The following is a link to a very good blog.
Randy Alcorn wrote a very good book on Heaven. He is a theologian, and a writer. He teaches at a seminary.
http://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Jan/28/guidelines-sexual-purity/
Interesting: These Family Talk episodes were very good too:
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/family-talk/listen/
The three “girls uncovered” episodes are extremely informative. Family Talk is Dr. James Dobson’s program.
Question regarding the fate of the Jewish people. They are God’s people but don’t believe in Christ.
This is a tough question to answer, let me explain. This is fairly simple in that all without Christ have to live a perfectly holy life to have eternal salvation. (Romans 3:9-24). This is mainly tough to answer pointedly because the answer sounds so very harsh. Please understand, my job, under God, is to declare the Truth.
The best passage to refer to regarding this is Romans 3:9-24 as listed. I would encourage all to read this passage. Put simply and truthfully, all need Jesus Christ as their Savior. I know that is redundant.
The ESV Study Bible has a very good article in the back on the world religions. I can loan this out to any who are interested. The first part is written regarding the Jewish people and their history and how they fit in today. It is worth the read. This is a good question as it is always critically important to know why we believe, what we believe. That is what this gets at.
The Jewish people were God’s chosen people in that the Messiah was to come through their lineage. In fact, all the nations of the earth were blessed through the Jews. This happened through Jesus. See Genesis 18:18; 22:18; 26:4, etc. In Galatians 3:8 this Old Testament passage is quoted as referring to the Gentiles. Actually, in Galatians Paul writes about the Gentiles grafted in. In Galatians 2:15 and the following five verses Paul writes about the Jews not being justified by the works of the law. Some of the background to Galatians is that people had come into that church and told them that they had to keep the whole law. But, just like in Romans 3:24, Paul declares that we are only justified freely through Christ Jesus. In Galatians 3:6 Paul specifically references faith and trust in God. Paul writes that Abraham believed God and that was credited to him as righteousness. In Galatians 3:1 Paul pointedly asks the Galatians who “bewitched” them. What he is referring to is who taught them this legalistic false doctrine of works. In Galatians 3:10 Paul specifically says:
For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.”
Then if we look at verse 13:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—
Later on in verse 28 Paul writes that there is no longer Jew, nor Greek, slave, nor free… Basically, we are all grafted in through faith. I encourage you to read Galatians 3.
So, bottom line is that we all need Jesus Christ’s atonement.
I hope this helps please submit questions.
blessings in Christ, Steve
Okay, I know that I have been away for a while. My goal is to write on this blog weekly and I do enjoy it. I have some questions that I hope to respond to and have not been able to. Anyways, for today I would like to re-post something that I read recently. You will see that link below this post. This is an interesting read and I think you will enjoy it.
Please keep in mind, it is critical to know why we believe what we believe. It is critical to think. This past weekend I listened to a message by Howard Hendricks about thinking. We need to think (1 Peter 3:15). Enjoy this and soon I will be writing about the book “The Post Church Christian.” God bless, Steve
I read the following on Randy Alcorn’s blog:
A Simple Sound Check and the Power of Christ
By Randy Alcorn
In We Shall See God, I share a remarkable story that Spurgeon told about an experience early in his ministry:
In 1857, a day or two before preaching at the Crystal Palace, I went to decide where the platform should be fixed; and, in order to test the acoustic properties of the building, cried in a loud voice, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In one of the galleries, a workman, who knew nothing of what was being done, heard the words, and they came like a message from heaven to his soul. He was smitten with conviction on account of sin, put down his tools, went home, and there, after a season of spiritual struggling, found peace and life by beholding the Lamb of God.
It was on his deathbed that this man told the story of his conversion, the result of God speaking to him through a single verse of Scripture uttered by Spurgeon. When Spurgeon preached in that building a day or two later, it was to a crowd of 23,654 people. But such is the power of Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin not only of the world, not only of a potential 23,654 people, but of one lone man working in a building when a preacher came to test the acoustics. This man will be forever grateful that when Spurgeon stood up front to do a sound check, he did not simply count to ten!
A question was emailed to me:
In Philippians 3:13 Paul says: “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,”
In the last part of the verse, what is he talking about? Is he talking about his past confidence in the flesh?
Also, was it possible that Paul ever heard Jesus teach? Just curious…
Answer:
In Philippians 3:7 Paul had written that he has counted whatever was gain to him as loss now. And so I think it is most likely that verse 12 is referring to his past life. In 3:8 Paul writes that he counts all things to be loss because it is so much greater to know Christ. In 3:3-6: Paul writes that he has more reasons than any to place confidence in the flesh. Paul writes about is Jewish “pedigree” or Jewish lineage. He writes about his education and background. But now in 3:12: Paul begins to say that he is pressing forward to what lies ahead. He is straining or reaching forward to what is ahead.
So, as a point of application, what do we need to put away? What do we need to forget about in our past in order to follow closer to Christ and serve Him more full?
As far as the second question is concerned. I know of no evidence that Paul ever saw Jesus teach.
blessings in Christ, Steve
This is a common and very good question. What is being asked really gets down to the idea of creation. Was everything created in 6 24 hour days, or millions of years, or somewhere in between? Below I have pasted something that I wrote to answer that question last year on Labor Day weekend.
5. How does one reconcile the 6 day creation in the Bible with the scientific theory of evolution?
a. A book you may be interested in is called “The Language of God” by Francis S. Collins. Dr. Collins led the human genome project. You can barrow the book if you wish. Cedarville University is strongly for a 6 24 hour day view of creation and there is now a lot of evidence for a young earth view. At the same time, many of the professors at Asbury Theological Seminary thought of the creation account in more of a literature way. They would think “Is the creation account meant to be interpreted literally?” If I don’t believe God created in 6-24 hour days it must be because the Scriptures are not to be interpreted literally in those passages. I can never change my view of Scripture because of a scientific theory. So, a thought is do the two views contradict? I believe yes, in the full form of evolution there is a contradiction between evolution and creation. The Bible teaches that God created and that God created out of nothing. However, this doesn’t mean that God didn’t use evolution in some form of another. There are Theistic Evolutionist that believe that God created using evolution. I think one can certainly be a Biblical Christian and believe that but you certainly cannot take evolution in its purest form. Also from my understanding Darwin wouldn’t even take evolution as far as it has been taken by some. I would also argue that though we see evidence of similarities and in the DNA we see evidence of evolution in the genes we have never observed it happen. So, to believe that people or a species changes for the better is different than believing that every form of life on the earth goes back to the ocean.
b. In Genesis God tells the snake that it will no longer walk but crawl and I have heard evidence that snakes did at one time have legs. So God obviously did bring about change. But this doesn’t mean through a long process of what we call evolution. However, all truth is God’s truth and so there are a lot of truth in science and we do have strong similarities and differences with other animals. At the same time people trying to understand truth without God’s Truth as the foundation will find massive problems.
c. Having said all that we don’t have to translate the Gen chapter 1-2 account literally. It can also be translated as allegory which means that we can properly translate the days to be ages and symbolic. There is also the “gap theory” which would mean that there was a gap between Gen 1:1 and 1:2. However, as stated there is a lot of evidence of a younger earth. I would be glad to discuss more of this with anyone. I love these topics.
Okay, moving on… If we are to believe in evolution to its fullest extent (I don’t) then we would believe that dinosaurs were prior to humans. However, otherwise we must believe that dinosaurs were created with the rest of the land animals which would be the sixth day. If you read Genesis chapter 1 verses 20-31 you can see this. But notice in verses 29-30 that humans were initially vegetarians and I think the animals were as well. I think at that time the world was very much more perfect than it is today. Because of this food and everything else was way more abundant and way more nutritious. It was not after after the flood in Genesis 9:1-5 that the people are told to eat meat. The flood drastically changed the world. We have seen what a local flood can do to the earth so think about a worldwide flood. Mount St. Helens erupted and created a canyon 120 or so feet deep in a day. Imagine what happened when Yellowstone erupted which is a super volcano? I did a professor when I was in college who was a geologist. He was on a dig and found carbon on dinosaur bones. Carbon can only exist for about 50,000 years. So this does show that dinosaurs had to have existed in the last 50,000 years.
There is a lot of evidence for a younger earth and I would love to talk more about this. But as listed, there are different types of literature in the Bible and so are not a heretic if we don’t interpret the creation account literally. Though I would say that evolution in its fullest form contradicts the Scriptures. God bless, Pastor Steve
The questions came to me:
Do we know from scripture if Joseph was alive at Jesus’ death?
If not, when did he die? How old was Jesus?
That is a good question.
There is no evidence of what was going on with Joseph after Jesus was 12 years old. In Luke 2:41- 52 we see an account of Jesus being left behind in Jerusalem following the Passover. That is the last mention of Joseph and Joseph is really only implied in that instance (the text simply says, “his parents). In Luke 4:22 the people asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son” as they were amazed at his teaching. So, the people apparently knew of Joseph, but no one really knows when he died. It is supposed that he died some time before Jesus began His ministry.
We also know that at the crucifixion Jesus charged John with taking care of His mother, so another instance showing that Joseph was no longer alive. (John 19:27)
God bless, Steve
I want to answer a question:
1. Does God breathe more Scripture into people in the present? (present day)
I think the question is does God still communicate to people in a way that is equal to the Scripture?
Start by reading the following about the power of Scripture.
The Bible can change not only a life but an entire lifestyle. Most of us have heard the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty, but few of us have heard how the Bible played a very vital part in that historical event. The Bounty was a British ship which set sail from England in 1787, bound for the South Seas. The idea was that those on board would spend some time among the islands, transplanting fruit-bearing and food-bearing trees, and doing other things to make some of the islands more habitable. After ten months of voyage, the Bounty arrived safely at its destination and for six months the officers and crew gave themselves to the duties placed upon them by their government.
When the special task was completed, however, and the order came to embark again, the sailors rebelled. They had formed strong attachments for the native girls, and the climate and the ease of the South Sea island life was much to their liking. The result was mutiny on the Bounty, and the sailors placed Captain Bligh and a few loyal men adrift on an open boat. Captain Bligh, in an almost miraculous fashion, survived the ordeal, was rescued, and eventually arrived home in London to tell his story. An expedition was launched to punish the mutineers, and in due time fourteen of them were captured and paid the penalty under British law.
But nine of the men had gone to another distant island. There they formed a colony. Perhaps there has never been a more degraded and debauched social life than that of that colony. They learned to distill whiskey from a native plant, and the whiskey as usual, along with other habits led to their ruin. Disease and murder took the lives of all the native men and all but one of the white men named Alexander Smith. He found himself the only man on the island, surrounded by a crowd of women and children. Alexander Smith found a Bible among the possessions of a dead sailor. The Bible was new to him. He had never read it before. He sat down and read it through. He believed it and he began to appropriate it. He wanted others to share in the benefits of the book, so he taught classes to the women and children, as he read to them and taught them the Scriptures.
It was twenty years before a ship ever found that island, and when it did, a miniature Utopia was discovered. The people were living in decency, prosperity, harmony, and peace. There was nothing of crime, disease, immorality, and sanity, or illiteracy. How was it accomplished? By the reading, the believing, and the appropriating of the truth of God!
Okay, the short answer is “no.” God doesn’t communicate to us in that way anymore. Most would say that God developed the New Testament Canon throughout the first century of the church. By the second century we have quotes from the church fathers regarding what letters or books are acceptable for the New Testament Canon.
One source says:
Paul J. Achtemeier, Publishers Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, Includes index., 1st ed., 700 (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985). He also writes: By the middle of the second century, a collection of the four Gospels was made. At this time, Luke was separated from Acts so that thereafter Acts had a life of its own. If one takes seriously the claim of Tertullian, some type of Christian canon existed before Marcion—a canon that the heretic cut down to his own canon of an expurgated version of Luke and ten ‘corrected’ Letters of Paul. If one does not accept Tertullian’s claim, then by the end of the second century, partially in reaction to Marcion, a NT canon of some sort existed. This canon was a collection of collections (the four-fold Gospel, the Pauline Letters, and Revelation, which was itself a collection of seven letters and seven visions), with the Pauline Letters introduced by Acts and supplemented by several general Letters to counter Marcion’s exclusive focus on Paul. The Christian writings that were produced within a period of seventy-five to one hundred years, in contrast to the period of nearly one thousand years for the production of the OT documents, were now on the road toward acceptance in a twenty-seven-book NT canon normally used by Western Christians today.
Okay, so the question still remains, “WHY?” “Why no more Scripture?”
Okay, about the Spiritual gifts Paul writes that they are given for the up-building of the church.
Ephesians 4:11-13:
11 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
In the same way that the Spiritual gifts were given for the up-building of the church, God used the Apostles to communicate His Word for the upbuilding of the church. So, when the early church Fathers compiles the 27 books of the New Testament they had a strict standard to go by.
1) The book or letter had to have been written by an apostle or based off of the testimony of an apostle. To be an apostle they would have had to have been a disciple or had been picked by Jesus. See what Paul writes below:
1 Corinthians 9:1:
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?
Paul says that as an apostle he saw the Lord. Jesus chose Paul.
This means that all the apostles were dead by AD 100 and so no others can write Scripture.
2) The New Testament books also cannot contradict the rest of the Bible.
But the main point is number 1. No, though God still speaks He does not communicate in the same way that He did to Peter and Paul and James and John.
Please comment with any questions.
thanks, Steve
I have started reading a book by Gary McIntosh titled: There’s Hope for Your Church.
Gary is the speaker at our American Baptist Churches of Ohio spring church leadership conference. Gary writes about revitalization for churches. Here are some interesting excerpts:
“At its root, revitalization is a spiritual issue. In a study reported in Your Church, the number one change made in churches that turned around was spiritual, such as added prayer initiatives. Seventy-five percent of the revitalized churches reported starting such initiatives.[19] Pastors and other church leaders regularly overlook this key point, preferring to focus on organizational or facility or program issues. This is not surprising, since dealing with spiritual issues, such as confrontation of known sin, is a challenging part of ministry. It is a mistake, however, to ignore the spiritual dynamic of revitalization.
As you begin the process of revitalizing a church, establish high morals, ethics, and credibility and stick to them. Show your people daily that these principles are more than words—that they live and thrive in you. Leaders who lack such principles are doomed to fail. Consider the following principles of revitalization and begin using them today.
another one:
“When the average age of people in a church is ten years or more above that of the average age in the community, the church finds it is no longer able to relate to the community. Few visitors walk through the doors of the church, and even fewer come back a second time.”
Excerpt From: Gary L. McIntosh. “Thereís Hope for Your Church.” Baker Publishing Group. iBooks.
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any thoughts? please share.
blessings, Steve
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