Category: Apologetics

What Should Christians Do In Light Of Cruz Dropping Out

What is the call of the church? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I was pretty shocked when I heard the news last night that Cruz had dropped out of the race. Frankly, I hadn’t been too enthused about many of the candidates at all. Still, I did think Cruz was our best shot. As I say that, I know that there are many Christians who do support Trump and if you are one of those, this is still relevant to you.

Many of you were Cruz supporters. You were downcast and saddened last night. After all, we’ve gone through a hard eight years in this country. We don’t want more of the same. Many of us have been discouraged by the decisions of the Supreme Court as well.

In some ways, if you’re shocked, it will take some time to get used to. Our minds tend to jump to panic. I’d like to see I was a paragon of virtue in this. I’d like to, but I’d be lying. I didn’t rest well last night. I do get concerned about America, so what I say to you, I say to me as well.

I was talking with someone last month at a restaurant and he asked me about our country. I gave the same answer I always give. How do we turn our country around? The church has to be the church. We unfortunately have not been being the church.

We have become so individualized we do not think beyond ourselves. I find this best modeled in the lady I heard in a small group once say that she’s saved and her children are saved so she’s just going to wait for Jesus to come. What a horrible attitude! What about your neighbor’s children? If your children go off to college, will they remain Christians?

When we become the church, we will be living as Jesus lived. We will give as He gave. We will sacrifice as He sacrificed. We will care about the things that He cared about, and there are many areas I have to improve on that personally. A pastor at our church gave a sermon on prayer lately that showed me that yes, I have a long way to go. We all have many such areas.

Bart Ehrman actually gives an interesting example of this. He’ll give a talk to his incoming students in his classroom. Keep in mind, this is an agnostic saying this. These classes will have about 400 people in them. He’ll ask how many of them agree with the proposition that the Bible is the Word of God. WHOOSH! Nearly every hand goes up. Then he’ll ask “How many of you have read The Da Vinci Code (Or whatever the book of the day is. I’ve heard Harry Potter used for instance). WHOOSH! Nearly every hand goes up. “And how many of you have read the Bible from beginning to end?” A few scattered hands go up. Ehrman points out that he can understand wanting to read a great novel, but by their own admission, these students have just said the Bible is the Word of God and they don’t seem to care to read what He has to say. How many of us are much better?

As I went to bed last night thinking about the church being the church, I thought that it’s a shame we put our hope in politics so much. Of course, it’s not that politics is unimportant. We should care about politics. It’s that we already have a savior. We already have a Lord and Master. We dare not say “If our political candidate does not get elected, then all hope is lost!” No. The world will still go on. The Gospel will remain unchanged. Let’s list some facts we believe as Christians.

Fact: Jesus Christ is the risen Lord of the universe.

Fact: God is enthroned in the Heavens and laughs at attempts to usurp His power.

Fact: We have the Great Commission to do.

Let’s keep these in mind. Christ originally gave the Great Commission to His followers and you know what? They didn’t have the internet. They didn’t have cars and planes that could travel the Roman Empire. They didn’t have the best education. (In fact, the most educated among them could have been Matthew the tax collector who would have worked WITH the government as a tax collector) They were fishermen and they were told to go into all nations and make disciples.

All nations would include Rome.

You know, Rome, that empire that ruled the world. That empire that came to persecute Christians. That empire that demolished every attack against them. They were to give the most bizarre message that would have been given and they would have done so without being able to look back on past generations of Christians who had done the same. They didn’t even have a New Testament to preach from!

Of course, the scholar Paul joined the party later on and he did a great work, but he did it without all that we have today. He had to be the original pioneer in many ways. Can you imagine what Paul would do if he had the resources that we had today? Paul had no hesitancy in going to Rome even though he knew he was going to die.

We act like all hope is lost meanwhile based on an election that hasn’t even happened yet in a country where we are not yet fearing for our lives.

You see, it doesn’t matter if Trump or Hilary or Sanders gets elected or if Cruz or Rubio or anyone else had got elected. Our mandate is the same if Ronald Reagan is in office or if Barack Obama is in office. Our command is to be the church. We are to do the Great Commission. Our marching orders haven’t changed and maybe we panic because we have put our hope in government.

Unfortunately, we’re also great hypocrites with this in a lot of ways. When we talk about bathrooms, we say that people are not of the opposite sex just because they feel like they’re a woman in a man’s body or vice-versa. I agree. We dare not give authority to our feelings to tell us who we are. We look at Mormons and say the burning in the bosom is not the testimony of the Holy Spirit, and I agree. Then after all that, we look and say “Well I don’t feel like we can do anything and our country is doomed.”

Your feelings and mine do not overpower Scripture. You can have those feelings, and it’s likely you will, but we must work to overcome them. We do not determine the truth of God by how we feel and if we start doing that, then we are placing our feelings over Scripture. If you have a feeling that disagrees with Scripture, well so much for your feelings. They’re simply wrong. This is why we also need to preach the Gospel to one another and remind ourselves of the truth.

I also thought last night of how Jesus said that in this world we would have troubles in John 16:33, but He has overcome the world. Note that. He has overcome it. It’s not a future thing. It’s a done deal. We don’t see all the results of it, but Jesus has overcome. Ultimately, we’re on the winning side.

We’ve had a lot go wrong in our country, but perhaps things aren’t gloom and doom as much as we think. Years ago the Supreme Court defended abortion. Today, you’d find that more and more people are turning against abortion. I suspect the same thing will happen with their recent ruling on homosexuality and marriage. If our case is right, and I am sure it is, then we need not live in fear. A worldview like this can’t live for long. It will self-destruct. Some of us think we’re seeing this start in the whole transgender issue.

In fact, let’s look at the homosexual community. They make up a small portion of our population and yet, when they made a plan and acted on it and charged forward in the face of opposition and fear, look at what they accomplished. Now we claim that we have the God of the universe on our side and what are we doing in response? We are a far larger portion of the population than they are. The truth is the homosexual movement is doing more for their behavior than we are for Jesus Christ.

So what am I going to do?

I’m going to keep doing my blog.

I’m going to keep doing the podcast.

I’m going to keep doing apologetics the way I’m supposed to.

I’m going to keep doing the Great Commission.

I’m going to continue to love the wife God gave me.

I’m going to continue to strive to walk as Jesus walked.

And you know what, I’m going to do that regardless of who gets elected? I would do that if Cruz got elected. I will do it if Trump or Clinton or Sanders gets elected. I would do it if somehow Obama got a third term. I would do it if somehow Reagan came back from the dead and got elected again.

By all means, vote and be active, but don’t put all your eggs in the political basket. If you think things are going to be harder, well that just means we have more of a challenge. It doesn’t mean we have a big game over.

My wife and I like to watch The Flash for instance. Now if you have seen recent episodes, and we haven’t seen last night’s yet, we saw where the Flash lost all of his speed and it went to the villain speedster recently. My wife and I did not turn off the TV then and say “Well that was a good series. Looks like it’s all hopeless for him now.” No. Instead we look and say “Dang. I don’t know how he’s going to get out of this one, but he’s going to find a way and he will defeat the villain in the end.” Why? Because we know that’s how these stories work. The authors do not write stories where the good guys lose like that. We don’t have to know how the author will pull it off. We just know that he will.

The author of this story is God. He’s the one in charge. If I can have trust that the writer of a TV show will bring about a good ending, can I not do the same with the greatest author of all? He’s  in charge. Life is still an adventure. There will always be challenges regardless of who is in the White House, but we can still do great things if we’re willing to just get up and do them.

Your marching orders are still the same. Be the church. If you want to see the change, be the change. You will either be part of evangelism or a hindrance to evangelism.

I plan to be a part of it. How about you?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

“This Is My Body”

How have we twisted the notion of self-sacrifice? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’d like to say I came up with this concept originally, but I heard someone, perhaps Peter Kreeft, speak on the words “This is my body” recently and made a contrast between two opposing positions. I actually thought of another position and I have just been mulling this over for some time. Therefore, I’d like to take my thoughts at this point and share them.

We’re familiar with the words from the Last Supper of “This is my body.” In this, Christ was preparing for His greatest act of self-sacrifice ever. He was preparing to face the tortures of the cross for the sins of the world. This was not something He had to do. This was the plan of God that He willingly submitted to. We find this displayed well in Philippians 2.

Some of you might be wondering about how I interpret the phrase. I really don’t. I have no strong case either way and prefer to see it as words of self-sacrifice. This is something I think could be seen by every viewpoint from a Christian perspective.

Now let’s take this over to marriage. Believe it or not, marriage is supposed to be about self-sacrifice and the epitome of that is to be found in the sexual relationship. This is where the ultimate trust is given by both partners, though I would say certainly the woman puts herself in a more vulnerable position. Each one can say “This is my body” and then say “And I give it to you. In a Biblical sense, your soul belongs to God, but when it comes to the physical relationship, you give your body to only one person. This person gets more of you than anyone else does.

In each of these, we have a beautiful picture of self-sacrifice. It is something powerful in each one and something divine in each one. Of course, since the second one is something we do, we can sadly twist it into something that it isn’t and we can use each person’s body as an apparatus of pleasure rather than that of a person to be loved. Still, something beautiful should not be judged by its misuse and we Christians are called to despite the misuse because we love the real deal so much.

Let’s look instead at another contrast. Do we ever hear the phrase “This is my body” elsewhere? Yes, we do, and in this contrast it is not self-sacrifice. It is in the case of abortion. We hear women speak about how it’s their body and they will then instead give up their children. The children who the body is designed to bring into the world will die for whatever reason the mother deems worthy.

I just find it so amazing that in this act, the concept of self-sacrifice is gone. Is nine months a long time sometimes? Yep. Is the period of childbearing painful? No doubt. Is giving birth painful? I am highly convinced every woman will want extensive pain killers in that time. It’s a shame that some women are not willing to face this time and instead choose to end another human life.

I also think this is worse than what the pagans did in the times of the Old Testament. Sure they sacrificed their children, but they didn’t do it for themselves individually but rather for the good of the harvest or something of that sort. Wicked and evil still? Absolutely, but our modern abortion is even more self-centered then that is.

I look forward to the day when the slaughter of the innocent is done. I look forward to when “This is my body” is always a reminder of self-sacrifice. I look forward to when virtue is restored to our people once again.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

My Open Letter To Target

What do I have to say about the bathroom situation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

To those at Target who might read this someday, I must say I am incredibly disappointed by your recent actions. You see, I want to take my wife somewhere safe when we shop and now, I really can’t do that. Of course, my wife is a different case since she has PTSD and has been abused (Not by her own family!) and can have paranoia. Tie all of this together and your bathroom would be a nightmare for her as would your changing rooms.

In fact, I as her husband am on extra guard nowadays about this situation. Even if we go to a store like Wal-Mart or Kroger now, I fear that it is a matter of time and if my wife has to go to the restroom, I do not go at the same time or do my shopping then and have her meet me. I am watching outside.

Do you realize what could happen? Someone can come in and take a picture and before I can do anything about it, it is broadcast all over the internet. It can’t be removed. Now you can say some transgender people just want to pee. I don’t doubt that. I also don’t doubt that there are some scummy people who will want to take advantage of any loophole in the law to do evil.

You see, we know you want to be inclusive and diverse, but the truth is, you’ve made a mistake. One does not include everything by being inclusive any more than I could have an inclusive diet by including rat poison in mine. The question is what kinds of behaviors do we want to include. There is also nothing about diversity for the sake of diversity. If I go to a store with diverse products for sale, it’s because there are many options where I could find what I want. A sports store might sell a diverse range of sporting equipment, but I don’t shop there because I don’t care about sports and having them say “We have a diverse display of items” does not make me want to go. If you like Sports, that’s great for you, but the diversity is not itself.

The reason diversity can be good is that there can be a greater amount of ways to make the people happy. If my wife and I want to go out to eat, it’s great that we can choose from so many places. We are limited in our diets due to Aspergers, but even in our limitations we have diversity. The places we can agree on easily are pizzerias, Mexican restaurants, some fast food places, Subway, and Smoothie King. Let’s suppose we want to go Mexican one night. We have many different restaurants nearby we can choose from. That diversity is good.

Yet when it comes to the bathrooms, I don’t want a diversity of people in there with my wife. You know who I want in there with her? Women. I don’t want people who feel like they’re women. I want people who are actual women.

I also think that if the goal of diversity is to please the most, then you’d realize that you’re doing it wrong since you’re not pleasing the most. Consider that this pledge is going around to boycott you and it has 1.1 million signatures on it. We both know that for every person who signs the petition, there are many more who don’t sign it at all. The nearest in the competition I have seen is from Moveon.org. With this, you have about a tenth of the signatures.

I’ll grant you that I never went to business school so maybe I’m speaking out of turn, but I would think that if you made a decision and it got 1.1 million people not wanting to shop at your store and go to your competitors and got a tenth of them to come (And how many of them might have already been shopping there anyway?) then it’s probably a bad business decision. It looks like you’ve just bought into the modern groupthink going on today.

Beyond safety, there is another reason I oppose the redefinition. I believe that being a man means something and being a woman means something. I believe you’re born one or the other for the most part and you should strive to be what you’re born as. I believe that if have the body of a man and think you’re a woman or vice-versa, that you are living with a delusional belief, much like the person who has Cotard’s Delusion and thinks that they are dead.

What I would ask is how can you truly tell that yes, someone is not the same sex as the body that they possess? I have asked this question several times in debate. I have never been given an answer. The only basis given is feelings and why should I base such a thing on feelings? If I felt like I was dead, you would say I was delusional, and you would be right. If I said I felt like I was a small girl, you would say I was delusional and you would be right. (Oh wait. Someone is already doing that.) If I said I was a dragon, you would say I was delusional. (Oh wait. Someone has also already done that.)

Do you realize we’re living in a crazy world nowadays? It’s like everyone around us is trying to top one another by how many ideas they’re willing to accept. Now we’re calling into question the very nature of men and women and based on what? A feeling? We see this around us. We happen to have this belief that has been around for ages that there is something different and unique about the union of a man and a woman in holy matrimony.

It amazes us that our disagreeing position is not welcomed with the idea of diversity and we are not treated with tolerance. This tolerance is a one way street and always has been. The point is if you say you are only going to tolerate ideas that agree with you, that is not tolerance. By all means, disagree with us. By all means, argue with us. By all means, tell us why you think we’re wrong. Still, let us have the freedom to hold to our beliefs without the strong arm of the government coming in.

You see, Bruce Springsteen and Cirque De Soleil and everyone else can boycott NC because they disagree with a law and refuse to provide goods and services there. I disagree with their stance but you know what? That’s their right. They have the freedom to do that. Meanwhile, you have a business that makes wedding cakes or provides flowers or takes pictures and as soon as they say no because of their deeply held belief on what marriage is, they are attacked and their livelihoods ruined so much so that they are bankrupt without outside support. In what universe is this being tolerant towards someone who disagrees with you?

This has been going on long enough and just as we think it can’t get any more bizarre, it does. Now we are expected to have men go into a women’s room and vice-versa. This would have been unthinkable a century ago. We’ve had these for decades and no one has thought a thing about it and yet now, it’s supposed to be different.

So for the people at Target, I’m a person who cares about true beliefs and I see no empirical evidence whatsoever to think that someone with the body of a man or a woman is really the other. I see it instead as a dangerous epistemology and a door opening Pandora’s Box to who knows what else. If you want to keep this up, that’s your freedom and your right, but you can do it without having my family and I shop there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 4/30/2016: Luke Cawley

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

Evangelism is sometimes said to be a lost art among evangelicals. We live in a world where we don’t really interact as much with people and make evangelism the focus. The early Christian church spread in an empire where there was no internet, few people writing apologetics works, and great persecution. We have so much more than they and we do so much less than they did. What can we do to improve our track record? How can we better reach those around us?

In order to discuss that, I have decided to bring onto the show Luke Cawley. Who is he?

me on stage

According to his bio:

I am a writer, speaker, trainer and the director of Chrysolis, an organization I helped start in 2012 with the aim of enabling others to better communicate the Jesus story.

Much of my time is spent in contexts where God is not typically discussed in depth. I love interacting with skeptical audiences in universities, schools, bars, cafes and theaters, and anywhere else I’m invited.

I also enjoy enabling individuals and Christian communities to better engage those around them with the story of Jesus.

I have spent most of my adult life founding and developing (missional) Christian communities on university campuses in Britain and Romania and am a regular speaker at conferences and outreach events in different countries.

I was previously part of the writing team at InterVarsity Evangelism and a columnist at the Church of England Newspaper. My first book, The Myth of the Non-Christian: Engaging Atheists, Nominal Christians and the Spiritual but not Religious, was published by InterVarsity Press in 2016.

I have an MA in Evangelism & Leadership from Wheaton College and a Certificate in Theological and Pastoral Studies (concentrated in Christian Apologetics) from Oxford University. I’m married to Whitney, a lovely South Carolinian school teacher, and we have three young children.

Luke is the author of The Myth of the Non-Christian. This book is not about some kind of idea of universalism. No. It’s a book about how to do evangelism and reach three different types of people. Those people are the ones who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious, atheists and agnostics, and then nominal Christians.
Cawley’s book is one that certainly got me thinking about evangelism and does so still to this day and with my wife and I having a new church here in the area we’re attending, I’m thinking of implementing some ideas if given the chance. Cawley’s book does have apologetics in it, but those are more resources in the back. Instead, consider it a book to be more like Greg Koukl’s Tactics in that Cawley teaches you more how to do apologetics and it depends on the person that you meet.
We’ll be discussing these kinds of matters. Why is it that some evangelistic encounters can fall so incredibly short? Is there a proper time to answer someone’s questions and a proper time to just cut through the questions? How does apologetics play a role in the process of evangelism? What do you do when you encounter people who say they are Christians but who do not really live lives that seem to match Christianity and you fear that they could be Christians in name only?
I hope you’ll be joining me this Saturday for the Deeper Waters Podcast. Please also leave a positive review on ITunes.
In Christ,
Nick Peters

The State Farm Syndrome

Can there be claims on the internet that aren’t true? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Remember this State Farm commercial?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_CgPsGY5Mw

We all laugh at the idea that if you read it on the internet, it must be true. Unfortunately, we also all know of situations that are just like this. We could say that the blessing of April 1st is that at least on that day, most everyone checks everything they read on Facebook before sharing it.

Then every other day, gullibility abounds.

So what do I see yesterday? I see a claim going around that the National Day of Prayer has been cancelled by Obama. Now readers of this blog know that I’m not fan of the Obamas. I am politically very conservative. What I am a fan of however is truth and that includes truth about my ideological opponents.

I really don’t like that regularly when this comes up, I’m forced to defend the Obamas, but I am. The truth matters more. I want to take down our opponents, but we have to do that with truth and not falsehood. So what do we do?

First, ask yourself if the story you’ve seen has appeared on any major news network. If it hasn’t, it probably isn’t true. Nowadays, every controversial decision is blasted from the rooftops. Today, we’d have Clinton and Sanders being asked if they support that decision, Cruz would be decrying it as an example of liberal policies and our turn from God, and we’d know where Trump stands on prayer. Yet despite this supposed event, no one has said a thing about the National Day of Prayer.

Folks. This one is easy really. All you need to do after that step is go to a web search and type in something like “Has the National Day of Prayer 2016 been cancelled?” If it has, you will find out about it. If you think that’s not enough, then you will need to do some more.

There are two more sources to check. The first is a site called Truth Or Fiction. I went there and put in “National Day of Prayer” for a search. It looks like according to them that this is an erumor that has circulated before and it’s really bad that it gets people every year. You can find out about that here.

Another site I go to is Snopes. So what did I do? I went there and posted “National Day of Prayer” again and what do I get? This. Yes. These rumors abound constantly.

Please keep in mind this was not a large and in-depth research project. This would take at the most about five minutes worth of your time. Now if you’re not sure on Facebook if something is true or not, let me give you a good policy to follow. It’s awfully complex, but I think you can grasp it.

DON’T SHARE IT!

In fact, if you want to, put the burden on someone else. If they share it, ask them if they have checked it out. Ask them if they have done any searching to see if the account is true or not. Hopefully, something like this could get them to stop spreading false information.

Keep in mind also when I say false information, I mean something that can be said to be demonstrably false by anyone who just does five minutes worth of research. I do not mean “An opinion that disagrees with yours.” It could be false. It could not be. There are some matters that do take time to determine the truthfulness of them, like scientific and archaeological claims.

Now why on Earth do I harp on this? Well let’s start with Christians. If you’re a Christian, you’re supposed to be a person of truth. You’re supposed to love the truth. When you claim Jesus rose from the dead, you’re not claiming just that you’ve had some sort of personal experience as if you were a Mormon. You’re claiming that this is a real event that happened in history. You’re claiming a dead man went into a tomb and He came out alive again.

Now of course, I hold that’s a true claim, but we should all agree on something. It is a remarkable claim. It is not an everyday claim. It is not a claim that you can do five minutes worth of research and verify or disprove. It is a claim that requires much in-depth study.

You when you say you are a Christian are saying that you hold this claim is true. Your friend who is skeptical is not sure yet. What do they see? They see you sharing a claim they can easily see is false just by a few minutes worth of checking. Why should they bother with the claim that would take much much longer to check? You’ve already shown you’ll believe anything if it goes with what you already believe.

You see, by doing this, you have seriously damaged your reputation. You have shown yourself to be gullible and your non-believing friend will chalk up your Christianity to gullibility. If you have a habit of sharing stories that are false, why should anyone believe you on the grandest story of all that is true?

By the way, a lot of Christians share stuff on Facebook and think that by doing just that, they are doing something. You’re not. If you want to look at how something can be done, consider what homosexual activists did with After The Ball. This was about how America would overcome their “hatred” for homosexuality in the 90’s and come to love the gay movement. It was a brilliant success, and that group is a much smaller number of the population. They turned something most people found repulsive into something that we are now supposed to celebrate with a Gay Pride Month.

They’re actually going out into the world spreading their message. Would that Christians would do the same thing! If Christians took Christ as seriously as the homosexual movement took homosexuality, we could really turn things around in this country. That requires more than just Facebook posting. Of course, what you do on the internet is important, but it goes beyond Facebook.

There are non-Christians of course reading this and you could be feeling pretty good right now about this. After all, here I am, a Christian apologist, going after my fellow Christians on this and saying “Yep. Too many of my fellow Christians are gullible.” Brace yourselves. The group that describes itself as guided by reason and defines themselves by rationality can be just as gullible.

When I see internet memes by atheists making arguments, they are often some of the most ridiculous memes I see. Frankly, you should not make arguments by memes period. Memes can be illustrations or a bit of humor and such, but they are never to be arguments in themselves.

Yet if there is one area where atheists regularly fall prey to this gullibility, it is in the area of the historical Jesus. When I see arguments going around about Jesus being a copy of other pagan deities in the dying and rising gods motif or arguments that Jesus never even existed, I just roll my eyes immediately. These arguments are not taken seriously in the field of academia. This is not an open debate any more than evolution is an open debate with biologists or heliocentrism is an open debate with astronomers.

And yet, despite this, internet atheists share this regularly as if they’ve discovered some great new secret that has escaped notice.

“But Richard Carrier says”

Yes, I know what Carrier says. I also know that many scholars in the world have no idea who he is. The reason he’s so hard for some to answer is the same reason people who say the moon landing was a hoax can be hard to answer. It’s because the claims looked at are claims not paid attention to by scholars as they rely on esoteric theories that just aren’t taken seriously. Carrier regularly goes with the most bizarre reading and most people don’t know how to handle that. Mythicism is not taken seriously in academia and there’s no sign that that’s changing.

Readers of this blog know that I’m not a young-earth creationist (YEC), but if you happen to be a mythicist, you have no place making fun of YECs. There are more academics in the field who question evolution and/or hold to YEC than there are Jesus mythicists. Mythicism should be seen as a conspiracy theory for atheists. If you are a skeptic of Christianity, you owe it to yourself to stop your fellow skeptics who are spreading the idea of mythicism. Most Christians aren’t answering any more not because the arguments are too difficult, but because they’re too ridiculous.

Fact checking is something everyone should do and with any claim you’re wanting to share. For much of what we’re talking about, it only takes a few minutes to check a claim. Is it really worth risking having a bad reputation to avoid five minutes worth of checking? Be a person of truth. Check that claim before you share it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: People To Be Loved

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

Preston Sprinkle has written a unique book on homosexuality where he says it’s not just an issue and frankly raises up a point that we often lose sight of. People are people. Whatever person you’re arguing against, they are a person. This is something both sides need to learn. Traditionalists like myself can often see just the issue and be tempted to think the worst about homosexuals that we meet, when in reality many homosexuals, like many heterosexuals, are wonderful people. Of course, just like heterosexuals, some are jerks. How you view your sexuality is not a determiner of your demeanor.

Meanwhile, those on the left need to realize that the homosexuals are persons as well. In what way do they often act otherwise? It’s too easy to assume that if someone is a homosexual, that that entails their identity so that if you say homosexual practice is wrong, you are treating the person as if they are not a person, and this is simply false.

Sprinkle wrote this book wanting us to see not just the issue but the person. He starts by talking about being on a plane and sharing with some people who ask what project he’s working on and he says it’s a book on homosexuality. The husband shakes his head saying there is no debate and the Bible is very clear. Sprinkle does want to say there is a huge debate in academia, but instead he asks where the Bible is clear. Unfortunately, the man has no idea where the Bible verses are that speak about homosexual practice.

Too many Christians could be like that today.

Sprinkle also does introduce with too many stories of homosexuals who have committed suicide and have been bullied for their being homosexual. Naturally, we should all condemn this sort of behavior. He also writes about those who leave the church. Interestingly, they don’t leave because they’re told same-sex behavior is wrong. They leave because of how they’re treated. The main walk away he wants you to get is that homosexuality is not about an abstract issue. It is about an issue that concerns people to be loved.

In this, many of Sprinkle’s stories hit hard. He does open this by a look at the Scriptures themselves. He comes down on the side of the traditionalists, who he describes as non-affirming. He also addresses many of the issues such as if someone is born with a sexual orientation and if change is possible of an orientation. He points out that too many of us have this idea that if you have to live your life without sex that it is absolutely unlivable.

Sprinkle also wants us to know that homosexuality does not define someone’s life. Still, while I agree that most homosexuals are fine people and there are other sins to focus on, I do think there are some people that while they are still people to be loved, there needs to be more on how to respond to them. Do some people get turned away from the church because there are many Christians who are aggressive and unloving to them? Yes. Of course. There are also homosexuals who are also aggressive and speak about their lifestyles.

What about situations such as the book After The Ball written as a coercive propaganda material to change the hearts and minds of Americans, which was a brilliant success by all standards. There are in fact people who want to be aggressive in their homosexuality and label us as intolerant bigoted homophobes if we disagree. Then there are issues many people have with the transgender talk today about men sharing bathrooms with women.

Do we love those people who are hurting and open to discussions? Of course. We are also to love the aggressive ones, but shouldn’t our approach be different? I did not really find Sprinkle’s book addressing how to deal with this. We could say Christians seem to always be talking about homosexuality, but that’s also because our culture is always talking about homosexuality. We are talking about what everyone is talking about and giving our viewpoints.

While few Christians will ever meet a leader in this movement, they are online and they will meet them and they will meet heterosexual supporters of the homosexual movement who are like them in their responses. There is a problem with Christians of course treating homosexuals horribly, but how are Christians to respond when homosexuals do likewise? While I know Sprinkle is for non-violence, as am I and I do not think this needs to be physical, I don’t think this means we just lie down and let homosexuals walk all over us.

Still, I have to say that Sprinkle’s book is a breath of fresh air. If I could recommend one book on the popular level, it would be this one. Sprinkle gives you good academic research and then he gives an excellent application. Sprinkle reminds us that every time we discuss homosexuality, we are also discussing homosexual persons. These are people to be loved. No. These are people who are loved by Jesus. The question is, are we going to love like Jesus did also? We do not affirm the sin, but we do love the person.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals

What do I think of William Webb’s book published by IVP? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Many of us like to think of the Bible as the moral guidebook. Now to be sure, there are a lot of good moral lessons in the Bible. Hardly anyone would contend that “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a bad idea, but there are some ideas that we just don’t do today. There are some matters explicitly commanded that we don’t do today. There are some commands that we think are even not good for us to do today. How do we differentiate?

William Webb’s book is an excellent reference on this looking at three issues as examples. First is slavery, which is pretty much agreed to that we do not practice. Next is women, and this is an area of some debate as there are complementarians and egalitarians. Finally there’s homosexuality as most evangelicals today still condemn homosexual practice, although that number is starting to change.

So what are we to do? Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves, but he also told us to wash one another’s feet. We are told in Exodus that we should not murder, but we are also told that we are to keep the Sabbath. Is this just random arbitrariness that is deciding what we do and do not follow?

Naturally, I can’t tell everything Webb says, but his book is a joy to read on this. Webb lays out eighteen different criteria on various themes. He also has what he calls a redemptive hermeneutic. This means that as the story of the Bible progresses, you start to see change. For instance, slavery (While never like Civil War slavery) was a staple at the time and could be called a necessary evil, much like God allowed divorce for the hardness of the peoples’ hearts. They weren’t ready for the advanced lessons yet. Still, even with slavery, the seeds of its destruction were planted early on.

One example is the case of the runaway slave. If a slave ran away from his master, he was supposed to be given safety. He was not to be returned to his master. As we go through the story of the Bible, we see this progressing further with more and more freedom until we get to a book like Philemon where it’s implied in a burning epistle (And yes, Paul is calling out Philemon incredibly in this epistle) that Philemon is to set Onesimus free.

How about women? Women do seem to get a low regard in the Old Testament where they can often be seen as property, but again, the change is right there. You have dynamic women like Deborah, Ruth, Rahab, Huldah, and Esther showing up in the text. When you move to the New Testament, you see more women like the witnesses to the empty tomb who first saw Jesus, Junia, Phoebe, Priscilla, Lydia, and others.

Now this is one part where I wasn’t as forward as Webb is. I am still more of a complementarian, but I think Webb would likely not have much of a problem with my own style since I think that if a man is the king of his castle, his wife gets treated like a queen.

Finally, you have homosexuals. In the Old Testament, the charges are pretty strict. Leviticus I think is a very clear statement. So is this changed in the New Testament? No. Paul in Romans 1 argues that homosexual practice is a shaming practice that is a horizontal example of what has already happened vertically.

What does this tell us? Some practices move forward redemptively and so we are justified in our lifestyles in moving along that route. The Bible has set the standard for us in itself. Some are more negative, so we ought not switch them because the Bible is consistent throughout with how it deals with them.

Unfortunately, I can’t go into a lot of detail, but this is a book that’s a joy to read to see how the author weaves his way through the texts and deals  with challenges to his position. There’s also a section at the end in humility where Webb answers “What if I’m wrong?” This mainly centers on issues involving 1 Tim. 2 and the section dealing with women there.

I think this book is an excellent read. There are issues on hermeneutics that are extremely necessary. If internet atheists would interact with a book like this, perhaps many of our debates could be better. Perhaps they could be even better still if more Christians interacted with it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Answering Jihad

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

I want to be clear at the start. I consider Nabeel Qureshi a friend. I’ve got to meet him in person many times and I highly admire him. I was also given this copy by Zondervan for review purposes. I hope to remove as much bias as possible.

That being said, I do want to say that at the start, Qureshi really does care for the Muslim people. He has told myself and others that for all he knows, there could be one like the Apostle Paul among the Muslims who will go on to become a great missionary so he’s always praying for them. Qureshi is equally against Muslim violence and violence against Muslims.

This is important in our day and age when we can look at a Muslim and immediately think of 9/11. We can give thanks for the Muslims out there that do condemn atrocities like 9/11. At the same time, it’s important to raise the question and ask if this violence is consistent with the history of Islam.

Qureshi covers the issues relating to the nature of Muhammad and the nature of the Koran. The work is quite thorough. If you do not know anything about Islam as you start to read the book, you will be able to still understand what is going on in the world today. Qureshi writes with scholarly rigor and at the same time, combines it with a pastoral heart.

The book is divided into three parts. The first answers questions on the origin of Jihad. What is Islam and what is Sharia and what is meant by Jihad? We also get a brief look at the history of Muhammad.

The next section deals with our own time. What does it mean when we speak today of Radical Islam. What about terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Horam? Is it possible that one day we could see a reformation in Islam that will make it a peaceful religion?

Of course, one could ask the question that was asked by Obama after some Muslim attacks. Don’t Christians have a history of warfare in the Crusades? Don’t they also have a history of warfare in the Old Testament? Do Muslims and Christians really worship the same God?

The book is excellent and each section can be read in a brief time and easily digested. If there was a concern that I did have, it would be that I think that Qureshi does condemn the Crusades too quickly and leans too close to pacifism for my taste. I think the Crusades largely started off as defensive wars for instance to help those in need. Of course, this does not mean that all that was done in the Crusades was right and much is to be condemned, but as it is problematic to say all of it was right, it would be just as much to say that all of it was wrong.

Still, I think this is an excellent book for understanding Islam and if there’s one thing we can all get from this, it would be Qureshi’s heart on the matter. He really does love Muslims. Maybe we could be better at reaching them if we had the same love for our enemies that Qureshi has.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Got Questions On The New Perspective on Paul

Do we have a valid criticism of the New Perspective on Paul? (NPP) Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A reader of the blog wanted to get my thoughts on an article he found online from Got Questions (GQ). He had been searching for information on the New Perspective on Paul and wanted to see what he could find. This one showed up on the first page and when I did my look, I got the same results. So let’s look at what the author of the piece has to say. Those wanting to read it can find it here. The question being asked is if the NPP is Biblical.

Any time a “new perspective” on some biblical doctrine arises, red flags should go off warning Christians of possible danger. In many cases such “new” ideas, teachings, or perspectives are not new at all. Rather, they are the same old lie from the Garden of Eden when Satan first cast doubt on God’s Word: “Did God really say…” (Genesis 3:1). In that sense, the “New Perspective on Paul” is ancient in that it tries to deny what the Scriptures clearly teach and what has been accepted by Christians for centuries. The “New Perspective on Paul” is not biblical and appears to be an attempt to redefine and even deny key biblical doctrines that are the foundation of the Christian faith.

Way to start off with both guns blazing! GQ didn’t even hesitate to start tying in the NPP with the lies of the devil. Why? Well first off, because it’s new. One can only imagine what they would have thought at the time of the Reformation. Would they have sided with Luther? Even if my readers aren’t Protestant here, it should be realized that GQ is not a Catholic ministry so they must answer this question. Would heliocentrism be considered a new perspective causing doubt on the Word of God? They do believe in the rapture. Are they not aware that historically that is a “new teaching”?

Anyway, to get back to the main point, we have already been told that the NPP is not Biblical and is an attempt to redefine core doctrines of the Christian faith. This is an interesting statement, but there’s one glaring problem. We haven’t even been told what the NPP is. We’re just told that whatever it is, it is like the ancient lie of the devil.

Sadly, however, the teachings propagated by the few who champion the “New Perspective on Paul” are gaining ground, even among evangelical churches, despite the fact that some of its leading proponents are liberal New Testament scholars from secular universities. Most well-known among the “New Perspective on Paul” proponents is N.T. Wright, a noted Bible scholar and Bishop in the Anglican Church, whose books seem to be influencing the spread of this troublesome teaching in evangelical churches.

Some of its proponents are liberal NT scholars who teach at secular universities like…..well…..we’re not told. N.T. Wright is the one mentioned here and he is hardly liberal. Wright wrote one of the leading books arguing that Jesus rose from the dead.

The heart of this teaching is that for hundreds, if not thousands, of years Christians have seriously “misunderstood” the apostle Paul and his teachings—thus the need for a new perspective on Paul. The idea that these latter-day scholars are so wise that they can figure out the correct perspective on Paul, when biblical scholars from the time of Christ on could not, is founded upon audacity and even borderline arrogance. The “New Perspective on Paul” is not unlike the Jesus Seminar group, who several years ago decided they could determine what Jesus actually said and did not say by voting on which words of Christ in the Bible should be attributed to Him and which should not. The implied arrogance of these types of “wiser than everyone else” attitudes should be clear when they claim that Christians for almost 2,000 years have been wrong about Paul.

Um. No. It’s not arrogance at all. It’s simply based on having new information that they did not have, including information found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There’s also this head in the sand approach that new ideas cannot possibly be true. We are learning more about the world of the Bible regularly. Archaeology and other disciplines are showing us things that had been lost for centuries. This is not arrogance. Arrogance is thinking that we will not uncover anything that could change our minds.

It’s also hideous to say that this is like the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar was a group of leftist NT scholars who approached the text with an assumption that miracles didn’t happen and didn’t consist of anyone from a European school. The NPP is not like that at all. GQ is just engaging in some guilt by association.

There are four basic tenets of “New Perspective on Paul.” First is the belief that Christians misunderstand Judaism of the first century. They say that Paul was not battling against Jews who were promoting a religion of self-righteousness and works-based salvation and that the Pharisees were not legalists. Yet the Bible describes the Pharisees as those who “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness,” “straining at a gnat while swallowing a camel,” and ones who “cleaned up the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:23–25). The view that first-century Pharisees were not legalists and their religion was not one of self-righteousness and works-based salvation directly contradicts Jesus’ own words in this and numerous other passages.

No it doesn’t. The idea is that the Pharisees did not keep the Law in order to attain righteousness. They kept it to demonstrate their righteousness. That can still work with self-righteous. The Pharisees thought they were righteous because they kept the Law, but Christ pointed out that it was all show. It would have been good for GQ to go and get Paul’s own perspective with the Law.

Philippians 3:4b-6.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

Paul would have said he kept the law flawlessly. He wasn’t living in a legalistic system where he was hoping everyday he could keep the Law. That’s the idea that has often come to us, but it’s simply a false one. In fact, the Reformers themselves would have been the first to say “Let’s look at this idea!” Their cry was “To the sources!” If this idea could be demonstrated from the sources, then let us go with it.

The second tenet of this false teaching is that Paul really did not have a problem with the doctrine of salvation taught by the Jewish leaders of his day. His disagreement with them was simply over how they treated the Gentiles and not a fundamental difference over how one is saved or justified before a holy God. However, in his letters to the Galatians and the Romans, Paul clearly and solidly condemned the works-based system of righteousness promoted by the Judaizers who were trying to lure the Galatians away from the true gospel message. In fact, he said that anyone who preached a gospel other than the one he preached should be “eternally condemned” (Galatians 1:8–9). Once again, Scripture shows that the “New Perspective on Paul” is not based on the testimony of Scripture but instead is contrary to it, making it an unbiblical teaching with serious consequences for those who follow it and are led astray by it.

No. Once again, GQ is assuming their stance and pushing it onto the Bible. The question of Galatians is “How do you show you are a part of the family of God?” The answer of the Judaizers was “Keeping the Law.” The answer of Paul was “Faith in Christ.” Paul would have indeed said you could not be righteous by keeping the Law. You can only be righteous by having faith in Christ. The NPP would not disagree with that.

The third unbiblical tenet of the “New Perspective on Paul” teaching is that the gospel is about the Lordship of Christ and not a message of personal salvation and individual redemption from the condemnation of sin. Certainly, the Lordship of Christ is an important part of the gospel truth, but, if that is all it is, how is that good news? No one can make Christ Lord of his life without first being cleansed of sin and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Only the Spirit of God can empower us to yield to the lordship of Christ. Clearly the hope of Christians is that Christ is first and foremost a Savior whose atoning sacrifice has personally and completely made atonement for their sins. It is for this reason that the gospel is the good news, because “it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

The NPP is right on this and what GQ misses is that salvation is the result of this. Since Christ is Lord, He is able to pronounce forgiveness and judgment. It’s a shame that GQ asks “How is this good news?” How is it not? One does not say “Jesus is Lord and that’s all.” It’s “Jesus is Lord and that changes everything.” The NPP is certainly right that we have individualized the Gospel and started it with ourselves instead of Christ as Lord. Again, nothing else said here about the Holy Spirit would be problematic to the NPP.

This leaves us with the fourth and the most serious unbiblical tenet of the “New Perspective on Paul” teaching—the denial of the doctrine of justification by faith, a central and non-negotiable Christian doctrine. According to proponents of this unbiblical teaching, when Paul wrote about justification, he was not speaking of personal and individual justification whereby a guilty sinner is declared righteous on the basis of his faith in Christ and Christ’s righteousness being imputed to the sinner. Instead, they claim, when Paul wrote about justification, he was speaking of how one could tell if a person was “a member of the covenant family.”

And the problem? One is welcomed into the covenant family on the basis of faith and not the works of the Law. How is that a denial of being justified by faith? Salvation still works out the same way. At this point, I can’t help but think of how someone once asked me to watch a video with Al Mohler hosting a group of Christians, whether scholars or not I couldn’t tell, on N.T. Wright’s view and if he was going against the Reformation. One person actually said “N.T. Wright may think he’s found something new in the Scriptures, but he’s going against the tradition.” I nearly fell out of my chair hearing that.

Wasn’t that kind of what the Reformation was all about? Going against tradition because of something found in the Scriptures? Why would the Reformers be opposed to this then?

According to N.T. Wright, “Justification in the first century was not about how someone might establish a relationship with God. It was about God’s eschatological definition, both future and present, of who was in fact, a member of his people.” The problem with this tenet of the “New Perspective on Paul” is that it distorts the biblical teaching on justification by faith and instead teaches that Paul’s doctrine of justification was only concerned with the Gentiles’ standing in the covenant community and not at all about a guilty sinner being declared just before a holy and righteous God. Simply put, we cannot disregard or redefine justification and still be considered Christian or biblical. In his writings, N.T. Wright often argues against the imputed righteousness of Christ, which is the heart and soul of the true gospel (2 Corinthians 5:21).

It would have been nice to have seen something from N.T. Wright on this. We have a quote, but who knows where it comes from? Instead, GQ puts up a straw man saying Paul was only concerned about Gentiles. No. Paul was a preacher of one Gospel. After all, Paul counted his keeping of the law rubbish when compared to Christ. It’s a shame also that GQ says Wright argues against the imputed righteousness of Christ, which is the heart and soul of the true gospel.

I could have sworn the heart and soul was Jesus Christ died, buried, and resurrected again. Could it be GQ here is actually demonstrating the point about individualizing the Gospel? They’ve said the start of the Gospel is the news about themselves. It’s not. It’s the news about Jesus.

Just as Satan called into question the Word of God to Eve, the “New Perspective on Paul” calls into question the basic doctrines of the Christian faith as revealed by the Bible and, because of this, the “New Perspective on Paul” should be rejected.

It would have been good to have seen this demonstrated, but instead, we have a head-in-the-sand approach that says “New idea! Must not be investigated!” And apparently, they didn’t. You do not find all these other scholars quoted and only one attempt at a quotation from Wright that does not even have a source. It’s because of this, that I think GQ should be rejected on this. Now it could be the NPP is not true and should be rejected, but it is better to debate a matter without settling it than to settle a matter without debating it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 4/23/2016: Jackson Wu

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

My wife is a big fan of oriental stuff. She loves nearly everything that is Japanese, aside from the food. It’s my dream that one day I’ll get to take her to Japan. We can love so much about a culture in the Far East, but have we ever wondered what it would be like if we had to share the Gospel with them? These people might be just like us in their biology and such, but their culture is radically different.

For that matter, could the culture of the Bible be radically different? Could it be that when we present the Gospel, we’re presenting it in a Western package? Could that be causing distortions in evangelism? How can we communicate one Gospel in many cultures?

For that, I’m pleased to have on my show the man who wrote One Gospel For All Nations, Dr. Jackson Wu. Who is he?

Bigger Hands Focused JW NAME

Jackson has served Chinese pastors for over a decade. Presently, he is an associate professor International Chinese Theological Seminary, where he teaches theology and missiology. Previously, Jackson was a church planter, English teacher, and youth minister.

During his youth, he grew up in the southern United States. Brought up in a non-religious family, he became a Christ follower at age 15. Jackson attended Texas A&M University, where he studied applied mathematics with a minor emphasis in economics. He also earned a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Texas A&M, writing his thesis on the theology undergirding the thought of Soren Kierkegaard. Later, he gained his MDiv from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He published his first book in the Evangelical Missiological Society dissertation series. It is titled Saving God’s Face: A Chinese Contextualization of Salvation through Honor and Shame. In 2015, William Carey Library published Jackson’s second book, One Gospel for All Nations: A Practical Approach to Biblical Contextualization. In a forthcoming book with IVP, he will explore how honor-shame influence our understanding of Paul’s letter to the Romans. His articles have appeared in both missiological and theological journals. A few selected titles include “Paul Writes to the Greek First and also to the Jew”, “There are No Church Planting Movements in the Bible”, and “Why has the Church Lost Face?”

Jackson is particularly concerned about theological contextualization. By understanding how the Bible uses honor and shame, he wants to equip the church to contextualize the gospel in a way that is both biblically faithful and culturally meaningful.

He consistently writes on his blog jacksonwu.org. He is a regular blogger for Training Leaders International, and has guest written for Scot McKnight, Ed Stetzer, and the Missio blog. He serves on the steering committee for the Asian-Asian-American Theology Consultation for the Evangelical Theological Society. His also offers Chinese resources for free at wu-rong.org. People can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

We’ll be discussing how people in the Far East see the Gospel and how the Gospel that brings us good news in America and the West can bring good news to those in the Far East. We will discuss cultural differences that can be barriers to evangelism. We’ll also discuss what it means to save God’s face. Are we embarrassing God or what?

I hope you’ll be listening!

In Christ,
Nick Peters