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The Ham/Nye Debate: Why I Don’t Care

So why did I not even bother watching the big debate? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Awhile back, I first heard the news about how Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis was going to debate Bill Nye, the Science Guy. I had great frustration as soon as I heard about the debate. On Facebook after the debate, someone in apologetics I know posted asking who won. My pick obviously didn’t win, and that was the meteor shower that should have come through and knocked the satellites broadcasting it out of the sky or else the winter snowstorm that could have cancelled the whole event. I replied that I don’t know who won, but I’m sure the loser was everyone on the planet.

Yet a few people did ask me what I thought about it and wasn’t I excited about this debate. Therefore, I figured I’d write something so that those who want to know my opinion on the whole matter could see what it is and why that I hold it.

As readers know, I am an old-earth creationist. I do not hold hostility towards YEC. My ministry partner is a YEC. More importantly, my wife is a YEC. What I have a problem with is a dogmatic YEC. I in fact have just as much a problem with a dogmatic OEC. Someone is not more or less of a Christian because of their views on the age of the Earth. There are people who love Jesus more than I do who are YEC. There are people who love him more than I do who are OEC.

Having said that, part of the problem those of us who are OEC have to overcome is constantly having it be assumed that if we’re Christians, then that means that we believe in a young Earth and we don’t. Too often, YEC is presented as the biblical model. As readers know, I happen to think John Walton has the right model. My review of his book on the topic can be found here and my interview with him can be found here.

I also have another viewpoint that can be considered different from a number of Christians and that is that I do not consider the question of evolution important to Christian truth. That does not mean the question is unimportant in itself, but if you want to know if Christianity is true or not, you do not need to ask if evolution is true or not. Now if matter is all there is, then of course Christianity is not true, but because evolution is true, it does not necessitate that matter is all that there is.

In my own work, I refuse to speak on evolution as evolution and my reasoning for doing such is quite simple. I am no scientist. If evolution is to be critiqued, I believe it should be critiqued scientifically. I do not possess the necessary study and/or credentials to do that. If I fault the new atheists for speaking on philosophy, history, biblical studies, etc. without proper background and/or study, then I will follow the same pattern.

For those who do wish to critique evolution, there is no reason to bring Scripture into it. The claim of evolution is a scientific claim and if it falls, it will fall on a scientific basis. I have no problem with people critiquing evolution. I hold no position on the matter simply because I could not scientifically defend or deny evolutionary theory. It is the same reason I do not use Craig’s Kalam argument for the origin of the universe. I am not a scientist and it is not my language. I will stick to the metaphysical arguments instead.

So when I see the Ham/Nye debate, I see the perpetuating of a stereotype that I do not want perpetuated. I see it being made as again, science vs. the Bible and if you hold to the Bible, well you have to hold to a young-earth.

When we are trying to get people to become Christians, our goal should not be to get them to a viewpoint on the origins of old creation but rather on new creation. We want to get them to the risen Jesus and not to a 10,000 year old Earth. Suppose that someone believes in evolutionary theory and a 4.5. billion year old Earth, but also believes Jesus is the risen Lord. Such a person is in the Kingdom. No doubt about it.

Now on the other hand, suppose there is someone, perhaps a Jew, who will stand with Ken Ham and say that the Earth is indeed 10,000 years old and macroevolutionary theory is a fairy tale. Suppose also that this person being a Jew and not Messianic denies that Jesus is the risen Lord. Such a person is not in the Kingdom. No doubt about it.

So which one should we be emphasizing and getting people to realize the most? The age of the Earth and a stance on evolution, or should it be that we are getting them to recognize that Jesus is the risen Lord?

What we do too often is tell atheists that if you want to be a Christian, then you must deny what you are certain of by the sciences. What we also do is tell Christians that if you want to be a follower of Christ, you must believe that the Earth is 10,000 years old. Both positions I am sure will keep people away from the Kingdom.

It is my hope not that Christians will embrace evolution as I do not care about that, but that they will realize that it doesn’t matter and the ultimate hope is to realize that Jesus is the risen Lord of the universe. If you are someone who is capable of presenting every argument you can for the Earth being young, but you are unable to make an argument that Jesus is the risen Lord, then you have made a mistake somewhere along the way.

It is because it feeds a debate then that I do not support in any way that I refused to watch the Ham/Nye debate and so far, no one has given me any reason why I should.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Jesus Was a Mushroom…And Other Lies You Won’t Believe

What do I think of Holding’s book on conspiracies? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Jesuswasamushroom

My ministry partner J.P. Holding recently sent me a copy of his latest E-Book on dealing with conspiracy theories. Like many of his recent E-Books, this is a quick read as I tend to only read the Kindle at night and managed to go through it in just a few nights.

The whole theme of the book is about conspiracies that are often believed today involving any number of topics such as Alexander Hislop or the masons and Jesuits or whether Pope Francis or Barack Obama are the antichrist.

The title refers to such an idea as an example with the agnostic John Allegro writing a book where Christianity was a cult group that was created due to the effects of a certain mushroom in the area on the minds of the people. It was such a bad book that Allegro wrote on the topic that fourteen scholars took out an ad against it.

From here, Holding goes on to discuss various beliefs of people who are big into conspiracies. Naturally, such people can be hard to reason with because as soon as you deny the claim that they are making, well that’s because you’re part of the conspiracy! This is quite evident to several of us who have had to deal with the claims of Zeitgeist. If we’re not part of the conspiracy directly, well we’re just horribly duped by it.

Many of these you will just find it hard to believe. How can anyone take any of these seriously? Alas, I don’t doubt that many do. Most of these I had frankly never heard of. It would indeed be a stretch many times to put the occult significance into many of the items mentioned as no one would really notice. How can you convince people of a message if no one can understand the message?

I say this as someone who regularly gets asked questions about so many items in the world. Is X occult? Is this pagan? Over and over. Nowadays, it’s come to the point that when someone asks me if something is demonic, my default position is no because I’ve heard a case for most everything being demonic.

Perhaps also that’s something different about this book. I wasn’t able to get into this one as much and it could be because I’ve heard claims of “Demonic” so many times that I just start to roll my eyes. There are some ways I would also like to see some changes in future editions.

First, I kept wanting there to be some different title for the people being addressed. I heard conspiracy buffs, conspiracy guys, conspiracy X regularly. Holding is quite good at finding an appropriate label and sticking it most of the time so I was hoping there was just one humorous term we could include over these people.

The second area that I would like to see change in is that at the start, we are told we will be shown how to find the answers to this. I think it would be quite helpful for Holding to describe how he as one skilled in the use of a library, went about doing his research. What questions should one ask when considering a conspiracy theory? What resources should one look to? What resources should one not look to? What should qualify as a standard of proof?

Still, this is an interesting read and most of the time you’ll be rolling your eyes thinking “These people really believe that?” The sad answer is “Yes.”

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Being Informed

Are we forgetting how to argue in our society? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Max Andrews at Sententias.org has written a post on the culture of memes that can be found here. Andrews is talking about these images on Facebook that have a little caption meant to make an argument. Now he’s not opposed to all of them, such as the cute little ones you might see on LoLcats or something of that sort, but he is opposed to ones that make an argument.

Now I don’t go as far as Andrews does. There are times I will create a meme to share with friends and such, but at the same time I can back an argument. I think a visual presentation can be powerful, but it should not be something done that is devoid of an argument.

In the sense of being devoid of argument, I oppose such memes just as I oppose soundbite sayings that have been passed around and on the internet, spread faster than internet viruses. The Christian community sadly has many of its own slogans and such that work to suspend a lack of thinking on our part. After all, we’re concerned with being holy and righteous. Of course, we should be, but part of that is loving God with our minds. You cannot further holiness in the Christian life by bypassing the life of the mind.

The atheist community is largely concerned with being rational, and would that the Christian community for the most part had the same concern. Unfortunately, there is a belief that any time someone believes in God or something outside of the world of science, then that person is being irrational. A theist could obviously be an intelligent person, but they just check their brains at the door when they start thinking about religion.

What is sadly missing is a desire to truly be informed.

Now to be sure, there is no way any one of us can be informed on everything and that is a mistake with many today who wish to be polymaths and think that they are an expert on everything. Consider science. I have made it a stance that I will not argue science as science. I do not have the necessary training. Do I have opinions? Sure. Yet there’s no way that I could really justify my opinions scientifically. I do hold that, for instance, the Earth goes around the sun, which is fairly uncontroversial today, but I could not begin to tell you how that would be scientifically established. Now I can discuss the history of scientific ideas and I find that fascinating, but not the subject matter itself.

And you know what? I’m cool with that. It’s not a problem. As a result, I simply don’t argue it. I don’t even really think it’s that fruitful to do so but if a fellow Christian disagrees, well let them and God bless them in their endeavors.

Mainly I have stuck to the existence of God, using the Thomistic arguments, and the resurrection of Jesus, which largely encompasses much of the reliability of Scripture. I have sought to inform myself on those areas and am still informing myself. None of us should ever stand up and say “I’m informed” and therefore stop studying. We are all to be students learning for the rest of our lives.

Yet what I see is a sad state of intense misinformation. For instance, yesterday I am arguing with someone over the definition of faith. I was told the definition was belief despite lack of knowledge.

You might think that that is what faith is, but the question is, when we find the word pistis, the word translated as faith, in ancient Greek literature, is that what they had in mind? There is a simple way to check this out. You go do the research.

What I advised this person to do was to go to their local university or seminary and get out some lexicons and be looking up the word and seeing what the definitions are. Get the definitions from the Greek scholars of the language. After all, the NT did not make up this word. (Yes. Some words are coined in the NT, but some are not) This was a word that was used commonly in the time. I had also referred to the Handbook of Biblical Social Values edited by Pilch and Malina.

“Faith/Faithfulness

These terms refer to the value of reliability. The value is ascribed to persons as well as to objects and qualities. Relative to persons, faith is reliability in interpersonal relations: it thus takes on the value of enduring personal loyalty, of personal faithfulness. The nouns ‘faith’, ‘belief’, ‘fidelity’, ‘faithfulness,’ as well as the verbs ‘to have faith’ and ‘to believe,’ refers to the social glue that binds one person to another. This bond is the social, externally manifested, emotionally rooted behavior of loyalty, commitment, and solidarity. As a social bond, it works with the value of (personal and group) attachment (translated ‘love’) and the value of (personal and group) allegiance or trust (translated ‘hope.’) p. 72 Pilch and Malina Handbook of Biblical Social Values.”

And yes, I referred to my own blog post on Hebrews 11 that can be found here.

The main reply I got back was bias. Now I will not dispute that I have a bias. Everyone of us involved in this debate has a bias. The way we check our bias is by looking at the opinions of leading scholars, including those who disagree with us. A Christian wanting to debate the NT should be reading Ehrman, Crossan, Ludemann, Borg, etc. An atheist wanting to debate it should be reading Wright, Licona, Keener, Evans, etc.

The fact that there are people who are treating it as a serious claim to say that Jesus never even existed shows how far this ignorance has spread. Scholars of ancient history do not take such a claim seriously. Such people who claim such will not find teaching positions at academic institutes. For most NT scholars, it is lucky if it gets even a footnote in a work. Yet on the internet, resurrection is certainly a reality as dead arguments rise again with a new life in them.

The solution to this problem is better informed debates and realizing that you are not an authority simply on the basis of having an opinion. To be an authority, one must be doing the necessary reading and study. You are entitled to have an opinion. You are not entitled to be taken seriously if that opinion has not been rooted in serious study. My opinion that the Earth goes around the sun would be said by scientists today to be accurate, but don’t take it seriously because I said it! I’m not the authority! Take it seriously because of the evidence and because of reading the scholars in the field.

Those who want to go on arguing out of ignorance can go on and keep embarrassing not only themselves, but their cause as well, which sadly happens too often in the Christian church as well. The arguing from ignorance is why I don’t even bother replying to all comments on this blog. If I see no serious interaction with the subject matter, expect me to pass on by. My time is better spent elsewhere.

Inform yourselves everyone, including me. If we are truly seekers of truth, we should have no problem. We should welcome it.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 11/30/2013: Dr. Paul Maier

What’s coming up on this Saturday’s episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

I am writing this one early because due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I will be out of town, but I want you all to know about what’s coming up this week.

We’re going to be discussing the topic of ancient historiography. How is it that ancient historiography was done and how is it that we can know something is true in the field? Fortunately, we will have a remarkable expert on to discuss that, and that’s Dr. Paul Maier.

The relevance of this topic is that so few people today have any idea how to do this. For instance, we are told that no contemporary historian mentions Jesus supposedly. Yet how many of them talk about Hannibal or about Alexander the Great or how many of them talk about the erupting of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.?

How is it that someone can trust a source that is decades after the event? In the case of people like Hannibal and Alexander the Great, we normally rely on people who write about the event CENTURIES after it took place. If we can trust them then, is there a reason to not trust the gospels?

What are the rules that one uses? Does one accept everything they read uncritically? When does an ancient account get the benefit of the doubt? If we have sources that disagree amongst themselves, what exactly do we do in order to explain that? Can we arrive at the truth or do we throw everything out and give up?

What about the claims of miracles? Do we have any criteria whereby we can examine a claim of an event that could be deemed impossible?? If we were to apply the rules of ancient historiography to the gospels and to the person of Jesus, how would Jesus turn out? How would the gospels turn out?

This is a needed program today as many of us debate atheists on the internet who frankly don’t know the first thing about ancient historiography, and to be fair, too many Christians don’t know the first thing either. This is not just an atheist problem. This is a problem with people in general not knowing how to do history and only being taught facts on history instead of a methodology on history.

This is why it is important to learn from those who are credentialed historians and that is why I am excited to get to have Paul Maier on my show to discuss this. While much of this has been about Jesus, I really plan to discuss ancient historiography in general and then in the end tie it in with Jesus, especially explaining why the Christ-myth theory is not accepted by serious historians.

I hope you’ll be listening in this Saturday from 3-5 PM EST to hear Dr. Paul Maier on the show. The date will be 11/30/2013. The call in number if you want to ask a question is 714-242-5180. The link can be found here.

Hope you’ll be listening!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Lessons From A Cut

What big lessons can be learned from little annoyances? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

A couple of days ago, my wife wasn’t feeling the best and asked me to help prepare her a can of soup. Okay. I can do that. Yet shortly after that was done, I realized I had a cut on one of my fingers that had turned into quite a bit of a bleeding problem. Since it was on my right hand, I asked Allie come and help me bandage it properly. No big deal.

Until the next day it comes loose and we have to do it again as the bleeding starts once more.

Then that evening the bandage is coming loose one more time and so I look and it looks like the cut is healed up as I tend to be a fast healer. No big deal. I just take it off and figure I don’t have to worry about it any more. I can just go on with my dinner.

Until I see that blood on my finger again piling up.

So I go to the bathroom again to wash my hands and put on another bandage. I interrupt my reading of G.K. Chesterton to go and while in there, I notice that a drop of blood has fallen on my shirt. No big deal. I can just go into the bedroom and change. I can do that.

Why yes. Yes I can do that.

Light bulb.

There are times that a simple event happens that opens you up to a great reality you’ve been missing. I don’t doubt that it is largely because I was reading Chesterton that this happened. Chesterton encourages me to look at the world differently.

My insight came that I can go straight into the bedroom and change because Allie does accept me physically entirely. As readers of this blog might know, I am by all physical requirements I could think of, a weakling. I weigh about 120 pounds an I’m extremely skinny. (Although Allie does say I’m building up some muscle thanks to the gym.)

And yet I have no fear of acceptance around my wife. She accepts me as I am. Something I find incredible.

It struck me then what a marvel that we all live with. Bodies are some of the most common sights we see everyday. If you turn on the TV or go to the store or do most anything, you will encounter other humans in some way or another which will often entail seeing other bodies. (Even on social media like Facebook, the most common image you’ll probably see for someone is an image of themselves somehow.)

Those bodies are common, and yet they are sacred. Many people in this area see my wife on a regular basis. However, I am the only one who truly “sees” her in the full sense. Aside from medical professionals under specific circumstances, others do not really get that privilege. There is also the possibility of perhaps women changing with one another at a party at one of their houses or showering at a club like the Y. The general principle is that the whole body is not shared with just anyone and certainly not just anyone of the opposite sex. (Allie would only see a female gynecologist and dermatologist. For a similar treatment by me, I would only go see a guy.)

Our bodies are extremely common, but they’re also sacred and we guard them especially. If any guy tried to see my Princess in a way not allowable I can think that I’d be like the husband in Proverbs who would refuse to take a bribe no matter how great it was. That’s sacred territory meant only for she and I together and no one else has a right to that.

And isn’t that just something fascinating? One of the objects that is most common to us is also the most sacred. It is the human being. It is the image of God in this world. It is the very aspect of reality that was assumed in the incarnation. It was the greatest wonder that the Son of God Himself took on a body and indeed, still has that body. One of the great hopes of the Christian church is the resurrection of the body. We are not gnostics. We firmly hold to material reality and hold that it is good. We are not meant to become angels. We are meant to be humans.

I was also stunned by the fact that yes, I can change in here because I do in fact trust Allie. Why shouldn’t I? She loves me. This I find to be a simply astounding claim. There is actually a female in this world who loves me, desires me, and wants to be with me. She wants all of those so much that she agreed to be with me until death do us part.

I find that utterly amazing and I even told her that last night. She was curious why and I said “Because I know who I am!” What is there about me that Allie should desire me at all? I can think of Boaz who told Ruth that she did not run after the younger men. (As might be known, I am nearly 10 years older than my wife)

This is a claim that is hard to believe and it could be because those of us who are nerds rarely expect something like this to happen. (Women. Please learn this. If you want to get a husband that is totally devoted to you, you cannot go wrong with a nerd. Nerds will spend the rest of their lives in devotion to you generally.)

This claim is hard to believe and why is it? It is not because there is a lack of evidence. Oh one could surely point from time to time to mistakes that we all make and say “See? There is no love here,” yet that is going with the exceptions rather than the rule. If you look on the whole of matters, the evidence is overwhelming on the proposition that my Mrs. deeply loves her husband. (And might I add, respects as well. We are going through “Love and Respect” now after all.)

If the claim is not hard to believe because of lack of evidence, then what could make it hard to believe? The only other aspect left is the nature of the claim seems so out of touch with ordinary every day experience. It has been my common experience to not get this kind of devotion from women. It has been my common experience to think there is nothing special about me in that sense to warrant that kind of devotion. Nevertheless, that devotion is there!

It is just like the case for miracles. I do not think it really is a lack of evidence. There is plenty of evidence for miracles. Just see Keener’s book. If we treated the NT gospels and epistles the same way we treat other ancient works of history, we’d fully accept that Jesus rose from the dead, but these are rejected, and most often not even looked at. I know few people who have really bothered to go through Keener’s book for instance. In fact, some have even said “Well Keener might have some things, but you don’t see someone rising from the dead three days later in an imperishable body.”

So because it doesn’t have the miracle you want to see, no account of a miracle is trustworthy….

The evidence is out there, but the claim is so contrary to what most people experience, and indeed we can all understand that part. Miracles are not part of our every day experience. If they were, we would not call them miracles. They are extraordinary and rare events where God especially breaks into the sphere of our world. I can understand skepticism of such a thing since they are so rare, but skepticism can be unwarranted when it makes demands that are far too high. If I demanded perfection from my own spouse as proof of her love for me, I can rest assured I would never know for sure about it.

And it is an interesting parallel to tie it in with miracles as I can certainly say that the fact that someone such as myself found a spouse who complements me so well and likes all of my little quirks and such that most people find annoying is indeed a miracle. Two people on the spectrum with Asperger’s coming together like this? It reminds me of when I watched Mozart and the Whale at Allie’s house before we got married and while we were engaged. When her folks asked me about it I said I thought it was unrealistic. They were puzzled and asked why. I simply told them it’s a story about two people with Asperger’s getting married. When does something like that ever happen?

This got a laugh from them as it should as that great rarity was about to be lived out right before their eyes. If any event in my life can lead to that great marvel of a public demonstration of God’s grace, it is that of finding Allie.

In fact, as I was telling her last night about all these great insights and how things were coming together so incredibly, she said “Since it started with a drop of blood, you could even tie that into the blood of Christ.”

And indeed, she is right.

Blood itself is common as well, and yet it is sacred. We do not worry if we see sweat on our bodies. We normally expect that. We do wonder what has happened if we see blood and we seek to take care of the problem immediately. We want to wash our hands thoroughly as we don’t want to eat anything with our own blood in it. When it comes to transfusions now, they’re all checked thoroughly because blood could just as easily lead to death.

And yet this common object is the basis of our salvation. When we take Communion, we think about the body and blood of Jesus. (Common objects once again used to express divine truths) Do we really stop to think about what we are doing? We are recognizing the offering of blood for us. Someone poured out their life so that we could live.

Skeptics of the NT will often describe such an event as hideous and disgusting. They’re right! The death of Jesus is a hideous and disgusting event! It is because in fact the sin that led to Jesus being on the cross is hideous and disgusting. What could be more hideous and disgusting than realizing that it is because of human sin that the most righteous one of all chose to face a death that He did not deserve? (In fact, despite what they say about Jesus, I cannot at this moment think of one skeptic who has told me that Jesus deserved to be crucified. Most every religion tries to fit Jesus into itself and even atheists today often look at many of Jesus’s teachings as moral in nature.)

The death of Jesus is ugly because sin is ugly.

Now I am sure I could extend this line of thought further and who knows? Maybe I will someday, but I can say that last night became utterly amazing as one simple little action based on what was an annoyance at first led to a great realization of simple little truths I had overlooked and yet were around me every day.

I hope in turn what I have written has opened you up to such truths as well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Cutting Off Our Branches

Does it become a problem when we undermine judging in the Christian community? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

There is a facebook group with the following quotes on it I want to share with you.

“Folks, We have a Person Who Seems To Find It Amusing To Hate, First Off Stay OFF MY Page, You Have Been Reported to Facebook For You Continued Abuse, I Didn’t Appreciate You Trying to Advertise Your Hate the Other Night On MY Fan Page, STAY AWAY, TAKE YOUR HATE AWAY, This Page Is Supportive, and YES I BAN Anyone Who Is Critical Or Hateful Of Our Community, 2600 People Like What I am Doing, and You Have What 14? You Will Be Shut Down Soon, and DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT POST ON OUR PAGE!”

“Reminder For Our New Folks, This Page is For Support, and Education of The practice featured in (X). If you Want to Hate, Or Judge, This Isn’t The Place. I work Very Very Hard for this Page To Remain a Supportive Page, I’ve Had Some People From Dayton Ohio Recently Try to Start Their own Page in Criticism of Mine, and That’s Fine, Hater’s NOT WELCOME HERE!”

“The Name of The Person Who Decided to Start the Hate Page Is
(X) From Dayton Ohio, Please Folks Tell Her To Stay Away, and Keep Her Hate in Ohio.”

The bad grammar and such aside, when you see something like this, it recalls immediately an attitude we see elsewhere. Where is that? It’s in the homosexual community as people who are outside the group are labeled as “haters” and criticism is not allowed. Only those who are supportive of the community are allowed.

The only problem is, these posts do not come from the homosexual community.

These posts I found while researching the snake handling stories. They’re found on the Snake Salvation page. Don’t believe it? Look for yourself.

https://www.facebook.com/snakesalvation

When I see the Christian community using terminology exactly the same as the homosexual community, that’s quite concerning. In fact, one such post has the name of someone who has dared to criticize. You might as well be saying “Please go and harass this person!”

Hate is a term that is being tossed around so carelessly, including in groups such as We Stop Hate. The problem is that people are not really thinking about what it means to hate something.

In fact, if you love anything, you will HAVE to hate something. It’s not optional. Since I love my wife, I am to hate everything that is harmful to her. Since I love Christ, I am to hate everything that is opposed to Him. Since I love the truth, I am to hate lies. Since I love the good, I am to hate evil.

Would you like it if you met someone who did not hate rape? What about someone who did not hate pedophilia or child abuse? Do you want to meet someone who doesn’t hate cancer or disease? What do you think of someone who doesn’t hate evil?

Instead, many of these groups run on a whole self-esteem idea with a goodness being based on yourself somehow, though it’s not really expressed how. If you want to find your goodness, you are to look within. Now of course, there’s nothing wrong necessarily with thinking good about yourself, though in Scripture we are told to think of ourselves as we ought. We should seek to see ourselves as we really are. Our goodness does not come from us, but it comes from Christ.

If my value relies entirely on me, that is putting a much greater burden on me in fact and pushing me to think I have to be much better. If I place my value in Christ, then I can see that I have worth as long as Christ loves me and since that is something that doesn’t change, my worth never changes. Of course I can grow in Christlikeness, but I have a constant foundation for my goodness.

It is when these ideas of our goodness being rooted in how we feel about ourselves takes hold that our feelings and experiences start to get a divine authority and in fact, everyone else is subject to them. Each one of us becomes a god unto himself. The worst crime you can do against someone becomes offending them.

Yet most of us know that it has been necessary to offend people in the past. We have to tell people cold hard truths a lot of time and they don’t like it. Most of us today really don’t like it, even though we are told in Scripture that to be rebuked by a wise man is a blessing.

But today, all you have to do is tell people that you are offended by something and immediately you become a rallying cry that other people will support. It is not asked “Could the reason for this offense be valid?” It is not even asked “Is this really offensive?” All that matters is that the person finds it offensive.

This has also led to our victimization culture. Consider the campaign against bullying today. Yeah. No one cares for bullies, but the bullying campaign has given them too much credit. Everyone in this world is going to face critics at times. Some will be people who honestly want to help build us up. Others will be people who want nothing more than to tear us down.

You want to limit bullying? The best way to do it is to help the people who are being targeted by teaching them the proper way to think about themselves, especially within the context of Biblical principles. Help them realize where their true worth comes from and that bullies like this are to be ignored. When we were growing up in school, many of us had the rule of “Ignore inappropriate behavior.” Bottom line is that if something someone tells you about yourself is not true, why should you worry about it? (And yes, I’m still learning this one as well) If it is true, then do something to fix it.

Instead, what we do is say that you just can’t judge anyone at all. People are labeled as haters. I have no doubt that soon if not already, groups like “We Stop Hate” will be just as tolerant as the homosexual lobby. By just as tolerant, I of course mean seeking to out everyone that disagrees with them and refusing to return the tolerance that they have been seeking.

Tolerance in these circles is a one-way street.

So what does this have to do with the Snake Salvation page?

When we have groups like this in Christianity saying that haters and such will not be allowed, we are taking the exact same stance as homosexual groups. Now if you want to have a closed group that is there for your mutual edification and such, then do that. That’s fine. However, as soon as you go public with your ideas, then it is only proper to allow them to be publicly criticized and questioned. If you cannot take it, then don’t get it out there.

Question for those of you wanting to promote the gospel. Are you ever going to have to criticize? The answer is yes. You are going to have to judge people. You are going to have to tell them they are on the wrong path. You are going to have to tell them that they are living in rebellion against Jesus Christ, the rightful king of this world.

If you make yourself be above criticism and reproach, how can you possibly be allowed to give someone the gospel? They can use the exact same line back at you. After all, the gospel can be seen as hate speech since it includes in it that people are sinners. It indicts them of crimes against God and tells them they’re worthy of eternal separation from Him.

So many Christians are wanting to say today that they shouldn’t judge and cringe at the thought that they have judged someone. They can’t avoid it really! If you are to call sin sin, you are to make a judgment.

Judging is not a dirty word.

“But didn’t Jesus say judge not”?

Yes. He is talking about hypocritical judging. He tells you in the same passage to not toss pearls to swine or give what is sacred to dogs. You have to know what each of those are to judge. He tells you to look out for false prophets, a judgment. He tells you to choose the narrow way over the wide, a judgment. He never even tells you to not take the speck out of your brother’s eye, but instead to first take the log out of your own.

Either Jesus is not opposed to all judging, or He was a fool who contradicted His own teaching immediately.

I’ll go with the first one. Jesus was no fool.

I cannot help but be concerned when I see the church using the exact same language as the homosexual community. The church must be open to criticism. (And I assure most critics that I have criticized the behavior of the church far more than they have) The church must be open to hearing where we’ve gone wrong. We all must be open to that in our own lives. We must be willing to examine both sides of debates and disagreements and see which one has the stronger case and whichever one does, we must be able to make a case for why it is rather than using intimidation alone to silence the opposition.

The position that should hold sway in the marketplace of ideas is the one that has the better arguments. If your position does not have that, then no amount of intimidation will make up for it. No amount of following the crowd or culture can compensate for a lack of argumentation. It all comes down to the question of “What is truth?”

Which is, again, a judgment.

If we’re sure we’re in the truth, let us be open to the judgment that we are not. If we are in fact, then no harm. We could be even stronger. If we’re not, then thanks to whoever got us out of it for they removed us from a lie.

Making ourselves immune to criticism will not help our stance one iota. We dare not follow the lead of the world. We are to walk in step with Christ instead.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Case For The Psalms

Do Christians today really need the Psalms? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

As readers of this blog know, N.T. Wright’s work is just gold to me. N.T. Wright brings so much life to the biblical text by sharing the historical context making it a deeper and deeper work to be appreciated. In fact, Wright was a major influence in getting me to switch my major to NT.

Yet in his book “The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential”, Wright turns to this important OT book, a book I honestly rarely see scholars engaging with, except for how it relates to the NT. Wright does some of that, but he also brings out the importance of it on its own.

The Psalms we must remember were the hymns of the early church and the first Christians. They were before Christ, the embodiment of the hope of Israel. They longed for what it is we all longed for and what was ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

Of course, this is not to say that new songs should not be written. Indeed, they should be. Yet so many of our songs lack the rich depth that can be found in the Psalms. How many of the songs we sing in church today really usher us into the amazement of knowing God in Christ? I can say that one that certainly does it for me today is “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Whenever I hear that song, I simply have to sit down. I can’t stand and sing that song. I am humbled every time I hear it with the recognition that God is holy and without Him, I am not. With my interest in theology also, I am deeply appreciative that a song says “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”

Perhaps our songs could learn something from the Psalms with the Psalms being the archetype that we all draw from when it comes to writing new songs today. These songs should embody our hopes that the Psalms themselves embodied. Wright goes into three areas.

First, the Psalms all hoped that God would redeem time. Many a Psalm points back to events when the God of Israel acted in the past in order to bring about a people. The reason of course was so that God could bring about a great future and that future had not yet come. Thus, the Israelites were living with a hope for the future and that hope was in the present unrealized.

Many of us today can still pray “How long O Lord? How long?” Yet the Psalmists were in many ways saying the exact same prayer and their stark honesty is refreshing. At times, the Psalmist chooses to point the finger not at fallen humanity or the devil or forces of evil, but at God Himself. Why is God doing or not doing something? The Psalms would be a way of saying to God the promises He had made and looking with the hopeful future trust if not present trust that He would bring them about.

Second, the Psalms hoped that God would redeem space. The land of Israel was the sacred land to the people. Yet at times they had been removed from the land and when they returned, they were still in exile as a foreign power was in charge.

Not only that, where did God exactly dwell? That was a question. God had made His presence known in the Temple? Where was He when the temple was not there? How they longed for it! This is of course fulfilled in the NT when we have the living temple of Jesus come and then we read in 1 Corinthians that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Finally, they longed for God to redeem matter. It is a gnostic view that this world is evil. Christianity says the world is good, but something has gone wrong with this good world. We can often get at the environmentalist movement for worshiping the creation seemingly, and some do, but we should not lose sight that this creation is the creation of God and it is good and He has a purpose for it.

All these three are still often our hopes and a work like this has taught me I need to go back and reread the Psalms and see the hope of Israel in them. It is not only myself but all of us who do. We need to look at the Psalms and ask why each Psalm was written and what was the purpose and notice the nuances of the beautiful poetry therein.

So once again, I am in debt to N.T. Wright for helping me to look at a portion of Scripture afresh. I am never disappointed by a work of Wright. May he write many more works and may God bless us with more scholars of the heart and caliber of N.T. Wright.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters 11/2/2013 David Wood

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it.

Evil is an ever present reality in our lives and it is a great reason so many people come against the Christian faith. I would honestly say this objection is the most gripping one of all because it is often not only logical, but emotional. Most of us have times where our emotion can overpower our reason. Suffering can be one of those times.

My guest on the Deeper Waters Podcast episode for November 2nd is here to help! David Wood has been a member of Mike Licona’s Dream Team and has just recently finished his doctorate where he dealt with the problem of evil. David comes at this from a position of having seen evil directly himself and having come from a tough background as we will hopefully hear about on the show today.

We will be talking about all manner of evil on the show today and how it is that Christians are to respond. We have recently heard about shootings in this country. What are we to do when we hear of those? How does the existence of an all-good and all-powerful and all-knowing God cohere with the reality that is evil in our world?

Are we to just give a simplistic answer to people to just tell them to have faith? The challenge is real and my guest can really handle it. He has even debated the topic before with John Loftus of Debunking Christianity and might I add, put on a splendid performance as well, and this was even before he had had his doctorate on this passed.

David Wood has been debating with atheists for a long time and not only that, I consider him a good friend. He has helped my own family out in a number of ways which tells me that this is a problem he seeks to deal with for most everyone else and I am sure that you will find his perspective to be a quite unique one.

I also hope that what is said will be taken to heart. We will deal with many objections throughout the episode and there might be times when it’s not fitting for someone to hear. If you’re in extensive suffering right now, for instance, and caught up in it emotionally, chances are the logical problem of evil solution is just not the one that you need to hear right now. A lot of times on a show like this (And I have debated this topic on Unbelievable? so I know from experience) it can be asked how this helps those who are suffering now. It might not, but it does prepare you for the suffering that you will eventually be facing soon.

Please be listening then to Dr. David Wood on the Deeper Waters Podcast today from 3-5 PM EST. The call in number if you want to ask something on this important topic is 714-242-5180. The link to the show can be found here

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?

What’s going to be your response to all the little monsters running around tonight? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Tonight, several kids are going to be roaming our neighborhoods going door to door and asking for candy. Tonight also, a number of Christians are concerned. Should we even celebrate Halloween? Isn’t this a day rooted in paganism meant to worship the devil?

After several years of ministry work, I have become more and more suspicious of this idea that “X has its origin in paganism! Let’s not use it!” Chances are, I suspect most of you refer to the days of the week by their traditional names, names that come straight out of Norse mythology. Do you think you’re honoring paganism?

Some people think the wedding ring comes from a pagan tradition. I’m not here to say if it did or not, but let’s suppose it did. How many of you out there are going to chuck your wedding ring at this point so you can be free from the stigma of paganism?

As Christians, we are called to go out and to redeem the world. We are not called to run in fright from it, and unfortunately days like Halloween often get Christians in a reaction mode instead of a proactive mode. It is this idea that we must avoid any taint of something that comes from pagans.

The greatest philosophical traditions we have today find their roots in Plato and Aristotle. They weren’t Christians. Shall we reject the syllogism? Greek plays are still around today. Should we avoid reading those? If we were to visit Greece or Rome, must we avoid the temples in order to avoid paganism?

Or should we say what Paul said, that these are not gods at all. We can eat meat in the marketplace with confidence because we know the idols are just statues. We can also give out candy with confidence in the marketplace because we know today belongs to the Lord, just like any other day!

When we run from the threat of paganism constantly, we are only getting ourselves into a fear mode thinking that God cannot overcome the world. I can point to several activities out there I enjoy that some Christians will say are demonic. I can point to some that you likely enjoy as well that some Christians will say the same thing about.

I grew up playing RPGs like D&D and Collectible Card Games like Magic: The Gathering. I never once had any inkling to get into the occult because of it. I have read all the Harry Potter books and I own all the movies. I still play Final Fantasy to this day.

Now some of you might think you don’t do anything like that. Okay. Do you read a Bible other than the KJV? Do you know there are some extreme groups out there that would say you’re doing something demonic? Yes. They really exist. Some Christians are so scared of demons that they lose sight of the fact that God is greater than the demons.

My wife has a story that several years ago when she was in Middle School, she went out walking with the dog and local kids starting making fun of her. She came in crying to which one of her Dad’s friends, a big muscular guy said “Do you want me to go out walking with you?” Now I can assure you as much as she could be scared to go out walking again, if she had this friend with her, she wouldn’t be so scared. If any kid tried to give her any lip, he’d be right there to deal with them.

In the same way, you have the God of the universe on your side. Why on Earth should you be afraid of something like a demon? Now I’m not advocating being cocky or foolhardy. Don’t go out there looking for this stuff, but don’t be out there living in fear of it either.

If you’re scared you’re going to be influenced by paganism on this day, well it looks like you already are. You’re letting it control your life in that you’re unable to celebrate a day when all that is going on for the huge majority of people is just kids going out and getting candy.

If you want to be concerned about the well-being of your kids, and you should be, I wouldn’t be scared about getting candy, save for health and dental reasons, but be concerned about real threats that are out there for your children.

Be concerned about the rampant materialism that ends up in greed wanting to get hold of your kids. Get concerned about the loose sexual ethics (or lack thereof) that could get your kid sleeping with their date on prom night. Get concerned with the atheism in colleges and universities today that are out there seeking to deconvert your children. These are real threats and these are the ones to be concerned about.

As for the origins of Halloween, let’s suppose for the sake of argument, it’s pagan. So what? Really? So what? Yes. So what? If we look at Psalm 51, our origins are that we were conceived in sin and we have been redeemed. Are we saying the God of the universe is too powerful to redeem a day? In fact, if the original goal of the day had been to worship the devil and today, kids run around just getting candy, I’d say “Job well done!”

And when you give our candy, don’t be boring in it. If you’re a Christian family, you make sure you give out the best candy on the block! You do your best to make sure kids know that your Christianity does not mean you live in fear of the world.

And if you come by the Peters’ household, we’ll have some waiting for you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Inconsistency in Historiography

Does the NT get treated differently than other works? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Ancient history can be difficult. For that matter, so can modern history. We can have a hard time piecing together events that happened yesterday if we try to remember them. For ancient history, there are definitely no memory accounts today that are oral. Instead, we rely largely on archaeology and written documents.

Yet when it comes to Jesus, we find that while these methods generally serve us well, the rules change when He shows up.

We are often told about how important it is to have eyewitness testimony. Now by and large, that’s always great, but what about someone like Alexander the Great? What about someone like Hannibal? We do not have contemporary accounts of the existence of these people, and these people both did remarkable things. Alexander conquered the world around the age of 30! Isn’t that something worth mentioning? Hannibal was a general that nearly conquered the Roman Empire. Isn’t that something worth mentioning?

And yet, contemporaries are silent.

Now someone could say that we have archaeological evidence such as coins of Alexander the Great. Wonderful. We also have coins of Zeus. Now I’m not saying the coins of Alex are useless. I do affirm he existed and did indeed conquer the world. I’m just pointing out the differences in methodology.

But now what we will be told is “Yeah, but none of these others are claimed to have risen from the dead and have a religion based on them. For that kind of claim, we need to have some sort of extraordinary evidence!”

Because we all know conquering the world and nearly conquering the Roman Empire are not extraordinary claims to make about someone in the ancient world at all.

The more important point to realize is that the standards have indeed changed. Yet if we are to have a consistent methodology, how can it be that we have one if we change the standards based on the kind of claim that we see? Why not use the same standards? If you don’t have to have eyewitness testimony for Alexander and Hannibal, why is it a necessity for Jesus? (To which we do have eyewitness testimony. I don’t encounter people with a refutation of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Bauckham.)

Now I’m not saying don’t be skeptical. Skepticism is fine. In fact, I’d say every apologist in the world can understand someone being skeptical of the claim. What I have a problem with is unreasonable skepticism, the kind that says that I will only believe in the resurrection if God Himself appeared to me. (To which, I think most of these people would still disbelieve even then and chalk it up to a hallucination.)

The only statement I wish to make here is let’s simply be consistent. If we are not, then the skeptic is proving the Christian right in that the Bible is treated by a different standard than every other work out there in ancient history. Could it be the skeptic might be frightened what he will come across if he uses the same standard?

In Christ,
Nick Peters