Tag: Christianity

Christianity As Therapy

Have we lost the focus in our Christianity today? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christianity. What’s it about? Well let’s look at the name. In it, we see the name “Christ”, so that could perhaps tell us that Christianity is about Christ, but there are too many times you can go to a church service or listen to Christian music and very little of it is about Jesus. Most of our sermons have turned immediately to application and much of our music is not really to enter us into the throne room of God, but rather to get us feeling good about ourselves. In fact, we could even say that some songs that are being sung on Christian stations today are explicitly being sung to the audience instead of to God.

Now of course, this is not to say that application in sermons is unimportant. Every good sermon should have application, but that application should come after telling us what the text means, what it tells us about God and what it tells us about Jesus, and what it meant to the people back then, and then we see how it applies to ourselves. It’s fine to have songs to remind us of who we are in Christ, but we should always have it that the song is mainly about Jesus and our reply can only be awe, but too often, our Christianity has turned into therapy. Instead of equipping us for war, we are being told to feel good about ourselves, as if that is the goal of the Christian life and if we don’t feel good about ourselves, then there’s something wrong.

Good Christian. If you are walking in the path well, there will be many times you feel miserable about yourself and that’s a good thing. You will feel miserable because you know you serve a holy God and you fall short. In fact, it is only by the feeling miserable part that you can come to appreciate the good part. We can often have two extremes. We can seek to have an emotional high with no connection to reality other than that we are supposed to feel this way as good Christians supposedly, or we can have a part where we tear ourselves to shreds regularly and feel miserable while forgetting that the word “Gospel” refers to good news. Christianity should be news that gives us hope. We thus either live in la la land unaware of the pains of the world and acting as if they should be foreign, or we live in the pains and just say “Well someday I will be in Heaven but I must trudge through Hell for now.” Neither of these are Biblical.

Of course, in all of this, I want to be clear that I am not disparaging therapy. Therapy is essential for many Christians, and there are reasons to have therapy. It could be because of a valid mental or psychological condition. It could be because of a trauma one has gone through. It could be because of an addiction one is struggling with. It could be for advice on dealing with someone else, such as a loved one, having such a problem. All of these are valid and thank God we have therapists who can help, but the goal of therapy should not be to help us to feel good about ourselves, though that does not mean it is bad if that happens, but the goal of therapy should be that we are to be holy.

And isn’t that what we’ve lost so much of? We’ve lost holiness. We have forgotten that Christ in our lives and the work of the Holy Spirit is to make us more like Jesus. It’s not just to make us mentally or psychologically fit. We are to be holy and that holiness means that we are to die to ourselves every day. I suspect much of the problem in our psychology is really that we don’t think about sin as much any more. We ask God to take away wrong desires, but we don’t ask God to make us holy. We don’t strive for holiness. We want God to allow us to stay in our comfort zone. If you want to be holy, you are going to have to be uncomfortable because holiness is not the natural state of fallen man and God will have to do some serious renovations on you to get you to be holy.

When we take this approach, we also lose the grandeur of God. We get so caught up in ourselves and our feelings and our world and what we’re going through that everything else seems distant. I’d like to say that I’m immune to this, but I know I am not. With my personality, empathy is very hard for me. My wife is the one who constantly has to remind me when we pray about the other people on our list and I have no doubt that her heart beats more for them than my does. My struggles seem larger than life, but everyone else’s just so often don’t really matter. So yes, what I say to you I also say to myself. I often wonder why it is that I don’t think about God as much as I do? Again, my wife puts me to shame in this area as if she thinks God seems absent to her, it absolutely kills her and she hates the loneliness. At the same time, we must always remember we are to seek God not to feel good about ourselves, but because we know that He is good in Himself and we owe everything to Him.

The worldview that we follow is Christianity. It’s not about me. It’s not about you. It’s about Him. Are we applying the proper focus today?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Serving God in the Valley

Is the Christian life all sunshine and rainbows? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

You know what? Sometimes being a Christian is miserable. We have often had this bizarre idea given to us that the Christian life is just full of joy constantly and it’s a wonderful life. Now I agree that it is to be a life of joy, but joy does not mean always a feeling of happiness. Sometimes, you can have joy and have sorrow too. How? Because you can be going through a time of pain and have an intense struggle with it, but you can somewhere know this is not how it’s supposed to be and that things will get better. As Paul said concerning those who had died already, we mourn, but we don’t mourn like those who have no hope.

Sometimes in struggles, it’s possible to wonder if God is really good. This is definitely a problem. There can be a harder struggle. It can be even harder if you absolutely know God is good. I won’t go into the metaphysical arguments for this, though they can be found in a book like Aquinas, but I can say that I know that God is good, and sometimes that can be horrible. If you know what you need to know about God, you know that He’s working things for your good. C.S. Lewis once said we don’t often fear the best, but we just fear how painful the best will be.

Unfortunately, when the suffering comes, many of us can think that getting angry with God is the answer. Now in a sense, I’m not going to ban you from getting angry with God. It’s understandable at times and I have had my times of arguments with the Almighty as well. If you read the Psalms, this was a common theme. The trouble is that when we get angry with God, we often pull a sort of avoidance tactic. It’s kind of like we think we can blackmail God or twist His arm emotionally. It’s saying that if we get angry and go away from God, that He’s obviously going to want to come after us. After all, we are so important. Now sometimes He does, but many times, He doesn’t.

God is not like that. God is not dependent on us. We are dependent on Him and when we run from Him, we only hurt ourselves. It’s so saddening that we don’t truly turn to God in the midst of our suffering. We want God to take away the pain, but we don’t often want Him to take away the sinful desires we often have that lead to the pain. I heard a story recently about a pastor who had an affair with a woman and he had kept praying that God would remove his contact with her so he wouldn’t stumble. Unfortunately, he too late realized he did not pray for God to take away his sinful desires and to give him a greater desire for his spouse. I cannot tell you how the story ended unfortunately, but I think it was ended tragically.

Many times, we suffer not because of the circumstances, but because of the condition of our hearts, and much of our worst suffering is because of this. Your attitude towards suffering makes all the difference in the world. In any hospital in this country, you can find people with very similar diagnoses of conditions like cancer. What makes the difference many times? It’s the attitude people approach it with. Even if it’s incurable and the person will die, many of them can approach death with happiness not because they necessarily want to be free from suffering, though that’s part of it, but because they’ve lived their lives well and can look back with joy and have embraced every day and if they’re Christians, are looking forward to more.

When my wife and I were apartment hunting once, we found an apartment with a stray cat who had been abandoned by his owners and was scrounging around the complex looking for anything it could to eat, but unfortunately, people who lived there were starting to complain. My wife really had a heart for this cat and wanted it. We decided to acquire the cat, but that meant catching it first. As you can imagine, the cat happily went to the people who wanted to give him to us and leaped right into our arms ready to go to a nice home. No. Of course he didn’t. The cat ran away and we had to catch it. To make matters worse, our first stop was the vet. I’m sure this cat was thrilled that just as we got him, we took him to see a strange person who touched him, explored his mouth and such, and stuck needles in him. Much of the time he spent in a kitty carrier as well.

This cat was not happy. These people were taking him away somewhere he didn’t want to go and even when we got home, he ran under our bed. I told my wife we just needed to go to sleep. He’ll let us know when he’s ready. Sure enough, around 2:20 in the morning, I heard the meowing and being the ever loving and caring husband I said “Honey. Wake up. The baby needs you.” Well we both got up and we fed him and little by little, he started trusting us. For awhile, he wouldn’t even eat unless my wife was watching him. What’s the result today? Before he goes to bed every night, he comes on my wife’s side of the bed and snuggles up with her and gives what we call “kitty kisses.”

How many of us are just like that?

How many of us run from the good that is waiting us because we think it’s harmful?

Or how many of us run to lesser goods? Think about the man who is running to pornography instead of having a fulfilling sexual relationship with his own wife. Think about the tendency many of us have to avoid the pain of healthy living because it will hurt, all the while not realizing what we’re doing is hurting us long-term. Think about how many of us don’t read and study when we should because it’ll be boring, when we forget that learning about God can often be an act of service to Him and others to enable us to better live the Christian life. We put our own lives on hold for all these lesser goods when the greater good awaits us. As C.S. Lewis said, we are far too easily pleased. In reality, the way of God is the path to greater joy.

Let’s consider some examples.

We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. You know how hard it can be to hate your neighbor? I understand having to remove yourself from some people at times. There are relationships I’ve had to end, but I have to work to avoid the active hatred sometimes. How about forgiveness? Do we really think we’re better when we don’t forgive someone, including ourselves? We go around holding on to pain and misery because we refuse to either receive grace or give grace. How many sexual problems in our marriages could be avoided if husbands and wives would both learn to lovingly give themselves to one another instead of using sex as a weapon regularly? As some marriage experts I was listening to lately said, the Bible doesn’t really say as much as we might think to married people, but one thing it speaks about is having sex regularly.

God’s way actually does bring joy when you follow it. Sure, it’s hard and can have it’s own suffering on the way, but in the long run, it works.

Is it hard to do? Sure it is.

And you know what? Many times it will not be sunshine and rainbows. It will require that you die to yourself.

But it will be worth it.

Today, let’s try to stop running from the good things and start running to them, and let’s not settle for the lesser joys when the greater joys of God await.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Justice

Will justice ever come? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Justice is something interesting. Many of us are great advocates of justice. We talk about social justice and the justice of equal rights and if a war is just or if a punishment fits the crime which is also a question of justice. For the Christian, we also want justice. Let’s face it. People often do wrong to us in this life and we want some justice. The Psalmist can relate to us, or rather we can relate to him, in saying that we can go and ask how long. How long will this go on?

I thought about this last night. Justice is odd in that it’s something that we greatly desire, except we desire it for everyone else. Of course, in some ways, that’s so with the other virtues. We want others to be patient with us, but we’re not so quick to ask to be patient with others. We want others to forgive us, but we don’t look to see if we’re forgiving others. We want others to love us, but we don’t often strive to love others. We want others to listen to and understand us, but we don’t often seek to listen to and understand others.

Imagine how it would be if you prayed to God for justice and you heard the voice from Heaven speaking to you and saying “Yes. Justice. Very well. I shall dispense it now. I will start with you.” Most of us would not be too crazy about that prayer. Justice is great as long as it starts with everyone else, and yet 1 Peter 4 emphasizes starting with the household of God. When we think about justice, we often do so without realizing the gravity of our own sins. Now of course we should think about justice and we should desire justice and we should seek to bring about justice in this world, but we should do so in humility knowing that we deserve justice too and in fact, we will get justice.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

But let’s also have a basic argument for justice.

The greatest good of all in this world on Christian theism is God Himself. God seeks His glory the most as that is the greatest good. Any sin is an affront to the glory of God. It matters not how big or how small. Of course, there are degrees of crime, but all will be dealt with. If God ignores any of them, then He is ignoring an affront to His glory, and He would only do so because He considers something greater than His own glory, but there can be nothing greater than God. Therefore, God will make sure justice comes some day.

Now does that include even for forgiven sinners? Yes. Oh we’ll spend eternity with God, but we can determine the kind of eternity we’ll have by how we live in this life. We will all give an account for how we handled this life. (This is something I stress to husbands especially since you are to give an account for how your families turned out and what kind of husband and father you were. Serious charge!) If we do not take that seriously, it is because we are not taking God seriously. If we are not taking our own sin seriously, we are not taking God seriously. This is something that we see happen. We usually ask God to remove the source of temptation from outside of us, such as food, drugs, alcohol, a person of the opposite sex, etc. We do not ask Him to deal with the problem in us that causes us to be tempted to that degree in the first place. The problem is with us for the most part.

Justice delayed is also not justice denied. Anyone who works a cold case can tell you this. These cases don’t often come to trial for decades. Still, justice is given. Sometimes, crimes will escape an earthly tribunal. While this is a tragedy, no one gets away free. There is a heavenly tribunal and there is no partiality and favoritism there. There is no fooling the judge who knows all.

And I hope that just put the fear of God in you to an extent.

Pray for justice and long for it, but remember you will be judged just as much. Pray that you will stand and seek to live a holy life so you can all the while relying on the grace of God in Christ.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Living Paul

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

Paul is always an interesting figure to discuss and opinions can be very divided on him. Still, if you are going to talk about the New Testament and the rise of early Christianity, it is essential that you talk about Paul. Thiselton’s book is an aim to bring an easily readable work to the layman audience to better understand Paul. He takes a number of issues and looks to see what Paul says about them.

The book starts with simply looking at the life of Paul. What is the relationship with Paul and Jesus? For instance, a number of people think that Jesus could have very well had this great idea and then Paul came along and messed everything up. Was this true? What did it mean for Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles? Who was the man Paul and what was his methodology for going through the Mediterranean world and spreading Christianity? There are many of us that like to look at the teachings of Paul without considering Paul the man. We could perhaps better realize how seriously he took the teachings of Jesus if we realize how much he went through to share them.

But of course, doctrine has to be there. We in the West do tend to like that. Thiselton takes a number of issues. Some of them are ones that we would expect to see regularly, such as the Holy Spirit and the person of Jesus and looking to see if there’s Trinitarianism in the writings of Paul. Others are definitely worth mention but sometimes ones we don’t emphasize enough, though there are no doubt groups out there in Christianity that do. These would be his views on baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Thiselton also writes on the ethics of Christianity especially including our sexual ethics and Paul was well ahead of his time with those.

Naturally, there are issues related to salvation, the nature of the church, and eschatology. These are all big debates today and Thiselton does present some of the latest work and speaks about it, such as looking at the idea of justification that is presented by N.T. Wright. He also deals with some objections such as the idea that Paul uses the term “we” in 1 Thess. 4 to describe what happens when Jesus returns and asks if Paul was off on his timing.

Some might be surprised that the last section in the book is a look at Paul and postmodernism. There were ideas back in the time of Paul that could be considered postmodern or at least pre-postmodern (There’s an odd concept to think about) just like there was a proto form of Gnosticism going around in Paul’s day. Thiselton looks at some of the postmoderns today and sees what Paul would have to say in relation to their claims about reality.

Thiselton’s read is one that will help inform the layman on the life of Paul. There were times I would have liked a little bit more and the pace seemed to move a bit slowly for me, but much of the information is quite good and would be helpful to any student wanting to study Paul.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Thoughts on War Room

What did I think of this movie? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you’re wondering about last week, I was away in Atlanta visiting my in-laws. I had a hard time connecting to the site with my wife’s laptop so I thought “Forget it. I can go a week without. I’ll just focus on my family.” That’s what I did. Right now, it looks like things are back to normal as we’re back home in Knoxville again and the first subject I want to talk about is a movie that we went to see with Allie’s parents and that’s War Room.

It’s no secret that Christian movies lately have been really cheesy. Most filmmakers of Christian movies have this idea that your audience is really stupid and think that if we are going to make this a Christian movie, we must somehow shove the Gospel right in your face because that’s the only way that you’re going to get it. War Room is certainly a step up and what I thought to be an excellent Christian movie. Does that mean I agree with everything? No. It only means that the parts that I favored stood out above the parts that I did not.

The movie involves the story of a real estate agent helping an elderly widow move out of her house. The widow shows the real estate agent all the rooms of her house and then points out eventually what her favorite room is and calls it her War Room. It’s a room where there are prayers and Bible verses written on the wall. In fact, it’s hardly a room as it really is a closet. The widow then begins talking to the real estate agent, Elizabeth, about her marriage and what she needs to do to win back her husband Tony when they are in a terrible place in their marriage. Elizabeth is also reminded that she can’t be the one to directly change Tony. She needs to work on herself. In this way, the movie also gives some great marriage advice.

Elizabeth is encouraged to develop a prayer time, though we can all relate when the first time she tries her daughter and her daughter’s best friend interrupt her lounging on the floor drinking sprite and eating chips. Most of us don’t start out too well. Still, she keeps going and she gets better and better and her daughter soon follows suit. Probably the only scene that I didn’t really think was fitting was Elizabeth after praying hard and realizing a problem in her marriage starts yelling at the devil and telling him he’s not going to have her marriage or her husband.

I find this problematic because I really don’t see anything in the Bible telling us to get into a shouting match with the devil and also too often we treat him like he’s omnipresent and can hear everything we say. Yet even if demons aren’t directly involved, I think in every marital destruction we experience the work of demons in the long-term, not as if they directly caused it, but it has been the work of the devil from the beginning to destroy the things of God, including marriage, and that destruction to today continues. Even if no evil entity ever tries to act on your marriage, you can still feel the effects of that from other marriages. (Our divorce culture has given us the idea that giving up or abandoning one another is okay for any reason and just fine for a Christian. That affects Christians who have no desire to divorce either.)

Elizabeth instead keeps changing around her husband and yes, this change gets her husband’s attention. She does not give back sarcastic answers when tragedies strike and she seeks to respect her husband. Men respond to this. After all, we crave respect and we go where the respect is. I found myself smiling at her actions in that I knew that she was reclaiming her marriage. What happens then? Well I’m not going to tell you the plot of the movie that far!

And I can also say this had an effect on my life. I’ve seen my wife going through some hard times and I’ve been doing everything in the world for her except seriously seriously praying for her. If you’re like me and wanting to do better, I have some suggestions. First, try to find a quiet place where you can be alone. Second, if you want to be good with time, don’t start off with a goal like an hour of prayer. You’re setting yourself up for failure that way. Set a short time like ten minutes and work up and if you have a device with a timer on it, feel free to use it so you’re not constantly wondering about the time. On my Kindle Fire, I have an app called Mobile Knee. I can write down prayer requests that I have and times those prayers have been answered as well as journal entries and Bible verses that help me.

In the end, I can say I encourage you to see this movie. It is an entertaining and touching film and I can say it made me take prayer more seriously and I “pray” I keep that up. If that was the goal of the producers, it has worked with at least one and I hope Christian movies keep improving like this one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Happy 25th Princess

How now shall we live? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I held off on writing this blog today because I wanted it to be a surprise. You see, as many of you know, my family doesn’t exactly have a lot of money. My wife Allie was quite sure I would not be able to do anything to celebrate her 25th birthday today, and she was quite depressed about that. I took her that evening to the local mall where a friend wanted her to go shopping. Well, that was the story at the time. In reality, that’s the same mall where our church meets us and it was at that mall that we had a secret surprise party waiting for her. She loves me now, but she’s also a bit upset I left her miserable throughout the day.

It really is good to be alive. Birthdays are a reminder of that, but they can also be a time to ask what we are doing with the time that we do have. The time that we have been given is a gift, and are we really using it on the most worthwhile pursuits? Oh I know there is time for fun and frivolity, but we have to ask what life really is all about. When we stand before God, we will have to give an account of all that we have done. In fact, we’re told we will give an account for every word and action and if more of us spent more time thinking about that, we’d probably take matters a whole lot more seriously. Let’s face it. Many times, the last thing we take seriously is God.

Yet if we celebrate our birthdays, does not God celebrate them more? Does not the giver of life and the source of life and the God of life Himself celebrate life? There is a point where our culture is very self-centered where we talk about how much God loves us over and over, but we are right in saying that He does. The place we stop is usually we see that as something we joyfully receive instead of realizing that we are to respond with our very lives. Our lives should be seen as examples of the love of God, and not love in the sentimental touchy-feely sense, but in the idea of a seeking of the good. Marriage is a great example of this. Marriage is one relationship where both persons are to live for the good of the other and when both do this, both will be pleased.

Birthdays are some of the days we take to celebrate each other because while we give gifts on that day to the person, we do so because we believe that the person is already a gift to us. We want to celebrate them and their life. I am thankful today for 25 years of life that Allie has been given and I’m thankful that I have known her for so many of those years. I look forward to all that the future has for her. Love your Princess. Happy Birthday!

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist

What do I think of Andy Bannister’s book by Monarch Books? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As I have studied apologetics more and more, sometimes reading apologetics books now gets boring. It’s a lot of the same-old, same-old. You’ve heard it all several times before and there’s nothing new so what’s the big deal. Honestly, getting Bannister’s book, I was expecting I’d get a good primer on some apologetics issues and put it down thinking that I had had a decent enough read and that’d be it. I don’t mean that in a snide way at all. Many of these books are fine for beginners after all and I read them wanting to learn how well this would help someone who was starting out in the field.

I could not have been more wrong.

As I started going through Andy’s book, from the very beginning I saw that it was different. Now the content is still a good basic start for most people. You’re not going to get into the intensely heady stuff here. You will discuss the issues, but it is just a start. What makes this book so radically different and in turn one of the best that I’ve read on this kind of topic in a long time is the presentation. Bannister is quite the comedian. His humor shines throughout the book and this is one book where I had great joy whenever I saw there was a footnote. Normally, you tend to just pass those over. Do not do that with this book! You will find some of the best humor.

That makes the content all the more memorable. Bannister deals with a lot of the soundbite arguments that we deal with in our culture such as “You are an atheist with regards to many gods. I just go one god further.” He deals with scientism and what faith is and can we be good without God and can we really know anything about the historical Jesus? If you spend time engaging with people who follow the New Atheists on the internet, then you need to get your hands on this book. With humor and accuracy, Bannister deals with the nonsense, which tells us that in light of all the work he invested in this that first off, Bannister is highly skilled as an apologist and second, that Bannister has way too much free time on his hands to be thinking so much about this stuff.

I really cannot say much more because it would I think keep you from enjoying all the surprises in this book. There were many times my wife had to ask me as I read “What’s so funny?” Some parts I even read to her. If there was one thing I would change, it was the chapter on the question of goodness. I don’t think Bannister really answered the question of what it means to be good. He said we need a God to ground it in, and I agree, but that does not tell me what good is. Even if we say the good is God’s nature, that still does not tell me what the good is, yet we all know that people know the good and the evil without knowing who God is.

Still, do yourself a favor. Get this book and then sit down and prepare for a fun and worthwhile time. You’ll laugh and you’ll enjoy yourself so much you could lose track of how much good apologetics is sinking in.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Andy Bannister’s book can be purchased here.

The Importance of Teaching Youth

Who really needs apologetics training the most? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I got to do something that’s one of those privileges that I enjoy in the apologetics field and that’s teaching youth. At my church, I had been invited to speak to the youth group about the importance of Christian apologetics. I did it with the help of a friend of mine who I brought to the meeting with me. Since this friend didn’t go to my church, he played the role of an atheist asking the kids why they should be Christians. Unfortunately, our young Christians were flummoxed early on. That’s when we told the truth. My friend is also a Christian apologist and that led us into the discussion of how we can know that Christianity is true and what difference it makes and not only that, but how much fun it can be to discuss these matters.

In the end, one of the youth said a closing prayer and I think it showed that this was sinking in, at least I hope it was. The leaders at least certainly appreciated it. In fact, this is one of the events I consider the most important. It’s great to talk to adults often on topics such as the resurrection of Jesus. That needs to be done. Youth are our main group we should be trying to reach. The youth are the ones that are about to go into the furnace of college most often and have their faith tested by professors who will be more than happy to debunk Christianity and by moral challenges such as dealing with sexual temptation.

Ultimately, stressing to them that Christianity is true is what it’s all about and they need more than warm fuzzies to know that. They will face hard times eventually and a good feeling will not sustain them and we should all know we cannot produce feelings. If we all lived according to our feelings, our world would be chaos and most of living the good Christian life is learning to overcome wrong feelings and wrong thinking. (And despite this, how many Christians act or don’t act because of their feelings and even turn it into something supposed to be Biblical, like doing something because you “feel led” to do it?)

But what if you have something else that drives you? That will really come into play when those times of struggle come. “Wow. It feels like God is absent now, but I know because of XYZ that He exists and that He cares about me and I know because of this historical evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.” “Wow. My date is so hot and you know, I really would like to get to see all that she has right now and have some fun with her, but I know that that is not the right thing to do because of XYZ.” “Wow. My spouse is being a jerk today, but I know I am to be the better person and love (or respect) more because of XYZ.”

Those times will come, and those necessities will need to be there. You will need to know how to think properly about the issues.

When you do this, Christianity will become more real to you. Your worship will be better informed. You will get much more out of your Bible reading and study when you see it as a book that contains events that really took place in space and time. You will take your moral responsibility much more seriously when you realize that there truly is a good. Studying believe it or not can also be fun. Yes. There are times I don’t really want to do it, but I suppose for some people, it’s like working out. Many I understand don’t like to work out really but once they get started, they are enjoying it and want to finish. It’s just honestly fun to learn new things about Christianity.

There’s also great joy when you encounter someone who is rather a loudmouth atheist. Now of course not all atheists are like this, but those who are not will be the first to admit that there are too many atheists that they find frankly embarrassing for speaking on what they don’t know about. These kinds do not want to meet a Christian who knows what they’re talking about. Be that Christian.

Also, as my friend and my wife and I discussed afterwards, there will not be many times that you will find that the atheist you dialogue with is convinced. This is sadly par for the course. As I had said in the meeting, I don’t do it for the atheist most of the time. I do it for the people who are watching. Someone might see what is going on in that Facebook thread and really reconsider that there could be good evidence for Christianity and be strengthened in their faith by seeing how weak the opposition is. (This is not to say there are not opponents out there who really do think about the issues and know how to interact well with the arguments, but that for the most part, the objections you encounter are quite weak.)

Friends. The youth have to hear this. They have to. We who are the adults and able to teach are doing our youths a great wrong if we do not equip them with Christian apologetics and if they go to college and fall away or fall away morally through sexual sins or other sins because we have not equipped them, then just like in the book of Ezekiel, we will be accountable for that. Do you really want that on your head? If you still want to ignore teaching your youth what they believe and why, then the question that needs to be asked is not “Why are they not taking Christianity seriously?” but rather “Why are you not taking it seriously?”

We are at war friends and our youth are lined up to be the first casualties. We need for them to know that the life of joy and pleasure is found in more than just sex, music, video games, etc. It’s found first and foremost in knowing God and learning about Him. Christianity isn’t pie in the sky. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s an actual worldview that is meant to shape everything that you think and do. It has something to say about who you date, who you marry, how you behave, how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what you study in college, and every other aspect of your life.

Please be teaching young people at your church apologetics. You could make sure that they enter the blessed presence of God one day by doing so.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Slavery and the Church….Again

Is the church responsible for slavery? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So here we’ve had a terrible tragedy that has took place in Charleston and once again, supposedly racism is an epidemic sweeping the country right now. Now I’m of the opinion that no matter what you do, there will always be racism because people are sinful like that and because we view with suspicion that which is different from us. Of course, we must remember to never let a good crisis go to waste and so Huffington Post has a piece up by Carol Kuruvilla on how white Christians used the Bible and the confederate flag to oppress people. (Of course, one can be sure the implications of this are supposed to reach far past slavery and to Christians being great oppressors today.)

Of course, there’s no doubt there were too many people who used the Bible to justify slavery just like there were people who used science to justify the eugenics movement. This no more means we should discard the Bible than it does that we should discard science. It would be best to follow the adage attributed to Augustine that you never judge a philosophy by its misuse. What happened was horrid in the south no doubt, but absent from Kuruvilla’s report is any of the response to this. Sure, she says the Northern Baptists were opposed to slavery. What is not said is that most Christians around the world were already opposed to slavery. She wants to focus on one people group, though a sizable one to be sure, and say that these are the main representatives we should look at.

What made it so hard over here? Mark Noll says first off the arguments against slavery from a Biblical position depended on understanding the context of the Bible and looking deeper than many others did who just wanted what was “clear” to them. As he says in The Civil War As A Theological Crisis:

“On the other front, nuanced biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a commonsensically literal approach to the sacred text. In short, this was an argument of elites requiring that the populace defer to its intellectual betters. As such, it contradicted democratic and republican intellectual instincts. In the culture of the United States, as that culture had been constructed by three generations of evangelical Bible believers, the nuanced biblical argument was doomed.”

So what made the Civil War a theological crisis? What separated us from the rest of the world? It was that we had a view about ourselves as a special people that God was guiding. It was a sort of manifest destiny. We believed in democracy greatly and so we treated the Bible the same way. The Bible should be just as clear to the man on the street and one does not need to do deep study to find out what is being said. This is still the approach of many fundamentalists today, which includes a large segment of internet atheists who read the Bible the exact same way their Christian counterparts do. They just believe exactly opposite.

It wasn’t the Bible then that was the problem so much as how we thought about ourselves. This is also prevalent in many Christian circles today where people are looking for signs for everything that they do, as if God is supposed to personally guide them. It shows up when people think the Bible was written in a style that is obviously apparent to 21st century Westerners instead of bothering to study its context. To many atheists, this can sound like an excuse. In reality, it’s simply saying to treat the Bible with the same respect you’d treat any other document from another time, culture, place, setting, and in another language.

Also noteworthy is that Kuruvilla ignores any ancient history on this. When Christianity first showed up, slavery was practically if not entirely universal in the Roman Empire. The thought of removing slavery and having a functioning empire would be like thinking we could do without something like automobiles or IPhones today. Make the suggestion and you will be met with uncomprehending stares. To us, it makes no sense because we have a moral background that has been so heavily influenced by Christianity. That was the Roman Empire. What system really brought about the end of it ultimately? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with Christ and ends with “ianity.”

The church had a history of treating slaves first with respect and then eventually setting them free. Philemon could be called the Emancipation Proclamation of the New Testament. Christians would often raise up money to buy slaves just for the purpose of setting them free. It was Bathilda, wife of Clovis II, who really brought slavery to a halt, but its death had long been started beforehand because Christians said everyone was in the image of God so no man should be the property of another man. Did it get started later? Yes. Unfortunately it did, but it was Christians again, like Wilberforce, who rose up to stop it.

Make no mistake. Many Christians have done stupid stupid things in the past. Many of them have done wicked things that we should all be ashamed of, but let’s be fair and not overlook the many good things that have been done. If all that is presented is one side of the story, then of course that one side looks compelling. Let us remember the main cause of slavery was really more of our egos about us being a special people than anything else. Of course, some people thinking they are special today is certainly not being used to oppress anyone else out there now is it?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Please Don’t Say These At The Funeral

Are there some things you just shouldn’t say at a funeral? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve only done one funeral and that was my grandmother’s. I’ve attended a number of them and sadly, one of the worst parts is hearing the awful messages that preachers give because they just don’t have good theology to them. There are many preachers who haven’t studied the issues involved and say some messages they shouldn’t. Some of these aren’t really harmful to the audience. Others really can be. I’d like to look at a number of them and I’m going to save the worst one that I’ve ever heard for last.

At one funeral, I remember hearing the preacher talk about the deceased and saying “Right now, she is experiencing the power of the resurrection!”

Um. No.

You see, this might be a shock, but when you go to the funeral service, barring some catastrophe, usually the person’s body is right there. You get to see the body. Resurrection means something. It means that the person is again in their body after life after death and is walking around. For our purposes in Christianity, it means they are back in a body that will never die and they will live forever. Resurrection does not mean going to Heaven when you die. Of course, if you want to say when someone dies, they go to be in the presence of Jesus, I have no problem, but let us not say that they are experiencing the resurrection. They are not. The resurrection of Jesus is not about Him leaving a body in a tomb and being taken in spirit to be with the Father. It is about the body that went down coming back up in a new and glorified state. For Christians, that won’t happen until the end.

“God needed another angel.”

Frankly, this one is cruel. Really. It is. You want to go to a little child who has just lost their mother and say “We know you’re hurting, but God needed another angel in Heaven.” Not only is it the problem that angels are not dead humans, but what kind of God are you presenting? A God who has to kill the mothers of children so He can have angels for His purposes? Many children believe it or not do not have a sophisticated theology. You are already presenting them with a God who will take the mother that they long for and cherish just because He needs another angel in Heaven. If you have ever said this to someone, shame on you for saying it.

“He’s walking on streets of gold.”

This one I didn’t hear at a funeral per se, but it was said by a preacher in a sermon where he talked about a friend who died and how right now, he’s walking on streets of gold. It was one of those points where my wife Allie had to reach over and gently touch my leg as if to say “Please calm down.” She knows I get really agitated when I hear bad theology like this. Why is this bad? Because this is more of a gnostic view than anything else. We have this view that the body is a sort of prison to be escaped and then we die and we’re walking in Heaven. No. We’re not. We have no body to walk in and if you want to see those streets of gold, they’re talked about in the last two chapters of Revelation when Heaven is described. Where is Heaven? Take a look. It’s not the case of “I’ll Fly Away” from this world and leave it behind because “This World Is Not My Home. I’m Just Passing Through.” Heaven is coming down to Earth. The Kingdoms of this world become the Kingdom of God. God takes over finally. We have the marriage of Heaven and Earth.

Christians must be people who view the body as important. We do not dare say there is a sort of spiritual body that is walking on the streets of gold. We have to emphasize that we are incomplete without our physical bodies.

“Paul’s hope was we would see our loved ones again in Heaven.”

I remember being at a sermon and the pastor was really flubbing it in my thinking. Sadly, he spent more time talking about himself than he did about the deceased, but then he said we have the same hope that Paul described in 1 Thess. 4. Okay. I was starting to get hopeful here. I know what 1 Thess. 4 is about. It’s about the resurrection. So will the pastor get it right? Will he say we have the hope of the resurrection?

Nope. Instead, it was that we would see our loved ones in Heaven.

*Groan*

Just going to Heaven is incomplete. If anything, it means that death does have a victory. Death has a victory because our bodies are still subject to it. For Paul, the resurrection means everything. It means that death has been truly conquered and cannot hold us down just like it could not hold Jesus down. Either death has the last word over our bodies, or God has the last word over death. We will see our loved ones again one day, yes, and that is something we are meant to comfort one another with, but that reunion takes place after the resurrection. That was the great hope.

Unfortunately, even just yesterday I saw an internet atheist trying to argue that Paul’s great change he made to Christianity was he promised people Heaven. Paul’s message was the resurrection, and he was right in line with what the rest of the early church was saying. Even in our evangelism, we act like the goal is to get people to go to Heaven. The goal is to get people to become righteous in Christ and be disciples.

“Their Last Act Was An Act Of Love.”

I must place this one in the proper context. My parents told me about hearing this one at a funeral that they attended where it was said that the last act of the deceased was an act of love. What was it? A police officer taking a bullet for a fellow officer? A soldier throwing himself onto a grenade so his buddies would be safe? A firefighter rushing into a building to save a child? Nope.

The deceased had committed suicide.

Suicide is many things, but it is not loving and it should never be seen as loving. Instead, there were children and nieces and nephews and others there who were told that day that a person committing suicide was an act of love. I understand the preacher got a lot of flack for his statement. He should have. Funerals are meant to comfort those who are left behind and to honor the deceased. This kind of statement does neither.

Let’s remember when we have our services that we are Christians. We believe in a bodily resurrection. We believe that God is conquering evil. We believe that the world will bow the knee to Christ at one point in time. None of this should be downplayed. That we do not realize this and celebrate this enough is a fault of our churches not teaching good theology and not discipling.

In Christ,
Nick Peters