CS Lewis is my favorite Christian author; that doesn't mean I always agree with him. His take on the atonement is absolutely wrong. And totally right.
Old heresies never die. They always return repackaged with a new name, a new face. And occasionally someone puts a new spin on one. "You must become a Jew to be saved" was the first error the church confronted. But what would you say to someone who tells you, "Only Jews needed to be saved"?
We're Christians; we follow Christ. So why do we care what anyone else says? Makes sense, but many today ask, "Why do we care what people who aren't Jesus said in the Bible?" Are the red letters more important than the black ones?
I love the red letters, but we cannot be "red letter Christians." The red letters themselves tell us so.
When people attack traditional Christians for being traditional Christians, there are certain standard moves. Whether it's coming from progressive pastors, cafeteria Catholic comedians, or skeptical scientists, one of the favorites is to compare us to the Pharisees, "the people Jesus denounced most harshly". Let's talk about why that falls flat. Let's look at exactly why Jesus was so harsh with the Pharisees.
If you're on any social media platform, you're going to come across memes, clips, cartoons, or other content designed to make people question Christianity. Being a mature, intelligent person, you're tempted to just ignore it and move on. Don't. This is an opportunity to learn, to engage, or to prepare.
Once upon a time, Tim tried to share the gospel with Kim. She asked him how God could be good when there's so much evil in the world. Tim calmly explained the solution to the problem of evil. Kim called him arrogant and stormed off. Confused, Tim asked what he did wrong.
The Bible tells us God loves us, and that's a frequent theme of Christian music, books, and teaching. But theologians also talk about God's "impassibility", that he doesn't have emotions the way we do. So how does God really feel about us?
Let's look at a passage I'm surprised isn't one of the most popular passages in the Bible to answer that question.
It's popular to claim that Christ's story is just a myth, borrowed from myths, and even the first Christians didn't think it all really happened. No one really believed Hercules actually lived. The stories of Adonis and Osiris were to have happened "in the age of legends" or, as we would put it today, "once upon a time." It's silly, they say, for modern Christians to think the gospels recount actual historical events.
It's important for us as Christians to be able to explain why those claims are entirely wrong. Christ's resurrection didn't occur "once upon a time." It was the most important day in history.
There's something puzzling in the scriptures. Sometimes our salvation is spoken of in the past tense, sometimes present tense, and sometimes as future. Isn't that contradictory? How can that all be true?
Some deal with this by proposing that the past refers to our justification, the present to sanctification, and the future to glorification. In some passages, that seems to work. In others it doesn't. Let's look at a way to read those other passages and see if it clears things up.
It's the early second century, and you've been arrested for being a Christian. You're taking the long road from Antioch in Syria to Rome. Your captors decide to remain in one place for a little while. How do you spend the time? Why, writing letters of course.
What would you write about? Religious freedom? Pleas for help? If you're Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, you write about church unity. He wrote to six churches and one bishop to exhort them to stand strong against division and heresy. But the most interesting things in his letters may be his off-hand comments.
Does the devil want me to be bad?
There is an interesting quirk in Christian theology that is easily missed. The average man on the street, even the average believer in the pew, has a view of Satan and temptation that doesn't quite take in the whole picture. Let's poke at it a bit and see if we can get a more nuanced understanding.
The flannel board theology we were all taught is simple: The devil is bad. The devil wants people to go to hell. Sin makes people go to hell. Therefore the devil wants people to sin. I'm going to argue that this view is ... incomplete.
When I was a teenager, the church where I was baptized ran the pastor off, not because of misconduct or poor performance, but because he got on the wrong side of the wrong people. It's the kind of ugliness that can cause church splits (of course, Baptists can split over almost anything) and even make people walk away from the church entirely. It turns out this is nothing new in church history.
I've made it a goal to read the early church fathers, particularly the pre-Constantine writers. I hope to learn from their experience of trying to follow Christ and defend the faith in a pagan culture.
First up, "The Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians," also known as 1Clement*, probably written in the last years of the first century AD.
When we talk about the evidence for Christianity, whether we're trying to encourage the faithful or persuade the unconverted, I don't think we really appreciate the gift we have in James. His story raises a pretty powerful question, one that both doubters and unbelievers would profit from wrestling with.
"The Bible's been translated and re-translated so many times, no one knows what it means."
I was in college the first time I heard those words. The accusations went on: "Modern Bibles just change the King James into modern English, and it was translated from Latin. No one knows what the Bible said when it was written."
It's hard to believe someone can fit so many inaccuracies into such a small space.
Every skeptic isn't necessarily as poorly informed as that person was, but it's still common to hear that we cannot trust the Bible because it's been "translated and re-translated". How do we respond to that?
Picture, if you will, a world in which you have founded a new religion. It does not matter whether the religion is about peace and love or the collection of unusual cabbages. What matters is that you will not write any of the holy books for this religion. Who would you allow to write your new Bible?
I’ve got this friend, let’s call him Bill. He’s had it pretty rough. But we can learn a lot from his tale of woe.
Bill met this girl and fell hard in love. I have no idea what he saw in her. She wasn’t pretty, wasn’t smart, wasn’t even very nice. But he was crazy about her. They got married, and she cheated on him before the ink was dry on the license.
The story of Jonah is a staple of children’s Sunday school classes. However, the big fish gets more of the attention than the theology of the book. As adults, I’m not sure we do it much more justice. The fish goes from an amazing story to a topic of debate. We need to let Jonah teach us an amazing truth about God.
Much of Christian theology is composed of two seemingly competing truths held in tension. Error creeps in when that tension is not maintained. Sometimes this results in heresy. Sometimes this results in misbehavior by the church. And sometimes this results in our failing our children and our culture.
There’s a common misconception among Christians. I’m not entirely sure where it comes from. I used to hold it myself, but I don’t know why. I don’t remember ever being taught it. Perhaps it’s a natural misunderstanding of some biblical truths. But it’s not true, and when we repeat it, we do harm to the cause of Christ and the reputation of our God. So let’s look at it.
When studying the Bible, sometimes noticing the smallest detail can open the passage up to you. And sometimes they reveal little gems of truth that are just casually tucked in beside the author’s main point. We hit upon one of those in our small group recently, and I thought it made an excellent meditation for Christmas.
