Life Is A Game Walkthrough Part 2

What position will we take in the game? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

We’re continuing our look at Edward Castronova’s book Life Is A Game and looking at how games are lived out. He writes that if he saw a Buddhist who was drunk, he would not criticize his devotion to his teacher, but he would question how seriously he took his teaching. After all, Buddhism does say a lot about self-control.

The same could be said about Christians, naturally, and yet this is something that needs to be kept in mind. When non-Christians want to bash Christianity because they see Christians living inconsistent lives, such as being heavily promiscuous, then that doesn’t say anything about Christianity. It says something about that particular “Christian.” (The person could really be fooling themselves into thinking they are a Christian.) If you see a Buddhist not living out his Buddhism, then that tells you nothing about Buddhism. It tells you a lot about the Buddhist.

When we choose a worldview, we are choosing how we play the game. We are choosing a position that we think best describes the game that has been created. When you play a real video game, you could debate what kind of worldview it exists in. Not all will be screaming something, as it could be hard to tell what worldview Tetris could be in, but what about a series like Final Fantasy? In this world, it is taken as perfectly “natural” that gods, magic, and stupendous beasts exist. Also often in these games, that good and evil exist is a given.

As a gamer also, I never really got bothered by the problem of evil which is brought up. Evil is something that since it is in the game often provides something for us to rise above, for us to conquer. If you’re a fan of mysteries, you understand this also. You read wanting to know who the bad guy is and in the end, how he gets tracked down and stopped.

This is not to say that evil is good, but we do realize it as a challenge for us all and we need a good worldview to conquer evil. Not only that, we need a good worldview to tell us that evil is real and that the fight is winnable. Somehow, many of us do have that idea that it is winnable.

If you read a book and in the end, the bad guys win and that’s it, it seems like there is a problem with the book. Somehow, we anticipate that no matter what is going on, the good guys will win. There can be a hint of anxiety in us at times watching a show or movie or playing a game and wondering “Will this last-ditch effort really work?” It does, and we are relieved, but not always surprised.

So in conclusion at this part, what do we learn? We learn that to defeat evil, we need a worldview that can be lived fairly consistently at least, as humans tend to fail to some degree at everything and that includes our worldview. We also need a worldview that tells us that evil is a reality and explains its place in our world. Finally, we need one that can show us that evil can be defeated and there is hope.

We’ll discuss more next time.

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

How To Ace Bible Trivia

Is answering trivia the goal? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A few days ago at my workplace, I found an item someone decided not to purchase that had been left behind. It was a book for middle schoolers on how to ace a world history exam. As I saw it, I thought that is part of the problem with the education system today. We teach students how to pass tests. They are taught knowledge for the sake of knowledge. They are not taught how to apply it.

When we don’t see the relevance of something to our lives, we quickly forget it. I can remember how to get through levels on video games I played decades ago, but I don’t remember a bit how to do quadratic equations, with respect to my algebra teacher. Why is that? Because I have never once had to use the process to do quadratic equations, but I sure have played my share of video games.

Fortunately, this doesn’t go on in the church. In the church, we only learn what is relevant to our lives. We don’t just give information so we will know stuff. We show the relevance of….oh please stop laughing already.

Yes. This is exactly what we do in the church. Let’s take something simple. We teach our children the ten commandments. Okay. That’s good. Why do we follow them? Don’t murder? That seems like an obvious one, but why not? Why is murder condemned? How many of us as young children also cited “Do not commit adultery”, but we had no clue what adultery was?

We teach our children how to do Bible drills. Congratulations! You can look up Philippians 4:13 faster than anyone else in the church! What good will that do you if you don’t have a clue what the passage really means? If we teach them anything about verses, well, it’s all about them. Philippians 4:13 is not about the glory of Christ, but it is about winning football games.

Don’t forget the trips that we send them on! They go on these trips that are youth conferences and come back and get super excited and want to tell the world about Jesus and life is awesome!

For about a week or two if that long.

After that, it’s right back to the same old thing.

If all we are teaching our youth is the content of the Bible, we are failing them. This is nothing against said content. This is just saying that we need to know the relevance of the content. We don’t need just pieces of Christianity. We need a whole tapestry of Christianity woven together so the students do see the importance and relevance of it in their daily lives.

Otherwise, the guy is with the girl and they’re alone together and she starts coming on really strong to him. So here he has a hot girl that he will really want to be intimate with and on the other hand, he has a verse in his head saying “Do not commit adultery” with no reason why other than don’t. Which one is he going to listen to? Now imagine instead if he has a whole biblical worldview on sex and marriage and understands based on that the importance of waiting for marriage and how giving in to temptation dishonors the God He serves who is to be His king?

Folks. It’s not enough anymore to just teach our youth facts about the Bible. They will forget them just as quickly as we forget things in school we don’t deem relevant to our lives. They need to be taught a whole worldview, a whole curriculum. They need to be taught about how every facet of their lives intersects with Christianity. It can’t just be about them. We also don’t just teach them isolated verses. We teach them the context of those verses and how they apply.

In the end, they’ll have a greatly informed biblical worldview that does apply to them to help them in their lives.

And they’ll probably still rock at Bible drills anyway.

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

What You Believe About God Matters

Does it matter what you believe about God? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Everyone has a worldview. Many of us are not aware of it. A worldview is your answer to the biggest questions in life. When you receive information, it is filtered through your worldview. It is possible to change the answers to the big questions, but depending on how central they are to your worldview, it will take that much more to change them.

The late Christian philosopher Ron Nash gave a list of five questions for a worldview. These are all excellent questions I think to summarize what we believe.

God is first. Does He exist? How many gods are there if they exist? Is God reality or something else? What is the nature of this God or gods that are believed in?

What is the nature of the cosmos? Is it eternal? Is it something made by a greater power? Is it real?

What is the nature of morality? Are there true objective statements of morality? Is morality up to the individual? How is morality known?

What is the nature of man? Does man have a soul? Is he an accident? Is he in the image of God? Is he God?

What is the nature of the afterlife? What happens when we die? We cease to exist? We become gods or angels? Heaven or Hell? Nirvana? Reincarnation?

These are all good questions and volumes have been written on each. I’d like to dabble a little bit at the first question. What does it matter what you believe about God?

Let’s start with the simple question of existence. Do you believe that something exists, something a group like AA would call a higher power? If so, how important is this power to you? How do you know? Picture that you are presented with undeniable proof that this higher power does not exist. How much does that change your worldview? The degree to which it changes shows how much place is given to your higher power.

For instance, if you just lose emotional comfort and personal help, well that’s all God is to you. He’s an emotional comfort and personal helper. If you lose a ground of all being and an explanation for all that is, then God is that much central to you. This is a good time to ask yourself this question. “What do I really believe about God and how central is He to what I believe?”

Something amazing about our time is that we don’t really think about God. We know so much about our favorite sports team, a video game, a TV show, a movie, but how much do we think about God? Does God not merit more attention than our favorite hobbies?

Much of Christian suffering today I think can come from bad thinking about God. One pictures God as a tyrant perhaps demanding perfection and being willing to strike us down for our sins. One pictures God as an emotional band-aid which is helpful when you’re hurting, but what happens when He doesn’t come through one time? Does God suddenly not care?

Does it matter that in much of Christian thinking God doesn’t change? You bet it does. If God loves us and is love, then He eternally loves us. We can rest assured in Him.

Speaking of love, what do we mean if we say that God is love? Is God warm sentiment? Is this love romantic love like one has for a spouse or other significant other? Does He love us for who He is or for who we are?

What about classical attributes of God? Is He omnipotent or omniscient or omnipresent or omnibenevolent? Are those terms you’re not used to? What do they mean? Is it not worth considering?

If you were to marry someone, you would want to know something about who they are first. After all, this is the person you’re going to be hopping into bed with. You are going to be sharing your own body with them and your very life with them. Should you not know who they are?

I encourage Christians to really think about God and do so with more than just your experience. Inform yourself with Scripture, but also with those who have gone before and great minds today. J.I. Packer’s Knowing God is an excellent place to go to for instance.

Good theology is extremely important for Christians to have. God is a person (Or rather tri-personal) and needs to be known for who He is. A deficit in our knowledge of God can only hurt us and we will replace truths of God with falsehoods that our own minds come up with. Naturally, we all believe some wrong things about God, but it is important that we try to eliminate those beliefs that are false.

Naturally, Christians have one other area. How has God revealed Himself? Our best answer is that the greatest revelation is in Jesus Christ. What does Jesus tell us about God? What does it mean that Jesus is fully God and fully man? What does it matter that He died and rose again bodily? Is it just a free trip to Heaven or a proof that Christianity is true?

I really encourage Christians to think about these questions. I have not attempted to really answer them here. It’s more important at this point to know that they’re there and they need to be taken seriously. If you have time to learn about your favorite hobbies but not about God, you really need to get your priorities straight.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/18/2017: Jeff Myers

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

Everyone has a worldview. Many of us don’t realize that we do have them. We all have a way of looking at the world and we all have some background ideas that influence the way we think about reality. Many times when we have debate with people of other positions, we’re not so much debating the evidence as we are the worldview that evaluates the evidence.

Christians should have a biblical worldview, but many of our Christians today believe things that outright contradict Scripture. I’m not talking about disagreements on secondary issues where we all have some wrong beliefs. We’re talking about things like Christians believing in reincarnation or that all religions are equally valid.

So when discussing worldviews, you need someone who does understand worldviews, and not just a Christian worldview, but other major contenders. You need someone who also has his awareness of what is going on especially with youth today who are struggling the most with this sort of question. How is it that they can build a biblical worldview and what can churches do to restore this vision? To do that, I decided to have come on Jeff Myers from Summit Ministries to talk about worldviews.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

Dr. Jeff Myers is president of Summit Ministries, a highly respected worldview training program whose tens of thousands of graduates are making a difference in politics, law, academics, medicine, science, and business. In the last 20 years Dr. Myers has become one of America’s most respected authorities on youth leadership development. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson referred to him as “a very gifted and inspirational young leader.” Evangelist Josh McDowell called him “a man who is 100% sold out to preparing the next generation to reflect the character of Christ in the culture.” Through his appearances on Fox News and other media programs, Dr. Myers has become a fresh voice offering humor and insight from a Christian worldview. He holds a Doctor of Philosophy degree and teaches leadership courses through Lumerit and Belhaven University. Jeff and his family live in Colorado.

We’ll be talking about his book The Secret Battle of Ideas About God. We’ll look at other worldviews such as secular humanism, postmodernism, Marxism, new age, and Islam. We’ll be comparing how these worldviews line up with a Christian worldview. How do they answer the great questions that we have about life? What are some of the weaknesses? Why should anyone think that a Christian worldview is a superior worldview?

I hope you’ll be paying attention to this episode, especially if you have any interaction with youth today, so that you can better help prepare them, or if you are a youth so that you can better help prepare yourself. Please be watching for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. If you haven’t done so yet, please also on on iTunes and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Deeper Waters Podcast 2/21/2015: Tawa Anderson

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

When I was in New Orleans for the Defend the Faith conference, I met many great speakers there. I met many fine and wonderful minds that are highly skilled in apologetics. I met many that are great inspirations for us all and are simply remarkable with the way that their brilliant intellects work.

I also met Tawa Anderson.

Just having some fun there. 🙂

When we were deciding which breakout sessions to go to, I figured I knew a lot of the material already, so I’d let Allie choose. Allie wanted to go see Tawa speak because she has an interest in worldview thinking and that happened to be the topic that Tawa was speaking on. For many in apologetics, it can be a basic topic, but it’s really quite in-depth and quite central to everything we do, so why not have him discuss it on my show? This Saturday, we’ll see that happen. So who is Tawa Anderson?

Tawa profile pic

According to his bio:

Tawa Anderson is Chair of the Philosophy Department and Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Apologetics at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, OK.  Tawa presents papers regularly at professional philosophical society meetings, has written a number of journal and magazine articles, and is the co-author of a worldview textbook used at OBU (and hopefully soon to be published and accessible to the broader public).

A native of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Tawa earned his B.A. (Political Science) at the University of Alberta, and an M.Div. (Pastoral Ministry) from Edmonton Baptist Seminary (now Taylor Seminary).  Tawa served as English Pastor of Edmonton Chinese Baptist Church for seven years before returning to school to earn his Ph.D. in Philosophy, Apologetics & Worldview from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.  A husband and father of three, Tawa is passionate about equipping the church to understand, explain, and defend the truth of the Christian faith.  He has led apologetic workshops, seminars, and conferences at churches throughout western Canada, Kentucky, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Tawa enjoys speaking on a broad range of apologetic topics, with particular passion for matters regarding: (1) Truth, Relativism, and Postmodernism; (2) The Textual Integrity and Historical Reliability of the New Testament; (3) The Historical Jesus; (4) The Resurrection of Christ; (5) Worldview; (6) The Need for Apologetic and Worldview Training in Contemporary Christian Churches; and (7) The Question/Problem of Evil/Pain.  Tawa blogs (with intermittent dedication) at www.tawapologetics.blogspot.com

Allie and i got to know Tawa very well at the conference and at some meals got to see him interacting with visitors on very deep levels. Also amusing was getting to see him do a mock debate with Gary Habermas on if Jesus rose from the dead where he played the role of Bart Ehrman. We suspect he won’t want to do that again. That was not recorded and/or streamed by the conference so if you regret missing it, just make sure to come next year!

Tawa did a great job of taking the serious topic of worldview thinking and making it accessible to everyone in the room and we’re sure to see the same on the Deeper Waters Podcast. Be looking for the next episode in your podcast feed soon.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Defend The Faith Conference Day 1

What’s going on at the Defend the Faith 2015 Conference? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’re noticed my presence on Facebook has been lacking lately, it’s because I’ve been at the 2015 Defend The Faith Conference in New Orleans. It’s been a big thrill for me. The only other time I’ve been west of the Mississippi was as a small child when I was visiting Memphis and we went across it just so I could say that I had been in Arkansas once.

The day started off with a great talk by Douglas Groothius. He spoke on the necessity for God in order to have a foundation for moral law in society. It relied on an essay that was actually written by the atheist Arthur Leff. The talk left us all a lot to think about including the increasing danger that is going on in a society that wants to give more and more power to the state.

After that came one of my best moments. Finally, I got to meet the one and only Tim McGrew.

NickandTim

Tim McGrew is the professor of philosophy at Western Michigan University. In fact, when he was introduced later this evening, it was said that he had fan boys and some people had traveled for miles just wanting to meet Tim McGrew. I turned to Allie and said I couldn’t help but wonder who would be so excited about traveling for miles to meet Tim McGrew. In the Christian Apologetics Alliance, McGrew is a legend.

Meeting him was a thrill because he is also so much of what I want to be. Do I mean all the knowledge he’s gathered over the years? Obviously. But I include in it that Tim has a great heart. He has become one of my dear friends who I can turn to when I’m in need and the investment he’s put into my own self has been stellar and I hope to be able to give back to others the way Tim has to me someday.

He and Tom Gilson gave a talk then on Peter Boghossian, quite appropriate since on Unbelievable?, Tim had massacred Boghossian’s chickens. Gilson and McGrew showed how Boghossian is trying to dissuade people with his street epistemology. I’ve written on Boghossian’s work myself. Boghossian does want an army of street epistemolgists who I have also had run-ins with. The church is blessed to have a presentation like that of Gilson and McGrew’s that shows the problems with Boghossian’s approach.

After lunch, we went to some break-out sessions. I wish I could talk about them all, but I can’t, but for those interested it is my understanding they will all be available online afterwards. The first one we went to was by Tawa Anderson. At this point, I had left every choice to my wife since I wanted to see what she’d be interested in. She made a fine first choice. It was a talk on worldview thinking and I was highly pleased to see it involve a scene from the Matrix. Worldview thinking is extremely foundational and so many people just miss it.

Next was a talk by Justin Langford. This one dealt with the topic of forgery in the NT. I have reviewed Bart Ehrman’s book as well here and here. Langford did something interesting in showing us two texts and have us guess which one was canonical. I must confess that I did not get each one right. To be fair, the first one did throw me some since I recognized Jude but knew he was quoting 1 Enoch which left me wondering a bit. We also had a good discussion on if a new book had been found and we knew it had been written by Paul should we accept it into the canon. I argued no since part of it was recognition by the church universal. Someone else answered yes. I think Langford went more for my side, but it was an interesting discussion.

Finally, we went to a talk by Tim McGrew and Tom Gilson that turned out to be about how we could do apologetics faithfully. McGrew asked us what we would like if we could have one wish that would help our ministries. I answered financial stability, which I think several people resonated with. Allie asked about how she could incorporate apologetics into her art. McGrew really liked her question and is still thinking about it.

The evening ended with McGrew giving a talk on how not to read the NT which dealt with Jesus Interrupted and yes, I have responded to that as well. McGrew gave a devastating presentation that showed that Ehrman quite frankly isn’t really honest with the data a number of times. It was quite a thrill also to have him refer to my work on Raphael Lataster. It’s a great way to see members of the body working together and building one another up.

On our way back to the hotel, we also got to ride some with James Walker of Watchman Fellowship. Expect him to show up on a future episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast.

Overall, we’re having a great time here in Louisiana at the conference. That’s about all I can say here. It’s getting late and I’m tired so we’re going on to bed because we have to get up early for another day of apologetics tomorrow. I have been pleased with this conference so far and I suggest if you’re interested in apologetics, try to make it out next year.

In Christ,
Nick Peters