minimum. First off, give to your local church. They’re trying to serve Christ in your community. Next, give to those outside of the church. Don’t waste those finances on these prosperity preachers you see on TBN and elsewhere. Give to ministries that you see are producing real fruit. You would be surprised how much your favorite ministries could do with some small support. Don’t think what you give is too small. It’s not. Creflo Dollar made a scandal in the church by asking 200,000 people to donate $300 so he could get a jet.

With our expenses here, we would be set if we had just 5 people donating $300 a month. We could probably do less, but just consider that an approximation. When you support ministries like this, you are saying you want the person to be able to devote a large portion of their time and energy to their ministry. (I say a large portion since to be clear, a person has to take care of their own family and their own spiritual life as well) To speak in small amounts, the above numbers could be altered to speak of 300 people donating $5 a month. Many other ministries could likewise do well with just a large contingent of small donations.

Many can’t give financially, but you can give in other ways. You can share the work of the person that you admire and be their biggest fan. You can offer your services in other ways, such as we have a team here of people who volunteer to keep this web site running. You can talk to your pastor about seeing if they can come and speak at your church or seeing if your pastor would consider them as a ministry worthy of your support.

What else do you do after this? Study. Learn something about Christianity. If you think this should be the most important facet of your life, learn about it. Many know more about their favorite sports team, TV show, band, or political party than they do about their Christianity. This is a great shame. You are not doing your Christian duty just by going and enjoying your worship service. Make it a point to really learn something about your Christianity. I imagine the Gospel would be better shared here in America if we all at least had a basic apologetic beyond our personal testimony.

Teach your children about this as well. Many of our young people are growing up and looking at issues like redefining marriage and don’t have a single clue why this should be a great area of concern for them. If they grow up with a light faith that consists of being an individualistic all about me walk, well don’t be surprised if they jump ship as soon as something comes along that offers better benefits to them. Of course, that won’t happen in college at all. Not a chance. Your children will only experience a culture of people drinking and having a lot of fun doing it and getting to have rampant sex with anyone who comes along and as we know, young people are not at all tempted by alcohol and sex.

Honor your family as well. Following those principles in Ephesians and Colossians on running a family will work great for all involved. If we want to find out why the world isn’t honoring marriage today, it’s because the church failed to honor it first. Live your life in such a way in accordance with Biblical values in marriage and parenting. If you’re single, then follow a similar principle. No sex. If you plan to marry, date someone of the opposite sex because you want to find out if they’re someone to marry. Never treat someone of the opposite sex as if they’re someone to just fulfill your desires.

After all of this, really walk the walk. If it’s not being uncomfortable for you, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your Christianity like a lifestyle. Treat it as you are living in service of the King, because you are. Learn about this and see how it applies in every single area of your life.

Christianity is not a spectator sport. You’re either helping the Great Commission or you’re hindering it. There is no middle ground.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: It’s Not The End Of The World

What do I think of Dee Dee Warren’s book on Matthew 24 published by Xulon Press? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Dee Dee Warren’s book is an excellent commentary on Matthew 24 coming from an orthodox Preterist position that says most of it, at least up to verse 34, was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Now I do want to be fair and state some bias here. DDW, as I call her, is a friend of mine and in fact, it was at a TheologyWeb convention where we had a Q&A that I got to hear her and another member speak on this topic and in my long quest of eschatology, that was the time that sealed the deal for me that the Bible does in fact teach orthodox Preterism so I owe a lot to her for that.

Now most of us when we want something fun to read we’re not going to say “Oh! I’m going to go to the library and get a commentary!” Normally, when we pull out a commentary, we go to the part that we’re interested in, read that, and then move on. You could do that with DDW’s book and you’d get good answers, but you’d be missing a lot. This is a commentary that is enjoyable to read as DDW spices it up with her own humor and yet it is at the same time meticulously researched. There are over 400 end notes at the end. DDW has done her homework. If you’ve heard the Preterist Podcast of hers, you’ll know a lot of this already, but even still DDW has sharpened her game for as she would indicate towards the end of her book, we are always learning and growing.

Not only that, she shows how this can apply to us today and how this is meant to encourage us to be more faithful. It’s quite an ironic turn since this passage has been used by so many people to argue against Christianity. In fact, even the great C.S. Lewis had his problems with this passage. When you’re done with DDW’s book, you should see that far from being a disproof and a problem for Christianity, this passage can be seen as one of the great proofs of Christianity as it shows how accurate Jesus was as a prophet and how the judgment of God came on the people of the time. (It’s important to note that it’s the people of the time and not Jews of all time.)

Despite this being a tough subject, DDW’s work is not tough to read. You will not get bogged down with “And this Greek word in this tense refers to.” I have no problem with that intense study, but it can go above the head of the layman several times. DDW is thorough and yet simple. You can read a passage and understand it easily enough and you can get to interact with much of the history of the first century as well.

Also, DDW takes on the hyperpreterism faction at the end of the book as well briefly, and if anyone has had experience dealing with these people, it’s DDW. We can be thankful that she herself came out of it and I am also thankful that she did it with the help of a pastor who took time to answer her questions. If only there were more pastors around today who knew about the major issues going around and were prepared to answer questions. DDW’s work has been a blessing to several in this area. Imagine how it would have been if she had never come around.

If there was a way I’d improve, I’d definitely put the lesson of the Purple Cow front and center. This is a story DDW shares (That is not original with her) and it is important to really studying this topic. In fact, I would have it as a bit of an introduction to the whole book so people could go through and learn to avoid committing the fallacy of the Purple Cow. If there was something else I would have preferred to not be a note, it would have been David Green’s comment on hyperpreterism being a heresy if a position like orthodox Preterism was true.

If you really want to study orthodox Preterism and know what Matthew 24 is about, get this book. If you want to have an answer to the question of “How can we trust Jesus if He was wrong about the time of His own return?”, get this book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Faith vs Fact Conclusion

What are our concluding thoughts on Coyne’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s time to wrap up our look at Coyne’s book with asking why this matters. Now I do agree on this point. This does matter. As you can imagine, I disagree greatly with the conclusion of Coyne.

Coyne does list a number of evils that have been done by religious people. This cannot be denied. What can be denied is that Christians themselves aren’t doing anything about this. When I lived in Charlotte, I worked at the Christian Research Institute. Hank Hanegraaff who ran it is quite well-known for dealing with the prosperity Gospel movement, including such ideas as that healing is guaranteed in the atonement. The overwhelming majority of Christians would look at the events that Coyne talks about and say that they condemn them as well. Now some could say that this is based on promises of Scripture, but such promises are read through modern lenses instead of understanding the social and linguistic context of the first century. For instance, ask anything in my name is not a blank check. It means that you will receive anything you ask for that is in line with the will of the Master, and sometimes healing frankly isn’t in line with that.

If Coyne wants to say the kind of thinking done by these people should be stopped, I wholeheartedly agree. The reason it got this way is sadly, anti-intellectualism did sneak into the church. Such a view is really the exception to what has gone on in church history. I also contend that it has made its way into atheism, especially in the age of the internet where we live in a soundbite culture where someone thinks if you just put up a meme, the meme itself is an argument. Memes can be hilarious illustrations of arguments, but they should never be used as arguments themselves.

On page 229, Coyne warns about missionizing, which is an attempt to force your unsubstantiated beliefs on others.

The irony is so rich….

For one thing, I would really like to know how anyone can force a belief or even attempt to. We can only attempt to persuade. Some people will do a terrible job because frankly, they haven’t done their homework and don’t know about the historical evidence for their claims. (People like Jerry Coyne for instance and people like fundamentalist Christians) These people want to argue for what they believe but they don’t read the best scholarly works out there that disagree with them. (Again, people like Jerry Coyne and fundamentalist Christians.) When they meet people who know what they’re talking about, it’s quite apparent that the person wanting to make the argument just isn’t prepared.

So if I wanted to point to a clear example of missionizing, I’d point to Coyne’s book. Remember everyone, this is someone speaking on philosophical terminology who says

Another problem is that scientists like me are intimidated by philosophical jargon, and hence didn’t interrupt the monologues to ask for clarification for fear of looking stupid. I therefore spent a fair amount of time Googling stuff like “epistemology” and “ontology” (I can never get those terms straight since I rarely use them).

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/sean-carroll-assesses-the-stockbridge-workshop/

And as for theological arguments he says

This is an area about which I’m completely ignorant, and happy to remain so, because it sounds like a godawful cesspool of theological lucubration. It of course begins with three completely unsupported premises: that there is a God, that that God has a mind that has “beliefs,” and that how we act now somehow influences God’s beliefs about our actions long before we performed them. It sounds as if what we do now, then, can go back in time and change God’s beliefs. (That, at least, is how I interpret the gobbledygook above.)
Given those three bogus assumptions, the candidate will then spend many dollars ruminating about how God’s prior beliefs relate to the philosophy of time and metaphysics of dependence, whatever that means.
In other words, all the money is going to work out the consequences of a fairy tale. So much money for so much “sophisticated” philosophy!

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/templeton-funds-inquiry-into-how-god-remembers-stuff/

So here we have someone who has to google basic terms in philosophy and who confesses to being ignorant in theology and happy to remain so, but yet wants to teach us on both of these.

Seriously?

Coyne also says that Natural Law on page 245 refers to innate morality supposedly vouchsafed to Catholics by God and understood by reason.

This from the one who complains about missionizing.

Natural Law is a rich tradition that goes back to the Greeks prior to Christianity. It is the simple idea that there is good and evil and we can all know them by virtue of being human beings and learning. We don’t need any divine revelation for that. It’s also not just a Catholic thing. Muslims and Jews could argue the same. So could Protestants. Perhaps it would have helped Coyne had he, you know, actually read something on Natural Law.

I’d also like to share how on page 250 ending a section on global warming, he talks about how the Vatican has an observatory, which is surprising to most people, and how Father Guy Consolmagno of it says it serves “to make people realize that the church not only supports science, literally….but we support and embrace and promote the use of both our hearts and our brains to come to know how the universe works.” Coyne takes this as a clear expression that people believe what they like to be true rather than what science tells us. How is that so?

It’s hardly necessary to add that the heart is not an organ for thinking, and that we can never understand ‘how the universe works’ by using our emotions, via faith, instead of reason. Father Consolmagno’s heart, for example, has convinced him that if extraterrestrial beings exist, that they have souls like ours.”

It’s hardly necessary to point out to most people on planet Earth, which sadly do not include Coyne, that it’s quite clear that Consolmagno is using metaphorical language here. He is not at all saying that he thinks with the heart any more than someone is denying science when they tell their wife “I love you with all of my heart.” We can easily picture Coyne saying “The heart is not an organ for loving!”

For anyone out there who thinks like Coyne, the claim is simply that with our very beings we can work to know the universe. While it could include emotions, the quote does not refer to them. (It would be a mistake also to say love is an emotion. It can result in powerful emotions we call love, but love itself is not an emotion.) I am sure if Coyne was to debate Consolmagno, he’d find Consolmagno actually has reasons for what he believes, including about aliens.

So where does this all end? Coyne’s big mistake here is the same one that many people make on the Christian side. By making the debate to be science vs. the Bible, most people in America will actually choose the Bible. God does more for them in their minds than science does. God gives them more wonder and purpose in their lives than science does. This is also tragic because Coyne would have to be able to admit that many Christians do have wonderful minds (Who wants to say people like Francis Collins are idiots?) and yet if he makes it an either/or proposition, then he is keeping some of those minds out of science.

Unfortunately, the way many Christians have handled issues like evolution has perpetuated this. Perhaps evolution will fall as bad science some day like some other theories have. I cannot say, but let us be open to the possibility. If it does, let it fall because it is bad science. There is no place for making it be the Bible vs. Science. If you believe the Bible, then you should believe that it won’t contradict science. If that is the case, then the way to show something is wrong in the world of science is to do so scientifically. Using the Bible to do this just perpetuates the stereotype.

Coyne then in wanting to end the problem is in fact making it worse by his works. This is especially so when he writes about topics that he does not know about. It’s really ironic that someone who wants to talk about evidence-based belief takes such a light approach to evidence in what he critiques. The objections that Coyne thinks are stumpers could be seen as parallel to what evolutionists think when they’re told “Well if we came from apes, why are there still apes?” Now could I answer that question? No, because I’m not a scientist and I won’t even try. That’s why I don’t speak on it. I do trust that regardless of my stance on evolution, it would be a bad argument anyway.

This gets us to the tragedy that in one sense, Coyne is right. Faith is opposed to fact. How? Because if science is really that evidence-based belief including history, had Coyne actually read the evidence, he would see a strong case that Christianity is true and Jesus rose from the dead. Since he does not treat evidence seriously but only cherry-picks what is in line with what he already believes without interacting with the best scholarship on the other side, then Coyne is acting on faith. In that case, had Coyne done a proper scientific inquiry, he would have seen that Christianity is true, but as a priest of his religion of scientism, Coyne cannot allow evidence that goes against his faith. The religion of Coyne and the science that demonstrates that Christianity is true are certainly incompatible. It looks like Coyne has decided to be a person of faith instead of a person of science in this case.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Part 1 can be found here.

Part 2 can be found here.

Part 3 can be found here.

Part 4 can be found here.