Tag: Money

Book Plunge: Obsessed With Blood Part 6

What about the church and money? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s time to wrap this book up. In this chapter, we’re going to talk about the church and money especially. At the start, Baker talks about how the ministry can be a money-making machine. I do want to highlight something he says:

Fortunately, as soon as I began to struggle with my faith, I stepped down from the ministry.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (p. 117). Kindle Edition.

I have said a lot critical of Baker, but I do want to commend this part. I can understand if you are wrestling with something, but if you are having serious doubts and about to pack it all in, do step down. I do think Baker should be commended for this. Contrast this to Dan Barker who went on speaking anyway.

I remember being in Singapore, preaching for the well known, Pastor Joseph Prince, when I experienced a major spiritual crisis regarding the money I was earning from Preaching. You can read about this experience in more detail on my blog, www.ex-preacher.blogspot.com – it is worth reading.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (p. 117). Kindle Edition.

Baker was associated with Word of Faith teachers so this is part of the problem here. I too have a problem with the amount of money that many “ministers” make. I am a capitalist through and through, but I also realize that greed is a problem in the church.

Finally, Baker says this:

Even though there are many preachers and pastors who do take advantage of their positions for financial and emotional gain, most do not. The vast majority of Christian leaders are sincere people who are simply sincerely wrong.

Preacher, Ex; Baker, Barnaby. Obsessed with Blood (The Crazy Things Christians Believe Book 1) (pp. 119-120). Kindle Edition.

Again, this is something to be commended. Baker is right in that the majority of us who are in this field are not in it for the money. I do have a Patreon and I do get donors and I do need them, but I can assure anyone that I do not get rich from this. I highly encourage you to be a donor, but I have a high hope that if I had more income coming in, I would actually be instead of hoarding it, which is not my tendency, I would be giving it away. I do love giving to people.

I have been told for a long time that I could have done something else like being an engineer. I had no desire to do that. My heart thrives for doing ministry and now for doing apologetics.

So in the end, Baker’s book is not really damaging to anyone’s faith and it looks like he fell into a lot of the same tendencies that so many of these people tend to think exactly alike. It looks like Baker has gone from blindly believing Christianity to blindly believing atheism. I do appreciate that he does show some kindness to Christians in the end. I hope he eventually sees the real Christ in real Christians.

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

 

 

Don’t Panic

How do you handle something frightening? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have a general rule about major “crises” in the world today. That’s to do my best to not panic. Fearmongering doesn’t do any good. Generally, I am anxiety prone. Having gone through a divorce now, I even take medication to help me with anxiety and it does a great deal of good, but I still have to apply the wisdom I have and my knowledge of Scripture. I don’t condemn medication, but medication without sound practice is not wise at all.

When the Coronavirus was first announced, I heard the news about it being on a cruise ship and how the majority of the people there recovered just fine. I knew then the simple principle I had through all other number of diseases and viruses that came our way. It’s a simple tip. As Douglas Adams said, “Don’t Panic.”

So as I saw the rest of the world me panicking over the Coronavirus, I was handling it just fine. Now note this part. I am not denying the virus is real. I am not denying that many people suffered and died from it. I am not saying that we shouldn’t take precautions in this. What I am saying is we shouldn’t lose our minds in fear. My contention is a lot of the measures we take to stop the virus in the long run actually did a lot more harm than they did good.

I think many people who did that fear lean towards the left politically also, so let’s look at the right as well. Yesterday, my mother came upstairs to my room, seeing as I have been living with my parents since the divorce, though I hope to be accepted at NOBTS and move down to New Orleans soon. She told me that soon toothpaste would be at $10 a tube. I generally buy the cheapest store brand stuff that I can so I rarely pay more than $1 or so. We’re talking about a major price increase.

So I looked it up. I found that there was an article about inflation that said that Colgate was coming out with a new toothpaste that would be $10 a tube. My guess is someone saw that and panicked and ran with it. In our society, it’s like we have an addiction to fear. We practically want to be afraid of something. That way, we can feel safe when we know someone can take care of it.

Now to go back to what my mother said, note that I am not at all denying inflation. I work in retail. I see it every day that I work. I am not at all denying high gas prices. I am halfway between 41 and 42 and I have never seen gas prices this high. I would be lying if I said I didn’t have any concern.

However, let’s consider this. Isn’t it when times are hardest that often people rise up and do the most good? I just finished listening to a biography of John Adams while driving. It’s amazing to hear about what these ordinary people did in the start of our nation’s history. Were they scared? Sure they were. If they weren’t, they were crazy. They were taking on the most powerful people at the time in the world, if not the most powerful ever.

We also know there were preachers who preached a sermon every Sunday and yet they had a bounty on their heads. They kept going. They weren’t letting their fear control them.

We could point to many other times in history. As Christians, we hold that the disciples were scared after the crucifixion of Jesus. Where would our world be if they had not lost that fear? Where would they be if they had stayed locked in that room even after the Holy Spirit came? I happen to also like the prayer in Acts 4 that they speak the Word of God with boldness. They still had fear and needed to overcome it.

Panicking about something really does us no good. With medication, matters are much easier for me and if that’s what it takes for you, that’s fine too. I also recommend the book by Pierce Taylor Hobbs called Struck Down But Not Destroyed. The book is the best book on anxiety I have ever read and if you want to know about the Facebook group he has for this, well, you need to read the book and then join it as he tells the name of the group in it.

I don’t know how many times in the past I knew i needed to get up early to do something and I would worry if i would get to sleep in time to get all the sleep I need. Want to know what happened? No, you don’t. You already know. Odds are you’ve been there. You don’t sleep nearly as well that night.

Panic doesn’t do any good. Concern is one thing, but if it drives you to do nothing, then it is useless. If you have any fear or anything of that sort, let it drive you to do something about it. After my separation from my ex, for example, I knew I could lie down and be the victim and let life walk all over me. That was a choice. However, I chose instead to not be a victim anymore, but to get up and live my life and make the most of it. As a lifelong gamer, I chose to play to win. Some people after a divorce want revenge on their ex.

Sue Grafton, for instance, is the mystery writer who wrote those books that were the alphabet mysteries like A Is For Alibi. How did she get started with this? Her divorce and custody battles left her so hurt she thought about ways to murder her ex and knew she was a law-abiding citizen and would never do it, so why not turn them into murder mysteries? It’s certainly a better outlet than committing actual murder.

Also, as a Christian, I have recently told two people who have come to me scared about something to consider a Babylon Bee headline. Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, Omnipotent and Omniscient is Totally Caught Off Guard by XYZ. Put whatever you want in that blank. It will work the same way. When you hear it that way, if you’re a Christian, you can say, “Yeah. That is ridiculous.

I also think of the Heidelberg Catechism. While this Catechism is Protestant and more specifically Calvinistic and used to teach Calvinist doctrines, the first part, every Christian Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, should be able to affirm.

1. Q.
What is your only comfort
in life and death?
A.
That I am not my own,
but belong with body and soul,
both in life and in death,
to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.
This is in gaming terms the ultimate cheat code. Whatever happens to you, you win. Now you may not like it as it is happening or when it happens, but you will still win in the end.

So folks, when the next craze comes along, take it seriously if need be and take proper precautions, but don’t panic. It never does you any good and only makes you less effective to handle it. Stand up and face the problem. It’s hard to solve it if you’re running from it.

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

 

Does Acts 2 Teach Communism?

Was the early church a Communist movement? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In Acts 2, we read about the early church.

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

There are a number of people that look at this and think that this sounds like something Communistic. Don’t they have everything in common? Don’t they sell all their possessions?

However, there are differences.

For one, if a group of people decide to come together and do this on their own without any force, that is not Communism. Communism is done with the government leading the way. Here, there is no central government that is leading the way for the people.

Second, they sold property and gave to those who had need. Not everyone was equal financially because some people had need and some didn’t. The text also says that they met in their homes. That means that some people had homes to meet in. We can also be sure that some things were not in common and understood not to be, such as they weren’t into wife sharing or something similar.

Third, as a Preterist, I contend there’s a reason these people were selling property in Jerusalem. They were sure Jesus was coming some time as He promised to judge the place and bring about destruction. Land values won’t really matter at that point.

Fourth, later on in the text, we see other people selling their land and giving it to the cause. As we see in Acts 4:

32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Here, we see the same thing going on. People still have land and people are still selling it and goods are being distributed to people who have need. This is also something the people are entering into willingly.

In Acts 5, we have the chilling case of Ananias and Sapphira.

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

Now this seems like a harsh punishment? Lying about money? What’s the big deal. This was a fledgling church movement and nothing was really done privately. People would find out what happened and if these two got away with it, everyone else could as well. Greed quickly comes into a church and tears it down. Not only that, these people were grabbing honor as if they had given everything when they had not.

Yet note that this is said to be their property. They could do with it what they wanted. They weren’t forced. When they sold it, the money was theirs. If they wanted to, they could have kept some of the money for themselves and just been honest with the apostles about it. Sure, it would have likely been seen as shameful behavior, but it would have been honest.

Next, in Acts 6, Greek widows say they are being overlooked when it comes to the distribution of food as Hebrew widows are getting more. Again, you have people in need and who are they really? They are the people in that society most likely to be unable to provide for themselves. Again, this is not exactly a commune.

Finally, this is the only place we see this happening in the New Testament. It doesn’t show up in any of the churches outside of here. As I contend, there’s a reason that it only happens in Jerusalem.

Now I don’t think Communism is an effective way to care for the poor and capitalism is far better, but that is another post. I could be hypothetically wrong on that and still right on the point about the early church. For now, those wanting to say Communism works better are not going to be benefitted by looking at the early church.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
Support my Patreon here.

Don’t Hoard

Where should we store up treasure? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The next passage I want to touch on in looking at the Sermon on the Mount and its relation to Kingdom People is Matthew 6:19-24.

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy,your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy,your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Money is really a means to power for many people. If you have the money, you have the power. You can do what you want and buy what you want. It makes sense that you would want to hold on to all the money that you can. Jesus, however, condemns that attitude.

Now not storing up though doesn’t mean for us not using a bank account or something of that sort. That wasn’t as much of an option in the ancient world, especially for most of Jesus’s audience who would have been day-wage earners. Today, it can make sense for us to plan ahead, especially for financial emergencies that will come up.

Today, we could say that it’s not good to hoard. It’s not good to be the rich man while Lazarus sits outside of your gate begging for food. If you have money, you should strive to be generous with it. I don’t think that means throw it away at anyone who says they need something, but it means to be a generous steward.

This is one area where we can definitely improve on. Churches should be some of the most generous places of all and Christians should be people of generosity. A Christian can certainly be rich, but if they are not giving money to those truly in need, then they are not storing up treasures in heaven.

It’s worth noting also that Jesus tells us that this will actually work for our benefit. It’s in our best interests to give away. If you give away your money then you will get true riches that will not last. Jesus is not opposed to our benefit. If anything, He is telling us how we can better benefit.

As someone in the church who is poor, this kind of generosity is greatly appreciated as well. I remember a post I made years ago on the Tekton Ticker ran by my ministry partner, J.P. Holding, about a hard time where my wife and I didn’t receive proper care from the church. To this day, we have not returned there.

However, the church can only be generous if its people are generous. If they are not, then the church has nothing. That means those who have should strive to be generous and build up the Kingdom of God.

You cannot serve two masters. If your master is money or anything else, you will not be a servant of the Kingdom. Your desire for Jesus must be greater than that of wealth.

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

Our Failure To Give

Are we not giving enough in ministry? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I’ve said before that I’m a game show junkie. If I’m reaching for the remote, my wife knows that usually I want to turn on GSN. Sunday, I’m watching one of my favorites, Idiotest. There’s a pair of ladies on there who are playing because they want to have enough money to go on a mission trip.

Okay. Let’s be clear right at the start. That’s awesome. People wanting to go on a show and win money not for themselves, but so that they can do something special in ministry. It’s the kind of thing that we should all aspire to. However, despite how great that is, it also indicates something.

The church is failing.

Can any of us imagine in the 1st century Paul going to Caesar and trying to earn more funds so he could do ministry work? Hardly. The church had to give and take care of its own. It was a fledgling movement, but still growing rapidly, and people had to look out for one another. There were people who were wealthy and there were people who were poor.

Whenever we as a church go outside of ourselves in order to raise up the funds, we make a silent confession before the world. That confession is that the church is not giving enough of itself. It must rely on those on the outside.

Back in January, I had Ty Benbow on my show to talk about abortion. One thing he said was that if every church in America adopted just one child every season of the year, we could end any abortion debate. Just one. Of course, not every family can do that. There are plenty of poor families. There are some who can give more than they are.

This also includes not just money, but time and services. Do you realize that if you give of your time that you are freeing up money that could go to greater causes that we can’t directly intervene in? If you volunteer to do something at your church, that means there’s more that can go somewhere else.

I recently wrote a blog where I mentioned the giving of 10%. I’m not saying the New Testament teaches the tithe. I think it instead teaches that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Just that should be something to make us think. God loves a cheerful giver. Don’t we all want to be the kind of person that God loves? Then we should consider being cheerful givers.

Yet as someone said who commented, most pastors would be thrilled if their churches would give 10%. Many of them don’t. The poor of course I’m not really speaking about. Those who don’t have any money to give are not obligated to give, although the poor can give service in other ways. What I am contending for is that we can do something more.

Many of us will be tempted to think that a little bit can’t make much of a difference. By itself, one is absolutely right. Yet if everyone gives a little bit, a little bit can become a lot. If your local blood bank has a blood drive, it would be ridiculous and medically dangerous to think that you have to supply blood for everyone in need. It’s not ridiculous when you realize that when many people do that, then many can benefit.

It’s important to note that there are many pastors who have greed. It’s a sin that anyone can fall into. That’s also why I encourage churches to have upfront financial statements so everyone can see where the money is going to. Be aware pastors that you need to encourage giving, but if you overdo it, you will come across as greedy. Be aware also person in the pew that the church has to say it sometime and just because it’s said doesn’t mean greed is involved.

It’s great to see women going on a show wanting to win money for a mission trip. It will be even better when they don’t need to because the church does give enough as it is. Hopefully we can reach a day where the church is better known for generosity than they are for hypocrisy.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Do We Care About Christianity?

Is Christianity really a driving passion? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

A couple of nights ago, my wife and I talked about this topic and it is one that leads to soul-searching. I am a Christian apologist. My whole life is built around Christianity. Everything I do (Or at least I hope everything I do) is informed by my Christian worldview, yet do I really care that much about the Christian worldview?

Some might think an apologist would, but remember C.S. Lewis warned years ago about some people who were so eager to show that God exists that they didn’t have anything better for Him to do than exist. Sometimes we could be so intent on proving Jesus rose that we do nothing more with that than show Christianity is true. It’s like something I’ve said about the Trinity. It’s often this nice little doctrine we keep to the side and we pull it out whenever we have to beat up visiting Jehovah’s Witnesses.

What I want to ask myself regularly and I do ask myself is if I really have a passion for Christianity. Do I get excited? Now to be fair, different things will reach different people. When I hear sermons that are just largely application with no historical foundation or anything like that, then yeah, I find it easy to zone out quickly. When I’m at a church service, I often wish we could rush through the music part because many times the songs are often just so shallow and self-focused. I also think that sometimes when they’re not if we paid attention to the words we say, we’d find that we’re really lying. We talk about how much we are in love with Jesus and how much joy He brings and then go home and find joy in everything else but Jesus.

I’d like to tell you I’m a great prayer warrior and someone who read plenty of the Bible every day. I’m not. I read a chapter of the Old Testament and of the New Testament every morning and a verse at night before I go to bed to give me something to think about as well as the reading of a few verses with the Mrs. If I told you that every day of reading the Bible is exciting and I learn something, I’d be lying. For prayer, I have a mentor to help me with this, but it can still be a struggle.

Years ago I remember in preparing to marry Allie, I remember someone telling me that they saw me as a great lover of God when I spoke. It wasn’t just an intellectual thing for me. It was something real. When I hear that, I get amazed. I am the last one who would describe myself as a great lover of God.

The odd thing is, it’s so easy to get excited about nearly everything else. It’s easy to get excited about a new episode of a TV show coming out that we enjoy. It’s easy to be looking forward to that movie. It’s easy to look forward to a time of romance with my wife. I’m not saying we shouldn’t look forward to these things. God gave us plenty of good things for us to enjoy. (1 Tim. 6:17.) Many of you will have your own interests.

You can say you find it hard to really learn the things of God, but how many of you know the statistics of your favorite sports team by heart? How many of you could practically write the strategy guide to your favorite video game? How many of you know all the intricacies of your favorite TV show? It’s honestly not that it’s hard, it’s just that we’re not interested.

I think one reason for this is we’ve grown up so much with Christianity that it’s become familiar. We can often wonder how skeptics don’t see the truth of Christianity, but there is something that they do see that we could bear to see. They see that it’s a radical difference from the main view of the world. We actually believe in a God who works and does miracles and that the second person of the Trinity lived among us, died, and rose again.

Let’s be honest. A lot of stuff we believe is indeed bizarre to think about. We definitely do need good evidence and while I do think we have it, let’s not lose sight of how incredible it is.

There are an endless number of truths that could get us excited every day and reveal the grace of God in our lives. We could think about the wonders of the universe and how God made this grand cosmos so we could have one planet to live on. We could go inward and think about the wonder of our own bodies and how even a tiny cell in our bodies is a living factory. We could also turn and look at our neighbor and realize that our fellow man is always a fascinating story. I have said before that a good producer could take the life story of any living human being and turn it into a highly popular major motion picture. Why? Because people are interesting.

Wonder is just something that we’ve lost. We’ve lost it because we take everything for granted. It’s become a truism for us that Christianity is true and we don’t often look at just how radical it is that Christianity is true. Do we really consider what that means?

Let’s also talk about forgiveness. Think about it. You will never face eternal judgment for all the things you’ve done wrong and you rightly deserve that eternal judgment. God is not going to give you what you deserve. Instead, more often than not, we’re whining because God doesn’t give us something that we want. It has been a great help in my life to realize that God doesn’t owe me a thing unless He’s promised it to me. That makes me more prone to view everything I have as a gift.

When I spoke about Bible reading, we take it for granted. How many of us have Bibles just sitting on our shelves? Do we not realize how many people in persecuted countries would love to have a Bible? If they have just a page of the Bible, they study that constantly hanging on to every word. We treat it like it’s a book just like any other book. We don’t realize what a privilege we have that we can read the Bible.

It is a privilege that you can go to church freely and worship. We in the West often whine about persecution. We really don’t have a clue what real persecution is like. The day that your life is in danger because you go to church because someone wants to kill you for that, I will say you know what persecution is.

I just have to pause and ask myself why is it that I don’t really take the time to appreciate and celebrate the good things that I have. As an apologist, am I more interested in showing Christianity is true than also learning what a difference it makes? I need both. Some of us have strived to be so sure that our doctrine is right that we haven’t bothered to see if our Christian walk is right.

I also don’t want to be legalistic in this. My wife and I still joke about hearing a Christian conspiracy theorist talk about the Pokemon Go game and saying that while some of you are out there playing that, you could be doing evangelism. Of course, that can lead to any number of bizarre ideas. You could take your wife out on a date which is really helpful to your marriage, but you could be doing evangelism. You could go to sleep, but you could be doing evangelism. You could go to church and worship, but you could be doing evangelism. I am not at all saying we are to be machines doing evangelism and nothing else at all.

I am just saying that I want to watch myself and I suspect a lot of you want to watch yourself. I am honestly hopeful that some of you are reading this and saying “I hear you. I could bear to get some joy over Christianity.” I want it to be that when people look at my life, they know that Christ is a passion for me.

If anything else seems like a greater passion, the goal is not to love that less. Not at all. C.S. Lewis said it’s always the goal to love Christ more. What sense does it make to say “I’m going to love X less so that it gets below my love for Christ.”? Why not raise your love for Christ?

I do think apologetics is greatly important for this. It shows us that Christianity is true and not just an idea. Once we know it is true, the onus is on us. What are we going to be doing with that? If we do not let it change the way we live our lives, do we really believe it? Maybe we do, but has it really sunk in?

Our lives are gifts, and God gave us many things that we can enjoy. There are many other gods vying for our attention. Sex, money, food, pleasure, popularity, etc. None of these are evils in themselves. All of them we can enjoy when we do so rightly, but let us never look at any of these as our ultimate. None of them can deliver for all time like Christ did. They are fine when enjoyed as Christ would have us enjoy them, but not when they become gods themselves.

Do I plan on improving myself? Yes. As an apologist it is something I have to do. There are many times our actions speak so loudly our words can’t be heard. How can I convey the importance Christ has in my life if people look at my life and don’t see that importance? (This is in fact one reason I am so pro-marriage. We Christians should be living marriage out the best so that the world will know the fake interpretation of it and think that Christians have the best marriages of all.)

I hope you’ll join me on this quest.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

What Will You Live For?

Is there something out there worth living for? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Sometimes, I encounter people who will make a big deal about how they have enough commitment to die for Christ. Now that is a good thing. I am not knocking that for a moment. I would even hope that I could do that. I am not making a guarantee because I remember Peter in the Bible talked big and then he cowered, and this was a man who had walked with Jesus for years and seen him do miracles. Still, as impressive as it is to die for Christ, there is something even more impressive.

To live for Him.

Instead, we often chase after so many other things. My wife even wrote on this topic just today. Do we really consider Christ worth living for? Well let me try to see by comparing Christ with other things. These things can be good in themselves, but they are not the good.

Wealth

By wealth, I don’t just mean money, but material goods. Again, there’s nothing wrong with material goods and if you have a lot of wealth, you are not an evil person. It could be you are a person God has blessed. If you have a gift of being able to make money, you should enjoy that gift. You should be willing to give to those who are less fortunate, but also you should be able to enjoy what your money can afford. Want to take the wife to Paris for a romantic weekend? Go ahead. Want to get a new Mercedes? Go ahead. It is not a sin to enjoy money if you happen to have it, though again, you should be generous with what you have. God loves a cheerful giver.

But in the end, that money will fade. The Great Depression taught us that money can vanish in an instant. You will not be treasured in the future because you have a lot of money and if you are, it could be that you are being treasured by the wrong people who want you more for your money than they do for you. As the old saying goes, you can’t take it with you. As another one goes, he who dies with the most toys, still dies.

Knowledge

You know, this is a big one with me. I like to go to bed having read something during the day and increased my knowledge. I love learning. I really do. Smart people can also be very liked. You can really impress someone if you know a lot of stuff. Yet Paul did rightly say that knowledge puffs up. All knowledge without love to it is a problem. We are not meant to be robots. If we are working on gaining knowledge, we are often gaining that knowledge towards another end. We want to apply that knowledge somehow in the world to make the world a better place. We dare not do it just for ourselves, which can bring us to another option.

Fame

It’s really nice to see a piece that you wrote be shared in the world. It’s nice to see people quoting you as an authority. It’s good to be liked and admired. There is no wrong in this and I think if people praise you for something legitimate and good, you should be able to delight in that, but you must remember as J.P. Moreland has said, that you’re here to serve a name and not to make one. Now of course, in many ways you do have to sell yourself to serve that name. Still, it is not about you.

Pride is something that I struggle with, though having a wife has certainly helped with that! She doesn’t want a prideful man. What I used to do as an activity to deal with it was to go into my room when I was single and close the door and get on my bed and pray. I would thank God for all He had done for me. I would thank Him that He had given me so many books and a mind capable of handling knowledge and the respect of so many people in the field. I would think of all the things I thought I had done well in my life and give Him thanks. Then after all of this, where I purposely built myself up, I would then say “And who am I to deserve this for it all comes from you?” It would take all the good things that I had going on then and then remind me that everything is really from God. It’s not because I’m so special, but it’s because He’s so special. I felt humbled every time as I remembered that as James says, every good gift comes from the Father above. I am a servant in His Kingdom.

Family

Okay. This is a big one. There is definitely nothing wrong with a family. Family is one of the great goods God has provided and as I have said before, it’s the building block of civilization. You should love your family, yet we know in Scripture that family is to play a subservient role to Christ. If it comes to Christ or our families, we are to choose Christ. Your family is important, but they fallible people and they will let you down. They could also be taken from you at any moment. Sometimes the tragedy of death strikes without warning to people. If you ever put all your hope on one other person, even your own spouse, then you are going to be disappointed. Every person you meet is a finite person who can only do so much.

Sex

If anything is a god in American culture today, it’s sex. Internet pornography is rampant and look at so many of the great debates we have going on in America. They often involve sex in some way. Now I and most married men can understand this idea of living for sex. Hardly anything turns our heads the way the thought of sex does. How many of us men have done stupid stupid things all because we were trying to get the attentions of a girl? Of course, this is not to say women don’t desire sex as well and yes, women will often do stupid things just for a chance to have sex, but men are much more noted for this.

So yeah, sex is great of course, but what if this bizarre thought is true? What if that sex is a pointer to something else? What if the unity with nothing hidden between a man and a woman is meant to point to a unity with nothing hidden with God? In fact, that unity with God is capable of producing new life in us as God gives us His life.

Sex can be a great way to love other people, but if done wrong, it is a great way to use other people. Even if we’re married men and women, we must remember every act of sex is supposed to be a way to say “I love you” to your spouse. In fact, for many men, sex is the loudest way that their wives tell them that they love them. That’s the danger for both sexes. A man can easily say “If I give my wife what she wants, then I can get sex.” A wife can easily say “If I give my husband sex, then I can get what I want.” Both are wrong uses. Sex is supposed to be selfless and total giving with no strings attached.

Pleasure

Along with sex goes pleasure. Now I think play should be an important part of everyone’s life. Believe it or not, there are times I have been reading for awhile and I will stop and just pick up a game and say “I have to have some down time and play.” It’s necessary. Even Ecclesiastes tells us that of writing books there is no end and too much study will make you tired. There are many avenues of pleasure out there and not just sex. There’s sports. There’s food. There’s television. There’s gaming. There are many good things and the reality is these things have been made for us to enjoy.

At the same time, these do follow the law of diminished returns. If you become addicted to these things, it will take more to fill you as the old will not be enough. Get addicted to television and you will need to watch more. Get addicted to food and it will take more food to satisfy you every time. This is also the danger with pornography as it will take more and more to satisfy you. When these things in your life become tyrants, they are horrible tyrants. The only way to break free from them is to stop listening to their demands and to find a new master, but hopefully not one like these.

Pleasure is good, but if you’re just living for that high, it will require more and more. Now this might work if you find something high enough. More on that later.

Morality

Sometimes in the Christian church, we can often have an idea that we are to be good people and that is the point of Christianity. Christians should be good people, but that is not the point. We are good for the honor of God. Meanwhile, our atheist friends will tell us that you don’t need to believe in God to be good. They’re absolutely right. You don’t. The problem is they are also assuming the point of life is to be good. For what end? If you are good and in the end we all die in the cold death of a universe that fizzles out of energy, then what? Of course, there is no knocking being good as we should be. The building up of character however is meant for something beyond us. What does it mean to be good for goodness sake after all?

Love

Love is certainly esteemed as a good today as many things that happen today are said to be okay because of love. Love unfortunately is often confused with sentiment instead of an active seeking of the good of the other for the sake of the other. We are all self-centered in our society so let’s not dare think that somehow we are easily moving past this. If you think love is a feeling, you are going to ruin yourself. Love can produce good feelings, but it is not a feeling. It is an active commitment to the good of another for the sake of that other and there are degrees of love. I love my wife. I love my parents. I love my sister and brothers-in-law. I love my in-laws. I love my friends. I love my extended family. I do not love those all the same way.

Love is good, but again, just like with pleasure, it is only when you find a higher source of love that you find something truly worth living for.

God

Now we come to the big one. At last we have something worth living for. How do we know this? Because God is infinite by definition and therefore, there is no limit to what He can do for us. He is good in nature. He is constant and unchanging so He will always be good. He will always be loving. He will always bring joy ultimately for He is the source of all joy. He alone can carry all of our burdens and He is the one who knows our hearts and He is the only one who can deal with the problem of evil in us that is truly keeping us away from the joy that we do desire.

You see, the reason we chase after these other things is because of the evil in us. These other things can be good, but if we turn them into the greatest good, they become evils for us. All of these things we should enjoy, but let us not lose sight of God.

And could it be we do not delight in God as much because we have made Him so abstract as to be unknowable or made Him so much of our buddy buddy or “Jesus is my boyfriend” kind of thing that we no longer see Him as a sovereign Lord we serve in awe?

And if we want to know who God truly is, well we have to look at Jesus. Philosophy can tell us many things about God and we should use it, but Jesus reveals God to us personally. All good theology must be informed by the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

In the end, with God, we will have something worth living for and if we do not see Him as worth living for, we need to seek to know Him better then.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 4/12/2014: Jay Wesley Richards

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

Jay W. Richards, Ph.D. of The Institute for Faith, Work &

While in the intellectual field my main love is apologetics, I have to admit that I do enjoy discussing economics. That’s one reason I’m certainly looking to the show this Saturday. My guest will be Jay Wesley Richards to talk about his book Money, Greed, and God, which is a Christian defense of capitalism. The review I wrote of it can be found here.

And according to his bio

“Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., is author of many books including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013) and Indivisible (2012). He is also the author of Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem, winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award; and co-author of The Privileged Planet with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.

Richards is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. In recent years he has been Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, Contributing Editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute, a Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute.

Richards has a Ph.D., with honors, in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He also has an M.Div. (Master of Divinity), a Th.M. (Master of Theology), and a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion. He lives with his family in the Washington DC Metro area.”

If you spend a lot of time on the internet, you will see a lot of discussions on economics. Many Christians get in these discussions and have a highly negative view of capitalism. After all, the Bible says that we are to avoid greed. Capitalism is all about the self-interest of the individual and thus is about their greed. Therefore, we should avoid it. It will also just make the poor poorer. Right?

Well, no. That’s not right. Richards in fact believes that capitalism is the more biblical economic system and that capitalism in the long run is what will help the poor. How is it then that a system that’s supposed to be about greed can be defended by an evangelical Christian? You’ll need to listen to find out.

We’ll also no doubt be discussing many contemporary issues right now. Obama is wanting to raise the minimum wage. Is that good or bad for America? Should companies like McDonald’s be required to pay a living wage? What can be done to deal with the economic crisis in our country? How did we get this way in the first place?

With the way our country is, Christians need to have some economic knowledge. After all, we would all agree as Christians that we are to help the poor, but we want to make sure that the methodologies that we’re using will really help the poor.

So join us this Saturday for the Deeper Waters Podcast as we discuss the question of economics in relation to a biblical worldview. The date will be 4/12/2014. The time will be 3-5 PM EST. The call-in number is 714-242-5180. The link can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Money, Greed, and God

What do I think of this book by Jay Wesley Richards? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Economics I find to be an interesting field. I had my first entry into the field with Ron Nash’s lectures on Christian ethics. I then proceeded to read Henry Hazlitt’s book which I still consider essential reading for anyone interested in the topic. I read some of Nash’s other books on the topic as well and would listen to podcasts especially coming from the Austrian school of economics. Apologetics has been my forte, but I wanted to educate myself at least a little bit on economics.

After all, such thinking I understand improves your thinking overall. If you learn to think wise economically, you’re likely to be a wise thinker in many other fields. It requires learning to look at the big picture and think beyond the immediate effects and think instead of the long-term effects. You don’t look at just what the intentions of an action are, for those are quite normally good, but what the actual outcome will be.

When I was given a copy of this book on Kindle by a friend then, I was eager to jump into it. I found it to be an absolute delight. I generally read my Kindle at night and the book got me looking forward to the night time so I could read more of Richards’s book.

Richards starts off with a confession that once he bought into the economic worldview of socialism. He had all the reasons he needed for despising capitalism based on his education. He could also see it based on his Christianity. Doesn’t capitalism encourage greed? Does it not keep the poor poor and the rich rich?

Besides, aren’t Christians people of equality? How can one support a system that produces such inequality and keeps the gap there? Especially if this is a system that is exploiting the poor and in fact, those in third world countries.

Richards was convinced, but then problems started developing in his worldview and he looked closer at the system he had been believing and took a closer look at the capitalistic view that he had rejected and found that lo and behold, the capitalists were the ones that had the best method.

Richards does admit that the world is not perfect economically, but that’s for a good reason. People are not perfect. The problem is not capitalism. The problem is sin. Capitalism is the idea that for Richards best contains the sin problem and the greed problem and enables a society to move forward and help the poor.

It does not work to just give the poor money. Of course, every now and then, someone does need financial support, but we will not get the third world out of the third world by dumping money on them. We will not cure poverty in this country by dumping money on the poor. The way to help the poor is by enabling them to produce their own wealth.

This is simple enough to see. If you give me $1,000,000 and let me do with it what I want, I could go out and buy that much worth of books. I could be said to help the economy a little by putting more money in circulation, but to get somewhere where I am earning back for that, well I’ll still be poor. I could sell the books, but what will I do with the money?

Now let’s suppose instead that I use that money and start my own business and then through that business I start producing wealth. While it won’t be immediately, I will reach the point eventually if I work hard enough that I could surpass the $1,000,000 that you gave me. Not only that, I will likely be hiring people to work with my business so I will be helping them to earn wealth as well. Furthermore, I will be supplying a good or service for people in need so once again, I will be helping others out.

In fact, this is what we call a win-win game. If I sell you something, I get the money that I want from you. On the other hand, you get the product or service that you want from me. Each one of us gets what we want the most. I want the money more than the good or service. You want the good or service more than you want the money.

In all of this, Richards also deals with some myths that are out there and practices believed to help the poor. These include ideas such as why we should buy fair-trade products are why we should be wanting to grant people a living wage. Richards points out that these problems only damage the market and thus buyers and sellers in the long run.

He also deals with biblical objections. Wasn’t the community in Acts 2 communistic? Didn’t Jesus make many statements about freely giving that go against Capitalism? Doesn’t Capitalism in fact encourage greed and isn’t greed necessary for Capitalism? Hasn’t the church always condemned usury?

No. I won’t give you the answers that he gives. I encourage you to read them for yourself, and it should be a good read for you. This book is an easy read and does not use difficult language and terminology that is hard to understand. The examples are every day examples and Richards explains things the best way that he can.

It is with zero hesitation then that I recommend this book. This is the kind of book Christians should read before they say anything about economic theory. The reader of this book will be getting an excellent start in dealing with many of the myths in economics out there.

In Christ,
Nick Peters