Month: April 2022

Why Good Friday?

Why did this day happen? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When I was married, my ex and I were watching the series on TV about Jesus that was made by Roma Downey and her husband. This one took some liberties with the text including a great line from Pilate upon the announcement that Jesus would be crucified. “He will be forgotten within a week.”

And you thought two weeks to flatten the curve were a long two weeks.

Here it is 2,000 years later and the world has been totally transformed by Jesus. Many of us do not notice the impact Christianity has on our lives. Art, literature, science, medicine, morality, philosophy, music, etc. All of these have been influenced by Jesus. More books have been written about Jesus than anyone else and more art and music has been done about Him than anyone else.

All of this started though that fateful day when Jesus was crucified, so what brought about that day? It’s beyond dispute that Jesus died by crucifixion. (No. I’m not at all going to treat those Jesus mythicists seriously.) The question to ask at this point is, “Why?”

Now a Christian could respond and say, “Well, Nick. Haven’t you been to church to hear? Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world.” Yes. That is why God allowed it, but is that the same as why it happened? No. Pilate was not standing there saying “This guy is innocent, but we have to crucify Him for the sins of the world.” The chief priests and Pharisees weren’t saying, “Jesus is a pretty good guy, but remember, we have to crucify Him. God needs it done to save the world.”

The question is simple, and yet it is not. Jesus is crucified. We all know that. How did He get up on that cross anyway? Perhaps an example will explain. In Five Views on the Historical Jesus, John Dominic Crossan writes on how Jesus saw John the Baptist get beheaded for having an apocalyptic message, so Jesus shifted course. He was more into such talk as the love of God and the brotherhood of men then. That sounds all good and well until you ask a simple question. “Why was He crucified then?”

A Jesus going around and teaching just about the love of God is not going to get crucified. This Jesus is not a threat to anyone. This is like calling Barney the Dinosaur or Mr. Rogers a threat. This Jesus is harmless and note that Jesus is not just killed, He is crucified, a treatment designed to shame and humiliate, not just kill.

As a Christian, my answer is that Jesus was teaching about His rule in the Kingdom of God and what it would be like and taking power away from those who had it and challenging their right to dictate the way of God to men. Jesus was a threat because He kept humiliating His opponents in conflict over and over and He was doing so many miracles and wonders that the hand of God was undeniable on His life. Crucifixion would be a way of silencing everything as surely that would be the end of it all and no one would want to follow a crucified failure.

But yet, He wasn’t.

All that is being asked here is about a basic fact in history. Jesus was crucified. Why? What was He doing with His life that was so dangerous He had to be crucified? It is common for those of us who are Christians to press skeptics on the evidence for the resurrection. We should do the same with the crucifixion.

Today, we will celebrate that God did take this evil event and use it for the greatest good possible. I also hope we will think some on why this happened. Anything that helps us understand the life of Jesus better will help us live the life of Jesus today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: With All Your Mind

What do I think of Erin Ruth’s booklet? Let’s plunge into the deeper waters and find out.

I really like Erin Ruth’s work. I was introduced to her through a podcast where we both being autistic Christians talked about our experiences. What was so unusual was that the first question showed that we’re also very different. Ruth contended that it was more difficult to be a Christian on the spectrum because you’re so logical. I said that it was odd that I found it the same way in that it’s easier for me to be a Christian because I’m so logical. Emotional arguments don’t really faze me, hence I’ve never really been bothered by the problem of evil.

Now, Ruth has written a booklet called With All Your Mind on being an autistic Christian, and this is from someone in the United Kingdom where Christianity is a minority definitely. This is not so much her experience however as it is recommendations to the church. How can the church better help people who are on the spectrum?

A great problem in many cases is that Christianity is often a very social faith, but autistic people like myself tend to not be social. It’s actually a paradox. We want to be involved with other people, but we want to be in our own world too. The hard reality is people who try to force you to be social often wind up being unintentionally counter-productive.

People who know me know that I hate it when someone who doesn’t know me asks “How are you?” Unfortunately, I work in retail and I get that question often. I have also been “coached” before for not approaching customers in the self check-out and talking to them. In my world, that is absolutely terrifying, something I’m having to work on with people as a once again single man seeking to remarry.

Churches can do this too. Ruth rightly points out that something as simple as giving out earplugs to people who may have sensory issues can be helpful, but I want to also add to please don’t try to be the best friend. It can take time to build up a relationship with a person on the spectrum. I know I’m notorious for saying church greeters often do more harm than good as people on the spectrum want relationships, but I don’t think we want to feel like we’re forced into them either.

Prayer is something she talks about in her book as prayer can be difficult and I’m pleased to see she spoke in ways I have often said. It’s hard enough for us to relate to someone we can’t see. How do we relate to someone we can’t see?

Add in another hurdle being that so much of Christianity is often experiential and emotional today. Many people on the spectrum have a hard time with relating emotionally to situations. When people talk about the feeling of the Holy Spirit or great joy in circumstances, people like myself can be thinking, “What are you talking about?” It’s not that we don’t have feelings, but that we often do not have the strong constant ones and we don’t know how to understand them when we do.

At the same time, this shouldn’t become a burden put on us. Some people will say to read your Bible every day. I do that, but I don’t think it should be a legalistic thing. I had been reading a lot every night, but I realized I wasn’t getting as much out of it because it was becoming more ritualistic, so I switched to reading some of the church fathers in addition to my small nightly reading to give me a small enough portion of Scripture to really think about.

If you want to understand the autistic person, find out what their interests are and engage them on it. Ruth talks about how when she was a child, it was easy to make friends. Just talk about Pokemon. That wasn’t around when I was in elementary school, but video games definitely were, and I quickly became a popular student in school when I showed a natural gift for playing video games well.

Today, that can get me excited to talk to someone as it is easy to relate to a customer I meet at work who is wearing a Legend of Zelda T-shirt for example. Also when I was married, at a Celebrate Recovery meeting once, someone asked my ex about me thinking that I seemed to be off by myself. She was trying to explain matters to him. I was watching this from across the room seated on a couch minding my own business. Then I heard her say, “You could talk about apologetics.”

He proceeded to ask what that was, but he didn’t have to wait long. I had ran up there instantly asking “Did someone say apologetics?” I think this is one reason I like to tease people a lot of times. Humor is a way I relate to people and I have been told before I should consider doing Christian comedy. (And yes, I do think about that.)

The point here is that if you do manage to find an entry way, that’s a great way to open up communication. However, do remember some people on the spectrum are non-verbal. To get back to what I said earlier, if you try to tell us how we should communicate, it can have the opposite effect. Recently, I had a customer say thank you to me for helping him. I gave a nod and then went on my way, or maybe I didn’t as usually after I help someone, I like to disappear. A little bit later I hear a voice and it’s him saying “When someone says thank you, you say ‘you’re welcome.’ ”

Think that inspires me to talk?

Not a bit. It leaves me thinking that there’s a reason I don’t like to talk to people. I am certain the guy meant well, but too many people do not understand the world of the person on the spectrum. The same rules don’t apply and if you think we’re rude, you’re really missing it.

Autistic people can also be spiritual. One way we can do this is love. We do have a capacity to love and form relationships. I have been married before and want to marry again. I know that it is possible. It can be harder, but it is possible to relate.

We can also be sometimes scrupulous in matters, which is why we can tend to fall into legalism. I worry sometimes about spending too much time on other interests and not about God as much as I would like, which really I think shows me how much I care about God that I want to do better with him. There are a number of facets of Christianity that aren’t clearly spelled out in Scripture and this can be difficult for many of us.

Ruth’s book is a welcome guide to many and a beacon of hope for autistic Christians and the people who love them. The church needs to do more to help such people as now it is likely that most every church has at least one autistic person in the congregation. Thankfully, we have been blessed to have people like her help us understand the field.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Marriage of the Priest

Who can the priest marry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s time to return to our walk through the Bible looking at the topic of divorce and marriage. Today, we’re in Leviticus 21 and this is a long chapter so I urge you to look it up on your device, but it is about the rules of marriage for priests. It’s noteworthy that priests are allowed to marry. That is never called into question. However, there are rules set up about who they can marry.

Someone like myself can wonder what it means when a priest can’t marry someone who is divorced. Of course, I have no desire to marry a priest, but I am divorced. Is something wrong with me? If a woman is divorced, what makes her unacceptable for a priest to marry?

Prostitution I can understand, but even then we could be tempted to say, “Couldn’t this be an example of grace?” Perhaps so, but do we really think Israel was there yet? Israel was still having to learn the basics of following YHWH. If there was any sin Israel fell into, it was sexual sin. This was also connected with idolatry and thus did not need to be even risked being treated as “No big deal.”

So why divorce? The same thing could be going on as well. This was to give the idea of purity entirely. Note that there is a difference when we get to the high priest. A regular priest can marry a widow, but the high priest can’t even do that. The woman he marries must be a virgin.

Why? The high priest must be seen as set apart for one woman and one woman set apart for him. His marriage cannot have any mixture in it whatsoever. Perhaps we can see some foreshadowing of the marriage of Christ one day with His wife who is to be set apart for Him to be pure and pristine.

Someone divorced like myself need not think we’re just being shunned. There is nothing about divorced people not being able to remarry, at least at this point. There will be some stipulations later on, but there is something implicit that a divorced person can remarry. After all, if they couldn’t, it would be obvious that you couldn’t marry a divorced person.

I hope to not lose track of this series, but I am reading some other books and plan some reviews so we’ll see what happens.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Some Thoughts On Election Debates

Why does the issue matter? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I tend to write about what is talked about in Sunday School at my church and last Sunday in going through Romans we got to chapter 9. Obviously, with a chapter that really introduces the doctrine of election, well that wasn’t controversial at all. The teacher in class is much more Calvinistic than I am. (Well, considering I’m more of a zero-pointer that’s not saying a lot.) I think my pastor considers himself lightly on that way, but the church doesn’t take a hard stance on it.

My view is that the text is not talking about individuals for personal salvation, but about service in the pathway to bring about the Messiah. It’s too easy to read Romans 1-8 and think this is a part on its own and then get to Romans 9-16 and read that separately. Instead, I remember noticing once that the first time Israel is really mentioned in the book is in the ninth chapter. I have a theory that the first eight chapters are really answering a question of “Who is Israel?”

What this means is that Paul in the first half establishes who the people of God are and that includes how one belongs to the people of God, being justified by faith. From there, he moves on to how God will work in this people in comparison to the nation of Israel. This is not a hill I am going to die on, but it is something I ponder.

However, when it comes to these debates, I generally stay out of it and this is something I brought up in the class while saying I do not hold to Calvinist doctrines. For myself, these are matters of just things to think about, but too often, the way we live is quite really the same. Let’s consider two issues. Security in salvation and evangelism will be our focus.

In the first case, Calvinists hold to eternal security. Others hold that salvation can be lost. Arminians could hypothetically say that you need to live a holy life in order to insure that you have salvation. In reality, I don’t know many who hold such a stance. Most seem to think, like myself, that you can only lose salvation by outright apostasy or by living in severe unconfessed sin for life, such as an adulterous lifestyle.

So the Arminian could want us to live a holy life for the necessity of making sure we are Christians, but I don’t know of any Calvinist who says “Go out and live in sin because you are eternally secured so do not worry about it!” No. Both sides encourage you to live a holy and godly life.

So what about evangelism? Arminians will say we have to go out there with the gospel to reach as many people as possible. A Calvinist can say “If they are to be saved, they will get the message somehow.” The point for them is that that very way could be the preaching of the gospel in evangelism. Both of them view the idea differently in some way, but at the same time, both of them encourage missionary work and evangelism.

In the end, I often say that this is my summation of the questions. God is sovereign and man has free-will. How do those two work together? I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out this side of eternity. That’s also fine with me. How I live is really exactly the same way.

Also, if doctrines like this become a point of where you cease to fellowship with a fellow Christian. I have friends who are very much Calvinist. I have friends who are very much Arminian. I get along with both and tend to just not debate the issue.

If you want to debate it, that’s fine, but let’s always remember that this is a secondary issue. There is no wrong in investigating the question of how God and time work together. If we engage in this debate, while we may come from opposite positions at times, instead of seeing each other as opponents, may we seek each other as allies in reaching for the truth.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Divorce About A Year Later

How is life today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Some of you know I have been applying to NOBTS. If you don’t know that, then obviously you need to subscribe to my newsletter. Recently while filling out the application, I had to explain the circumstances of my divorce. That involved getting out the paperwork and looking at it again. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was this month.

So how is it a year later?

Well, everyday in some ways, it still hurts.  Little things can happen that remind me of something from her. Sometimes, it can even be good things. I can pet my cat and be thinking about missing getting to touch her as well. I can hear someone say something and remember that she used to say that as well. Any time I feel rejection in some way, rightly or wrongly, it brings it back and I think about how I have been rejected.

That’s something that makes divorce so much different than something like death. Divorce is an intentional rejection by someone that is treating you like a problem that has to be eliminated. It doesn’t happen by accident. Sometimes it is justified, but in my case, it wasn’t, and the irony is I had plenty of people, even priests and pastors and others telling me I could get a divorce at any time and it would be biblically based. One priest said a divorce was a godly option or I could remain a martyr in my marriage.

Loneliness is a big problem for me. That’s one more reason I want to move to the campus. I have friends, but very few of them are local, though it is nice for something like Final Fantasy XIV to have some people I can play it with. (If you play too, find me on there. My name is Phoenix Skywing.) It would be nice to have fellow men around who share my theological passions.

Of course, there’s also women to consider. A seminary could be a great place to find a devoted Christian woman who’s looking for her MRS degree. I had hoped that I would never be involved in this search again as it’s extremely difficult being on the spectrum and having to approach someone, but it looks like I am. Add in also that I am completely inept at knowing if someone is flirting with me or not.

It’s really odd to think I’m talking with my therapist about women I am interested in and getting advice. Normally, this seems to come up in most every weekly session. I still hate to this day going to bed at night and realizing that I am sleeping alone. I love having Shiro here with me, but it’s hard to think he’s stuck in one room at my parents’ house since they already have a cat and he only has me. He seems to tolerate my Mom some, and is slowly maybe starting to accept my Dad, but there’s no one he ultimately trusts but me.

There are some people who after a divorce seem to take a view that sex before marriage will be no big deal. I still hold the view that I don’t want it to happen, but having been married before and enjoyed that fruit, I also know what a great temptation it is for me. Fortunately, I have been able to avoid pornography still. That’s not about how awesome I am. There’s a great need to rely on the grace of God and His strength when I am weak.

However, as a guy, this is definitely a great want in my life. I find women to be absolutely beautiful and I don’t want to go through life alone. I also still wouldn’t mind being a Dad someday. Therefore, I do strive to be careful with women and have already set up some boundaries for when I am dating to help make temptation less likely to master me.

I have also become somewhat of an advocate for men going through divorce. One man was inspired to tell his story after I shared mine. I have also set up a Facebook group for Christian men going through divorce or who have gone through it or who are about to go through it.

It’s really sad divorce comes with such a stigma to it. We can think that if many churches today heard that Paul was coming back, they wouldn’t question him about coming behind the pulpit despite having been a murderer, but if news came out that Paul was a divorcee, then there would be serious questions as that had to be explained. I am not saying we should not take divorce seriously. We should. I am saying it is not the unpardonable sin.

Something that also stings in my case is knowing I was accused of being abusive by her. There are plenty of people who knew both of us who would tell you that this is not the case. As I said earlier, I have been told that I had grounds and I have tended to choose to not go into that due to my desire to not shame her. The news came out in September because we thought she had gone missing. A few people knew about it before I went public, but I had kept it secret for a reason.

I would be crazy to deny there was also some shame involved in that. I hate having to tell people I’m divorced. Divorce can be a scarlet letter that you wear.

At the same time, I try to not let it dominate my life. Many people can think about getting revenge on their exes. This is actually how Sue Grafton’s alphabet murder series came about. She kept thinking of how she could kill her ex and then thought, “Why not turn it into a book series?” For me, I don’t really want that. There is a part of me that wants justice, but I want mercy also for her. I have decided personally that the best revenge is a life well-lived.

Even last night, I had a dream that we found out she had to go to the hospital again. This is just a dream, of course, so don’t take this as a fact, but I woke up from it and going back to sleep, I began praying for her again and her well-being. Can I say she has hurt me more than anyone else ever has? Yep. 100%. Still, I try to think of how I have treated my God and then I remember I too have rejected too many times one who loves me so much and I pray for mercy.

Going to work five days a week is a pain as well mainly because my job requires nothing that gives me any challenge intellectually, but is instead a lot of socializing. It’s one reason I am working on making Deeper Waters self-sustaining so that I can just do apologetics work full-time. Again, please consider becoming a donor to help make this so. The more free time I have, the more I can do the important things, like hopefully starting up the podcast again one day.

This is a season in my life. It’s a sad season, but it is still a season. It will pass. The thing is that when people say that, it doesn’t really help that much. You don’t want to have to wait for the season to end. You want it to end then.

Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of people have been in my corner. I haven’t really lost relationships. If anything, my pain has been something that has helped some other men, and for that, I am grateful. I have one really good friend who has gone down this road and has interacted with me regularly. He had someone do the same for him. I am helping someone else down this road now and hope to help others down it too.

Still, I can’t deny the pain is real. You have to choose to keep going. There were times early on when it was sometimes tempting to just quit. That was never the answer though, although everyone I understand thinks about it at some point. I have chosen to face my pain consistently, but never doubt that it is very much there.

Sometimes people will reach out and say things that I also know are meant to be supportive, but they have the exact opposite effect. Some of it can even be true, such as the importance of being thankful for what you have. I am and should be, but I also do acknowledge there is a real loss on my end and a real desire for other gifts, like a remarriage some day.

Honestly, if you haven’t been through a divorce, one of the best things you can do is just listen. I might just need to vent a bit at times and then I can come to my own conclusions. Naturally, pray as well.

Thanks to so many people who have been there for me. I hope many of you never have to go through the pain of divorce, justified or unjustified. For those wanting to know about seminary, just follow my Facebook or subscribe to my newsletter for updates.

Thank you again for everything.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge Conclusion: Politely Rejecting The Bible

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

So how do we end this? For starters, I will say this book is indeed true in the statement of politely rejecting in that the author is not nearly as antagonistic as most other authors who argue against Christianity are. I also appreciate that the accusations are not so simple as others. This is far better than say, David McAfee’s Disproving Christianity, which I have reviewed here, where the author simply throws out a bunch of contradictions with very little weight attached to them, thinks that he’s disproven Christianity, and then goes off triumphantly from there.

I am also pleased to see that Kapr has taken the time to at least interact with contrary thought. Too many skeptics tell me that there’s no evidence and then when I ask them what they’ve read on the other side, I get crickets. If you say there’s no evidence and yet you’re not looking, that’s hardly a surprise. One will not find what they are not looking for.

At the same time, it’s still lacking overall. Niceness does not equal an argument necessarily. Granted at times it can give a rhetorical push, it doesn’t work overall. I also would have liked to have seen more said about the resurrection of Jesus. There are still several Christians who do not hold to inerrancy but in many ways are conservative in their beliefs, say with regards to sexuality, and still hold to the resurrection of Jesus regardless.

Do I think Christians should interact with this and books like it? Yes. At the same time, I think this would be good for many skeptics to read to at least get somewhat of a higher class than the usual drivel that’s out there arguing against Christianity.

I also hope that this will get people interested in the second edition of Defining Inerrancy. Yes. It’s coming out soon. We have updated a few items adding information that wasn’t in the last one and I have included in it my tribute to Norman Geisler on his death.

We’ll see what next week brings!

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge Part 12: Politely Rejecting The Bible

Is God truthful? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In our household, April Fool’s Day is a big event and the major goal is to try to trick my mother. One of the best ones I ever pulled on her was to tell her I was going to be evicted when I lived in an apartment with a roommate. This year, we tricked her into thinking I had been accepted into a school in Romania and would have to move.

Every year she says she will not be tricked that day and lo and behold…

It reminds me of this:

It is also something that comes to mind when I read this objection from Kapr about God using lying spirits, most notably in 1 Kings 22. He does give a reference to Holding’s web site where this is said:

“The alleged problem: If God finds lying to be horrible, why does he put lying spirits into the mouths of prophets and delude people?

Where is the contradiction here? It appears that this objection is asserting that the fact that God does not like lying necessarily implies that He could not use this evil for His own ends as a judgment. This is hardly a valid syllogism. One’s feelings toward something don’t have any connection with whether it is possible to use that something towards one’s own ends.

The question is one for exegesis and theology, and it is a good question that is addressed in commentaries. But as we are dealing with allegations of contradiction here and not theology, this whole point is a non-issue from the standpoint of contradictions. As such, no further discussion is required on this point.”

Unfortunately, Kapr didn’t look too closely. This article was written by an Eric Vestrup. It was not by Holding.

However, for the most part, I agree with the assessment. God is going out of His way to tell Ahab, “Look! You’re being lied to!” If God had truly wanted to lie to Ahab, all of his prophets, including Micaiah, would have said the same thing. God gave Ahab a choice and even told what the outcomes would be depending on what Ahab chose.

The same is going on I think in 2 Thess. 2 with the people who are sent a strong delusion. What’s going on? Well, if you don’t believe the truth, what will you believe? By necessity, something else. If people reject the truth, then God just lets them go further their own way. They make the choice first.

Kapr also brings up Romans 3 and asks that we read the passage slow. No one seeks God? No one understands? I consider Romans 3 an extreme picture. It doesn’t mean that man is continuously evil and hopeless. Jews often spoke in hyperbolic terms. Let’s sum it up this way. Man is extremely wicked and fallen. Kapr sadly reads it in a very fundamentalist sense.

He also brings up 2 Kings 3 where Israel was told they would win a battle, but such great wrath comes against them that they are said to flee. In reality, the sacrifice of the child of the king of Moab indicated that a plague was coming on to his city. Israel would have seen this and known it was time to get out since the plague would end the battle. It is not that wrath came against Israel, but that there was indignation and strife among the camp upon hearing about this.

Next time we will conclude our look at the book as I give summarizing thoughts.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge Part 11: Revenge on the Amalekites

What do I think of Kapr’s treatment of the Amalekites? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I can’t say I was surprised to find this one come up in Kapr’s book. This one I don’t think is really a contradiction so much as saying it sounds like a horrible thing for God to do. One part that is thought to be contradictory is that doesn’t Ezekiel 18 indicate that no one will die for the sins of their parents?

Indeed, it does, which is not necessarily good news. It means that if you face judgment, you have no one to blame but yourself. You can’t point to what Daddy did. You can’t say “I’m suffering because my Dad was a jerk.” Now this doesn’t mean that no child ever suffers from a parent’s sins. We all know about abusive and/or addicted parents and how the children suffer.

So what about the Amalekites. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul goes to war with them for how they treated the Israelites when they left Egypt. Isn’t this punishing children for what their ancestors did centuries ago? It’s understandable to think that way, provided, you know, you ignore the rest of Scripture.

Practically every time the Amalekites show up in Scripture, they’re attacking Israel. The grand example of this is in the book of Esther where Haman is a descendant of these people and decides to use royal authority granted by the king to kill all the Jews. Kapr lives in a modern society where the present time is the most important. In Eastern thinking, the past is still very much with us.

So what about 1 Samuel 15. Not mentioned is that these cities where the Amalekites were were most likely fortresses of sorts where the military bases would be. This also wasn’t necessarily a sneak attack. This means that any women and children would have plenty of time to flee. This isn’t as hard as you might think in the ancient world as war and famine could come at any time and you’d have to pick up and move out.

So what about the morality issue? I saw Kapr deal with many kinds of objections to this, but never to mine. My stance is that the category of morality does not apply to God. After all, morality is doing what you ought to do and there is no “ought” for God. God does not have any moral law above Him that He is obligated to follow.

However, I do contend that what God does is good. God does all that He does for His good and for the good of His creation. It’s a much longer post to talk about what is good, though I would recommend Edward Feser’s Aquinas to look at this question. There are plenty of good things you can do that you have no moral obligation to do.

I then ask people about this about who it is that God has an obligation to grant life to? Who can we look at and say “God has no right to take their life from them!” That includes me and the people that I especially love. It also includes the Amalekites and as we will see later in the Old Testament, the Israelites.

Arguments like Kapr’s can easily pull rhetorical and emotional heartstrings. Unfortunately, they are only persuasive in that regard. Move away from that and they lose a lot.

Once again then, I find nothing convincing here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge Part 10: Politely Rejecting The Bible

What about the name of God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The next big contradiction is with the name of God in Exodus 6. Was the name of God known? In this chapter, I really see no interaction with what is meant by a name. For example, it would not make sense to say that Moses is to say to the Israelites “YHWH has sent me to save you” if they’re going to be left asking “Who is that?”

But how was God’s name known in a unique way by the Israelites in Egypt? Surely, God had been known to provide salvation, as Jacob himself thought when God delivered him from Laban and from his brother Esau. Also, God had done miracles already in the case of the miraculous birth of Isaac and of the provision of sheep for Jacob. We can’t rule out judgment as the flood had come, the languages had been confused at Babel, and Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed.

So what is new? It is that all of these are now combined together and God is acting on another nation in a salvific way to fulfill the covenant promise that had been made to Abraham centuries ago. God wasn’t just working for the good of certain individuals. God was using His power now to rescue a whole people that had never experienced God in this way. Most other gods were thought to be limited to the nations they were in, but now God would prove Himself to be sovereign over even the gods of Egypt.

What about saying the name would now be fully known. This does not mean that they would have a full and complete knowledge of God. We got a far deeper knowledge of God in the incarnation, but even after that, no one will ever have a full knowledge of God. Even in eternity, we will never be able to know God exhaustively for if we could do that, He wouldn’t really be God.

What I take this to mean is a sort of way of saying “Now I’m going to show that I’m the real deal and make my power truly known to them.” It wouldn’t make sense for the writer of the work, or as Kapr would think, an editor, to say that they had perfect theology as it doesn’t take long in the narrative of Exodus before we find the Israelites grumbling and complaining, hardly fitting for a people who have a perfect theology.

So once again, while I appreciate that Kapr does seem to spend a lot of time on certain contradictions instead of just doing the usual activity that many skeptics do which is to present a whole list of 101 Bible contradictions without any digging into them whatsoever, I still do not think Kapr’s case is sufficient. Even if it was, the most that would be needed would be to change a doctrine of inerrancy. Christianity would still be safe entirely as Jesus would have still risen from the dead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: 7 Things I Wish Christians Knew About The Bible

What do I think of Michael Bird’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have to say that every time I read something about Michael Bird, I get a treat. Michael Bird is an author with keen insights and a pastoral heart as well, but he also has a great touch of humor and will say so many statements that make you laugh all throughout the book. I would be thrilled to see him team up with Andy Bannister to write a book.

This is a book written for Christians, though I think it can be helpful for non-Christians as well. In it, he gives seven different statements that many of us might think are old hat, but in reality, there are people who treat the Bible this way even if they know it’s not literally so. For instance, the first one is that the Bible didn’t fall out of the sky.

Really, even if we don’t know how the Bible came about, somehow, we all know that it didn’t. In reality though, we do often treat it that way. The Bible is a divine book to be sure, but it is also a very human book. That’s actually the second, This gives us more of how the Bible was written by people and has their own personality styles in the text.

Third is that the Bible is normative and not negotiable. In this, he wants us to realize that Scripture is the place of authority. We don’t just pick and choose. Too many “churches” today have the idea that the Bible is authoritative when it speaks properly, which by the way, happens to be the times that it agrees with them. Amazing!

Next is that the Bible is for our time, but it’s not about our time. This is especially the case with modern prophecy experts who think everything going on is talked about in Scripture, they are shown to be wrong, but then a year or two later, the exact things happen again. I am not just talking about so-called prophecy experts. I am also talking about laypeople who read the Bible this way. (Sometimes, they sadly commit the unpardonable sin of calling the final book “Revelations.”)

The fifth is that the Bible should always be taken seriously, but not literally. Somehow, we live in a time that thinks that literal interpretation is the best way to read the Bible every time. The early church really enjoyed allegory, for example. Too many atheists also make a big deal about literal interpretation.

The sixth is that the purpose of the book is to give us faith, hope, and love. Now here, I would have liked to have seen Bird say something about the fake view of faith as belief without evidence or something similar. Still, Bird’s point is entirely valid. As much as an academic like myself wants to gain a lot of knowledge and as much as some people might go to the Bible wanting to get personal advice on how to live, and neither of those are bad in themselves, the main goal is to produce the character of faith, hope, and love.

Finally, Christ is the center of it all. However, saying that, he wants us to be careful to not forget the Father or the Spirit. He also wants us to make sure we don’t just read Christ into everything without first understanding what the text says in itself. Also, he thinks we should be able to teach Jesus as Messiah from the Old Testament, which I agree with.

Bird’s given us a great gift in this one. I highly encourage you to go and read this one. You’ll laugh a few times and you’ll learn something.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)