Addictions and Other Destructive Behaviors: Sin or Disease?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Personal Strugglesaddiction, disease, illness, lifestyle, self-destruction, sickness, sin

Destructive behavior includes elements of both sin and “disease.” Some people are especially susceptible to particular kinds of destructive behavior. For example, men who abuse women are often reared in families where women were abused. Imbued with contempt for women, they are predisposed to use women as scapegoats for frustration. There is clearly a sense in which this predisposition (or heightened temptation) to debase and abuse women can be called a “sickness,” since it was largely instilled by external influences.

Does this mean that an abuser’s “sickness”—the fact that he has been damaged by sin and is consequently more prone to abuse women than men who haven’t been so damaged—justifies his abusive behavior? Absolutely not! His “sickness” helps us understand his behavior, but doesn’t excuse it. He isn’t merely a victim of outside circumstances, like someone with meningitis or malaria. In spite of the tendencies he inherited, an element of conscious, willful sin is present in every abusive act. Regardless of his background, he is capable of resisting his impulses. No one is so isolated from the laws of society and the influence of conscience that they are completely unaware of the wrongfulness of spouse abuse. Our legal system acknowledges this with the principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Abusers are accountable to society for any violation of laws against spouse abuse. Further, to the extent that an abuser knows his behavior is wrong, he is responsible before God to change.

Some people object to making a distinction between sick internal impulses and sinful actions (willful sin). They say that the impulses and emotions of the abuser are just as sinful as his decision to abuse.

It is true that the evil emotions and impulses of an abuser are not merely sick. They are the results both of original and personal sin and are repulsive and evil in themselves. However, they aren’t sinful in the same sense and to the same degree as a conscious personal decision to act sinfully. (See the ATQ article, Are Christians Held Responsible for Unpremeditated and Unconscious Sins?)

If we condemn sick predispositions as much as sinful decisions and actions, we leave no room for compassion.

Jesus had compassion on sinners (Matthew 9:12-13). He stressed the importance of having compassion on the failures of others:

You wicked servant, he said, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? (Matthew 18:32-33)

The reason Jesus had compassion was due to His awareness that while people are sinners, they are not entirely given over to premeditated evil. There is a sense in which they are also sin’s victims.

And Jesus was going about all the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd. (Mt. 10:35-36)

If we are to be like our Master, we must be able to have compassion upon lost, sinful people, at the same time as we hold them responsible for their premeditated sin.

Am I Sinning When I Feel Attracted to Someone of the Opposite Sex?

Dan Vander Lugt
Ethics, Relationshipsattraction, friendship, infatuation

There is an element of sinfulness that enters into every human thought and desire, a sinfulness that is rooted in the fall. (See the ATQ article How Can Christians Believe that the Human Race Is Depraved?) In a sense, no human desire is untainted with sin. Because an element of evil intrudes into every human interaction and relationship, it is impossible for human beings to achieve absolute purity.

Along with our depravity, our composite physical nature is a factor. Like all animals, humans are physical beings with instinctual sexual/mating desires “hardwired” into us. Because of our instinctual mating desires, it is normal for people to struggle to suppress inappropriate sexual thoughts and feelings towards attractive people of the opposite sex. This is natural.

The Bible makes it clear that although temptation is the result of sin in the sense of it being an aspect of our fallen world, mere temptation isn’t something that God holds us accountable for. Even Jesus experienced temptation (Hebrews 4:15). But though we aren’t accountable for the temptations we experience, the Lord made it clear that we are accountable for sinful responses to temptation—whether it be preferential treatment of the individual or conscious lust (Matthew 5:28-30).

The moment someone consciously sexualizes his admiration of another person’s beauty—transforming admiration into lust—he commits soul-damaging sin that warrants judgment. The willful cultivation of wrongfully sexualized thoughts arouses further destructive sexual feelings that wreak havoc in a person’s spiritual, emotional, and relational life. Sinful responses to instinctive sexual desires increase the power of temptation and result in enslavement to ugly, compulsive behavior.

Are All Jews Perpetually and Universally Responsible for Christ’s Death?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybiblical interpretation, Christ's death, crucifixion, Jewish leaders, Pilate, Sanhedrin

Matthew 27:25 says, “Then the people as a whole answered, ‘His blood be on us and on our children!’ ” Does this verse imply that all Jews are perpetually and universally responsible for Christ’s death?

If Matthew’s account is accurate—and there is powerful textual and historical evidence that it is,¹ this Jewish mob did not and could not speak in behalf of all Jewish people. As verse 20 says, “Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.” This crowd was not a ground swell movement, but rather a mob stirred up by religious leaders who envied Jesus (Matthew 27:18 ).

The rest of the New Testament record combines with history to show that this mob didn’t represent all of the Jews in Israel. It certainly didn’t represent the large number of Jews who admired Jesus, followed Him, and joined the church following His death and resurrection. For this reason alone, it is obvious that all Jews weren’t—and aren’t—uniquely responsible for Jesus’ death. At the same time, while the mob’s collective oath didn’t represent all Jews, it has had implications for the Jewish nation as a whole and for people of all nations.

A high view of scriptural authority makes it impossible to assume that this verse is an “anti-Semitic” addition added by later Christian editors with “an axe to grind,”² or that the declaration by the mob is an insignificant detail of the account.³ From an overall biblical perspective, the mob’s rejection of Christ represents much more than the historically insignificant action of a small group of conspirators. It symbolizes the culmination of Israel’s rejection of God and His prophets. And Israel, in turn, represents the way people of all nations are inclined to reject the light of God’s self-disclosure (Romans 1:18-23).

The account of Stephen’s witness and death in Acts 6:9-8:2 summarizes the case against Israel, the nation uniquely chosen to represent all nations. Stephen, himself a Jewish man, was being prosecuted by the enemies of the gospel for continuing to proclaim the message of Jesus Christ.

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia. These men began to argue with Stephen, but they could not stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke. Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God.” So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.” All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Then the high priest asked him, “Are these charges true?” (Acts 6:8-7:1 NIV).

In response to the high priest’s query, Stephen told the story of the Israelite people, beginning with Abraham. He told how a majority of the children of Israel always rebelled against God and His messengers. Joseph, specially anointed to lead (and rescue) his brothers, was persecuted by them and sold into slavery in Egypt. Moses was also initially rejected by his people, and then was repeatedly resisted and criticized by them after he led them out of Egypt. In spite of God’s special blessing and calling, the Israelites again and again at crucial points in their history rejected the prophets God raised as their spiritual leaders and defenders. Moses, the first and greatest prophet of their tradition, had declared “God will send you a prophet like me from your own people.” When the prophet promised by Moses came to Israel, He was rejected as well.

This is the conclusion of Stephen’s testimony to the Sanhedrin:

“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.” When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 7:51-8:1 NIV).

Anyone familiar with the Law, the prophets, and intertestamental Jewish literature knows that Stephen’s accusation was neither novel nor uniquely Christian (1 Kings 19:10-14; 2 Chronicles 36:15-16; Nehemiah 9:26; Martyrdom of Isaiah 5:1-14). Moses and the prophets made it clear that only after national repentance and renewal would the blessing of God be restored to Israel. Israel, doing what any other nation would have done in her position, rejected Moses and the prophets and finally rejected both the Son of God and His Holy Spirit. John the Baptist described the consequences:

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:7-12 NIV).

Jesus also repeatedly prophesied His rejection by the majority of His contemporary Jewish countrymen (Matthew 8:12; 21:33-41; 23:35, 37-38). For over a thousand years, the Jews were the privileged recipients of the law and the prophets, and their special privilege involved special responsibility (Mark 6:11; Luke 12:35-48; Romans 2:12 ).

God is not mocked. The nation of Israel is a reminder to us that to whom much is given much is also required. As the author of Hebrews shows us, where there is increased knowledge, there is greater responsibility and accountability to God.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the Law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:26-31 NIV).

Lenski defines the spiritual principle behind these verses:

If the blood of Abel cursed impenitent Cain, the blood of Christ must far more curse those who shed it and their children who still consent to that shedding by spurning Christ.

God’s judgment on the Jewish people is not universal or perpetual. Even though it has had special implications for the history of the nation of Israel as a whole, the resulting judgment of God applies only to those in every generation who willfully reject Jesus. During every period of ancient Israel’s history, there was a faithful minority (Exodus 32:7-13; Numbers 14:27-34; Isaiah 10:21-23; Romans 9:27). At the advent of the promised Messiah, there was still a faithful remnant (Romans 11:2-5). There will always be a faithful remnant until the Second Coming of Christ (Romans 11:23-29 ).

The fact that Jesus asked His Father to forgive His executioners (Luke 23:34, echoed by Stephen in Acts 7:60 ) proves beyond question that God does not hold Jewish people solely responsible for the death of Christ.

On the other hand, the mindset that hated Christ enough to murder Him has been preserved within the Judaism that survived the destruction of the Second Temple ⁴, and to a less obvious extent within every other Gentile religious system that rejects Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world (Romans 1). That mindset continues to cloud the vision of those who are reared within its influence.

Yet even after the religion of Abraham, Moses, and the Prophets was replaced by the religion of the Rabbinate, the “oral traditions,” and the Talmud, there remains a faithful remnant among the people of Israel. Millions of courageous Jewish converts to Christianity throughout the centuries attest to this fact.

Is the New Testament Reliable? A Look at the Historical Evidence, Paul Barnett, IVP; The New Testament and the People of God, N.T. Wright, Fortress Press; Jesus and the Victory of God, N.T. Wright, Fortress Press. Back To Article
See the ATQ article, Are New Testament References to Jewish Persecution of Jesus and the Church True? Back To Article
Tyndale Commentary on Matthew: All the people indicates, as McNeile points out, “the Jewish nation” (Greek laos), which “invokes the guilt upon itself.”

Finally, Matthew underlines in obvious ways that the crowd shared the guilt for Jesus’ execution—though he also refuses to let Pilate absolve himself from guilt as easily as he desires. Pilate, who hands Jesus over to the crowd’s wishes, is no less guilty than weak-willed Zedekiah, who hands over Jeremiah in Jeremiah 38:5. By accepting the bloodguilt on themselves and their children, however (cf. 2 Samuel 3:28-29), Matthew’s crowds directly fulfill Jesus’ warning in Matthew 23:29-36, thereby inviting the destruction of their temple at the end of the generation, in their children’s days. They ironically invite a curse against themselves (cf. Jeremiah 42:5 ). Back To Article
During the First Jewish-Roman War, from 600,000 to 1,300,000 Jews were killed. Over 100,000 died during the siege of Jerusalem alone, and nearly 100,000 were taken to Rome as slaves.

Here is Will Durant’s terse description of the consequences of the Bar Kochba rebellion of AD 135:

Under the leadership of Simeon Bar Cocheba, who claimed to be the Messiah, the Jews made their last effort in antiquity to recover their homeland and their freedom. Akiba, who all his life had preached peace, gave his blessing to the revolution by accepting Bar Cocheba as the promised Redeemer. For three years the rebels fought valiantly against the legions; finally they were beaten by lack of food and supplies. The Romans destroyed 985 towns in Palestine, and slew 580,000 men; a still larger number, we are told, perished through starvation, disease, and fire; nearly all Judea was laid waste. Bar Cocheba himself fell in defending Bethar. So many Jews were sold as slaves that their price fell to that of a horse. Thousands hid in underground channels rather than be captured; surrounded by the Romans, they died one by one of hunger, while the living ate the bodies of the dead. Back To Article

Are All Who Haven’t Heard of Christ Damned?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, World ReligionsChrist, eternal suffering, Hell, judgment, redemption

In John 14:6 Jesus declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus’ words make it clear that He alone has brought God’s gift of salvation to the world. But do His words also mean that everyone who hasn’t heard of Him will be condemned to hell?

Abraham lived long before Christ. When he told Isaac that God would provide a sacrifice, his words were strikingly prophetic, but he didn’t understand their true significance. He knew nothing about the Lamb of God who would die on a cross nearly 2,000 years later. People like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Job, Melchizedek, Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob never heard the gospel, yet Hebrews 11:13 leaves no doubt that they will be in heaven.

No one in Old Testament times had a clear understanding of the role that Jesus Christ would someday play in atoning for sin. But centuries before the gospel was revealed, the faith of Old Testament believers was already “credited to them as righteousness” ( Genesis 15:6; Psalm 106:31; Galatians 3:6 ).

One of the most remarkable missionary stories of this century was the martyrdom of five young missionaries in Ecuador and the conversion of the Auca Indians. The first convert from the Auca tribe was a young woman named Dayuma. Remarkably, Dayuma was predisposed to accept the gospel because of her father’s influence. Although he had never heard the name of Jesus, he spoke out against the blood feuds and murder that were an Auca way of life. Unlike the others of his tribe, he was deeply conscious of his sinfulness and knew that he and his people needed forgiveness. He told Dayuma that some day God would send a messenger to the Aucas to tell them the way of salvation. Like Old Testament believers, Dayuma’s father was still living by faith when he died ( Hebrews 11:13 ). The witness of his life implies that he would have been overjoyed to hear the gospel, but he died before missionaries came.

Does Scripture give us grounds for insisting that Dayuma’s father is any different in God’s eyes than the believers of the Old Testament? Clearly, Dayuma’s father, like Abraham, would face eternal damnation apart from Christ’s shed blood. Apparent, too, is the desperate spiritual need of those, like the Auca people, who live in fear and spiritual darkness. The fact that Christ is the only way to God places on us the responsibility to make Him known to all.

Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles asked:

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? (Romans 10:13-14).

But there isn’t a passage of Scripture that definitively proves that God looks upon Dayuma’s father differently than He looked upon Old Testament believers who had only a faint idea of the nature of coming redemption. (See the ATQ article, How Could Old Testament People Be Saved?) The apostle Paul may have had this issue in mind when he wrote the first chapters of Romans, declaring that God has revealed Himself in creation ( Romans 1:18-20 ) and in human conscience ( Romans 2:12-16 ). Paul said that each individual will be judged according to his response to these two revelations of God. To those who respond positively, God gives more knowledge—as He did to the Ethiopian eunuch and the Roman centurion, Cornelius (see Acts 8,10 ). Those who are lost will be judged according to their response to the spiritual light they have received ( Hebrews 4:12-13 ). ¹

It may be that God will extend His grace to Dayuma’s father on the basis of Christ’s shed blood, just as He did to Enoch, Melchizedek, Job, Abraham, and Sarah—people who had only the faintest intimation of the means by which God would provide for their redemption. In the final analysis, we must leave this matter in God’s keeping. He is both just and loving. We can be assured that the Judge of all the earth will do right ( Genesis 18:25 ).

(See the ATQ article, How Can Christianity Claim To Be the Only Way to God?)

Jesus made it clear that those who had little light will be punished lightly:
That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked ( Luke 12:47-48 ). Back To Article

Are doubts a sign of a weak faith?

Dennis Moles
Basics Of Faith, Christian lifecertainty, doubt, faith, questions, relationships

I’m a believer—a Christian. I’m a “lifer” and an insider. I was born into a Christian home. I have Christian parents. I’ve gone to church all my life.

I’m also a doubter.

Over the years I’ve had many troubling questions: How do I know God exists? Can I be sure Christianity is right? How can there be an all-loving and all-powerful God when there is so much evil in the world? Can I really trust that the Bible is true?

For most of my life I’ve walked in a place of doubt-plagued faith. And while I’ve never stopped believing, I have stopped pretending that I have all the answers. I’ve come to believe that not all doubt is an enemy of faith. Sincere doubts can be an indispensable part of each person’s faith journey.

If we never doubt, we never question. If we never question, we never change. And if we never change, we never grow.

Just before I graduated from seminary, I had a conversation with my 80-year-old grandfather that changed how I think about doubt.

Poppaw had called to congratulate me on my upcoming graduation. He asked about the kids. I asked if he had been fishing. He talked about getting the old boat in the river. And then the conversation took an unexpected turn.

“Son [my grandfather called me son], I need to ask you a question.” He paused. “Can I trust the Bible? I mean, does the Bible I read in English say the same thing as the original Bible says?”

Up until this point I thought my doubts were a sign that my faith was weak. Frankly, that was part of my reason for going to seminary in the first place. I thought if I could just accumulate enough information, then all my doubts would be crushed under the weight of overwhelming information. But at the end of his faith journey here was Poppaw—one of the most faithful Christ-followers I have ever known—struggling to believe despite his doubt.

That day I began to wonder if I had misdiagnosed the problem. Maybe my doubts weren’t the problem. Maybe they were part of the solution.

Are People Who Divorce and Remarry Without Biblical Grounds Living in a State of Adultery?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, EthicsAdultery, divorce, R, remarriage

Are people who remarry after a divorce on grounds less than sexual infidelity or abandonment living in adultery? The answer seems to be no. The words of Christ— “Anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32)—are in the aorist tense, indicating action specific in time, completed when it occurs. A couple divorced on less than biblical grounds commit adultery when they remarry, but their new marriage is valid.

The New Testament never instructs divorced and remarried people who become Christians to break up their latest marriage, something we might expect if people who remarry after a divorce are considered to be living in a state of perpetual adultery. In fact, Paul definitely instructed married Christians to remain in their present state if at all possible (1 Corinthians 7:15-24). Jesus acknowledged that the Samaritan woman had lived with five husbands, recognizing each marriage contract as a bona fide union (John 4).

Christians commit the sin of adultery when they remarry after a divorce that’s not based on infidelity, but once a new marriage begins they do not live in a continuing state of adultery.

Are some sins more wrong than others?

Questions.org Staff
Basics Of Faith, Bible, Christian life, Christianityforgiveness, grace, humility, sin

Many of us have a tendency to judge certain sins as worse than others. We say, “I have my struggles, but at least I don’t struggle with that.”

Surely some attitudes and behaviors carry the potential for greater, far-reaching consequences than others. But that does not make one set of sins worse than another. The New Testament calls us to take all sin seriously:

Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law. (James 2:8–9 nlt)

James, the author of these words, does not seem to be setting up a hierarchy of sins. He wrote to people who were guilty of such things as favoring the rich over the poor,[1] and he is confronting the self-righteous attitudes of those who don’t feel they have sinned enough to need God’s grace. He told his readers that this kind of thinking is not only prideful but also self-deceiving. Everyone sins and needs God’s grace.

The mercy of God is not just for those who commit obvious and heinous kinds of sin. A person who doesn’t murder or commit adultery but shows partiality to the rich while ignoring the poor is a lawbreaker, too.

Sin is a struggle for all of us. And none of us have reason to feel superior to those who sin in ways we don’t. Most of all, let us never forget that our gracious God longs to extend His hand of mercy to all.

[1] James 2:1-4

Are the Ten Commandments for Christians?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Contemporary Issues, Ethicslaw, morality, Ten Commandments

The Mosaic Law, including the Ten Commandments, was given to the people of Israel (Exodus 20:1-17), not Gentiles. It included both moral principles and ceremonial laws and regulations. It was intended to bring awareness of sin and guilt (Romans 3:19-20; 7:7-13; 1 Timothy 1:7-11), not to be a way of earning salvation. (Hebrews 11 explains how Abraham was saved by faith long before the law was given through Moses.)

The Jews referred to the Ten Commandments as “the ten words” (Deuteronomy 4:13). They were the basis of the entire Mosaic system, and as such they contain principles that remain the foundation of Christian ethics.

Christ fulfilled the requirements of the law (Romans 5:5; 8:1-4), so that Christians are no longer under the external Law of Moses (Galatians 3:1-14; Colossians 2:8-17). The Ten Commandments contain elements of ceremonial law. Christians aren’t required to follow these. Yet, when obedient to the Holy Spirit, Christians manifest God’s love and righteousness in harmony with the Ten Commandments’ moral principles (Romans 13:8-10).¹

The works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit listed by the apostle Paul in Galatians 5 demonstrate clearly how impossible it would be to live a Spirit-filled life while violating the moral principles within the Ten Commandments. Back To Article

Are There Any Biblical Grounds for Divorce and Remarriage?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethicsbiblical grounds, divorce, marriage, remarriage, separation

While the Scriptures take the marriage covenant very seriously, they permit divorce and remarriage in some situations. To learn exactly what these circumstances are, we’ll begin with the Old Testament regulations of divorce and remarriage. Then we’ll consider the words of Jesus on this subject. And finally, we’ll look at the instructions given by the apostle Paul.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 tells us that when a man finds “some uncleanness” in his wife, divorces her, and they both marry new mates, they cannot ever undo this new marriage to remarry each other.¹

We know little about the rate of divorce in Israel between the time of Moses and the exile into Babylon over a thousand years later. However, at the beginning of the New Testament era, men were divorcing their wives for the most trivial reasons imaginable. In the rabbinical literature of that time, burning a husband’s food was listed as grounds for divorce! While the conservative school of Shammai taught that the provision of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 required a serious moral violation, most rabbis belonged to the far more lenient school of Hillel. In their view, any man who wanted a divorce should be able to obtain one easily. Even the rabbis who followed Shammai believed that it was violation of a man’s masculinity to live as a celibate. In practice, therefore, both schools advocated remarriage for any single male, no matter what the grounds for his divorce were. ²

Of course, while this may have been the rabbinical consensus, it certainly doesn’t reflect the biblical view of marriage! The rabbinical schools of Christ’s day were often wrong in their interpretation of the Old Testament. They made the Law into a works system for salvation and created loopholes by which clever people could get away with terrible wrongs. It appears that these Jewish scholars, all of whom prided themselves on their loyalty to Moses, were often out of tune with the deep spirituality of the Law.

In this cultural and religious context, the Lord’s statement that people who divorced on lesser grounds committed adultery when they remarried was shocking. It even amazed the disciples, as evidenced by their response ³ ( Matthew 19:10 ). Jesus’ teaching clearly ran contrary to the easy-going divorce and remarriage customs of His time. He declared that the only grounds for a valid divorce was porneia (sexual immorality—Matthew 5:32 ), a term that encompassed a broad range of sexual sins. Later, Paul added another legitimate reason for divorce—the willful desertion of a Christian by a non-Christian mate ( 1 Corinthians 7:15 ).

While the New Testament explicitly makes both sexual infidelity and desertion by an unbeliever grounds for a Christian’s divorce and remarriage, it doesn’t offer a detailed description of how a Christian should deal with an intolerable marital situation that doesn’t involve either of these circumstances. It appears that Paul had such situations in mind when he wrote:

To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife (1 Corinthians 7:10-11).

To sum up, there is general agreement among evangelicals that apart from the death of a mate, the New Testament gives only two situations in which a marriage can be terminated with the right to remarry: illicit sexual activity, and abandonment by an unbelieving mate. There are no other rightful grounds. Although it may be necessary in some other situations for a Christian to separate from or divorce his or her mate, Scripture requires him or her to remain unmarried until reconciled. From the very beginning, God recognized the profound value of unconditional commitment between spouses in marriage. He mercifully provided a way out of relationships that have already been shattered by adultery and abandonment, but He never intended an “easy out.”

This raises three questions:
a. What is the “uncleanness” that apparently gave the husband grounds to divorce his wife?
The meaning of the term “some uncleanness” is not clear. The expression is often translated “nakedness” or “something shameful.” Basically, we don’t know all that the term represented, but it must have been a serious matter short of adultery.b. What is the reason for the restriction that they could never remarry each other?
No reason is given for the restriction forbidding the remarriage of two people once they had entered a new marriage. It certainly would prevent a man from divorcing his wife and marrying another woman as an experiment, thinking he could obtain a second divorce and return to his first mate if he chose to do.

c. Why did the Law of Moses permit this disruption of a marriage?
Jesus Himself stated that the Mosaic law allowed divorce “because of the hardness” of men’s hearts (Matthew 19:8). Because of the strongly patriarchal nature of ancient Israeli society, if a man disliked his wife for any reason, he had the power to make her life unbearable. He could marry other wives, treat them with respect and favoritism, and treat his first wife like a slave. If he did, she had no recourse other than to call upon the support of her family. Back To Article
In Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament under the discussion of porneia, we are given evidence that even the strict school of Shammai believed it to be shameful for a divorced man to remain unmarried. Interestingly, according to Kittel, the school of Shammai taught that a sexual offense of some kind was the only grounds for divorce, but it advocated remarriage for all divorced men, even for those who obtained their divorce on trivial grounds. It appears that these Jewish scholars were convinced that almost all unmarried men would find sexual release somewhere, and that the best solution was a new marriage. Back To Article
Since Jewish culture considered it shameful for a man to remain unmarried after either the death of a spouse or a divorce, divorced men of that time quickly married new mates, regardless of the circumstances of the divorce. Back To Article

Are Today’s Jews the Physical Descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Israelite Tribes?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issues, World Religions

Israel is the name God gave Jacob on the night he wrestled with the angel (Genesis 32:28). As a group, his sons along with the 12 tribes that descended from them inherited the name. Although Israel always accepted proselytes,¹ it was at first largely made up of people physically descended from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. Eventually the term “Israelite” was replaced by the term “Jew” (Yehudi), derived from the kingdom of Judah (Yehuda), the southern Israelite kingdom that retained its independence for approximately 135 years after Assyria conquered the northern kingdom and took its leading citizens into captivity.

After the fall of the kingdom of Judah, Judaism (the Israelite religion) continued to be open to Gentile converts. The book of Esther mentions one such occasion.

“In every province and city, wherever the king’s command and decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a holiday. Then many of the people of the land became Jews, because fear of the Jews fell upon them” (8:17 nkjv).

Soon after the conversions described in Esther, Alexander’s conquests established a common Hellenistic culture around the Mediterranean, exposing pagans to Jewish religion and lifestyle. Judaism became a vibrant missionary faith. Many thousands of Gentiles became God-fearers and converts.²

During the third and second centuries BC, a group of Greek-speaking Hebrew scholars in Alexandria translated the Bible into Greek (the Septuagint) so that it would be available in the common language of commerce and culture. Philo and other Jewish apologists strove to explain Israel’s faith to the Gentile world. They wrote intertestamental books—including those in the Apocrypha—that described the superiority of their God.³ The proselytizing zeal of the Jews was still strong during Jesus’ ministry.⁴ Most Gentiles who converted to Judaism did so because Israel’s God offered both a superior way of life and the hope of resurrection. Some, like the Edomites and Itureans, were forcibly converted by Jewish rulers.⁵ There were about six million Jews throughout the Roman Empire when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, of whom a large proportion were converts or descendants of converts. Regardless of their pedigree, all Jews identified with the symbols and story of Israel and hoped that Messiah would come to initiate the longed-for days of blessing and restoration. But when He appeared, many didn’t accept Him (John 1:11).

Two thousand years have brought significant religious and demographic changes to non-Christian people who identify with the Hebrew tradition. A majority of the Jews in the Roman Empire probably converted to Christianity during the first five centuries ad ⁶ following the official Jewish expulsion of Christians from synagogue worship.⁷ It is a common misunderstanding that following the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in the Jewish-Roman wars of ad 70 and 135, the Jews of Palestine were driven from the land as a people and that modern diaspora Jews are their descendents. Actually, there never was a great “dispersion” or “mass exile” of Jews following the Jewish-Roman wars of ad 70 and 135. Most of the Jews were “people of the land” (Am Ha’aretz), peasant farmers generally indifferent to politics but devoted to their homeland. Keeping a low profile, they remained in Palestine, many becoming Christians and Muslims under Byzantine and Arab rule. As mentioned earlier, Jews of the Diaspora, including the ancestors of today’s northern European, Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim, continued to be largely the descendents of proselytes. Today, dark-eyed, brown-skinned Palestinians are more likely to be Abraham’s physical descendents than the light-skinned northern European Ashkenazim displacing them. This has been acknowledged by Jewish historians, including two of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Zvi:

To argue that after the conquest of Jerusalem by Titus and the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt Jews altogether ceased to cultivate the land of Eretz Israel is to demonstrate complete ignorance in the history and the contemporary literature of Israel . . . The Jewish farmer, like any other farmer, was not easily torn from his soil, which had been watered with his sweat and the sweat of his forebears . . . Despite the repression and suffering, the rural population remained unchanged” (Eretz Israel in the Past and in the Present, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 1979; in Hebrew, translated by Sand, p.198).

The fellahin [Arabic-speaking Palestinian peasants] are not descendants of the Arab conquerors, who captured EretzIsrael and Syria in the seventh century CE. The Arab victors did not destroy the agricultural population they found in the country. They expelled only the alien Byzantine rulers, and did not touch the local population. Nor did the Arabs go in for settlement. Even in their former habitations, the Arabians did not engage in farming . . . They did not seek new lands on which to settle their peasantry, which hardly existed. Their whole interest in the new countries was political, religious and material: to rule, to propagate Islam and to collect taxes (Ibid., p.196).

If Jewishness were determined by the preponderance of patriarchal genes alone, the people we know today as Jews would be a significantly different group. The myth that the dominant group of modern Jews—the Ashkenazim—are uniquely the descendents of Abraham creates a tribal idolatry. Even among Christians, it encourages new manifestations of the Judaizing spirit that the apostles battled in the first century.

Although today’s Jews still identify with the Israel of the Old Testament, they are not uniquely the descendants of the patriarchs, and their rejection of Jesus has locked their focus on the tribal aspects of the Old Testament tradition while distancing them from the universal message of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus said, “The last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). Israel was formally the primary witness for God in the world, but the members of this judicially blinded group remain the most opposed to His universal plan. When Israel repents its corporate rebellion, it will be “life from the dead.” The elect Jews will be freed from their judicial blindness, and their desperate faith in a tribal God will be transformed into passion for the salvation of the entire human race.

Even though they are not unique “people” in a genetic sense, and have no “rights” they can demand from the Lord (including the “right” to return the ancient Hebrew homeland, displace or drive out its current inhabitants, and establish a Jewish state), both the Old and New Testament testify of God’s love for the Jews and His desire to restore them when they humbly submit to Him and the Messiah He has sent.

Some examples: Joseph married Asenath, an Egyptian priest’s daughter (Genesis 41:45,50; 46:20). She bore him sons Manasseh and Ephraim. Moses married Zipporah, the daughter of a Midianite (Exodus 2:21). She may have been partially of African descent (Numbers 12:1). She bore Moses two sons: Gershon and Eliezer (Exodus 18:3-4). During the period of the judges, the Israelites intermarried extensively with the surrounding nations (Judges 3:5). Jesse’s wife, the mother of Israel’s great King David, was probably a Moabite. King David himself took the daughter of the king of Geshur as one of his wives. King Solomon was notorious for the number and variety of his wives: Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites (1 Kings 11:1-3). Other kings and commoners married foreigners, including the notorious daughter of a Phoenician king, Jezebel, wife of Ahab. Back To Article
It would not be an exaggeration to say that but for the symbiosis between Judaism and Hellenism, which, more than anything, turned the former into a dynamic, propagative religion for more than 300 years, the number of Jews in today’s world would be roughly the same as the number of Samaritans. Hellenism altered and invigorated the high culture of the kingdom of Judea. This historical development enabled the Jewish religion to mount the Greek eagle and traverse the Mediterranean world.The conversions carried out by the Hasmonean kingdom were only a small part of a far more significant phenomenon that began in the early second century BCE. The pagan world was already beginning to rethink its beliefs and values when Judaism launched its campaign of proselytization and became one of the factors that prepared the ground for the great Christian revolution. Judaism did not yet produce professional missionaries, as its younger sibling would do before long, but its encounter with the philosophies of the Stoic and Epicurean schools gave birth to a new literature that demonstrated a strong desire to win souls (Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People, p.161). Back To Article
See Ibid., pp.162-164. Back To Article
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves” (Matthew 23:15 nkjv, see also Acts 2:10). Back To Article
“In 125 BCE Yohanan Hyrcanus conquered Edom, the country that spread south of Beth-zur and Ein Gedi as far a Beersheba, and Judaized its inhabitants by force. Josephus described it in Antiquities of the Jews:Hyrcanus took also Dora and Marissa, cities of Idumea, and subdued all the Idumeans; and permitted them to stay in that country, if they would circumcise their genitals, and make use of the laws of the Jews; and they were so desirous of living in the country of their forefathers, that they submitted to the use of circumcision, and of the rest of the Jewish ways of living, at which time therefore this befell them, that they were hereafter no other than Jews.Thus did the ruling Hasmonean high priest annex an entire people not only to his kingdom but also to his Jewish religion. Henceforth, the Edomite people would be seen as an integral part of the Jewish people” (Sand, TIOTJP, pp.157-158).“In 104-103 BCE Judas Aristobulus [son of Yohanan Hyrcanus] annexed the Galilee to Judeaand forced its Iturean inhabitants, who populated the northern region, to convert to Judaism. According to Josephus, ‘He was called a lover of the Grecians; and had conferred many benefits on his own country, and made war against Ituraea, and added a great part of it to Judea, and compelled the inhabitants, if they would continue in that country, to be circumcised, and to live according to the Jewish laws’” (TIOTJP, Sand, 159). Back To Article
The systematic expulsion of Christian Jews from Judaism occurred prior to the Bar Kochba revolt. See below.“In the oldest Palestinian version of the 12^th benediction of the Prayer of Eighteen Benedictions, now known to us through the findings in the Cairo Geniza, Nazarines and minim are mentioned together: ‘May the Nazarenes (Christians) and heretics perish in a moment, be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the just.’ The introduction of this benediction into the Shemone Esre and therewith into the liturgy by R. Gamaliel II c. ad 90 carried with it a definitive breach between the Chr. Church and Judaism. From then on cursing the Nazarenes became an integral part of synagogue worship and the daily prayer of every Jew. Precisely in this benediction very great care was taken to see that the cursing of the minim was done correctly and without abbreviation. Attending the synagogue and taking part in its worship thus became impossible for Christians. Complete separation resulted. In future confession of Jesus Christ meant excommunication and expulsion from Judaism. The Johannine statements belong to this period” (Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 7, p. 850). Back To Article
Scholars generally agree that in the first century there were approximately six million Jews in the Roman Empire. That was about one tenth of the entire population. About one million were in Palestine, including today’s State of Israel, while those in the Diaspora were very much part of the establishment in cities such as Alexandria and Constantinople. At one point Klinghoffer acknowledges that, during the life of Jesus, only a minuscule minority of Jews either accepted or rejected Jesus, for the simple reason that most Jews had not heard of him. Some scholars have noted that, by the fourth or fifth century, there were only a few hundred thousand, at most a million, people who identified themselves as Jews. What happened to the millions of others? The most likely answer, it is suggested, is that they became Christians. What if the great majority of Jews did not reject Jesus? That throws into question both the title of the book and Klinghoffer’s central thesis. The question can be avoided only by the definitional legerdemain of counting as Jews only those who rejected Jesus and continued to ally themselves with rabbinical Judaism’s account of the history of Israel (Richard John Neuhaus, “Why the Jews Did or Did Not Reject Jesus,” First Things).To begin with, a few definitions: Who is a Jew? A Jew is anyone who has a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism in conformity with Halacha, Jewish religious law. This definition alone excludes racism. Judaism does not seek converts, but those who do convert are accepted on a basis of equality. Let us see how far this goes. Some of the most eminent and respected rabbis were converts to Judaism. Jewish parents throughout the world bless their children every Sabbath and holiday eve, and they have done it in the same way for millennia. If the children are girls, the blessing is, “May G-d let you be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.” Not one of these matriarchs was born a Jewess; they were all converts to Judaism. If the children are boys, the blessing is, “May G-d let you be like Ephraim and Menashe.” The mother of these two was an Egyptian woman who became Jewish and had married Joseph. Moses himself, the greatest Jew who ever lived, married a Midianite woman who became Jewish.Finally, the Tenach, the holy writings of the Jew, contains the book of Ruth. This woman was not only not Jewish by birth, but she came from the Moabites, traditional enemies of the Jewish people. This book describes Ruth’s conversion to Judaism and is read annually on the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah, the “Law,” i.e., the Pentateuch. At its very end, the book of Ruth traces the ancestry of King David, the greatest king the Jews ever had, to Ruth, his great-grandmother.Apart from the Zionists, the only ones who consistently considered the Jews a race were the Nazis. And they only served to prove the stupidity and irrationality of racism. There was no way to prove racially whether a Mrs. Muller or a Mr. Meyer were Jews or Aryans (the Nazi term for non-Jewish Germans). The only way to decide whether a person was Jewish was to trace the religious affiliation of the parents or grandparents. So much for this racial nonsense. Racial pride has been the downfall of those Jews in the past who were blinded by their own narrow-minded chauvinism.
This brings us to a second definition. Is there a Jewish people? If so, what is its mission? Let us make this completely clear: The Jewish nation was not born or reconstituted a generation ago by some Zionist politicians. The Jewish nation was born on Mount Sinai when the Jews by their response, “let us do and let us hear,” adopted the Torah given to them by G-d for all future generations. “This day you become a people,” though valid still today, was spoken thousands of years ago. (Quotation from Neturei Karta, “The Difference Between Judaism and Zionism”). Back To Article

As Oral Recollections, Can the Gospels Be Historically Accurate?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybiblical inspiration, Christ, historical Jesus, history, inspiration, reliability of scripture, scriptural authority

Christians have always believed that though serious questions could be raised about the Gospels, the things recorded in them were true. From the beginning of the church, when the original witnesses of Jesus’ life and ministry were alive, to the beginning of the scientific era, there have always been thoughtful people who realized the astounding, unprecedented nature of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, as modernism came into full bloom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and naturalistic assumptions peaked, many scholars believed that the kinds of miracles described in the Gospels could not have occurred. Influential modernist biblical scholars assumed that miracles simply couldn’t have occurred as described in the Gospels. Explanations usually involved the assumption that some kind of sociological and psychological process could make memories of admired historical figures like Jesus evolve into legends. (See the ATQ article, Do the Gospels’ Miracles Make Them Legendary Accounts?)

These early 20th-century scholars didn’t realize how reliable oral accounts of important events can be. They had little understanding of how accounts of historical events in primarily oral cultures are regularly preserved and passed along with great accuracy.

One of the misunderstandings held by these modernist scholars was that the events of Jesus’ life would have existed only as brief vignettes—“snapshots”—in the memories of individual witnesses of Jesus’ life. They assumed that no overall story/narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry could have existed in the first generation following His death, but that later generations would have combined isolated fragments of earlier witnesses’ testimony about Jesus into a written account. In their view, the written narrative would be more of a reflection of the theological needs and imagination of a later generation than a historically accurate description of Jesus’ life and ministry.

More than a century has passed since Rudolf Bultmann, Albert Schweitzer, and other famous biblical scholars first discounted miracles in the Gospels with the “legendary Jesus” hypothesis. Although our culture has moved from modernism to postmodernism, and naturalism is being supplanted by a more nuanced and complex view of reality, many scholars still rely on variations of their “legendary Jesus” hypothesis. Unlike the modernist scholars of earlier generations, however, contemporary scholars can only continue believing in a “legendary Jesus” by ignoring widely available evidence.¹

The basis for believing that a primarily oral culture is incapable of preserving accurate historical traditions has been eliminated. Careful anthropological studies have discredited modernist assumptions that only fragmented memories can be passed along from a first generation of witnesses to subsequent generations and that a unified narrative would be formed much later by people less concerned with historical accuracy than their own theological and cultural needs. Exhaustive studies by folklorists have uncovered examples in cultures all over the world of faithful oral transmission of long narratives, some taking as long as 25 hours to recite. These narratives typically contain “a longer narrative plot line together with various smaller units that compose the bulk of the story in any given performance.” When the subject matter is of great significance to the group, not only the storyteller but the whole community becomes its guardian.²

Evidence regarding accurate oral transmission of long narratives is only one aspect of new discoveries that confirm taking the Gospels seriously as historical narrative. Other important evidence can be found in memory studies that show the degree to which memory can be trusted, the circumstances in which people remember things accurately, and the kinds of things that are best remembered. These have shown that the kinds of things that are most likely to be remembered—unique or unusual events, salient or consequential events, events in which a person is emotionally involved, events involving vivid imagery, events that are frequently “rehearsed” (retold)—are just the kinds of events common to the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and ministry (Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, chap. 13). Memory studies have also shown that “recollection is usually accurate as far as the central features of an event are concerned but often unreliable in remembering peripheral details” (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, p. 356). It was exactly the central features of Jesus’ ministry that would have been most important to the eyewitnesses who recalled His story. ³

It has become clear that the first generation of witnesses would have provided a comprehensive narrative of Jesus’ life and ministry. The actual witnesses, not the third- or fourth-generation Christian community, were responsible for the content of the Gospels.⁴

Early form critics such as Bultmann took it for granted that folk traditions consisted almost exclusively of short vignettes. How could longer narratives, to say nothing of epics, be remembered and transmitted intact orally? While this view is still prevalent today among many in New Testament circles, a significant number of folklorists, anthropologists, and ethnographers over the last several decades have justifiably abandoned it. The reason for this reversal is that empirical evidence has shown it to be wrong. A large number of fieldwork studies have “brought to light numerous long oral epics in the living traditions of Central Asia, India, Africa, and Oceania, for example.” Hence, as the famed Finnish folklorist Luari Honko recently noted: “The existence of genuine long oral epics can no longer be denied.” In fact, amazingly, scholars have documented oral narratives whose performance has lasted up to 25 hours carried out over several days.
The performances of oral narratives within orally dominant cultures tend to share fundamental characteristics. Oral performances are almost always composed of a longer narrative plot line together with various smaller units that compose the bulk of the story in any given performance. Because of their length, the long narrative plot line is almost never played out fully in any single performance. Moreover, the degree of detail in which the narrative is played out varies considerably from performance to performance, depending largely on the particular situation of the audience. The narrative schematic itself functions as something of a “mental text” (to use Honko’s phrase) within the mind of the performer, one that is “edited” for each particular performance. There is also a significant degree of flexibility in terms of the placement, order, and length of the smaller units of tradition that fill out the narrative in any given performance. This too largely depends on the purpose, context, and time constraints of the performance in the light of the situation of the community (The Jesus Legend, pp. 252-54). Back To Article
Communities that are predominately oral have ways of preserving traditions faithfully when the character and use of these traditions make this desirable. Such communities have ways of checking oral performances for accuracy. Jan Vansina writes:

Where . . . the performers intend to stick as closely as possible to the message related and to avoid lapses of memory or distortion, the pace of change can almost be stopped. In some cases controls over the faithfulness of the performance were set up and sanctions or rewards meted out to the performers. . . . In Polynesia ritual sanctions were brought to bear in the case of failure to be word-perfect. When bystanders perceived a mistake, the ceremony was abandoned. In New Zealand it was believed that a single mistake in performance was enough to strike the performer dead. Similar sanctions were found in Hawaii. . . . Such . . . beliefs had visible effects. Thus in Hawaii a hymn of 618 lines was recorded which was identical with a version collected on the neighboring island of Oahu. . . . Sometimes controllers were appointed to check important performances. In Rwanda the controllers of Ubwiiru esoteric liturgical texts were the other performers entitled to recite it.

In the early Christian movement, we may suppose that the authorized tradents of the tradition performed this role of controllers, but among them the eyewitnesses would surely have been the most important. We must remind ourselves, as we have quite often had occasion to do, that Vansina and other writers about oral tradition are describing processes of transmission over several generations, whereas in the case of the early church up to the writing of the Gospels, we are considering the preservation of the testimony of the eyewitnesses during their own lifetimes. They are the obvious people to have controlled this in the interests of faithful preservation.

In favor of this role of the eyewitnesses, we should note that the early Christian movement, though geographically widely spread, was a network of close communication, in which individual communities were in frequent touch with others and in which many individual leaders traveled frequently and widely. I have provided detailed evidence of this elsewhere. First or secondhand contact with eyewitnesses would not have been unusual. (The community addressed in Hebrews had evidently received the gospel traditions directly from eyewitnesses: see 2:3-4.) Many Jewish Christians from many places would doubtless have continued the custom of visiting Jerusalem for the festivals and so would have had the opportunity to hear the traditions of the Twelve from members of the Twelve themselves while there were still some resident in Jerusalem. Individual eyewitnesses of importance, such as Peter or Thomas, would have had their own disciples, who (like Mark in Peter’s case) were familiar enough with their teacher’s rehearsal of Jesus traditions to be able to check, as well as to pass on, the traditions transmitted in that eyewitness’s name as they themselves traveled around. This is the situation envisaged in the fragment of Papias’s Prologue from which we began our investigations in chapter 2 (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, pp. 305-306). Back To Article
The aspects of testimony in court that have led psychologists to question its accuracy in significant respects bear scarcely at all on the kind of eyewitness testimony with which we are concerned in the Gospels. The witnesses in these cases were not mere uninvolved bystanders, but participants in the events. What their testimonies needed to convey were not peripheral details but the central gist of the events they recalled. They were not required to recall faces (so important in modern legal trials), nor were they pressed to remember what did not easily come to mind.
It is worth quoting again Alan Baddeley’s assessment:

Much of our autobiographical recollection of the past is reasonably free of error, provided that we stick to remembering the broad outline of events. Errors begin to occur once we try to force ourselves to come up with detailed information from an inadequate base. This gives full rein to various sources of distortion, including that of prior expectations, disruption by misleading questions, and by social factors such as the desire to please the questioner, and to present ourselves in a good light.

The eyewitnesses behind the Gospel accounts surely told what was prominent in their memories and did not need to attempt the laborious processes of retrieval and reconstruction that make for false memories (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, p. 356). Back To Article
Over the last few decades, a number of New Testament scholars have begun to grasp the significance of these insights. One of the first to do so was Thorleif Boman. Contrary to classical form-critical theory, and in line with recent folklorist studies, Boman made a compelling case that orally recounted historical narratives do not emerge out of independently circulating units of prior tradition. Rather, the narrative and the units inextricably belong together. As Leander Keck notes, Boman’s work suggests that.
From the outset, oral tradition about historical persons embraces both individual items and an overall picture of the hero. If Mark is the bearer of oral tradition, he did not create a picture of Jesus out of miscellaneous items but rather transmitted a picture of Jesus that was already present in the oral tradition.As the interdisciplinary data on the existence and nature of long oral narratives has continued to grow over the last few decades, Boman’s argument has been increasingly confirmed. As a result, a growing number of New Testament scholars are abandoning the classical form-critical bias against an early orally transmitted Jesus narrative.Joanna Dewey, for example, argues that the “form-critical assumption that there was no story of Jesus prior to the written Gospels, only individual stories about Jesus . . . needs to be reconsidered in light of our growing knowledge of oral narrative.” Dewey has pointed out that an oral narrative the length of Mark would take at most two hours to perform, which, as we have seen, is relatively short by the oral-narrative standards. What is more, as oral narratives go, Mark’s narrative would be relatively easy to remember and transmit. “Good storytellers could easily learn the story of Mark from hearing it read or hearing it told,” she writes. And from this she concludes that, “given the nature of oral memory and tradition . . . it is likely that the original written text of Mark was dependent on a pre-existing connected oral narrative, a narrative that already was being performed in various versions by various people.”
We now have good reason to think that the relationship between the parts (the individual pericope of the Gospels that have been the sole focus of form criticism) and the whole (the broad narrative framework of Jesus’s life, ministry, death, and resurrection) from early on would have been both much more fundamental and, at the same time, much more flexible than the modern, literate paradigm (under which classical form criticism has always labored) could ever imagine. Breakthrough theories such as Lauri Honko’s concept of “mental text,” Egbert Bakker’s idea of oral performance as “activation,” and John Miles Foley’s “metonymy” thesis applied to oral narratives have deepened our ability to understand how lengthy oral narratives can be retained and transmitted, and how they relate to the individual parts.

Working with Paul Ricoeur’s findings on narrative and representation, Jens Schroeter has argued that the narrative framework of the Gospel tradition has no less a claim to historicity than the individual sayings of Jesus. This statement points toward a crucial observation, one that has emerged in recent interdisciplinary conversations around the concerns of history, epistemology, and narrative. The heart of the matter is this: human beings, by their very epistemological nature, generally structure their experience of reality in the form of narrative. We orient and live our lives by the stories we tell. As John Niles points out: “Oral narrative is and for a long time has been the chief basis of culture itself. . . . Storytelling is an ability that defines the human species as such, at least as far as our knowledge of human experience extends into the historical past and into the sometime startling realms that ethnography has brought to light” (The Jesus Legend, pp. 255-57). Back To Article

Can a Decomposed Body be Resurrected?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bibleapologetics, resurrection

A body buried in a wooden casket would decompose completely after a few hundred years, depending upon the conditions of the soil. Similarly, a seaman buried at sea would leave no traces. Not a trace seems to remain of all of those who went down with the HMS Titanic, for instance.

The apostle Paul made it clear that our new body, though having a great deal in common with our mortal body, will be a “spiritual body.”[1] God will not need to gather up the scattered molecules of our earthly bodies. The bodies of many Christians and believers from before Christ have already decomposed, been completely destroyed by fire, or have been devoured by animals. Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 doesn’t require us to imagine a scene in which the ashes in funerary urns or decayed bodies in earthly graves are suddenly reconstituted. Rather, the resurrection is the wonderful occasion in which believers who have died will again be granted full bodily form, this time in a glorified body that can never again die or experience decay.

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:35-44

Can a Person Who Continually Struggles With Impure Thoughts Be Genuinely Saved?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Personal Struggleslust, sexual thoughts, sexuality, temptation

Being born again doesn’t keep us from having impure thoughts. First John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (KJV). And in Romans 7:15-25, the apostle Paul describes his continuing struggle with sin.

The Bible teaches that all of us have fallen characteristics—a “dark side” that is inclined to sin and rebellion (Romans 7:23; Colossians 3:5)—and it tells us to resist our destructive inclinations and be obedient to Christ (Galatians 5:17-21; 6:8; Ephesians 1:2-6). In this life we will never escape the influence of our old nature, including evil and impure thoughts.

There probably isn’t a single Christian who isn’t ashamed and saddened at the thoughts that sometimes come into his or her mind. If Satan can get us obsessed with the evil thoughts that flash into our consciousness, he can rob us of our joy and keep us from being effective workers for the kingdom of God. This is what Satan tries to do as our adversary (Job 1:7-12), “slanderer,”¹ and “accuser” (Revelation 12:10).

Although in this life we will never be completely freed from the taint of sin and impure thoughts, we can grow in our ability to control our response to them. Just because we have a thought doesn’t mean we need to dwell on it or, even worse, commit ourselves to a sinful action because of it. Our goal shouldn’t be to eliminate evil thoughts altogether but to recognize them when they appear and, instead of giving them influence, acknowledging them as sin and rejecting them (James 4:7).

By responding to our evil and impure thoughts with disciplined resistance, we can go a long way towards cleansing ourselves of habitual, willful sin. But we still live in a fallen world and will continue to struggle with our dark side. If we don’t acknowledge this unpleasant reality, we may become drawn into spiritual pride—perhaps the most dangerous sin of all.

The name “devil” is from the Greek word diabolos, meaning slanderer, false accuser. Back To Article

Can a Wife Be the Abusive One in a Marriage?

Jeff Olson
Personal Struggles, Relationshipsabusive wives, accusing, belittling, bullying, complaining, confrontation, emasculation, excuses, humiliation, intimidation, jealous, marital abuse, narcissistic, peacemakers, playing the victim, possessive, punishing, relationships, smothering, threats, whining

Much has been written in recent decades about husbands abusing their wives, as it should. In more cases than we care to admit, husbands from a variety of backgrounds are physically and emotionally battering their wives with their fists and their words. This is a serious problem no one should take lightly (SEE When Violence Comes Home.).

Abuse in marriage, whatever form it takes, is ultimately about a pattern of exerting power and control over one one’s own way. When a marriage is marked by a one-sided pattern of control, the abusive spouse is not always the husband. Sometimes the abusive spouse is the wife.

While most wives are not able to control their husbands through physical threats and violence, some dominate their husbands through their words, looks, and other threatening actions. Similar to an abusive husband, an abusive wife may boss her husband around, talk down to him, call him humiliating names, and treat him in a very emasculating way. Generally speaking, her style of communication doesn’t invite open and free conversation. It tends to be intimidating or manipulative and is intended to shut her husband down. Whether it’s through a dirty look or a lecture, the point is unmistakable: He’s not there to think or share an opinion. He’s there to do not only what she tells him to do, but also how and when she wants it done.

Just as abusive men demand sexual intimacy without regard for their wives’ needs, abusive women can withhold affection or intimacy as a way of controlling their husbands. An abusive wife may also exert control by imposing arbitrary or erratic expectations. For instance, she may badger her husband to do something, but then get upset with him for doing it because he not’s doing something else for her instead. Imposing and then randomly shifting her demands keeps him off-balance. It leaves him second-guessing himself and her feeling superior. Other abusive women constantly harass their husbands for their recreational interests and even their deeper aspirations for life. If what he enjoys and feels passionate about doesn’t fit into what she deems important, she may ridicule him or look for reasons for him not to do it. If that doesn’t work, she can always find some way to make him feel guilty.

The bottom line is this: most things in the marital relationship have to be her way. She demands that her husband revolve most, if not all, of what he does completely around what is important to her, even though her demands are often unreasonable, inconsiderate, and constantly shifting. And when it doesn’t go her way, she feels “free” to let her husband know it. Whether she relentlessly grumbles and criticizes, threatens to leave, or turns cold and withholds attention and affection, the clear message to her husband is “things had better go my way or else.” It’s a message meant to intimidate her husband and wear him down to the point where he feels it’s not worth doing anything that would risk upsetting her again.

Of course, every marriage experiences painful moments of unreasonableness and control from both partners. But when those moments become the norm rather than the exception, it becomes abusive and denies a spouse the freedom to be who he or she is both within and outside of the marital relationship. Not unlike an abused wife, an abused husband feels coerced into being who his wife thinks he should be. Perhaps this is why the Bible doesn’t pull any punches when it states that “a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day” (Proverbs 27:15) and that it is “better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife” (Proverbs 21:19).

Any marital relationship that is characterized by such patterns of control is not really a relationship. It is more like a dictatorship, where one partner rules over the other. Unfortunately, because of their own insecurities, most husbands in this situation let themselves get walked on and are afraid to stand up to the patterns of control with courage and love. Others try to ignore the way they are mistreated, only to blow up and turn mean or abusive. Neither is a godly response and is nearly always a sign of a man who has lost his heart.

To read some general ideas about a better way that doesn’t take the abuse lightly yet still offers the opportunity for forgiveness, healing, and restoration both in the marriage and in each spouse’s heart, read When Words Hurt .

Can anyone prove that Jesus rose from the dead?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Christianityhope, Jesus, resurrection

There is a big difference between presenting historical evidence for an event and actually proving it. Unlike the components of scientific experiments, historical events are so complicated that they can never be reproduced. So unless someone invents a time machine that allows us to travel back in the past to observe things as they were actually occurring, we will never be able to “prove” exactly what occurred in the past.

On the other hand, although absolute proof is impossible, historical evidence is often strong enough for a high degree of certainty.[1] But even a compelling level of probability requires faith. This is a key point in respect to historical evidence for such an unusual event as Jesus’s resurrection. The resurrection of a dead man is so far removed from the shared experience of most people that historical evidence—even extremely strong evidence—is not the same as scientific proof. To act as though evidence is “proof” will only alienate genuine truth-seekers. Yet, because of the tremendous amount of evidence for Jesus’s resurrection, belief is also far from a blind leap of faith.[2]

Followers of Jesus should remain mindful of the role our basic assumptions play in what we believe about Jesus’s resurrection. If we believe that a personal God purposely created the universe and revealed himself in history, we will be strongly inclined to believe Jesus’s resurrection actually occurred. By contrast, someone with an atheistic assumption that the world is governed entirely by chance and time will be more likely to disbelieve the resurrection account of Jesus.

This is why faith in Jesus’s resurrection is based as much in the heart as in the mind; as much in confidence in the meaningfulness of existence as in the quality of historical evidence (Hebrews 11:1–6). Someone must believe in the possibility of a supernatural Creator and a meaningful universe to follow the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection to its logical conclusions. (John 14:1; Psalm 43:5).[3]

[1] For example, few historians question that Julius Caesar wrote an account of his military campaigns in Gaul and Britain (The Gallic Wars) and was assassinated on March 15, 44 bc. Similarly, few historians question that Jesus was a Galilean Jew who established a reputation as a prophet, teacher, and healer, and died by crucifixion in his early to mid-30s by the order of Roman prefect Pontius Pilate.

[2] Thousands of books and articles have been written offering detailed evidence that Jesus’s resurrection really did occur. The Resurrection of the Son of God by N. T. Wright is one of the best. (See questions.org article, Did Jesus rise from the dead?)

[3] God’s personal nature is analogous to human personality only in a limited sense. Because the Lord is infinite, the qualities of his personality as far transcend ours as his knowledge transcends our knowledge. C. S. Lewis used the term “suprapersonal” in reference to God’s personal nature.

Can Assurance of Salvation Be Found in Obeying the Old Testament Law?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, World Religionsassurance, faith, Old Testament Law, salvation

The foundation of Jewish orthodoxy is the lawthe Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Old Testament) and the Talmud (the official rabbinical interpretation of the Pentateuch). These are the sacred Jewish Scriptures called Torah.

Both Jesus (Matthew 5:17-18) and Paul (Galatians 3:19-25) affirmed the authority of the law. But they also considered the law a mixed blessing. It brings awareness of sin to people who are unconscious of their depravity, but it offers no solution for human corruption besides a hopeless striving to perfectly fulfill all the law’s requirements (Romans 3:20).

This vain striving for perfection could already be seen in the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who added ever more complicated rules to the laws of the Old Testament, thinking that by making and keeping rules they would attain greater spiritual purity and peace with God (Matthew 23:1-5, 15-26). Modern orthodox Jews are heirs of the Pharisees. In dispersion they added many volumes of detail to the official interpretation of the law. Today, even a lifetime of Talmudic study can never provide mastery of all of the minutiae of rules and regulations inscribed in rabbinical tradition.

The apostle Paul was a Pharisee (Acts 22:1-5). However, as a Pharisee he discovered that keeping the external detail of the law did not bring peace with God. He discovered that while the law makes people conscious of sin, it offers no means of deliverance from sin’s power. In fact, once the law brings awareness of sin, it has the opposite effectit inflames rebellion.

It is difficult for a person who hasn’t been reared in legalism to understand Paul’s meaning when he speaks of the law “arousing sinful passions” and causing sin to “spring to life” (Romans 7:5-9). However, when someone has no other basis for forgiveness than keeping the law, they begin to view the law itself as the source of salvation. This, in turn, introduces such an emphasis on rules that rebellion is the natural result. A Jewish survivor of German concentration camps, Israel Shahak, described the extent to which Orthodox Judaism strives to avoid violations of the law:

“The following example illustrates even better the level of absurdity reached by this system. One of the prototypes of work forbidden on the Sabbath is harvesting. This is stretched, by analogy, to a ban on breaking a branch off a tree. Hence, riding a horse (or any other animal) is forbidden, as a hedge against the temptation to break a branch off a tree for flogging the beast. It is useless to argue that you have a ready-made whip, or that you intend to ride where there are no trees. What is forbidden remains forbidden for ever. It can, however, be stretched and made stricter: in modern times, riding a bicycle on the Sabbath has been forbidden, because it is analogous to riding a horse.” ¹
Dependency upon the law for righteousness and security before God results in rules so complicated and impossible to fulfill that they make life impossible. This results not only in hostility towards the law, but a desire to find ways to circumvent it.² Fully aware of the law’s function and effect, Paul realized it was not the law, but faith that brings salvation. (Romans 4:9-16). But what is the basis of this saving faith?

Assurance of salvation can’t be based on the law, as the law only magnifies consciousness of sin. Any attempt to achieve assurance on the basis of the law will produce greater guilt. (This is why children of legalistic Christians, Muslims, or Jews often become self-righteous bigots who project their own sinfulness on everyone else or rebels who reject all morality and tradition.) Faith in the law as a means of forgiveness for sin leads only to a cycle of desperate legalism leading either to self-righteous arrogance or despairing rebellion.

The Jewish Bible offers a basis for faith outside of the law. It points to a Messiah who will bear the sins of His people (Genesis 22:1-8; Exodus 12:3-7; Psalm 22; Isaiah 53:1-12). The church was founded on the confidence that Jesus was the Lamb of God ( John 1:29 ) ³, bearer of a gospel that offers forgiveness of sin (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 15:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 1:18, 19; 1 John 2:2; Revelation 5:12).

Unlike faith in the Law alone, faith in Jesus as the Messiah confirms the authority of the Law while offering deliverance from its condemnation, offering both Jews and Gentiles forgiveness and peace with God.

Shahak continues: “My final example illustrates how the same methods are used also in purely theoretical cases, having no conceivable application in reality. During the existence of the Temple, the High Priest was only allowed to marry a virgin. Although during virtually the whole of the Talmudic period there was no longer a Temple or a High Priest, the Talmud devotes one of its more involved (and bizarre) discussions to the precise definition of the term ‘virgin’ fit to marry a High Priest. What about a woman whose hymen had been broken by accident? Does it make any difference whether the accident occurred before or after the age of three? By the impact of metal or of wood? Was she climbing a tree? And if so, was she climbing up or down? Did it happen naturally or unnaturally? All this and much else besides is discussed in lengthy detail. And every scholar in classical Judaism had to master hundreds of such problems. Great scholars were measured by their ability to develop these problems still further, for as shown by the examples there is always scope for further developmentif only in one directionand such development did actually continue after the final redaction of the Talmud.” (Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion (pp. 40-41)) Back To Article

Israel Shahak offers examples of the kinds of subterfuges that orthodox Jews have used to “keep the law” in a way that allowed them a degree of normalcy in daily life:

“Milking on the Sabbath. This has been forbidden in post-talmudic times, through the process of increasing religious severity mentioned above. The ban could easily be kept in the diaspora, since Jews who had cows of their own were usually rich enough to have non-Jewish servants, who could be ordered (using one of the subterfuges described below) to do the milking. The early Jewish colonists in Palestine employed Arabs for this and other purposes, but with the forcible imposition of the Zionist policy of exclusive Jewish labour there was need for a dispensation. (This was particularly important before the introduction of mechanised milking in the late 1950s.) Here too there was a difference between Zionist and non-Zionist rabbis. According to the former, the forbidden milking becomes permitted provided the milk is not white but dyed blue. This blue Saturday milk is then used exclusively for making cheese, and the dye is washed off into the whey. Non-Zionist rabbis have devised a much subtler scheme (which I personally witnessed operating in a religious kibbutz in 1952). They discovered an old provision which allows the udders of a cow to be emptied on the Sabbath, purely for relieving the suffering caused to the animal by bloated udders, and on the strict condition that the milk runs to waste on the ground. Now, this is what is actually done: on Saturday morning, a pious kibbutznik goes to the cowshed and places pails under the cows. (There is no ban on such work in the whole of the talmudic literature.) He then goes to the synagogue to pray. Then comes his colleague, whose ‘honest intention’ is to relieve the animals’ pain and let their milk run to the floor. But if, by chance, a pail happens to be standing there, is he under any obligation to remove it? Of course not. He simply ‘ignores’ the pails, fulfills his mission of mercy and goes to the synagogue. Finally a third pious colleague goes into the cowshed and discovers, to his great surprise, the pails full of milk. So he puts them in cold storage and follows his comrades to the synagogue. Now all is well, and there is no need to waste money on blue dye.

“Similar dispensations were issued by zionist rabbis in respect of the ban (based on Leviticus 19:19) against sowing two different species of crop in the same field. Modern agronomy has however shown that in some cases (especially in growing fodder) mixed sowing is the most profitable. The rabbis invented a dispensation according to which one man sows the field lengthwise with one kind of seed, and later that day his comrade, who ‘does not know’ about the former, sows another kind of seed crosswise. However, this method was felt to be too wasteful of labour, and a better one was devised: one man makes a heap of one kind of seed in a public place and carefully covers it with a sack or piece of board. The second kind of seed is then put on top of the cover. Later, another man comes and exclaims, in front of witnesses, ‘I need this sack (or board)’ and removes it, so that the seeds mix ‘naturally.’ Finally, a third man comes along and is told, ‘Take this and sow the field,’ which he proceeds to do.” Back To Article

Interestingly, The Qur’an (3:39) also refers to John the Baptist calling Jesus “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Back To Article

Can believers be over whelmed with despair?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Personal StrugglesChristian life, despair, discouragement, sorrow

Followers of Jesus Christ often assume that faith, if genuine, will allow them to live above despair. But Jesus never promised His followers a life of ease. He tells them that if they want to follow Him they must take up their cross,[1] and in this life they will endure many trials and sorrows.[2]

There will be times in everyone’s life when darkness and hopelessness seem ready to smother us. It is often in these times that we truly become acquainted with the Source of healing and light and experience the greatest amount of spiritual growth. Scripture offers some striking examples.

Following his supernatural triumph over the wicked king of Israel and the prophets of Baal, Elijah fell into deep despair. Only then came awakening.[3]

Soon after Peter emotionally declared his dedication to Jesus,[4] he denied Him with curses.[5] Being painfully aware of his weakness prepared him for the central leadership role he would play.

The apostle Paul gave up his status in the Jewish community to follow Jesus Christ. He came to see how evil his former life and world view had been. Even so, this missionary apostle to the Gentiles “despaired even of life”[6] and agonized over his helplessness against the “flesh.”[7] The position of service to which he had been called required even further self-awareness and surrender.

Even Jesus in His human nature had to come to terms with his utter dependence on God.[8]

These examples make it clear that believers often face unexpected trials that, in the moment, have no discernable purpose. Trials like these can overwhelm us. But biblical examples of great people of faith also illustrate that experiences of stress, fear, and despair can spur our greatest spiritual growth.[9]

[1] Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27

[2] John 16:33

[3] 1 Kings 19:4

[4] Matthew 26:33-35

[5] Mark 14:66-72

[6] 2 Corinthians 1:8

[7] Romans 7:18-24

[8] Mark 14:32-36; Luke 22:41-44; Mark 15:34

[9] Job’s story provides a good framework to help us understand our inevitable times of depression and feelings of abandonment. God allowed Satan to test Job (Job 1), just as the accuser (Revelation 12:10) will test each one of us. But just as God set limits to what Satan could do to Job (Job 1:12), He sets limits to what Satan can do to us (1 Corinthians 10:13; Luke 22:31-32). In fact, our Creator can even transform Satan’s attacks into a means of strengthening our faith and refining our love for others. (1 Peter 1:6-7).

Can Christians Be Demon Possessed?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Paranormaldemonic, demonic possession, security, spiritual protection

The word demonization is a term recently coined by evangelicals who believe that Christians can be inhabited by demons. These evangelicals believe that Christians can be inhabited by demons who control unyielded areas of their spirit, while not possessing them entirely (in the sense of displacing the union between their spirit and the Holy Spirit, or taking away their salvation).

It is important to note, however, that the terms demonization and demonized are simply transliterations of the Greek word that has traditionally been translated as “possessed” (daimonizomai: Matthew 4:24; 8:16, 28; 9:32; 12:22 ). This word indicates overwhelming demonic control as The Easton Bible Dictionary clarifies regarding demon possession: “This influence is clearly distinguished from the ordinary power of corruption and of temptation over men. In the demoniac, his personality seems to be destroyed, and his actions, words, and even thoughts to be overborne by the evil spirit Acts 19:15 ).”

There is no biblical basis for believing that a genuine Christian can be under the degree of demonic control indicated by the word daimonizomai. First Corinthians 6:19 makes it clear that the Holy Spirit establishes a permanent, intimate relationship with every believer. The body of a Christian is the Holy Spirit’s temple. Other passages also describe the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of Christians ( John 3:3-7; Romans 8:5-11; 1 Corinthians 12:12-13; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22; 6:16; Ephesians 1:13-14; Titus 3:4-7 ).

In all of the documents left us by Paul, Peter, John, and the other New Testament writers, there is not one passage that directly states or even implies that Christians may have to deal with their own sin or the sin of another Christian by confronting and casting out an inhabiting demon.

This doesn’t mean that Christians can afford to be careless in respect to Satan’s power. Scripture warns of the danger of spiritual evil ( 2 Corinthians 2:11; Ephesians 4:27; 6:11-12; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8 ). While the biblical examples of demonic possession imply a degree of direct demonic control that can’t exist when a person has established an intimate relationship with God through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, Christians can still be oppressed and influenced by the demonic. One of the most striking examples in Scripture was Simon Peter’s opposition to Jesus’ commitment to the cross . ¹
Ironically, in a misguided attempt to directly confront the demonic, Christian people sometimes become obsessed with it. This happens when they mistakenly conclude that all—or nearly all—of the evil they perceive within themselves derives from a separate personality—Satan or a demon. There may be disastrous consequences for Christians who attribute their personal sins to exterior, demonic causes rather than taking responsibility for the evil within their own hearts (See the ATQ article, Is Demonic Deliverance Ministry Biblical?)

“Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to Me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men’ ” (Matthew 16:23). But this kind of demonic influence doesn’t involve demonic possession or “inhabiting demons.” Nor does it require exorcism. Back To Article

Can Christians Be Hurt by Witchcraft or Black Magic?

Dan Vander Lugt
Paranormal, World Religionsblack magic, magic, Neopagan, paganism, sorcery, wicca, witchcraft

God is the Creator and Master of the natural world. Satan is only the master of illusion. He deals in hallucination and deceit. Any limited powers over nature he may possess are entirely circumscribed by God, but he can control susceptible minds. People in Satan’s power are obsessed and hypnotized by evil. The source of black magic’s power is fear. Academic writers have documented the life and death power of pagan magic over people who believe in it.

Dr. Herbert Basedow (1925), in his book, The Australian Aboriginal, has presented a vivid picture of the first horrifying effect of bone pointing on the ignorant, superstitious and credulous natives, and the later more calm acceptance of their mortal fate: The man who discovers that he is being boned by any enemy is, indeed, a pitiable sight. He stands aghast, with his eyes staring at the treacherous pointer, and with his hands lifted as though to ward off the lethal medium, which he imagines is pouring into his body. His cheeks blanch and his eyes become glassy and the expression of his face becomes horribly distorted. . . . He attempts to shriek but usually the sound chokes in his throat, and all that one might see is froth at his mouth. His body begins to tremble and the muscles twist involuntarily. He sways backwards and falls to the ground, and after a short time appears to be in a swoon; but soon after he writhes as if in mortal agony, and, covering his face with his hands, begins to moan.

After a while he becomes very composed and crawls to his wurley. From this time onwards he sickens and frets, refusing to eat and keeping aloof from the daily affairs of the tribe. Unless help is forthcoming in the shape of a countercharm administered by the hands of the Nangarri, or medicine-man, his death is only a matter of a comparatively short time (Walter B. Cannon, “Voodoo Death,” American Anthropologist, vol. 33, 1942).

Another anthropologist described the circumstances in which superstitious fear can take hold:

In “Voodoo Death” (Cannon 1972 [1942]) a person violates a taboo, such as walking on sacred ground, [or] eating a forbidden fruit, and, shortly after discovering that a taboo has been violated, the person is dead. The closely related phenomenon of “hex” death (Seligman 1975, p. 1977) occurs when a person learns that they have been cursed by someone with the appropriate technical knowledge and supernatural authority. As in the case of voodoo death, hex death kills within hours or days. While such deaths exhibit a fairly standard set of physical symptoms, they cannot be attributed to external agents such as poisons or bacteria nor to externally induced physical trauma. The death is psychosomatic.

A person who violates a taboo has broken the deepest rules of their culture and thereby is thrust outside the protective web of memes and traits which give meaning and structure to the world. The person who is cursed believes that someone else has severed the link between their soul and the cultural forms and practices in which that soul lives its life. Such people are in a situation where, in effect, they see no hope of ever again satisfying their higher reference levels. They are cut off from their culture. That kills them as surely as being cut off from food or water (William Benzon, Culture as an Evolutionary Arena).

In spite of the power pagan sorcerers and witch doctors hold over people who accept their authority, Christian missionaries confront “powerful” witch doctors with immunity to curses and black magic. I personally recall a confrontation between a Christian missionary in Haiti and several witch doctors at a famous voodoo shrine, the missionary laughing at their threats while ripping their inverted cross fetishes out of the ground and throwing them into a nearby lagoon. On another occasion, a voodoo houngan actually placed a curse on a son of this missionary, only to die himself in the time frame he had set for the death of the boy. Another witch doctor cursed the womb of a woman newly converted to Christianity. When she became pregnant, she fled to the mission compound and lived there for several months out of fear for her baby. Concerned for her feelings, but realizing that she was giving in to her fear, the missionaries helped her understand that the witch doctor’s curse had no power over a believer indwelt with the Holy Spirit’s power. She moved back home, and in a few months delivered a healthy baby boy.¹The Bible describes the awesome power of the Creator (Genesis 1; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalm 8:3-4; Proverbs 8:29; Proverbs 16:4; Isaiah 44:24-28), a power that instantly brought the material world into existence and is equally capable of instantly destroying it. The feeble magic of demons and sorcerers can no more thwart such boundless power than a grain of sand can stop a tsunami or a drop of rain the eruption of a volcano.

Obedient people empowered by God’s blessing and immersed in His favor are impervious to Satan’s power. A loyal child of the Creator stands in the power of the Creator (Genesis 15:1; Proverbs 18:10; Ephesians 6:16).

Since vulnerability to black magic is rooted in fear and lack of trust, Christians can count on God’s protection when they submit to His authority. But if they actively suppress or ignore God’s moral law for selfish purposes, they enter the realm of the demonic and become vulnerable to its power. If they live a gangster’s lifestyle, they become vulnerable to its dangers. If they live by Satan’s code, they become subject to its rules. Sin and rebellion feed and magnify fear. Trust in God is manifested by a willingness to resist sin.

Christians should also keep guard over their imaginations, thinking of the admonitions of Paul and James:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8)

“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

If we don’t put our trust in God, we may become more and more obsessed with Satan. In the Middle Ages, imaginations obsessed with Satan’s power led to the witch craze, causing hundreds of thousands of innocent people to be tortured and killed. The witch craze was the consequence of people becoming so obsessed with satanic power that they viewed the normal tragedies of a fallen world as the result of black magic. (See the ATQ article, Did Church Authorities Seek to Eradicate Paganism in Europe by Killing Millions of “Witches”?)

Once a person has accepted the authority of Jesus Christ, he has the Holy Spirit dwelling within (John 14:16-17). All of us are susceptible to the temptations and trials of the “world, flesh, and devil.” However, the Creator God loves us, sent His Son to die for us, and will protect us if we are willing to trust Him enough to do right. The focus of spiritual warfare in a Christian’s life needs to be his own sinful nature and desires. We don’t need any rituals or charms to protect us. Just a simple prayer for protection, and willingness to acknowledge and forsake any conscious sin is enough.²

This baby boy went on to be raised by his Christian parents, attended mission schools and college, and now is an accountant. This family’s courage to resist Satan’s lies made it possible for their family to be lifted out of the most extreme poverty and spiritual darkness to new horizons of spiritual and material hope. Back To Article
Using the metaphor of a well-equipped Roman soldier, Paul told us how we could be prepared for spiritual warfare. We are to put on the armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-18), which includes:
- The belt of truth. Since Satan depends on deceit to maintain his power, our first line of defense is always truth. We must never distort or misrepresent the truth, regardless of any advantage we might gain by doing so.
- The breastplate of righteousness. Any sin in our life leaves us open to Satan’s attack. Even though we are given the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21), we must still continually put on the protection of holy living.
- The shoes of the gospel of peace. With our feet firmly planted on the truth that we are at peace with God and that He is on our side, we can stand firmly against Satan’s attacks.
- The shield of faith. In order to quench the “fiery darts” of Satan’s temptations, we must trust and believe what God has said about every area of our life.
- The helmet of salvation. This is the confidence that there is coming in the future a great victory celebration. It is also referred to as the “hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:8). This helmet protects us against Satan’s missiles of discouragement and doubt.
- The sword of the Spirit. Since the Word of God is the basis of our faith, we need to learn how to wield it with authority. Scripture is our best offensive weapon against the devil (Matthew 4:1-11; Hebrews 4:12).
After he described the various elements of the armor, Paul said that we are to be in constant prayer. Prayer expresses our dependence on God. We can fight against Satan only “in the [strength of] the Lord and in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). In the power of Christ and with the armor of the Spirit, we will be victors. Back To Article

Can domestic abuse be non-physical?

Dr. Sabrina Black
Christian life, Christianity, Contemporary Issues, Ethics, Relationshipsabuse, domestic abuse, marriage, psychological abuse, relationships, sexual abuse, verbal abuse

Yes, it certainly can. Often, verbal or other types of non-physical abuse are not considered abuse. However, consider this brief definition: Domestic or intimate partner violence/abuse is a pattern of assaultive and coercive behaviors by an adult — male or female — including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, as well as economic coercion used against current or former intimate partners.

Domestic abuse can take many forms and they all should be taken seriously. Here are some examples of abuse that are not necessarily physical:

Verbal abuse involves belittling, demeaning, or threatening speech that is meant to manipulate or coerce one’s partner or spouse. Verbal abuse often carries the threat of physical violence, but not always.

Sexual abuse includes coerced sex through threats or intimidation or through physical force, forcing unwanted sexual acts, forcing sex in front of others, and forcing sex with others. But it can also be accomplished by withholding sex and intimacy as a means of control.

Psychological abuse can involve isolation from others (including family and friends), excessive jealousy, control of activities, verbal aggression, intimidation through destruction of property, harassment or stalking, threats of violence, constant belittling and humiliation, threats of physical violence or harm, creating a situation of total economic dependency, and financial enslavement.

Can Dreams Have Symbolic Meaning or Messages from God?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, Paranormaldreams, prophecy, symbolic meaning, symbols

It’s easy to expect either too little or too much of dreams.

An excellent book by a scientist who has researched the physiology of dreams (The Dreaming Brain by J. Allan Hobson) sets forth the hypothesis that because the brain is never completely inactive during sleep, it is constantly triggering the images of memories and experiences into our sleeping consciousness. Because we human beings are continually in search of meaning (and meaningful patterns), the process of trying to make sense of our world doesn’t stop when we are sleeping. Therefore, even when we are sleeping we try to create order and meaning out of random memories and images projected by our dreaming brain. He concludes that dreams are the result of this process.

After nearly 60 years of reflecting on my dreams, I think Dr. Hobson’s hypothesis fits the content of most of them. Still, I’m not sure that all dreams have a completely random neurological source. Sometimes the images are so unusual that it is hard to remember (or even imagine having had) any memories or experiences that might be their source. In fact, sometimes dreams have such duration and continuity that their content seems created by the interpreting mind rather than rising independently of it. Clearly, Dr. Hobson’s hypothesis leaves open the possibility that some dreams and nightmares expose the conflicts and fears we repress during waking hours as well as the fact that the process of working through problems and issues continues even when we are asleep.

In addition to dreams that might have symbolic significance are supernatural/preternatural dreams. Most of us have heard a trustworthy person tell of a dream that depicted a future event or alerted them to the fact that a loved one was in danger. The Bible also describes dreams that involve clairvoyance or precognition (Genesis 20:3; 31:10, 24; 37:5; 40:5; Numbers 12:6; Judges 7:13; 1 Kings 3:5; Daniel 2:3; 4:5; 7:1; Joel 2:28; Matthew 1:20; 2:12; 27:19).

When we think about our dreams, it’s important to try to understand them on the basis of Scripture. God warned the Israelites about false prophets who told lies based on dreams:

“I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ How long will this be in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal” (Jeremiah 23:25-27).

In 2 Corinthians 11:14, the apostle Paul warned us that Satan “transforms himself into an angel of light” and could conceivably use dreams to deceive us. Obsession with dreams and their interpretation might lead a person into occult interests and estrangement from reality.

Remember, our heavenly Father is the “Father of lights” (James 1:17) who reveals the truth openly and clearly. He will never give us a message in our sleep that is contrary to reason or Scripture.

Can I be a Christian and still struggle with impure thoughts?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Godforgiveness, grace, salvation, struggle, thoughts

The Bible says that becoming a follower of Christ is like a dead person coming to life.[1] Moving from spiritual death to spiritual life is a drastic change. Spiritual rebirth makes it possible for us to consciously share God’s love and partner with Him in bringing about his kingdom. Although spiritual rebirth brings instant change, it doesn’t result in an immediate transformation. We are too deeply flawed for an instant cure. When we choose to follow Christ, a process begins that will continue to the end of our lives.

Before we followed Christ we were, in a sense, like zombies—spiritually dead and driven by urges and emotions we didn’t understand. Even after we were awakened by spiritual life the same urges and emotions remained, although we were no longer entirely under their control (Galatians 5:17–21; 6:8; Ephesians 2:2–6). The New Testament uses a special term to refer to these urges and emotions: the “sinful nature.” [2]

Our natural inclination to sin continues to generate impure thoughts that are out of sorts with our new life. But these bad thoughts don’t represent our current spiritual state. They represent the death we are leaving behind.

In addition to our own natural faults and weaknesses, Satan acts as an adversary (see Job 1:7–12), “slanderer,”[3] and “accuser” (Revelation 12:10). He wants us to be obsessed with our dark thoughts. If we do, he—like a vampire—can drain away our joy and the influence of our new life.

Since we will never be completely free of lustful, unkind, and self-destructive desires in this life, we need to have realistic expectations. Experiencing a bad thought isn’t the same as hanging on to and nurturing it. Our goal shouldn’t be to eliminate bad thoughts but to be quicker to recognize and resist them when they appear. Far from indicating that our faith isn’t real, our awareness of continuing impure thoughts and unfree tendencies that still lurk within us proves that we are being transformed. If we weren’t becoming more spiritually aware, we wouldn’t even recognize the lingering shadows of spiritual death. First John 1:8 says, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth,” and the apostle Paul describes his continuing struggle with sin (Romans 7:15–25).

In fact, it is important that we recognize the wrong within. If we didn’t recognize the impurity that still remained in us, we might be drawn into the most dangerous sin of all—spiritual pride.

[1] John 5:21; Romans 6:13; 8:11; Ephesians 2:1–3; 5:14; Colossians 2:13

[2] In the New Testament the Greek term, sarx, often translated “flesh,” occasionally refers to the body, but most often refers to the destructive, death-prone tendencies within us. These tendencies still reside in us even after conversion, while we are moving from spiritual death to spiritual life. Paul calls it the “law of sin at work within me” in Romans 7:23 (niv). The Bible calls this the “sinful nature” in Romans 7:18 and 7:25.

[3] The name “devil” is from the Greek word diabolos, meaning “slanderer, false accuser.”

Can I Be Sure I’m Going to Heaven?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianityassurance, eternal security, salvation

One of the biggest mistakes we can make about our own security in Christ is to base the reality of our salvation on our feelings. Our emotions are affected by so many different things that it is misleading to base our security on them. Each of us grows up in an environment that leaves us with emotional scars. Some people feel anxious and tense because of events in their past. Others are afflicted with anxiety because of neurological disorders or imbalances in body chemistry.

Since salvation is based on belief in Christ and a choice to trust His death on our behalf, the road to assurance is not found in our feelings but in acknowledging and trusting what God has done.

As we voluntarily place ourselves under the influence of Christ and trust His Spirit to guide us toward behavior that is consistent with our confession of faith, we will experience spiritual healing–healing that will extend even to our feelings and emotions. This, however, is a gradual process, and one that may involve many setbacks.

It helps to share one’s doubts with a Christian friend, pastor, or counselor. Just talking to another person can help us see ourselves and our situation more clearly. We can also be comforted by the many Bible passages that emphasize the security of believers in Christ (eg. John John 10:28-30; 13:1 ; Romans 8:29-39 ; 1 Corinthians 3:15 ; 1 Corinthians 12:13 ; Ephesians 1:13; 4:20 ; Jude 24 ).

Although the Bible doesn’t teach that believers can lose their salvation, real believers can backslide and lose their joy. The New Testament gives us many examples of believers who drew back from their fellowship with Jesus Christ: the disciples ( Matthew 26:56 ); Peter ( Matthew 26:69-75 ); the Christians in Corinth ( 2 Corinthians 12:20-21 ); and the Asian churches ( Revelation 2:4,14-15,20 ).

But we should distinguish between backsliding and apostasy–departing from the faith. A true Christian can backslide, be disciplined by God, and repent and return ( Hebrews 12:6 ; Revelation 2:5 ). A person who has merely professed faith without a genuine encounter with Christ can depart, prosper outwardly, and never return. The apostle John said that some who had left the fellowship of believers and were now teaching false doctrine showed by their actions that they never really belonged to Christ ( 1 John 2:19 ). It may be impossible for us to make a judgment about whether the person is a backsliding Christian or an impostor. Sometimes, only time will tell.

The doctrine of eternal security as taught in Scripture is intended to comfort true Christians who want to live faithfully for Jesus Christ. People who once professed faith but are now living sinfully should not be comforted by the assumption that a profession of faith guarantees their salvation. We gain nothing by examining the nature of their past “decision.” They need to soberly consider their lifestyle in the light of passages like 1 John 3:4-9 . If they are genuinely saved, God will discipline them ( Hebrews 12:6 ).

Can I Depend on Logic to Lead Someone to Faith?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianityfaith, logic, salvation

Thinking that logic alone can lead someone to faith is like thinking logic can convince someone that something is beautiful. Imagine driving through Navajo country in the southwest United States with a friend who considers the exquisite landscape just a barren wasteland. Would logic convince him that the landscape is beautiful? For every reason you give to demonstrate its beauty, your friend will counter with a reason for thinking it ugly. You perceive beauty; he doesn’t. Mere logic isn’t going to change his mind.

Some of the most important things in life transcend logic. No one can devise a logical proof for faith, beauty, or love. If we attempt a “proof” for them, we will be farther from understanding them than when we started. Such things are perceived by more than just our minds. They are perceived by something more profound than mere intellect.

The Bible refers to the center of the human personality as the “heart,”¹ and specifically designates it as the place of faith (Mark 11:23; Luke 24:25; John 14:1; Acts 8:37; Romans 10:9 ). This doesn’t mean that faith is irrational. Faith can be philosophically and logically defended. But a logical defense of faith is as far from experiencing it as a verbal description of the flavor of strawberries is from their taste in the mouth. The heart includes the function of the mind, but transcends it. The inclination of peoples’ hearts, not their intellectual powers, determines whether they will move in the direction of faith or unbelief. Jesus made this clear:

“Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:20-21 NIV)

Hatred of truth causes unbelievers to use their rational powers to reject it. Hatred of truth occurs in their hearts. Their rationalizations for rejecting it are the consequence—not the cause—of their hatred.

This, too, is why the writer of Hebrews declares:

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)

The existence of God—like the existence of love and beauty—can be logically described. But it cannot be logically proven to someone who doesn’t want to believe. Belief in these things requires openness of the heart. While logic can be used to provide evidence for the truth, it can also be used to rationalize evil. Ultimate choices are not only decisions of the mind but also matters of the heart, where logic is only a tool for fashioning a life of truth and goodness, or illusion and evil.

In the Bible, the term heart refers to the “whole man, with all his attributes, physical, intellectual, and psychological.” (New Bible Dictionary) The meaning of mind, in contrast, is usually limited more specifically to mental abilities.
So the term heart refers to the governing center of man, that part of him that is often referred to with such terms as character, personality, will, and mind. Heart is therefore a broader and more inclusive term than mind. In the New Testament, heart is fundamentally synonymous with person. Back To Article

Can Someone Be Forgiven if They Commit the Same Sin Again After Confessing and Repenting it?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, God, Personal Struggles, RelationshipsChristian life, confession, forgiveness from, forgiveness of, relating to God, relationships, repentance, sin

No one who asks God for forgiveness can be confident that they won’t commit the same sin again. In fact, our natures are so contaminated by sin that we often do. When Peter asked Jesus whether we are obligated to forgive a person who sins against us seven times (Peter’s “seven times” more than doubled the rabbinic prescription), Jesus said: “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22 NKJV).

Jesus made it clear that God’s primary concern is not mere outward behavior, but the condition of the heart Matthew 23:25-26; Mark 7:5-9; Luke 11:42-44; Luke 11:42-44. Therefore the sincerity of the confession is what counts.

Unfortunately, we can be sincere in our repentance and confession and still fall into sin again. Because believers continue to be influenced by the “flesh”—the fallen aspect of their personalities—in this world they are incapable of perfect sincerity. At times they are more vulnerable to temptation than at other times. With the passage of time, the strong awareness of evil and the ugliness of sin that brought us to repentence often fades.

Sincere confession of sin is a heartfelt acknowledgment that our sin is wrong, that we don’t want to continue in it, and that we are ready to exert ourselves—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—to resist it. God doesn’t expect perfection, because none of us are capable of achieving it, but He does expect sincerity.

Sin is highly addictive, and when we’re not on our guard we can easily succumb to the false sense of relief we experience when we surrender to our compulsions. We need to be aware of sin’s addictive nature. Like someone who is attempting to quit smoking or drinking, the worst thing we can do is to give up on our desire to change or believe we can never change, even though we relapse in moments of weakness.

As we experience increasing freedom from sin, we will experience an increasing awareness of evil and understand more deeply how sin carries its own penalty. Each time genuine believers relapse into sin, they will experience more conviction and a more painful awareness of sin’s destructiveness. Each time they repent and confess their sins, they will be purer, stronger, and less likely to relapse.

Of course, some sins are so serious that even sincere repentance can’t erase their earthly consequences. Sins like murder and adultery can be forgiven by God in the ultimate sense and by fellow Christians in the sense of hoping for a sinner’s restoration, but the damage such sins inflict usually cannot be undone in this life, and consequences such as imprisonment or divorce may be unavoidable.

Can the Gospels be trusted since they are based on oral recollections?

Dan Vander Lugt
BibleBible, gospel, Jesus

Skeptics have long questioned the trustworthiness of the Gospels. They contend that the Gospels cannot be reliable since they are based on oral recollections of the events surrounding the life and teaching of Jesus. As political satirist Bill Maher quipped, the Judaism of his mother and the Christianity of his father are based on “a long, 2,000-year-old game of telephone.”[1]

Nearly all scholars agree that the accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry were passed along by word of mouth for at least 20 to 60 years before being written in what we commonly call the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).[2] But does this fact mean that they are filled with half-truths, misrepresentation, and fabrications?

More than a century has passed since popular and highly publicized scholars first began to wonder if the gospels were fairy stories based on faulty memories and exaggerations that are part and parcel with oral transmission. Today, however, studies confirm that complicated and nuanced narratives can be faithfully passed along orally. Folklorists have found examples in cultures all over the world where long oral narratives were accurately passed down over many generations. These narratives typically contain a longer plot line together with various smaller units that compose the bulk of the story. In fact, when the subject matter is highly meaningful to a community, everyone in that community—not just the storyteller—is concerned with accurately and faithfully preserving it.[3]

Additionally, memory studies tell us that people are much more likely to accurately remember events when they are unique, consequential, and image-rich—just the kinds of experiences shared by the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life and ministry.

There are two final points to consider. The first is that the Scriptures themselves tell us that the accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry were codified and established before the first four books of the New Testament were penned (Luke 1:1–2). Second, the historical distance between the original events and actual text is so short compared to other ancient texts—less than 100 years—that it seems to render this point moot.[4]

[1] In an NPR interview in 2008 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95210724

[2] The oldest existing biblical text fragment is dated to the 2^nd century AD with places it within 100 years of the original events it describes.

[3] See The Jesus Legend (252-254) and Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (305-306).

[4] The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts http://www.csntm.org/manuscript;

Can We Know What Jesus Actually Taught?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issuesapostles, apostolic, apostolic church, Canon, Canon of Scripture, Christianity, church history, disciples, doctrine, history, Jesus Christ, reliability of scripture, teaching, textual criticism, witnesses

The New Testament is the best documented literary work from ancient times. Over 5,000 manuscripts have survived. Fragments now available date back to the beginning of the second century. Even liberal scholars acknowledge the early dates of many New Testament books. Consequently, there is no reasonable basis for believing that Christ’s teachings were distorted by the apostolic church. To the contrary, it is only logical that the apostles would be the ones most likely to remain faithful to the teaching of their Lord, and that they, in turn, would select documents on the basis of their reliability.

It’s one thing to deny the authority of the New Testament, but quite another to be able to justify one’s denial. The following books offer a good overview of early church history:

A History Of Christianity by Kenneth Scott Latourette
A History Of The Christian Church by Williston Walker
New Testament History by F.F. Bruce

Each of these books is a “classic” in its own right, and can be ordered through most bookstores.

Also visit our 10 Reasons To Believe In The Bible site.

Can we prove God exists?

Dennis Moles
Christianity, Contemporary Issues, Godapologetics, God, prove God exists

That depends on what we mean when we say prove. If we mean “is it possible to present solid, compelling, and logical reasons to believe in the existence of God,” then the answer is yes. But if we mean “can God’s existence be demonstrated beyond all possible doubt,” then the answer is no.

A “no” answer should not cause those who believe in God to panic. Those who deny God’s existence cannot prove their position, either.

Some things are just beyond our ability to prove, and yet we accept them as true. I cannot prove that my wife loves me, but I’m pretty sure she does. I can’t prove that a breathtaking sunset is beautiful, but I know that it is. I can’t prove that torturing and murdering another human being is evil, but it is.

All of us deeply believe in things that can neither be proven or disproven, including the existence of God. And yet we find ourselves as certain about them as we are about the wind that blows in our faces.

Church bores me. Why should I go?

Miranda Gardner
Christian life, Christianitychurch, faith, hope, resurrection

Friend, you are not the only one who feels bored at church. One Sunday, a young guy named Eutychus gathered with other Jesus-followers in a home, which was their custom at the time. Paul was there that day to teach. He was smart, but not a great speaker,[1] and he talked … and talked … and talked until midnight. Eutychus listened while sitting on the windowsill of a third-story room. At one point he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He fell asleep and fell out the window. He died when he hit the ground.

Before you draw assumptions, the moral of this story isn’t “pay attention in church or else!” The story isn’t over.

Everyone rushed downstairs. Paul took the young man’s dead body into his arms and said, “Don’t worry, he’s alive!” And Eutychus was fine. Someone took him home to rest; everyone else went back upstairs and listened to Paul teach until dawn.

Let’s review: Paul preached a really long time, Eutychus fell asleep and tumbled from a third-story window and died, and Eutychus was miraculously raised from the dead.

So why go to church even though it can be boring at times? In church, we get to see people come alive again. We get to see a man, deadened by addiction, reborn. We get to see a woman’s life-taking emotional wounds heal into scars. We get to see relationships and people come alive in the power of Jesus.

Church is a community of the resurrected. Paul said, “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.”[2]

It’s okay to be bored in church sometimes. God won’t strike you with a lightning bolt or throw you out a window. At times you’ll be tired or will find the sermon uninteresting. In those moments, remind yourself why you’re there. Church isn’t an event — it’s a group of people who reveal where God is bringing life to the world and how we can be part of it.

Now, you might be thinking, “I don’t see signs of life at my church. I don’t feel resurrected. The church people I know act like zombies.” Well, even zombies are the reanimated dead, right? Some people still have a long way to go to become more like Jesus — we all do. Show some grace. Help people along. Be the person that you needed during your spiritually dark times. Realize that you’re in church not just for yourself, but for others. As Anne Lamott says, you attend church to take in new life and offer it to others.

[1] 2 Corinthians 11:6

[2] Colossians 2:13-14

Did God Create Evil?

Tim Jackson
Basics Of Faith, Godattributes, Creator, God, God's character

If we believe that God created a perfect world and He is sovereign, where did evil come from? There are some people who believe that His sovereign control includes the creation of evil, and they base their conclusion on the words of Isaiah 45:7. In that verse, God says, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil” (KJV).

In order to understand what God was saying through the prophet Isaiah, we need to look at the words used in the text of Isaiah 45:7 . Hebrew words often have a wide variety of meanings, depending on the immediate context in which the word is used. The job of the translator is to accurately select the best modern English word that is closest to the meaning of the word used in the original Hebrew manuscripts.

The fact that ra’ is contrasted to shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, helps to give parameters to the meaning of ra’. Shalom, again, is a rich word with broad meaning. Depending on the context, shalom can be translated “peace,” “well-being,” “welfare,” “prosperity,” “safe,” “health,” and “peaceable.” in Isaiah 45:7 makes it evident that different translators interpreted the context of Isaiah 45 in different ways. Five different English translations are compared below.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things (KJV).

I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things (NKJV).

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things (NIV).

The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these (NASB).

I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who does all these things (RSV).

The Hebrew term ra’ has a broad spectrum of meanings. It can mean “wickedness,” “mischief,” “bad,” “trouble,” “hurt,” “sore,” “affliction,” “ill,” “adversity,” “harm,” “grievous,” and “sad.” Thus, as with the interpretation of any word, it is the immediate context that dictates the exact nuance of the word to be translated into English.

The fact that ra’ is contrasted to shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, helps to give parameters to the meaning of ra’. Shalom, again, is a rich word with broad meaning. Depending on the context, shalom can be translated “peace,” “well-being,” “welfare,” “prosperity,” “safe,” “health,” and “peaceable.”

The context of Isaiah 45:7 is a profound declaration of God’s total sovereignty over the affairs of men. God’s stunning revelation that Cyrus, the totalitarian ruler of Persia, was being chosen by Him to be “His anointed” ( Isaiah 45:1 ), the deliverer of the nation of Israel, was shocking to Isaiah’s readers. This is especially true given God’s clear denunciation of idolatry in the immediately preceding context ( Isaiah 44:6-23 ). The irony of this passage is that God reveals how He intends to use a pagan, idol-worshiping dictator like Cyrus to return His people Israel to the land from which they had been deposed by the Babylonian despot, Nebuchadnezzar.

In summing up the gamut of His awesome character and unpredictable ways (see also Isaiah 55:8-9 ), God declares:

I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from Me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged Me, so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things (Isaiah 45:5-7 NIV).

This is the signature exclamation of the only sovereign potentate of the universe: “I did this!” From the beginning to the end, from light to darkness, from prosperity to disaster, all are the work of His hands. God uses even the most wicked and evil exploits of this world to bring about His glory and divine purposes. That is what is so awesome about God. Only He can take the most wicked, evil, and self-serving intentions and make good come out of them (see also Romans 8:28 ).

Does God create evil? Certainly not. If He was the author of evil, then He certainly would not be a good God that is worthy of worship and praise, much less trusted to have our well-being in mind. The idea of a good God creating His own enemy and the object of His wrath seems inconceivable. It would be inconsistent for a good God to mastermind the idea of evil, will it into existence, and still be considered a good God.

Rather, God created man in His image with the freedom to choose. With this freedom came the opportunity to rebel against Him. Man did rebel ( Genesis 3 ), and the rest is history. The annals of human history chronicle how God uses everything — even the chaos of this world — to bring about His glory and purposes. Those purposes include our growth in becoming more Christlike.

What’s the point of Isaiah 45:7? God reveals His almighty and awesome character to us so we can relax with the confidence that comes from knowing, even in the most dark, desperate, and discouraging times in our lives, God is up to something good for us all the time.

Did Jesus Approve of the Consumption of Alcohol?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issuesabstinence, alcohol, drinking, drunkenness, marriage, miracle, teetotaler, wedding, wine

If the wine Jesus created at the wedding of Cana was alcoholic, does this mean that He approved the consumption of alcohol?

The Greek word oinos, translated as “wine” in the New Testament, simply means wine. The Greeks had a different word for grape juice. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia suggests that in New Testament times wine usually existed in a fermented form. It states:

Unfermented grape juice is a very difficult thing to keep without the aid of modern antiseptic precautions, and its preservation in the warm and not overly clean conditions of ancient Palestine is impossible (p.3086).

The references to wine in the New Testament are both positive and negative. For example, John the Baptist’s refusal to drink wine was a sign of his special responsibility as the last prophet in the Old Testament tradition, and Jesus was not willing to take wine while on the cross because of His desire to experience fully the “cup of suffering” that His Father had given Him. On the other hand, Jesus used wine to illustrate His teaching. His first miracle was the creation of wine at the marriage in Cana ( John 2:1-11 ), and He used the illustration of “new wine” and “new skins” to stress the need for a change of perspective about the law ( Matthew 9:16-17 ).

Timothy was exhorted by Paul to take a little wine as medicine, while drunkenness is severely condemned ( Romans 13:13 ). The New Bible Dictionary gives the following summary of the New Testament’s teaching about the use of alcoholic beverages:

To sum up, then, it may be said that while wine is not condemned as being without usefulness, it brings in the hands of sinful men such dangers of becoming uncontrolled that even those who count themselves to be strong would be wise to abstain, if not for their own sake, yet for the sake of weaker brethren (Romans 14:21).

The June 20, 1975, issue of Christianity Today contained an interesting article by Robert H. Stein: “Wine-Drinking In New Testament Times.” He observes that the wine used in ancient times was mixed with water in ratios of up to four parts water to one part wine. Mr. Stein explains:

In the Talmud, which contains the oral traditions of Judaism from about 200 BC to AD 200, there are several tractates in which the mixture of water and wine is discussed. One tractate (Shabbath 77a) states that wine that does not carry three parts water is not wine. The normal mixture is said to consist of two parts water to one part wine. In a most important reference (Pesahim 108b) it is stated that the four cups every Jew was to drink during the Passover ritual were to be mixed in a ratio of three parts water to one part wine. From this we can conclude with a fair degree of certainty that the fruit of the vine used at the institution of the Lord’s Supper was a mixture of three parts water to one part wine. In another Jewish reference from around 60 BC, we read, “It is harmful to drink wine alone, or again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment” (II Maccabees 15:39).

Dr. M. R. De Haan expressed his viewpoint concerning the use of wine in moderation:

It is the abuse of wine rather than the use of wine which is strongly condemned in the Scriptures. I know that in European countries, even among Christians, wine is oftentimes used as an appetizer, but not in excess. Personally, I do not use it, and I wish that we could eliminate it entirely. But it is well to remember that the use of wine does not mean the abuse of wine. Certainly it was never meant to be used for the purpose of intoxication, and I believe that it would be a great deal better not to use it at all, seeing the evil to which it often leads.

Did Jesus Claim He was God?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianity, GodGod, Jesus, Jesus' divinity, Trinity

Perhaps at first glance, a modern person wouldn’t think that Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus didn’t use later, more familiar, Christian terminology. He didn’t refer to Himself as the “Second Person of the Trinity,” but He did identify Himself with God in a thoroughly Jewish way, in accordance with the language and expectations of His contemporaries.[1]

When He declared, “I have come,” He indicated that He had a supernatural origin.[2] When He forgave sins, He claimed divine authority.[3] His enemies recognized the implications of such a claim.[4]

Jesus applied the title “Son of Man” to Himself in a unique way that clearly implied to contemporaries He was claiming equality with God. He consciously acted in ways that corresponded to God’s actions in the Old Testament [5] and claimed (divine) power to choose people to carry out his purposes.[6]

Jesus’ miracles also confirmed that God was personally and supernaturally acting through Him in history. In the Gospels Jesus demonstrated divine power by calming the stormy seas, healing sickness, restoring deformed body parts, and raising the dead to life.[7]

Jesus accepted reverence and worship that Paul, as a mere man, rightfully rejected, and Jesus even claimed authority over the angels of heaven.[8]

His enemies may not have been aware of all of these things and their implications, but they were certainly aware of enough of them to realize Jesus identified Himself with God. In fact, it was a key part of the case they made for His judgment and execution.[9]

[1] “To get a genuinely biblical ‘high Christology’—a strong identification between Jesus himself and the God of Israel—you don’t need the kind of explicit statements you find in John (“I and the father are one,” 10:30). What you need is, for instance, what Mark gives you in his opening chapter, where prophecies about the coming of God are applied directly to the coming of Jesus.” Wright, How God Became King, p. 90 and following

[2] “When one examines these sayings of Jesus, the closest matches with them in the Old Testament and Jewish tradition are statements that angels make about their earthly missions (within the Old Testament, see, e.g., Dan 9:22–23; 10:14;11:2). I found twenty-four examples in the Old Testament and Jewish traditions of angels saying, “I have come in order to…” as a way of summing up their earthly missions. A prophet or a messiah in the Old Testament or Jewish tradition never sums up his life’s work this way.” How God Became Jesus p. 97

[3] Matthew 5:17; Mark 10:45; Luke 12:49; 19:10; Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5-11; Luke 5:20; 7:47-50

[4]Mark 2:7; see also “When one examines these sayings of Jesus, the closest matches with them in the Old Testament and Jewish tradition are statements that angels make about their earthly missions (within the Old Testament, see, e.g., Dan 9:22–23; 10:14;11:2). I found twenty-four examples in the Old Testament and Jewish traditions of angels saying, “I have come in order to…” as a way of summing up their earthly missions. A prophet or a messiah in the Old Testament or Jewish tradition never sums up his life’s work this way.” How God Became Jesus p. 97

[5] For example, he chose 12 disciples as the foundation of a new Israel that would carry out God’s plans in the world.

[6] Matthew 11:27

[7] Mark 4:39; 5:21-24; 6:30-44; 45-52; 9:25; Luke 4:39; 5:1-11; Matthew 12:9-14; 17:24-27

[8] Luke 24:52, Acts 10:25-26, Matthew 13:41; 25:31

[9] Mark 2:7; Mark 14:63-64

Did Jesus really exist?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianity, Goddid Jesus exist, historical Jesus, Jesus

Considering the historical context, it’s remarkable that Jesus was mentioned at all in non-Christian historical documents. Yet while there is little reason we should expect first- and second-century non-Christian writers to mention Jesus Christ, some of them did. One was Josephus, the most important Jewish historian of the first century.[1] Another was a renowned Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, who referred to Jesus early in the second century.[2]

Numerous second- through fifth-century critics of the Christian faith, including Trypho, Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, questioned what Christians believed about Jesus, but none denied He was a real person.[3] Jewish rabbinical tradition also confirms he lived.[4]

Lee Strobel, a professional journalist and author, points out that there is better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other ancient religion. Not only did Jesus’ followers worship him as God, but many skeptical historians also affirm His existence and the devotion of His followers.[5]

Even the skeptical participants of the “Jesus Seminar” acknowledge that Jesus was a real, historical person. Given the strength of these textual and historical evidences, it is very likely that Jesus not only lived, but was in fact who He claimed to be.

[1] “When, therefore, Ananus [the high priest] was of this [angry] disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road. So he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” (Antiquities 20.9.1)

[2] “Therefore, to stop the rumor [that the burning of Rome had taken place by order], Nero substituted as culprits, and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue.” (Tacitus, Annals, trans. C. H. Moore and J. Jackson, LCL, reprint ed. [Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1962], 283)

[3] Trypho, recorded in Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho,” denies that Jesus was Christ, but acknowledges Jesus’ historical existence. Pliny the Younger, a Roman senator and governor, refers to Christians as “reciting a hymn antiphonally to Christus as if to a god.” Celsus made the claim (echoed in the Talmud) that Jesus was a sorcerer and a bastard.

[4] “The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus’ birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus’ resurrection and insist that he got the punishment he deserved in hell—and that a similar fate awaits his followers.

“Schaefer contends that these stories betray a remarkably high level of familiarity with the Gospels—especially Matthew and John—and represents a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives.” (From the jacket summary of the content of Peter Schaefer’s book, Jesus in the Talmud)

[5] The Case for Christ, Zondervan, p. 260

Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Christian life, Godhope, Jesus, resurrection

Every question deserves consideration. But some questions are foundational to all the rest.

The resurrection of Jesus is one of these foundational questions. Did he really rise from the dead? The answer has huge implications for the way we set our goals or find meaning in life. The apostle Paul wrote:

“(I)f Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Corinthians 15:17–19 ESV)

Documents written during the lifetime of witnesses to his resurrection described the events that preceded and followed it. Jewish law required Jesus’s body to be properly buried. His enemies took precautions to assure it wouldn’t be stolen (Matthew 27:62–66). Yet according to detailed accounts in the Gospels, Jesus’s tomb was empty on Sunday morning. Had Jesus’s enemies been able, they would have produced his body to refute claims of his resurrection.

It is remarkable that women were the first to visit the tomb, a fact that wouldn’t have been mentioned if the account were “invented.”[1] The next witnesses were disciples who had abandoned Jesus when he was arrested. Then there are fascinating details, like the description of his body wrappings in the grave.[2]

On the morning of Jesus’s resurrection and during the following days and weeks many witnesses reported personal encounters with him (Luke 24; John 20–21). In fact, 55 days later, Peter proclaimed Jesus’s resurrection to thousands of Jewish pilgrims in the vicinity of the Temple. In letters written just 20 to 25 years later, Paul affirmed the Gospel accounts, noting that Jesus appeared to his brother James, to all the rest of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:3–8), and to an assembled group of over 500 men and women. Many of those witnesses were still alive when Paul made his claim.

Testimony like this seems impossible to explain if Jesus’s resurrection didn’t occur. Why were friends who had abandoned him and hid from the authorities when he was arrested suddenly willing to risk their lives by testifying that he was still alive? No matter how absurd their claims seemed, early Christians were ready to confirm their faith in Jesus’s death and resurrection in the face of persecution and death (1 Corinthians 1:20–25).[3]

False messiahs preceded and followed Jesus’ life and ministry. Their credibility ended with their deaths. There is no historical precedent or parallel for such faith in the resurrection of a man who had died.

[1] At the time the Gospels were written, there was a strong prejudice against women as witnesses. They were viewed as too emotional and irrational to be reliable. This prejudice was so strong that women were generally not admissible as witnesses in Jewish courts.

[2] The folded head cloth in John 20:7 is itself an amazing piece of evidence, as described by William Barclay: “For the moment Peter was only amazed at the empty tomb; but then things began to happen in John’s mind. If someone had removed Jesus’ body, if tomb-robbers had been at work, why should they leave the grave clothes? And then something else struck John—the grave clothes were not disheveled and disarranged; they were lying there still in their folds—that is what the Greek means—the clothes for the body where the body had been; the napkin where the head had lain. The whole point of the description is that the grave clothes did not look as if they had been put off or taken off; they were lying there in their regular folds as if the body of Jesus had simply evaporated out of them and left them lying. The sight suddenly penetrated to John’s mind; he realized that had happened—and he believed. It was not what John read in scripture which convinced him that Jesus had risen; it was what with his own eyes he saw.” (The Gospel of John, Vol. 2)

[3] One of the many New Testament scholars who have been convinced by the historical evidence for Jesus’s resurrection, N. T. Wright, wrote a book that describes, among other things, the serious problems that arise when one tries to explain early Christian faith on the basis of visions and hallucinations. This is his summary of the evidence: “Historical argument alone cannot force anyone to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead; but historical argument is remarkably good at clearing away the undergrowth behind which skepticisms of various sorts have been hiding. The proposal that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead possesses unrivalled power to explain the historical data at the heart of early Christianity.” (The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 718)

Did Jesus’ Mother, Mary, Give Birth to Other Children?

Dennis Moles
Bible, ChristianityJesus, Mary, virgin birth

At first glance, this question seems to fall into the “simple to answer” category: “Did you shut the garage door?” or “Is the earth round?” But when we really look into the history behind it, we find that it’s not quite that simple. In fact, Christians of different stripes have disagreed for hundreds of years about how best to answer it.

Historically, Christians in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions have thought “no” while Christians in the Protestant tradition have thought “yes.”

Catholic and Orthodox Christians (and some Protestants) teach that Mary remained a virgin all her life and gave birth only to Jesus.[1] This view was almost universally accepted by the Church from approximately the 3^rd to the 17^th centuries AD [2] and follows four basic lines of thought:

Ezekiel 44:1-3 is a prophecy about the virgin birth of Christ.[3] According to this interpretation, Mary is the gate through which Jesus and only Jesus entered the world.
If Mary had other biological children, Jesus would not have entrusted her into the care of John as he was being crucified.[4]
The Greek words translated “brothers” and “sisters” have a wider range of meaning than the English and can mean “cousin” or “near relative.”[5]
For both Catholic and Orthodox Christians, the Church’s long-standing tradition regarding Mary’s perpetual virginity validates this belief.

Protestants who don’t accept the perpetual virginity of Mary base their belief on three primary points of evidence:

The teaching that Mary and Joseph never consummated their marriage is not expressly taught in the Scriptures.
The belief that Mary was “ever-virgin” is not clearly found in two of the earliest Christian theologians: Irenaeus of Lyons or Tertullian.[6]
Protestants believe that the simplest and clearest reading of biblical passages like Matthew 12:46-50, Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3, Luke 8:19-20, John 2:12, John 7:3-10, Acts 1:14, 1 Corinthians 9:5, and Galatians 1:19 lead us to believe that Jesus did have half-siblings.[7]

So, did Mary give birth to other children? While we cannot know with absolute certainly whether she did or didn’t, what seems clear is that a person’s salvation and love for Christ does not depend on how they answer this question. Christians of all perspectives agree that Mary the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ occupies a unique and honored place. God chose her to carry and give birth to His Son who would save the world from its sins.

[1] This belief is commonly called the perpetual virginity of Mary. Some Catholic and Orthodox Christians also use the term “ever-virgin” when talking about Mary.

[2] Catholic and Orthodox believers point out that prominent Reformed theologians like Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Jean Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary. See Council of Trent 1545 ad.

[3] This interpretation was common among the early church fathers. St. Augustine clearly taught that Ezekiel 44:1-3 was prophetically speaking about Mary. “The Lord said to me, ‘This gate is to remain shut. It must not be opened; no one may enter through it. It is to remain shut because the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it.’ ”

[4] John 19:25-27.

[5] There are three widely held opinions within Christianity regarding who these siblings/relatives were:

Catholics believe that the adelphos/adelpha (brothers/sisters) were cousins or near relatives, not brothers and sisters.
Orthodox believers say that they were older, non-biological half-siblings through Joseph from a previous marriage.[5]
Most Protestants believe that they were younger half-siblings from the union of Mary and Joseph.

[6] In addition to the clear absence of a defense in Irenaeus and Tertullian, Helvidius wrote against the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary prior to 383 ad.

[7] Protestant theologians also point to two additional passages as support for their position: Matthew 1:25 and Luke 2:7.

Did Jesus’ Mother, Mary, Have Other Children?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianityimmaculate conception, Jesus’ family, Joseph, Mary, mother of God, mother of Jesus, virgin, virginal birth, virginity

The question of whether or not Mary gave birth to other children besides Jesus is one that has been debated throughout the history of the church. Passages in which the other children of Mary are mentioned are Matthew 12:46-50; Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3 (mentioning sisters as well as four brothers); Luke 8:19-20; John 2:12; John 7:3-10; and Acts 1:14. Several interpretations of these passages were given by early church leaders. Epiphanius believed they refer to the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage. Jerome said they are cousins. Helvidius believed that they are the sons of Joseph and Mary (young half-brothers of Jesus).

There are several reasons to prefer Helvidius’s view. In the first place, it is the simplest and most natural interpretation of the text. If Mary was so much younger than Joseph that he had a large number of children by an earlier marriage while refraining from a normal marital relationship with her, why would children from an earlier marriage be mentioned repeatedly in close connection with Mary without any indication that they were step-brothers and sisters? It seems most likely that Luke’s reference to Jesus as Mary’s “firstborn” (Luke 2:7) and the statement in Matthew 1:24-25 (“Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took her as his wife, and kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus”) implies that she and Joseph had a large natural family following the Savior’s birth. This, after all, would be the normal and honorable pattern within Jewish culture.

The view that the brothers and sisters (Greek: adelphos, adelphe) mentioned in these passages are actual brothers and sisters confirms Paul’s references to James as “the Lord’s brother” in Galatians 1:19 and to “The Lord’s brothers” in 1 Corinthians 9:5. If they were cousins rather than brothers, Paul would have used the Greek word for “cousins” (anepsioi; see Colossians 4:10).

In light of these factors, those who would depart from the simplest and most natural meaning of the text carry the burden of proof. In our view, the reverence for celibacy and the exaltation of Mary that occurred within the early church is more likely an explanation for Epiphanius’s and Jerome’s interpretations than genuine historical fact.

Do I Have to Attend a Local Church To Be Considered Part of the Body of Christ?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybody of Christ, Christian, church, church membership

Some people deny that the Scriptures make a distinction between the local, organized church and the universal, spiritual church, claiming that every time the church is mentioned in the New Testament the reference is to the local church. There are, however, practical,common-sense reasons to distinguish between them. In Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares ( Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 ), false Christians (the tares) are portrayed as hidden within the organized, visible church until the end of the age when Jesus and His angels will remove the tares from the wheat. In addition, when the apostles told new converts how they could be saved, they never made involvement with the church or membership in a church a condition ( Acts 3:12-26; 16:30-31 ).

Since some people within the local, visible church are not true believers and some true believers may not yet be associated with a local church, it seems clear that it is possible for people to be part of the body of Christ (as believers in Christ) even if they are not part of the organized, earthly church. Likewise, it seems apparent that a person can be part of a local, organized church and still not be a part of Christ’s true, universal church.

Some groups, such as the Quakers and the Plymouth Brethren, minimize the importance of membership in the institutional church by pointing to the corruption that has always existed within it. They stress the relationship of the believer to God through Christ and avoid the establishment of membership roles and formal patterns of leadership or organization.

Others, like the Roman Catholic Church, believe they can trace their beginning to the establishment of the church by Christ ( Matthew 16:18 ) and claim that they have inherited from the apostles the authority to forgive sins and convey the saving grace of Christ. They believe that the personal spiritual condition of the ministering authorities is irrelevant, as long as they are the duly appointed representatives of the institutional church.

Probably a middle position is best, recognizing that while the local church isn’t necessary for salvation, it plays an essential role as a source of applied doctrinal teaching and fellowship, a place of service and prayer, and as an authority for discipline.

The fact that hypocrisy exists within the visible, institutional, local church doesn’t justify a blanket condemnation of the church and its work. The earliest believers saw a need for united prayer, study, and fellowship ( Acts 2:41-47 ). The writer of Hebrews actually warned people not to forsake the assembling of themselves together ( Hebrews 10:25 ). The apostle Paul emphasized the interdependency of believers by describing how every believer is gifted spiritually in ways that build up other believers ( Romans 12:1-8; 1Corinthians 12:12-27; Ephesians 4:11-16; 1 Peter 4:10-11 ).

People who willingly ignore or disregard church fellowship imply that they have no need of the spiritual gifts God has bestowed on others for the common good ( Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 ). Just as we are born into a family for our care and nurture as infants, so believers are born into the family of God and need more mature Christians to nurture them in their years of immaturity ( 1 Corinthians 3:1-15 ).

Participation in a local church, with a realistic eye toward the shortcomings of all institutions and other believers, is the best way that we can grow spiritually and help build God’s kingdom.

Do natural disasters signal the end of the world as we know it?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christian life, Contemporary IssuesBible, end times, human suffering, natural disasters

Natural disasters are not unique to our time. Terrible losses of life and destruction from many natural disasters and epidemics have occurred for millennia.[1] So no one can say for certain that such events mark the end of this “present age.”[2]

Jesus’ disciples once asked Him what would “signal” His return and the end of the world as we know it.[3] In his reply, Jesus cautioned them not to assume that natural catastrophes such as famines or earthquakes or even man-made cataclysms such as wars meant the end of the age was just around the corner. Instead, He told His followers to view such catastrophic events as “the first of the birth pains, with more to come.”[4]

Jesus’ caution is as applicable for us today as it was for His first disciples. Every generation since the time of Jesus has had to deal with disasters of all types and scales. But there is no way for us to know when a recent disaster might signal the end of the world as we know it. Jesus Himself told His followers that only God knows for certain “the day or hour” when Christ will return.[5]

Natural disasters do show us that the earth is not the way it’s supposed to be. It is groaning and longing for the day when Jesus returns and all of creation will be renewed.[6]

[1] Earthquakes: Antioch, Syria, ad 525, 250,000 killed; Aleppo, Syria, 1138, 230,000 killed; Shaanxi Province, China, 1556, 830,000 killed.

Famines: “Great Famine” of Europe, ad 1315–17, millions died; Indian famine of 1896–1902, millions died; Chinese famine under Chairman Mao, 1958–61, 20-40 million died.

[2] In Jesus day, Jewish teachers, (including Jesus Himself) divided history into two ages; the “present age” and the “age to come”—the good news of God’s Kingdom coming to earth as it is in heaven that Jesus preached. Many who read the New Testament believe that these two ages began to overlap when Jesus rose from the dead, and that the “present age” will come to an end and the “age to come” will come in its fullness when Jesus returns to our present earth. Others believe that the “age to come” will not begin until this “present age” ends at the time of Christ’s return.

[3] Matthew 24:3

[4] Matthew 24:4–8

[5] Matthew 24:26

[6] Romans 8:19–21; Revelation 21:1–5

Do recent earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters indicate the endtimes?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Contemporary Issuesend time, evil, natural disasters, prophecy, suffering

There have been some powerful earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and other natural disasters recently, but they aren’t unique to our time. Because population density is much higher today than in past centuries, more people tend to be killed when natural disasters occur.

People of Jesus’ day were superstitious and believed that natural events contained clues about the future. When Jesus’ disciples asked him what the signs of the end of the age would be, Jesus gave them a careful response:

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:4-13 nkjv).

Jesus may have realized that the disciples would expect the destruction ofJerusalemand the temple to occur in close conjunction with His return and the end of the age. To make it clear to them that they shouldn’t linkJerusalem’s fall with His second coming, He told them specifically not to trust false Christs. He also warned them not to think manmade catastrophes such as wars or natural catastrophes such as famines, epidemics, or earthquakes meant the end of the age had arrived. Such catastrophic events should not be viewed as “the birth pains of the Messiah,” as the Jews sometimes viewed them, but as “the beginning of the birth pains” (v.8 niv) of events that would take place throughout history. Christians should be prepared for these things and for the severe persecution that would rise against the church from time to time.

What Jesus prophesied came true—Israelwas judged andJerusalemdestroyed in the Jewish-Roman wars. Yet, as He said, the horrors of siege and battle along with the natural disasters of that period were in fact only the “beginning of the birth pains.” Thousands of catastrophic events of all types—wars, famines, plagues, and earthquakes—have occurred in the intervening centuries, some of them apocalyptic in scale.

Earthquakes:

Antioch,Syria, ad 525, 250,000 killed;

Aleppo,Syria, 1138, 230,000 killed;

Shaanxi Province,China, 1556, 830,000 killed.

Famines:

“Great Famine” of Europe, ad 1315–17, millions died;

Indian famine of 1896–1902, millions died;

Chinese famine under Chairman Mao, 1958–61, 20-40 million died.

Pandemics:

Antonine Plague (smallpox),Roman Empire, ad 165–180, 5 million died;

Plague of Justinian, 541–542, 25 million died;

Black Death, the Middle East andEurope, 1338–1351, 100 million died.

Wars:

Thousands of wars and armed conflicts since the time of Jesus Christ have caused millions of deaths.

People who lived during these times can be excused for suspecting that they were living in the end time. However, the wisdom of Jesus’ words of caution regarding the linkage of human or natural disasters with the arrival of the end time has endured. His declaration that we cannot know the day or hour of His return (Matthew 24:36) is as applicable to us today as it was to the apostolic church.

(See Can we know if current events are the fulfillment of prophecy? How often have people misapplied prophecy? and How serious is false speculation about prophecy?)

Do the genealogies of the Bible tell us how old the earth is?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bibleage of the earth, Bible, evolution, trustworthiness of the Bible

A cursory reading of the genealogies of the Old Testament could lead to the view taken by Archbishop Ussher that the world was created in 4004 BC.

But the genealogies of Genesis are not intended to determine the amount of time that has elapsed between the creation of man and the coming of Christ. For instance, the Genesis genealogies would allow for only 300 years between Noah and Abraham, yet at the time of Abraham there were already great civilizations in such widespread places as Egypt, China, India, Mesopotamia, and Greece. In addition, detailed archaeological evidence demonstrates that in some of these places dynasties had already come and gone, and civilization was already ancient.

The solution to the apparent conflict between archaeological evidence and the biblical record lies in the fact that the genealogies don’t include unimportant individuals. The Hebrew word for son, ben, didn’t only mean son, but was also used to refer to grandsons and descendants. Similarly, the Hebrew word yalad (bear) also can have the meaning of “become the ancestor of.” Isaiah 29:23 is an example of yalad being used in this way.

There are a number of good examples of how genealogies tend to omit all but the most important individuals in a line. For instance, Matthew 1:1 names only Abraham, David, and Christ. Even though there are only four generations listed between Levi and Moses,[1] Numbers 3:39 states that Levi’s descendants already were numbered at 22,000 males. (The genealogy shown for Ephraim seems to show 18 generations between Ephraim and Joshua. This genealogy is found in 1 Chronicles 7:20–27.) The list of kings in Matthew 1:2–17 omits a number of names that are listed in the list of kings in the Old Testament.

These and other examples demonstrate that the genealogies of the Old Testament patriarchs are given in order to demonstrate the common descent of the entire human race from Adam and Eve, not to provide a complete chronology of the time that has elapsed from Adam to Christ.

[1] Exodus 6:16-20

Do the Harry Potter Books Promote Witchcraft?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, World Religionschildren's books, fairy tales, fantasy, Harry Potter, literature, occult, witchcraft

The question is important. No one can deny that Harry Potter has taken the world by storm. Children are reading again. British author J. K. Rowling has captured the imagination of millions with gripping, well-written stories about a childhood hero who engages the forces of evil with his own magical powers.

Many parents are concerned especially because of the Bible’s strong condemnation of witchcraft, sorcery, and magical arts ( Jeremiah 27:9; Revelation 21:8, 15 ). Many wonder whether Harry Potter, innocent as he seems, might contribute to an acceptance of more dangerous kinds of sorcery lurking in the shadows of postmodern culture. An answer to this concern needs to be balanced between the warnings of Scripture and the legitimate use of creative imagination in fiction.

Witchcraft approaches the supernatural as a means of providing a substitute for dependence upon the one true God. The pursuit of witchcraft therefore involves a moral decision to turn away from and against God—something that seems contrary to the main thrust of the Potter series.

Like most of the things in our popular culture, the Harry Potter books contain potentially dangerous elements. But their popularity is at least partially attributable to the fact that there are many things about them that are good. Further, their popularity means that they are part of our cultural environment—whether we like it or not.

In a secularized world, believers should pick their battles carefully. In most cases, it would probably be better for Christians to be familiar with the Potter series, understanding its strengths and weaknesses, than to think they can keep their children—or others–from reading it or being interested in it. If we are familiar with these books, we can help the children we influence see their possible dangers, and use them as a means to lead unbelievers towards a Christian worldview.

With that precaution in mind, it is important to realize that the magic described in the Harry Potter books is not real. This is apparent to any adult or child who reads them. Broomsticks really don’t fly, and wands and spells with magical powers don’t exist. The fact that they do in this engaging fantasy is no more likely to make a child or adult reader believe in real magic than reading about Peter Pan would generate belief in magical pixie dust. Children who read about Aladdin and his magic lamp don’t usually end up believing in genies. Neither do Grimm’s fairy tales generally make kids believe that princes can really be transformed into frogs, that trolls lurk under bridges, or that cannibalistic witches live in marzipan houses in dark forests.

The magical world author J. K. Rowling constructs isn’t dependent on gods, demons, or other occult powers. The fantasy world Harry has entered is one of magical “science,” resembling the world our ancestors might have thought possible before alchemy, astrology, and other medieval “sciences” turned out to be scientific dead ends.¹ It brings the reader back to the mindset of a less sophisticated time when technology and magic were not clearly separated. It uses folk beliefs and legends to entertain us and engage our imaginations, but it never suggests that Harry’s world is real or accessible.

Although clearly fantasy, the adventures of Harry Potter do put sorcerers and witches in a positive light. These positive portrayals could possibly encourage a belief that there are some forms of real-world sorcery that are OK. This is why we need to use these books as an opportunity to educate children about the difference between fantasy and occultism.

The supernatural in Harry’s world doesn’t seem designed to mislead the unwary into witchcraft and the occult, but to awaken readers to the non-material and spiritual aspects of their own lives. As in real life, in Harry’s world things often aren’t as they appear to be. The seemingly harmless sometimes conceals something deadly, and apparent coincidences may turn out to be important events that are part of a significant turn in life’s journey. Harry’s world makes the reader vividly aware of an underlying cosmic struggle between good and evil. These books have depth, and that is part of the reason so many readers find them delightful and emotionally gripping.

When fully perceived, real life has supernatural dimensions that make any fantasy world superficial. Life is stranger than fiction. Good fantasy makes us aware of those supernatural dimensions. Bad fantasy either deludes us (if we willfully use it as a means of circumventing a reality we can’t face) or bores us.

As with all good secular literature, Christian readers are responsible to mine its content using tools forged by their own Christian worldview. When we read secular literature, we should keep in mind Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2:14-15:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment.

The real world is marked by sin and the curse, but the Scriptures call us, in the pattern set by our Lord Jesus Christ, to use the opportunities that the world offers us to witness to the truth. Certainly, good secular writers challenge Christian thinking and require us to grapple with issues we may not have otherwise understood. Faith in Christ, however, is based on a God who is the author and source of all truth and beauty. Christians are in a position to evaluate and learn from secular artists—like J. K Rowling—without paranoia or fear.

As Professor Alan Jacobs explained in his fine article on the Harry Potter series in First Things, the sharp distinction that now exists between the “magical” and the “technological” (or “scientific”) hadn’t yet been established at the time of the Reformation. Our Christian ancestors thought that many things that are now considered superstitious and magical were legitimate ways to unlock and utilize the power concealed in nature. Jacobs points out that Calvinists were drawn to astrology because their emphasis upon the doctrine of election fascinated them with the possibility (considered legitimate in their age) of discerning God’s plans in the stars. Even the great physicist and mathematician, Isaac Newton, a professing Christian, was fascinated with alchemy. Back To Article

Do the Sabbath Requirements of Old Testament Law Carry Over to Sunday?

Dan Vander Lugt
Contemporary Issues, Ethicssabbath, Sunday, worship

The Christian church came into existence during a time when the Gentile world did not recognize a day of rest or worship. Pagans observed holidays and times of religious celebration, but they had no weekly day of rest or worship. Consequently, Christians in the Roman Empire had to carry on with their normal occupations even while taking time to worship and fellowship on Sunday. Most people couldn’t set Sunday aside as a “day of rest” or substitute Sabbath. These circumstances continued until Constantine, the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity, made Sunday a special day of rest and worship (early fourth century).

Some people, both in the present and the past, have mistakenly transferred some Old Testament Sabbath restrictions to the first day of the week. The New Testament offers no clear support for this. It simply declares that Sunday was the day on which believers met to commemorate Christ’s resurrection. In this age of grace, the New Testament actually requires no special day for worship or rest (Romans 14:1-6; Colossians 2:16). The Sabbath was given to Israel as a symbol of their special relationship with God (Exodus 31:13-17), but was not given to the church or to Gentiles.

Even though some Sabbath restrictions were transferred to Sunday for the wrong reasons, a strong case could be made that setting Sunday aside in the West as a day for worship and rest was a blessing for most people. The “Sabbath rest” principle may transcend even Old Testament Law (Genesis 2:2-3). In The Lost World of Genesis One, Old Testament Professor John H. Walton shows how after 6 days of setting creation in order and establishing its functions, God took up residence in His cosmic temple on the 7th day. God is now “resting,” enthroned in His rightful place (Psalm 132:7-8,13-14) as the active Lord and governor of the universe.

When we “rest” on the Sabbath, we recognize [God] as the author of order and the one who brings rest [stability] to our lives and world. We take our hands off the controls of our lives and acknowledge him as the one who is in control. Most importantly this calls on us to step back from our workaday world—those means by which we try to provide for ourselves and gain control of our circumstances. Sabbath is for recognizing that it is God who provides for us and who is the master of our lives and our world. We are not imitating him in Sabbath observance, we are acknowledging him in tangible ways (p. 146).

A day of worship and rest shouldn’t be coerced by “blue laws” or the kinds of Mosaic or puritanical rules that limit spontaneity and Christian liberty.¹ But setting aside the day that the apostles gathered for worship as a special day will make it a time of unique joy and spiritual refreshment.

If we have to be reminded or coerced to observe it, it ceases to serve its function. Sabbath isn’t the sort of thing that should have to be regulated by rules. It is the way that we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is his world, that our time is his gift to us. It is “big picture” time. And the big picture is not me, my family, my country, my world, or even the history of my world. The big picture is God. If the Sabbath has its total focus in recognition of God, it would detract considerably if he had to tell us what to do. Be creative! Do whatever will reflect your love, appreciation, respect and awe of the God of all the cosmos. (This is the thrust of Isaiah 58:13-14.) (The Lost World of Genesis One, p. 146). Back To Article

Do the Sabbath requirements of Old Testament Law carry over to Sunday?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christian lifelaw, Old Testament Law, sabbath, Sunday

In an effort to obey the Bible’s teachings about worship and rest, some Christians have transferred many of the Old Testament Sabbath[1] requirements to Sunday. For those of us who are wondering whether such a practice is necessary or even advisable, it might help to think about the historical differences between Israel and the Church.

The Sabbath was given to Israel as a symbol of their special relationship with God[2]. When the Christian church came into existence, Gentile (non-Jewish) Christians had no weekly day of rest or worship. Because of work and societal demands, most early Christians couldn’t set Sunday aside as a “day of rest” or substitute Sabbath. Further, the New Testament offered no support for transferring Sabbath practices or regulations to Sunday. It simply declared Sunday as the day the followers of Christ meet in honor of His resurrection.[3]

Consequently, Christians in the Roman Empire carried on their normal occupations even while setting time aside for worship and fellowship on Sunday. These circumstances continued until the beginning of the 4^th century when Constantine, the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity, made Sunday a special day of rest and worship.

Even though Sabbath restrictions together with the broader Law of Moses were not passed on to the Church (Galatians 3:24–25), some principles of dedicated times of rest and worship may still apply. Many followers of Christ believe that setting aside the day that the apostles gathered for worship—Sunday—as a special day for spiritual refreshment is a God-honoring practice.[4]

[1] To this day Jewish people worship on the 7^th day of the week—Saturday. Exodus 20:8 says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” (niv)

[2] Exodus 31:13–17

[3] Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and other church fathers attribute Sunday worship to the fact that Christ was resurrected on the first day of the week. This isn’t surprising, not only because of the symbolism involved with the day of our Lord’s resurrection, but because the Lord himself emphasized Sunday rather than the Sabbath by choosing it as the day in which he met with his disciples in his post-resurrection appearances (John 20:19–29; Luke 24; Mark 16). Further, Sunday was the day the Holy Spirit manifested himself and the Church was born (Acts 2).

[4] In The Lost World of Genesis One, Old Testament Professor John H. Walton describes how after 6 days of setting creation in order, God took up residence in His cosmic temple on the 7th day. God is now “resting,” enthroned in His rightful place (Psalm 132:7-8,13-14) as the active Lord and governor of the universe.

“If we have to be reminded or coerced to observe it, it ceases to serve its function. Sabbath isn’t the sort of thing that should have to be regulated by rules. It is the way that we acknowledge that God is on the throne, that this world is his world, that our time is his gift to us. It is ‘big picture’ time. And the big picture is not me, my family, my country, my world, or even the history of my world. The big picture is God. If the Sabbath has its total focus in recognition of God, it would detract considerably if he had to tell us what to do. Be creative! Do whatever will reflect your love, appreciation, respect and awe of the God of all the cosmos. (This is the thrust of Isaiah 58:13-14.)” The Lost World of Genesis One, p. 146.

Do the Same Kinds of Prophets Exist Today as did in Biblical Times?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Bible, Christianityfalse prophets, Holy Spirit, ministry, old, prophecy, prophets, reliablity of the Bible

While all Christians have the ability to prophesy in the sense of speaking forth the truth, there was a group of church leaders in the apostolic church who functioned uniquely as prophets. These were apparently next to the apostles in the order of authority within the church (1 Corinthians 12:28-29 ; Ephesians 4:11). The function of the prophets was to edify, console, and exhort (Acts 15:32;1 Corinthians 14:3).

There are no prophets today in the same sense as there were under the old covenant and in the apostolic church. Before the canon of Scripture was complete, God used prophets to maintain order and teach correct doctrine. After the canon was completed, however, prophecy began to be more of a problem within the church than a help. Eventually, the office of prophet died out completely except among heretical groups such as the Montanists.

Today, however, a prophetic word can be spoken in the church in the sense that God’s Word can be proclaimed based on Scripture and the leading of the Holy Spirit. But there will be no new revelations that will supplant or contradict God’s written Word.

According to 1 Corinthians 14, there are two tests that must be passed by any supposedly prophetic statement. First, verse 29 states that after two or three speak a prophetic message, the others are to “judge” (NKJV) or “weigh carefully what is said” (NIV). In other words, the prophetic message must not disagree with the knowledge of God’s Word and of truth held by the other members of the assembly. Second, verses 37 and 38 demonstrate that just as the apostle Paul submitted his words to the examination of the Corinthians on the basis of their knowledge of the Word of God, any prophecy that is given must be judged by the standard of the truth already known to the church of Christ. In other words, no completely new truth would be revealed, but rather the prophet would expound and explain truths already accepted and recognized by God’s people.

The New Bible Dictionary summarizes the purpose of New Testament prophecy in this way:

It is in this sense that the apostle urged the church of his day, and would urge us also, to desire earnestly to prophesy: not to desire the notoriety of doctrinal innovators, but to contend earnestly for the truth once for all delivered to the saints.

Do Their Miracles Imply The Gospels Are Legendary?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybiblical inspiration, Christ, historical Jesus, history, inspiration, legend, miracles, myth, reliability of scripture, scriptural authority

When, as the story goes, Isaac Newton was sitting under an apple tree and saw an apple fall, he already believed that God was ultimately responsible both for the apple’s existence and its fall from the tree. Newton discovered the principles of classical physics because he wanted to know the means by which God made apples fall.

Science assumes that all natural phenomena have natural causes that can be discovered if we look for them. This assumption is called methodological naturalism. There is no inherent contradiction between the use of methodological naturalism and belief in miracles and the supernatural. Isaac Newton formulated the laws of classical physics while holding passionate faith in Jesus Christ and the authority of the Bible. Many scientists share Newton’s Christian worldview.

Unfortunately, some people have been so deeply impressed with the power of science that they make methodological naturalism the standard for judging all truth and value. This misapplication of methodological naturalism results in the dogmatic rejection of miracles. Most people today have a sense of the importance of methodological naturalism for science. But they also know that science has little bearing on their most important decisions. No one depends on science to choose a spouse or select a career. (See the ATQ articles, Why Believe in God’s Existence, When It Can’t Be Proven Scientifically? and How Can I Prove to Someone that God Exists?) Trying to do so would be like an orchestra replacing a concert pianist with a piano repairman.

Different subjects call for different evidence. If we want to examine historical events, we need more tools than the scientific method can provide. A murder trial, for example, attempts to reconstruct historical events. Every murder is unique, involving specific people and circumstances that can’t be reproduced. Science may be used in the process of clarifying and presenting evidence, but no murder can be repeated and scientifically tested so that guilt can be established with absolute certainty. A judgment of (legal) guilt or innocence is reached on the basis of cumulative evidence, including circumstantial evidence and subjective factors like motive.

Historical evidence, like the evidence in a trial, is not strictly “scientific.” Nevertheless it requires rational standards for analysis and verification. A juror who ignores a vast array of evidence for guilt, because he assumes from the start that the defendant is innocent, violates standards of truth just as much as a scientist who ignores evidence that doesn’t support his hypothesis.

The New Testament skeptic has to account for the sudden rise of a group of believers who centered their lives and hopes in a man they proclaimed was raised from the dead, the Son of God, worthy of worship.

What is the sufficient historical explanation for how a band of first-century Palestinian (predominantly Galilean) Jews came to abandon some of their most deeply held religious convictions—indeed, the central tenet of their traditional faith—and worshipped a Jewish contemporary of theirs as, in some sense, “Yahweh embodied”? Of course, one explanation—the traditional Christian explanation—begins by appreciating how extraordinary the Jesus event must have been to inspire such a radical shift in the faith in his followers. If Jesus made the claims, lived the life, and performed the miracles the Gospels attribute to him, and if Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead as the Gospels claim, and if his earliest Jewish followers personally experienced these momentous events—particularly the resurrected Jesus—then the radical worldview reorientation these followers experienced begins to make sense.” (Eddy and Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Tradition, p. 99.)

Although skeptics have dedicated themselves to finding an explanation, they have failed. (See the ATQ article, What Are Some Arguments Used to Downplay the Significance of the Gospels?)

In fact, their attempts to account for the evidence have often deteriorated into self-deception and transparently weak arguments. (See the ATQ article, Why Do Many Western People Doubt the Accuracy of the Gospels?)

The vast majority of Western people have never stopped believing in miracles.¹ The paradigm of metaphysical naturalism is weakening, and there is growing pressure on scholars to look at the actual historical evidence rather than making metaphysical assumptions about what can or cannot happen. As decades pass and evidence accumulates, it becomes more and more clear that the most reasonable conclusion is that miracles actually occurred in connection with Jesus and His ministry, and that the historical tradition contained in the Gospels is reliable.

For example, in 1989, George Gallup Jr. reported that 82 percent of the American populace affirmed that, “even today, miracles are performed by the power of God.” So too, a 1998 Southern Focus Poll found that 83.1 percent of its respondents believed that “God answers prayers,” with 33.6 percent reporting that they had personally experienced having “an illness cured by prayer.” Not only this, but it is undeniable that Western culture at the present time is experiencing a significant surge of people publicly reporting experiences of healings, angelic or demonic encounters, and so on. Whatever else one makes of this, at the very least it suggests that the “modern, Western worldview” is not nearly as committed to naturalism as scholars such as Bultmann, Harvey, Funk, and others have suggested.
The stark clash between what naturalistic scholars say the Western worldview should entail, on the one hand, and what the majority of Western people in fact believe and experience, on the other, suggests that when scholars proclaim that the Western worldview is incurably naturalistic, their intent is not so much to describe what the Western worldview is as it is to prescribe what the Western worldview should be. (The Jesus Legend, p. 74) Back To Article

Do those who reject Jesus really understand what they are rejecting?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Christian life, Relationshipsgospel, Jesus, salvation

Let’s face it. Jesus has been badly misrepresented by both friends and enemies. In the centuries following his ministry, his enemies described him as a sorcerer and false prophet. His followers, on the other hand, misapplied his teachings in ways that would have been deeply offensive to him. It really isn’t surprising that when people reject Jesus today, they are usually rejecting a misrepresentation of him.

Even those of us who follow Jesus have moments of doubt. There are times when we are so oppressed by the suffering, injustice, and chaos we see in the world around us that it is hard to believe his description of God as a loving “heavenly Father” is really true.

Jesus himself understood the difficulty of faith. In Matthew 8 he was surprised at the faith of a Roman centurion and noted that he hadn’t yet met even one of his fellow Jews who had such faith. He was painfully aware of the superficiality of the faith of his closest disciples and friends and wasn’t surprised when they all abandoned him at the time of his arrest (Matthew 26:56). Even after Jesus had met with a number of his disciples after his resurrection, Thomas refused to believe Jesus was alive until he saw him for himself. Jesus said, “You have believed because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (John 20:29).

In his teaching, Jesus made it clear that most unbelievers are not his enemies. He described them with the metaphor of “sheep” (Matthew 9:36; Luke 15:4). His listeners were familiar with the harmlessness, helplessness, and herd instinct of sheep. Scripture also refers to unbelievers as “ignorant” and “wayward people” (Hebrews 5:1–2), “poor,” “oppressed,” “blind,” and “captives” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18). Jesus used much harsher terminology (“serpents”; “whitewashed tombs”) to describe the self-righteous religious hypocrites who genuinely hated him and rejected the Truth he represented (Matthew 23). But even some within this group of hardcore enemies, like the apostle Paul, rejected him out of ignorance (1 Timothy 1:13).

So it’s pretty clear that we sometimes find it hard to believe in Jesus, even if deep down we really want to. It’s a good thing he is who he is because he loves us. He understands our struggle for faith.

Do those who reject the gospel understand what they are rejecting?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Bible, Christianitygood news, gospel, hope, hypocrisy, life, salvation, witness

Rejection of the gospel isn’t necessarily conscious rejection of Christ. Some people reject the gospel because they misunderstand it or because it has been misrepresented to them. This is partly why Jesus, Paul, Peter, and other biblical authors warned so strongly against hypocrisy and causing a truth-seeker to despair (Matthew 18:6; 1 Corinthians 8:9).

But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)

But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble. (1 Corinthians 8:9)

Scripture implies that rejection of the good news of Jesus Christ is often the result of ignorance and misunderstanding rather than conscious evil intent. Jesus doesn’t refer to unbelievers as “snakes,” “dogs,” “jackals,” or “scorpions,” but as “sheep” (Matthew 9:36; Luke 15:4; Isaiah 53:6; 1 Peter 2:25). We can assume that the image of “sheep” (known for harmlessness and herd instinct) was chosen for a reason. Scripture also refers to unbelievers as “ignorant” and “wayward people” (Hebrews 5:1–2), “poor,” “oppressed,” “blind,” and “captives” (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18).

Even when the gospel hasn’t been misrepresented, a world marked by disease, competition, and violence makes the gospel sound improbable to many people (1 Corinthians 1:18–25). Harsh life experiences make us wonder how a loving God can be in charge. Even Hebrew believers who lived in the time before God “made all of this plain to us by the appearing of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:10), had an ambivalent view. They believed their departed loved ones were at peace with God in some sense, but considered them unable to join in the joyous worship of the Lord’s people in the same way as when they were living (Psalm 88:10; 115:17; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:3–6).

Jesus knew the obstacles to faith and understood His role in revealing God’s love to us. We should pattern our response to the lost on His compassion.

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. (1 Timothy 1:13 NIV).

Do Those Who Reject the Gospel Understand What They’re Rejecting?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitygospel, salvation, Unbelief

No. Unbelief is not necessarily the result of conscious rejection of truth. While some people may not accept Christ because they are not ready to submit to His authority, others reject Him because they misunderstand Him or because He has been misrepresented to them. This is partly why Jesus and biblical authors such as Paul and Peter warned so strongly against hypocrisy and causing a weaker person to stumble (Matthew 18:6 ; 1 Corinthians 8:9 ).

Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matthew 18:6 NKJV).

Beware lest somehow this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to those who are weak (1 Corinthians 8:9 NKJV).

Scripture implies that rejection of Christ is often the result of ignorance rather than conscious evil intent. For example, it refers to unbelievers as “sheep” ( Matthew 9:36 ; Luke 15:4 ; Isaiah 53:6 ; 1 Peter 2:25 ). The lost could have been referred to as “snakes,” “dogs,” “jackals,” “scorpions,” or any number of other animals, but Jesus and the Bible writers chose sheep. It is fair to assume that they chose the simile of sheep (known for their stupidity and herd instinct) for a reason. Scripture also refers to unbelievers as “ignorant” and “going astray” (Hebrews 5:1-2 ), “poor,” “oppressed,” “blind,” and “captive” ( Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18 ).

Many also unintentionally reject the truth because from a natural perspective, the gospel sounds wildly improbable ( 1 Corinthians 1:20-25 ). How could a loving, forgiving God be in charge of this merciless, dark world? Many who long to believe in the resurrection, the possibility of salvation, and ultimate justice, are convinced by life experience that such hope is probably in vain. Even Hebrew believers living in the ages before God “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” ( 2 Timothy 1:10 ), had an ambivalent view of the condition of the dead. They believed their departed loved ones were in Sheol, at peace with God, but unable to join in the joyous worship of the Lord’s people in the same way as they did when living ( Psalm 88:10; 115:17 ; Isaiah 38:18 ; Ecclesiastes 9:3-6 ).

The New Testament clearly portrays the fragile beginnings of the apostles’ faith. The apostle Paul said:

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief (1 Timothy 1:13, NIV).

Do We Disobey God When We Don’t Worship on Saturday, the Sabbath?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, EthicsChristianity, sabbath, Sunday, worship

Sometimes Christians prefer to worship on the Sabbath (Saturday) for personal reasons, or they have a desire to reach out to Jewish people. Although we respect the motivations of these brothers and sisters, we must emphasize that Sabbath observance isn’t required of us today.

Sabbath-keeping was part of a covenant with Israel that is not a moral obligation for the church. Even when Christians worship on the Sabbath, they aren’t “keeping the Sabbath.” To “keep the Sabbath” as it was required in the Old Testament would involve compliance with stringent regulations (e.g. Exodus 16:23; 35:3; Leviticus 23:32; Jeremiah 17:21 ) that were strictly enforced.¹

The early Christians may have worshiped on the Sabbath, along with other days of the week. It would be natural for them to do so, because most of them were Jews continuing to associate with their Jewish brethren. When Paul traveled from synagogue to synagogue in the Mediterranean world preaching the gospel, he often preached on the Jewish Sabbath. This was a matter of necessity. After all, Sabbath was the day Jewish congregations met and Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles associated with the synagogues were the natural recipients for the gospel message. However, Scripture ( Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 ) and the writings of the church fathers show that the primary day for worship in the Apostolic church was not the seventh day of the week, but the first.

Ignatius, the Apostolic church father who was probably born during the time of our Lord’s ministry and was, along with Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John, said this about the Sabbath and Sunday worship:

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death—whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith . . . . (Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 9).

Justin Martyr, a disciple of Polycarp (mentioned above) wrote:

And we afterwards continually remind each other of these things. And the wealthy among us help the needy; and we always keep together; and for all things wherewith we are supplied, we bless the Maker of all through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Ghost. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits; then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things. Then we all rise together and pray, and, as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people assent, saying Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well to do, and willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the president, who succors the orphans and widows and those who, through sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a word takes care of all who are in need. But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead. For He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn (Saturday); and on the day after that of Saturn, which is the day of the Sun, having appeared to His apostles and disciples, He taught them these things, which we have submitted to you also for your consideration (Comments on weekly worship from chapter 67 of First Apology).

Along with Ignatius and Justin Martyr, many other Apostolic and early church fathers clearly declared Sunday the Christian day of worship. This was long before the centralization of church authority in Rome and the “Christianization” of the Roman Empire under Constantine.²

Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and other church fathers attribute Sunday worship to the fact that Christ was resurrected on the first day of the week. This isn’t surprising, not only because of the symbolism involved with the day of our Lord’s resurrection, but because the Lord Himself emphasized Sunday rather than the Sabbath by choosing it as the day in which He met with His disciples in His post-resurrection appearances (Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20:19-29 ). Further, Sunday was the day the Holy Spirit manifested Himself and the church was born (Acts 2 ).

While the moral principles underlying the other nine commandments are repeatedly expressed in the New Testament, not once does the New Testament instruct Christians to keep the Sabbath commandment. To the contrary, Colossians 2:16-17 states that we should let no one judge us regarding a Sabbath day. In Romans 14:1-6 the apostle Paul made it clear that he opposed controversy on “disputable matters.” He declared, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind” (v.5).

God gave the Sabbath to Israel as a sign of His special covenant with His chosen people. It was part of an elaborate system of sacrifices, rituals, and offerings (Exodus 31:13-17; Nehemiah 9:13-14 ). The Epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear, however, that the coming of the Messiah invalidated these regulations (Hebrews 10:1-18 ). It emphasizes that the Old Testament has been replaced by a new covenant (Hebrews 8:7-13 ). Paul warned the church in Galatia about legalism relating to the Mosaic law, saying:

How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! ( Galatians 4:9-10).

When the Jerusalem counsel met to establish the obligations of Gentile believers in respect to Old Testament law, it concluded that the only “requirements” were to “abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality” (Acts 15:29 ). Circumcision was rejected, and Sabbath-keeping wasn’t even mentioned.

No longer do we need to linger in the shadows of Old Testament law. The New Testament—not the Mosaic law—is our standard. For Christians, the significance of the Mosaic system has been abolished. Its rules and regulations have authority only when they coincide with the unchanging moral principles affirmed in the New Testament.

Because the New Testament makes it clear that Sabbath-keeping is neither essential to salvation nor a crucial aspect of Christian living, we consider any insistence that Sabbath worship is essential to the Christian walk as legalistic and divisive. We respect fellow Christians who have personal reasons for preferring to worship on the Sabbath, and we consider their choice a matter of Christian liberty. We also recognize that there may be profound spiritual benefits involved with setting aside a day for rest, worship, and meditation—whether that day be Saturday, Sunday, or another day. But bitter controversy over the Sabbath serves only to interfere with the proclamation of the gospel of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus.

If you are interested in reading more on this subject, contact the Department of Biblical Correspondence at RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids MI 49555-0001 and request a copy of Sunday: The Lord’s Day.

“Violating the Sabbath was a serious offense, and the person who worked on the Sabbath was to be ‘cut off from among his people’ (Exodus 31:14 ). During their wandering in the wilderness the Israelites brought to trial a man found gathering wood on the Sabbath. He was stoned to death according to the commandment of the Lord for profaning the Sabbath (Numbers 15:32-36 )” (D. A. Rausch in Evangelical Dictionary Of Theology). Back To Article
Evidence that Apostolic Christians began observing the Lord’s Day—the first day of the week—is so strong that Michael Green, F. F. Bruce, and other church historians cite it as important evidence for the resurrection. Back To Article

Do Witches Always Practice Black Magic?

Dan Vander Lugt
Paranormal, World Religionsblack magic, demonic, magic, wicca, witchcraft

Many modern Neopagans and other practitioners of what they call the “Old Religion” insist that they aren’t involved in black magic.

¹ While they call themselves witches and use the term “witchcraft” in reference to what they do, they renounce the use of a manipulative or malevolent black magic, and they have adopted an ethic that generally fits in well with the moral values of Western culture. Outsiders find it puzzling that such groups refer to their religious practice as witchcraft even though the term has many so bad connotations.

There is reason to question whether a clear distinction between “white” and “black” magic really exists. This will be taken up in a later article. Back To Article

Does a Wife Whose Husband Views Pornography Have Grounds for Divorce?

Jeff Olson
Christian life, Relationshipsdifficult passages, divorce, husband, pornography, The Bible, wife

Does Matthew 5:27-28 give a wife who finds that her husband views pornography grounds to seek a divorce?

Only God understands the pain that many women feel when they discover that their husbands are looking at pornography. Many wives are hurt by this discovery. They become angry and filled with personal doubts.

Women in this situation often find themselves on a difficult road, especially if there has been a pattern and history to their husband’s involvement. Betrayal of the marital trust cuts deep into a woman’s soul, and many have found that it takes time to learn to trust again.

Some have had husbands who slowly re-earned trust by doing whatever it takes to bring an end to the practice, by not blaming their wives for their own wrongs, and by patiently accepting responsibility for the emotional pain and struggles with trust they’ve created for their wives.

It’s never easy for a wife to walk this road. While some are committed to stay married and work through the pain and mistrust, others take a different course by appealing to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:27-28 , citing them as grounds to seek a divorce. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Their contention is understandable. Since their husbands sexually lusted over women while looking at pornography, then they are guilty of the sin of adultery. And because adultery is grounds for divorce ( Matthew 19:9 ), they believe they have grounds to seek a divorce.

They may have a case — depending on the severity and extent of their husband’s problem. A husband who is into severe forms of pornography such as pedophilia or sadomasochism has likely sunken into such a deep level of perversion that it causes just as much devastation as physical adultery. Of course, a husband who refuses to give up his affair with any form of pornography is blatantly betraying his covenant with his wife. Generally speaking, it is only a matter of time before he seeks to act out on the lust he’s been cultivating in his heart through pornography. In such cases, a wife has a basis to appeal to the words of Jesus as grounds for divorce too.

Realistically, however, if Jesus meant to imply that sexually lustful thoughts were grounds for divorce in every case, then every husband could be divorced on that basis. What husband can say that his mind has never wandered into sexual lust of some kind. As we try to understand the implications of Jesus’ words, we must remember the context in which Jesus spoke about sexual lust and adultery. Jesus’ main point wasn’t to give a wife wholesale grounds for divorce. He made the link between lust and adultery primarily to make the point that sin is more than mere behavior: it is also a matter of the heart.

Does Claiming God’s Forgiveness Relieve Us of Obligations?

Dan Vander Lugt
Ethics, Godconsequences of sin, forgiveness, guilt, making amends, repentance, restitution

God’s Word assures Christian believers of the forgiveness of any sin through Christ’s sacrificial death on their behalf.

Christians no longer face damnation — the eternal consequences of their sins. But they still face sin’s earthly consequences. For Christians, the earthly consequences of sin don’t exist as the punishment of an angry God. They remain as reminders of the fact that we live in a flawed, fallen world. The effects of sin still remain. The fullness of our redemption still lies ahead.

A person who has been a drunkard for many years, for example, may suffer irreversible liver damage that will remain following his conversion. A father who has neglected his family will continue to see the effects of his neglect. Sometimes we can make amends in this life for our sins, other times we cannot.

The Holy Spirit strengthens and renews Christians, even though they continue to be haunted by the earthly consequences of sin. The character of Christ Himself becomes established within them ( Romans 8:29 ), so that they will be empowered to live consistently with the truth. The Old Testament prophet Micah wrote, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” ( Micah 6:8 ).

Does Forgiving Mean Forgetting?

Tim Jackson
Relationshipsforgiveness, forgiveness of, relationships

Many people believe that to forgive someone they must first be willing to forget. By this they mean that they must be able to dismiss from their memory the painful events that caused a break in their relationship. In other words, they need to pretend that nothing bad ever happened.

Simply trying to forget the wrongs that are done against us is like spray-painting a rusty old car. It seems like an easy solution at first, but eventually the rust breaks through and the problem is worse than before.

Well-meaning Christians often support the “forgive and forget” model of forgiveness by appealing to God’s forgiveness, as in Jeremiah 31:34. In their view, this text means that forgetting precedes forgiving. They say that if we don’t forget, we can’t forgive.

There is a sense, of course, in which God “forgets” our sins. Once He has forgiven us, He will never use them as evidence against us. But the all-knowing Creator can’t forget things in the way that we do. Data can be erased from a computer’s magnetic memory, human recollections can be obliterated by time and disability, but all of history is constantly before His gaze. From eternity to eternity, God is the same. The divine Author of Scripture caused the sins of Jacob, Moses, David, Peter, and Paul to be recorded for our benefit. He hasn’t forgotten their sins in a historical sense, but they will never be used as grounds for condemnation. It is our sin’s debt — the rightful wages of our sin — that God “forgets.”

God doesn’t expect us to wipe the sins of others from our memory. In fact, we probably won’t be able to, no matter how hard we try. He certainly wouldn’t want us to pretend that we have forgotten things we can’t forget. What He desires is that we forgive sins committed against us (Matthew 6:14-15) the way He forgives our much greater sins against Him (Matthew 18:23-35).

It takes greater forgiveness to forgive a grievance that we remember clearly than to forgive a grievance that we have partially forgotten. Merely ignoring our memory of a grievance isn’t forgiveness, it’s only suppression of anger. Genuine forgiveness, like God’s forgiveness, clearly sees the offense and then forgives it by withdrawing the penalty and continuing the relationship. It’s natural to deal with our anger by suppressing our memory of an offense, but it’s supernatural to remember it clearly and renounce our right to revenge. Revenge must be left in the hands of the only One who is always objective and just (Romans 12:19-21).

Does God Ever Speak to Us in the Still Hours of the Night?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, RelationshipsGod's voice, prayer

Who hasn’t awakened from troubling dreams in the dark silence of the early morning with what seems a supernatural perspective on the stream of time and one’s place in it. Reality is amplified. Vivid memories of past sins and lost opportunities unleash powerful, deeply repressed emotions. One’s sense of God’s presence and holiness is overwhelming. We feel the crushing weight of more truth than we think ourselves capable of bearing.

This kind of nocturnal encounter with God is described in the timeless words of Scripture:

“For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while they slumber on their beds, then he opens the ears of men, and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn man aside from his deed, and cut off pride from man; he keeps back his soul from the Pit, his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:14-18 RSV)

“I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel; my heart also instructs me in the night seasons.” (Psalm 16:7 NKJV)

“You have tested my heart; You have visited me in the night” (Psalm 17:3 NKJV)

“When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.” (Psalm 63:6 NKJV)

Experiences like these only come by God’s grace. We would never seek them on our own.

Does God Hold Christians Responsible for Unpremeditated and Unconscious Sins?

Dan Vander Lugt
Ethics, Godsin, unconscious sin, unpremeditated sin

For a believer, unconscious sins are a serious concern, but they shouldn’t be a cause for fear of abandonment or judgment by God. Because we are all sinners by nature, born into a fallen world, we are all guilty of unintentional sin. We would be in a hopeless situation, however, if God required us to be aware of every specific sin in our life and then confess it in order to maintain our fellowship with Him. This would be impossible for us in our limited, fallen state.

Old Testament law indicates that God looks upon unconscious sin differently from conscious sin. The law prescribed sacrifices for sins done in ignorance or weakness and without willful intent ( Leviticus 4:2-3, 13-14 ). However, Old Testament law provided no sacrifice for conscious sin:

Anyone who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes the LORD, and that person must be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the LORD’s word and broken His commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him (Numbers 15:30-31 NIV).

The New Testament also distinguishes clearly between willful and unconscious sin:

That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Luke 12:47-48 NIV).

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin (John 15:22 NIV).

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief (1 Timothy 1:13 NIV).

Although the Bible distinguishes between conscious and unconscious sin, when we first put our faith in Jesus Christ, He declared us “justified.” He forgave us in a legal and judicial sense. He did this once and for all, forgiving us of any and all sins: past, present, and future; conscious and unconscious.

On the basis of this legal standing, God has accepted us once and for all into His eternal family ( Romans 5:1 ). Now, even when we sin (either consciously or unconsciously) we are in a new relationship to Him. No longer must we fear God’s condemnation and judgment. Christ has enabled us to be God’s sons and daughters, no longer facing damnation because of sin. However, although we need no longer fear judgment because of sin, sin still interferes with our relationship with God and other people, and sometimes makes it necessary for Him to discipline us as a firm but loving Father.

We shouldn’t worry about our unconscious sin. Although it has destructive effects in our lives, there is so much sin dwelling within us that we can’t expect to be instantly delivered from its influence. We need to be humbled, however, by the fact that we sin in many ways that we don’t detect, and be willing to confess and renounce any sin that the Holy Spirit brings into the light of our awareness. Our Father in heaven is ready to remedy the loss of communication and personal separation that occurs when we resist Him and go our own way ( 1 John 1:7,8 ). But to enjoy the full benefit of relationship with Him, we need to agree with Him about our sin. And it would be wise to follow King David’s example by praying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” ( Psalm 139:23-24 ).

Does God Hold Me Responsible For What I Do In My Dreams?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethicsdreaming, dreams, sleep

It’s unlikely God holds us much more accountable for the fantasies that appear in our dreams than He does for the predispositions to sin that we all share, including temptations or evil thoughts that drift into our minds. In fact, some of the things that happen in the theater of our dreams may help us be more aware of our deepest longings, conflicts, and fears.

Sexual fantasy, rage, and violence often occur abruptly and seemingly uncontrollably in dreams. We don’t know how much we are capable of regulating behavior in dreams. Some of the ascetic church fathers thought we are responsible for what we do in dreams, but Scripture nowhere indicates that this is true.¹

Dreams are generally things that “happen to us,” not things we consciously choose to do. To the extent that our dreams are “lucid”—that is under the control of our conscious mind—we may find we encounter some genuine temptation. (See What should I think of what I experience in dreams? and Is it possible that some dreams contain important symbolic meaning—or even a message from God?)

If troubled by dreams, we should commit them to the Lord, asking for protection as we sleep. We should also ask Him to instruct us as we sleep and strengthen our ability to resist both conscious and unconscious temptation.

Furthermore, Scripture nowhere implies that we adopt the other extreme forms of self-discipline the ascetics embraced, such as living in isolation, eating starvation diets, tormenting themselves with hair shirts that constantly itched, remaining unbathed so that lice could multiply, and so on. Back To Article

Does God Side with Modern Israel?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issuesapartheid, ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israel-Palestinian Conflict, Jewish people, Nakba, Palestine, Palestinian people

It is one thing to believe that God has plans for Israel, and that He may be bringing her back to her homeland. It is quite another to imply that God approves or is directly responsible for everything that Israel does. Israel, the Palestinians, Turkey, England, neighboring Arab nations, the United States, or any of the participants in the historical and current Middle East conflict — all are responsible for their own actions. The wrongs of the participants, not God, have produced today’s hostilities.

God never approves injustice. ( Genesis 18:25; Proverbs 21:3; Isaiah 1:1-20 ). It was the unbelief of Israel — often expressed in injustice — that led to her destruction.

This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not turn back My wrath. Because they have rejected the law of the LORD and have not kept His decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed, I will send fire upon Judah that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.” This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back My wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name” (Amos 2:4-7 NIV).

Therefore, even though we believe that God has a purpose in His preservation of Israel, she and her allies are responsible before God for their own actions. Israel is responsible for any injustices that that have been carried out against Arab neighbors in the course of re-establishing a homeland. In the same way, Palestinians and their allies will also be responsible for any injustices carried out against Israel. Before God neither side will have a case for returning evil for evil.

Because He is sovereign, God can use the wrongs of people and nations to bring about His good purposes. However, even though the sovereign God can allow and harness evil done by others to further His purposes, He never causes evil or approves of it.

The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 may prove to be the fulfillment of prophecy. What we do know, however, is that today Israel is living in separation from God. Most of her people are either agnostic (not looking for a Messiah) or followers of the Talmud rather than the Old Testament. The day is yet to come when God will restore Israel to her place of blessing: She will be grafted into the olive tree again, and her blindness will be removed (see Romans 11:24-25 ). This will be a time of great blessing for all the world. It will be as “life from the dead” ( Romans 11:15 ).

Does James 2:10 imply that God doesn’t consider some sins more serious than others?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethics, Godgrace, intentional sin, law, sacrifice, self-righteousness, sin

James 2:10 states: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble at one point, he is guilty of all” (nkjv).

Some people have mistakenly thought that this verse means that all sins are equal in God’s view, that no sins are worse than others.

In the Old Testament, there were sacrifices to atone for sins done in ignorance or through weakness. But deliberate, premeditated transgressions were a more serious category of sin for which the law couldn’t atone (Hebrews 10). People who committed such sins (Leviticus 6:1-2; 10:1-2; 20:1-27; Numbers 15:32-35; 16:26-32) either had to make restitution (as in the cases of theft or lying) or be put to death (as in the cases of adultery, violating the Sabbath, cursing one’s parents). When David premeditatedly committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, he wrote, “You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; . . . The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart” (Psalm 51:16-17 nkjv). David knew that no sacrifice could atone for what he did, and that he could only, like other Old Testament believers who committed such sins, cast himself on God’s mercy. The law provided no forgiveness. He needed grace.

Paul’s declaration in Romans 2 that God will judge “according to works,” “light,” and “opportunity” implies that there are degrees of guilt, as did Jesus’ declaration that rejecting Him and His gospel was a more serious sin than the sin of Sodom (Matthew 10:15; 11:23-24). If there are no degrees of sin, then it would be pointless to struggle to seek the lesser of two evils in the kinds of situations we all sometimes face.

What James is confronting in this verse is the self-righteous attitude that we don’t depend as much on God’s grace as someone who has committed more obvious and heinous kinds of sin. This kind of thinking is self-deceiving and encourages complacency. Any violation of the law is enough to keep us from being justified by the law’s standards. A person who doesn’t murder or commit adultery but shows partiality to the rich should not feel self-righteous. He is a lawbreaker too. The function of the law is not to justify but to bring awareness of sin (Romans 4:14-16; 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 15:56). We should be humbled and conscience-stricken by the many sins we do commit, and not feel superior to those who sin in ways we don’t.

Does Jesus Expect His Followers to Give Up All of Their Possessions?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitydiscipleship, possessions, salvation, stewardship

Does the passage about the rich young ruler teach that Jesus expects His followers to give up all of their possessions to follow Him?

It’s true that Jesus told the rich young ruler to give up his wealth and follow Him ( Mark 10:21 ). On another occasion, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” ¹ ( Mark 10:25 ).

On other occasions, Jesus didn’t rebuke friends who owned property or command them to sell their homes and businesses. In fact, He often ate with people and stayed at their homes. Friends like Mary and Martha or Zacchaeus the publican were clearly not among the poor. He was even buried in the newly excavated tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a wealthy member of the Sanhedrin.

So why, then, did Jesus set up what seems to be such a stringent requirement for this particular young man? ( Matthew 19:16-22; Mark 10:17-31; Luke 18:18-30 ).

Jesus knew the young man’s heart. He knew that he was looking for a way to earn his salvation on his own terms. He may have thought that the Master would give him a specific task or good deed to perform that would win eternal life, one that wouldn’t require him to humble himself and unconditionally set his life under the authority of Christ. Instead, Jesus set up a requirement that clearly illustrated the basic issue: the rich young man’s desire to retain control of his life.

Jesus wasn’t implying that salvation can actually be earned by good deeds. Even if the rich young ruler would have given away his riches and followed Christ, he wouldn’t have earned his salvation. However, if he had done so, he would have surrendered his desire for autonomy and acknowledged God’s authority to do what He wanted with his life.

Jesus felt compassion for this young man. But because He knew that the ruler was seeking to manipulate God, He had no choice but to send him away with a clear awareness of his failure.

The Bible makes it clear that possession of wealth involves responsibility, including a responsibility to be compassionate to the poor. But the Bible doesn’t say that all Christians should sell everything they have and give the proceeds to the poor. The hearts of some people, like the rich young ruler’s heart, may require such drastic measures. But for others, giving away everything would be an act of poor stewardship—an unwillingness to make wise, compassionate use of the gifts given by God.

On the other hand, Jesus indicated that a poor person is spiritually in a better position to receive the gospel( Matthew 19:23-24 ; Luke 6:24-25 ). A poor person can’t look to wealth to shield him from the reality of his spiritual poverty and dependence upon God. Poor people have their worries, just as wealthy people do. But poverty is a blessing in disguise when it makes it harder for a person to maintain the illusion of control, and easier to see his need for God. Furthermore, the best things in life aren’t related to wealth. A person in good health is better off—even in material terms—than a well-to-do person with a terminal disease. A person with a small income can enjoy friendship, love, and the beauty of the natural world just as much as a wealthy person can.

What really matters is the purpose that possessions play in our lives. Are we looking to possessions for the meaning and security in our lives, or are we looking at them as blessings that can help us fulfill our role in God’s kingdom?

The apostle Paul left no doubt regarding the means of our salvation and assurance:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

And what about our physical needs? Although Jesus doesn’t tell us that possessions are evil in themselves, He clearly defined where our focus should be:

Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33).

What did Jesus mean when He said that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven? Bible students have given a variety of answers to this question. Some have seen the expression “eye of the needle” as a term denoting a gate into Jerusalem so small that a camel could go through it only after it had shed its entire burden and assumed a kneeling position. Others have said that the Greek word translated “camel” should be changed a little so that it means “rope.” In other words, it is easier for a rope to be passed through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Neither explanation is critical to interpreting the passage.

Jesus deliberately drew a ludicrous picture to make a strong impression on those who heard Him. He wanted His disciples to recognize that riches can be a great hindrance to salvation. Then, to make it clear that not all wealthy people reject salvation, He added, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Through the working of the Holy Spirit, even rich people sometimes acknowledge their spiritual poverty, repent of their sins, and follow Christ. Back To Article

Does Modern Israel Have the Right to Use Force to Claim the Land?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issuesapartheid, ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish people, Nakba, Palestine, Palestinian people

Here we must be careful to realize that any nation has a right to defend its legal borders and citizenry. At the same time, we must be careful not to confuse the modern secular state of Israel with the armies and tribes of Joshua. While God’s hand may be seen in the return of large numbers of Jewish people to the land, we must always be careful to distinguish between what God may or may not be doing with the Jewish people, and what the Jewish people are doing without God. It is not at all clear that a spiritually unrepentant state of modern Israel can claim land because of a title deed originally given to the descendants of Abraham, and then revoked until the promised last days of physical and spiritual restoration of Israel.

This distinction is important because when the children of Israel first came into the land, God commanded them to kill or drive out its inhabitants. At that time the God of Israel authorized the complete destruction of Canaanites who were living as a morally bankrupt and an idolatrous people. Their debased religion demanded human sacrifice; their social structure was brutal and dehumanizing; and their total lack of sexual decency lead to continual abuse of women, children, and animals, and, subsequently, widespread disease and death.

When Israel first entered the land under the direct command of God, it was with leaders who were specially selected by God on account of their obedience ( Joshua 1:7-9 ). The Israelites themselves had passed through 40 years of purification in the desert and were not permitted to enter Canaan until a disobedient generation had died. Unlike modern Israel, the ancient Israelites swore faithfulness to God and knew of the consequences of disobedience ( Deuteronomy 30:10,18; Joshua 24 ). Also unlike modern Israel, God miraculously prepared the way for them and supernaturally assisted them, so that they wouldn’t become arrogant and think that they had come into possession of the land by their own strength and cleverness ( Joshua 24:1-20 ).

The ideology of modern Zionism ¹ is not based on religious faith. It is primarily agnostic and was founded on the ideology of nineteenth-century romantic nationalism, which is based on notions of “racial purity” and “historic rights to the land.”

As a result of this race-based ideology, the ultimate goals of Zionism didn’t favor peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians, but required plans for their expulsion.
² Over the decades, “the sins of the fathers”( Daniel 9:16 ) have clearly been found on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, the nation of Israel, like the Palestinian people, is not in a state of spiritual repentance as required by the standard of the New Covenant. Therefore we must wonder whether modern Israel has been guilty of many of the same corporate sins that led to her earlier dispersion.

Israel as a people and nation still have an important role in God’s plans. (See the ATQ article, Does the Bible Really Call the Jews God’s Chosen People? ) However, John the Baptist, whom Jesus called the “greatest of the prophets,” warned Jewish leaders not to feel superior merely because of their racial heritage:

Do not think you can say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.” I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come One who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will clear His threshing floor, gathering His wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:9-12 NIV).

God dispersed the ancient Jewish nation because of her moral and spiritual failures, and made His concern with justice and righteousness clear:

Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:24 NIV).

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8 NIV).

Jesus declared that Israel would never experience God’s complete blessing until her heart had turned to repentance and obedience:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 13:34-35 NIV).

God’s covenant with Abraham implies that Israel will not be restored to her place of blessing in the land at the price of injustice and violence to others. (“You will be a blessing . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”) ³If Israel depends on violence and injustice to take control of the land, she will find herself facing the same consequences her ancestors faced.

Zionism is the name of the international Jewish movement that began in the nineteenth century with the hopes of establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Back To Article
Although at least some Zionist leaders realized that it would be politically dangerous to make their plans for ethnic cleansing publicly known, some of their intentions have been documented, and history shows their plans for the expulsion of Palestinians have been consistently implemented. (See, for example, “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem” by Israeli historian Benny Morris, Cambridge University Press; “The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World” by Jewish historian Avi Shlaim, W.W. Norton) Back To Article
Before the 1967 War, a majority of American Jews were opposed to Zionism. Orthodox Jews tended to view it as a futile attempt to establish Israel in the absence of Messiah, and liberal Jews saw it as a violation of their commitment to freedom of religion in the context of secular representative democracy. Back To Article

Does Teaching the Doctrine of Eternal Security Encourage People to Believe They are Saved?

Dan Vander Lugt
Basics Of Faith, Bible, God, Relationshipsdiscipline from, forgiveness from, grace, relating to God, relationships, salvation, security

It’s true that some people are self-satisfied and insensitive about the sin in their lives. Such persons may misuse the doctrine of eternal security to justify a false sense of security. On the other hand, there are those who are oppressed by an overly active conscience, sincerely wondering whether sin in their lives reveals a lack of saving faith. These persons can be rightly comforted knowing that salvation depends entirely on our acceptance of what Christ has done for us, rather than on what we have done for him.

Many Bible passages underline the reality of our security as believers in Jesus Christ: John 10:28-30; Romans 8:29-39; 1 Corinthians 3:15; Ephesians 1:13; Ephesians 4:20; Jude 24.There must be a reason.

The doctrine of eternal security is taught in Scripture, but it should only comfort true Christians who are earnestly concerned with living faithfully for Jesus Christ. Professing Christians living sinfully without remorse shouldn’t assume that their profession of faith guarantees their salvation. Banking on a past “decision” can be dangerous. They need to be reminded that if their present lifestyle is out of keeping with their profession, they are either not true children of God or are living in a manner inconsistent with who they are and with what God has done for them. If they are genuinely saved and continue in sin, God will bring corrective influences into their lives (Proverbs 3:12; Hebrews 12:6; Revelation 3:19).

Professing Christians need to seriously consider the consequences of living in a manner that is inconsistent with their commitment. Even if they believe in eternal security, their continuing sin could be an indication that they never were truly converted. If they are children of God, continuing to sin will result in correction that according to the Scriptures can result in either physical death or a painful condition designed to lovingly bring them to their senses (Psalm 89:31-32; 1 Corinthians 11:29-30; Hebrews 12:5-11).

Does the Bible Assure We Will Reunite with Loved Ones Who Preceded Us in Death?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Relationshipsdeath, future, heaven, identity, individuality, loved ones, memory, resurrection

The Bible doesn’t offer any details about relationships in heaven. Based on the words of Jesus and the New Testament writers, we can be confident that heaven will be a far better place than anything we have experienced in this life and will include reunion with people we love.

The rich man recognized Lazarus even though they were in different places and separated by a great gulf (Luke 16:19-31). The disciples recognized Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration, though the two great prophets lived many centuries earlier (Matthew 17:1-5). Jesus told the repentant thief in Luke 23:43, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (nkjv). The apostle Paul said that we will someday have more knowledge than we have now, implying that we will have greater knowledge of other people than now (1 Corinthians 13:12). He also said that it is “far better” to depart and to be with Christ than to remain on earth (2 Corinthians 5:6-8; Philippians 1:22-23).

Christ will be the heavenly Bridegroom and believers will fellowship with Him as His bride (Ephesians 5:22-33; Revelation 19:7-9). There will be no marriage or reproduction in heaven (Matthew 22:23-33), but the fact that God will resurrect us as individuals (See the ATQ article, Does God Value Individuality?) implies we will recognize each other as individuals and remember earthly relationships.

We will no longer need the exclusive relationships that protect us from loneliness and despair in this fallen world, but since heaven is a place of greater and fuller experience than our current life, we will still know and cherish our earthly loved ones. The joys and ecstasy of marital and family love will be far surpassed by perfect intimacy and trust. Perfected bodies and minds will find fulfillment in perfected relationships and a full sense of heavenly joy and gratitude to God.

Does the Bible Imply That Sex Is Wrong?

Tim Jackson
Christian life, Ethicsethics, morality, obedience, sex, sexuality

It is easy to read the biblical prohibitions against having sexual relations outside of marriage and conclude that God is against sex and any form of sexual pleasure ( Exodus 20:14; Proverbs 5:1-6;6:23-29; Matthew 5:27-28;15:16-20; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20; Colossians 3:5-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:2-7; Hebrews 13:4 ). Further, many sermons on the topic of sex inevitably focus exclusively on the “don’ts” of sexuality. From these sources, we might get the impression that sex is an evil passion that God hates and that Christians must avoid. But this is not the case.

God is not against sex. He doesn’t view sexual desire as an unhealthy passion that Christians must despise, disable, or deny. In fact, He sees it as a healthy passion to be honored and enjoyed. In the right context, sex is delightful, desirable, and pleasing to God. After all, sex was His idea in the first place. It’s His design.

Genesis 1-3 records God’s creation of people. In 1:27 it says, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” It was after He made man and woman and placed them in the Garden of Eden that He proclaimed all He had made as being “very good” ( Genesis 1:31 ).

God designed sexual intercourse to be a dynamic part of a man’s and woman’s ability to express intimacy and love. Physical pleasure is an important part of God’s gift of human sexuality to mankind. From the very beginning of creation, God invented human sexuality and gave us our capacity to enjoy expressing ourselves through sexual intimacy. He proclaimed our sexuality “very good” as a part of expressing His creative genius.

Sex should never be viewed as something evil or dirty that must be denied. Rather, it is exquisite and delicate and must be honored and protected. If God invented sex and called it good, we dare not call it evil. Since sex and sexuality were born out of the mind and heart of God, He also has the best idea about how we can most fully enjoy it.

Jesus told His followers that God the Father delights in giving good gifts to His children ( Matthew 7:11 ; James 1:16-17 ). Sex needs to be viewed as one of those good gifts.

In the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden, the first husband and wife “were both naked, and they felt no shame” ( Genesis 2:25 ). Anything wrong with that? No. And that’s how God intended it to be. The first married couple enjoyed uninhibited freedom in a perfect “one flesh” union that honored each other as well as the One who made them ( Genesis 2:24 ). They simply lived out who they were made to be as a man and a woman with each other.

Although this perfect relationship was soon marred by sin ( Genesis 3:7-10 ), the opportunity for healthy sexual expression within marriage was not destroyed in the Fall. God still intends for shared sexual pleasure to be an essential facet of a healthy marriage ( 1 Corinthians 7:2-7 ; Hebrews 13:4 ).

In our post-Fall experience, we all have been exposed to or have experienced perverse and immoral distortions of our sexuality in a variety of contexts. From the media and personal experiences in destructive relationships, to sexual abuse and sexual violence, to the secret inner world of sexual fantasies, Satan is working overtime to mar the delicious taste of sexual intimacy with our spouse. Nevertheless, these distortions don’t nullify God’s original design, intent, or purpose for human sexual expression. God still wants us to delight in our sexuality as an exquisite gift from Him to us. How we handle our gift determines the depth of our enjoyment ( 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 ).

Does the Bible Permit Divorced Persons to Serve as Church Leaders?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Relationshipschurch leaders, deacon, divorce, elder, pastor, remarriage

Bible students differ in their interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:2 and 1 Timothy 3:12 . In Greek, the expression translated in the Authorized Version “husband of one wife” actually reads “one-woman man.” Some pastors believe this passage teaches that a man who has been divorced or widowed and subsequently remarried should not be allowed to serve as an elder or as a deacon.

Others believe that marriage is an actual requirement for a man if he is to serve as a deacon or an elder. Still others allow a remarried widower or a single man to serve as a deacon or an elder but believe that this passage bars a man from serving in these roles if he has been divorced and remarried.

Because of the wide range of possible interpretations of the “one-woman man” criterion, it’s important to view it in the context of the other New Testament standards for the selection of church leaders. In addition to being a “one-woman man” (husband of one wife), 1 Timothy 3:2-7 lists all of the following qualifications:

blameless
temperate
self-controlled
respectable
hospitable
an apt teacher (teachable)
not given to drunkenness
gentle
not quarrelsome
not greedy or covetous
a good manager of his household and children
a seasoned believer
a good reputation with outsiders

A reasonable interpretation of “one-woman man” is one that is in agreement with the other criteria.

Jesus named adultery the only basis for divorce and remarriage( Matthew 5:32 ; Mark 10:11 ). What if a man were divorced prior to his conversion? Would the “one-woman man” requirement forever exclude him from church leadership, while a converted murderer or embezzler would be eligible? What if a Christian man and his children were abandoned by an unfaithful wife, in spite of his extraordinary efforts to preserve their marriage? If he has biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage, consequently remarries, and meets all of the other leadership standards in the view of his church, would his divorce and remarriage permanently exclude him from a position of leadership?

The key point in interpreting the “one-woman man” standard is that when a single qualification can be reasonably interpreted in a variety of ways, it becomes necessary to understand it in the light of the entire list of qualifications. If a local congregation knows that a man’s divorce had truly biblical grounds and considers him “blameless” and well-qualified upon the basis of all the other criteria, they may consider him a “one-woman man” even though remarried.

Does the Bible Permit Divorced Persons to Serve as Church Leaders?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Christianity, Relationshipschurch leadership, divorce, marriage, relationships

I recall a man in a church who was known and respected by everyone. He volunteered to help when people were in need and provided wise counsel when people were struggling. At a congregational meeting, his name was put forward as candidate for elder. But an objection was raised: 20 years earlier he had been divorced after his wife left him for another man. Even though he’d been faithfully married to his current spouse for many years, some in the congregation wondered if his election as a church leader would violate the standard set by 1 Timothy 3:2 and 1 Timothy 3:12:

Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach. (niv)

A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well. (niv)

In Greek, the expression translated in most English Bible versions as “husband of one wife” actually reads “one-woman man.”

Some believe this passage implies that anyone who has ever been divorced and remarried is not permitted to serve as an elder or deacon. But this assumes that being a “one-woman man” means never being divorced. And that isn’t always the case.[1]

A number of other considerations must be taken into account in the context of Paul’s letter to Timothy and other New Testament passages. The “one-woman man” standard doesn’t stand alone; it is part of a larger group. First Timothy 3:2-7 seems to teach that a person’s suitability to serve as a church leader rests not only on one qualification, but many. An elder must be:

 blameless

 temperate

 self-controlled

 respectable

 hospitable

 an apt teacher (teachable)

 not given to drunkenness

 gentle

 not quarrelsome

 not greedy or covetous

 a good manager of his household and children

 a seasoned believer

 of good reputation with outsiders

A couple of additional thoughts:

First, the criteria for church leadership doesn’t seem to involve sins committed prior to conversion. The apostle Paul, for example, persecuted the church and participated in the murders of Christians prior to his conversion, yet he became one of the most influential church leaders of all time.

Second, a fair evaluation of an individual should take all circumstances into account. Are those who have struggled to preserve their marriage after being abandoned by an unfaithful spouse really in violation of the “one-woman man” principle?[2] Not likely.[3]

[1] Many scholars believe that this phrase is talking about current character rather than past performance. According to this line of thinking, a twice-divorced person who has been faithful to their spouse for 15 years may be more suitable to serve than a never-divorced person who habitually fosters inappropriate relationships with persons other than their spouse.

[2] Jesus himself acknowledged that sexual sin was legitimate grounds for divorce and remarriage (Matthew 5:32; Mark 10:11).

[3] If a person’s suitability on the basis of one qualification comes into question, his evaluation should continue based on all of the rest. If a local congregation knows that a man’s divorce had truly biblical grounds or occurred prior to his conversion so that he can be considered “blameless” (1 Timothy 3:2) and well-qualified upon the basis of all the other criteria, he can be considered a “one-woman man.”

Does the Bible Prescribe a Mode of Baptism?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianityaffusion, baptism, doctrine, immersion, sprinkling, water baptism

The answer to this question is hinted at by the Greek word translated in the Bible as “baptize“: baptizo. This Greek term means “to dip or immerse.” Judging from the word pictures of Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12, the original mode of baptism in the apostolic church probably was immersion.

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ( Romans 6:4-6 NKJV)

In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. ( Colossians 2:11-12 NKJV)

Undeniably, the spiritual meaning of baptism as described in these passages is best illustrated by the symbolism of immersion. This is acknowledged by prominent, non-Baptist theologians ¹ and church historians. ²

If I wasn’t baptized by immersion, do I need to be re-baptized?

We believe that the biblical standard is adult believer’s baptism by immersion. Adult believer’s baptism by immersion is an important symbolic act of identification with Christ. However, because salvation is by grace through faith in Christ, it is not absolutely necessary that you be baptized as an adult. Neither is it absolutely necessary that you be baptized by immersion. (See the ATQ article, Is Baptism Necessary for Salvation?).

In the final analysis, you must follow your own conscience in this matter. Most couples living in a common-law marriage, after becoming followers of Christ, desire to profess their commitment to each other in a public ceremony in spite of the fact that they could be considered already “legally” married. Similarly, many people decide that they should willingly demonstrate their symbolic union with Christ through baptism by immersion ( Acts 9:18-19; Acts 22:16; Romans 6:1-11 ) even if they have already been baptized as a child or by another mode of baptism.

Even though he was a Reformed theologian, in a tradition that practices infant baptism, Karl Barth wrote:

“The Greek word baptizo and the German word Taufen (from Tiefe, “depth”) originally and properly describe the process by which a man or an object is completely immersed in water and then withdrawn from it again. Primitive baptism carried out in this manner had its mode, exactly like the circumcision of the Old Testament, the character of a direct threat to life, succeeded immediately by the corresponding deliverance and preservation, the raising from baptism. One can hardly deny that baptism carried out as immersion—as it was in the West until well on into the Middle Ages—showed what was represented in far more expressive fashion than did the affusion which later became customary, especially when this affusion was reduced from a real wetting to a sprinkling and eventually in practice to a mere moistening with as little water as possible . . . . Is the last word on the matter to be, that facility of administration , health, and propriety are important reasons for doing otherwise [i.e., for administering baptism in other than its original form]? Baptism vividly symbolizes our identification with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection” (Teaching, pp. 9-10). Back To Article
“As to the method of baptism, it is probably that the original form was by immersion, complete or partial. That is implied in Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12. Pictures in the catacombs would seem to indicate that the submersion was not always complete. The fullest early evidence is that of the Teaching:

Baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living (running) water. But if thou hast not living water, then baptize in other water; and if thou art not able in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, then pour water upon the head thrice in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

“Affusion was therefore a recognized form of baptism. Cyprian cordially upheld it. Immersion continued the prevailing practice till the late Middle Ages in the West; in the East it so remains. The Teaching and Justin show that fasting and an expression of belief, together with an agreement to live the Christian life, were necessary prerequisites.

“By the time of Tertullian, an elaborate ritual had developed. The ceremony began with the formal renunciation by the candidate of the devil and all his works. Then followed the threefold immersion. On coming from the fount, the newly baptized tasted a mixture of milk and honey, in symbolism of his condition as a new-born babe in Christ. Too, that succeeded anointing with oil and the laying on of the hands of the baptizer in token of the reception of the Holy Spirit.” (Williston Walker, A History of the Christian Church, p. 96). Back To Article

Does the Bible Really Call the Jews God’s Chosen People?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issuesapartheid, ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish people, Nakba, Palestine, Palestinian people

The Bible predicts a unique future role for the Jews that will eventually bring blessing to all the nations of the earth. It tells us that Israel will be “a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”(Deuteronomy 14:2) ¹

An important indication of her future role is found in God’s covenant with Abraham:

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-3 NIV).

The fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham involves much more than the nation of Israel (See the ATQ article, Who Are the Descendants of Abraham?). We believe that God’s promises to Israel apply most completely to the future converted nation of Israel. Israel will again be in the land and possess a new heart demonstrated by humble obedience to God, and an ethical and national consensus that is beneficial for all the nations of the world.

These are the grounds for our belief. God made a promise to Abraham:

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God (Genesis 17:7-8 NIV).

Further, God specified that the land of Canaan would be given to Abraham’s descendants through Isaac:

But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned” (Genesis 21:12 NIV).

However, while the passing of the title to the land to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac is eternal and unconditional, God made it clear that Israel’s actual possession and enjoyment of the land was conditioned upon her spiritual state. God made it clear that disobedience would result in Israel’s banishment from the land:

If you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please Him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess. Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other (Deuteronomy 28:15, 63-64 NIV).

God also made it clear that national repentance would result in restoration of God’s blessing and promise:

The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as He delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD your God and keep His commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 30:9-10 NIV).

Later Old Testament prophets described Israel’s sin, and its consequences ( Isaiah 1:1-24 ; Amos 3-6 ; Hosea 2:2-13 ). In the intervening centuries the people of Israel have been persecuted as no other nation in history, and yet they have been preserved as God promised (Jeremiah 33:19-26 ). Looking to the future, Scripture seems to indicate that:

Israel will again return to the land ( Jeremiah 23:7-8; Ezekiel 36:24-32 ). The present nation of Israel may be the beginning of the fulfillment of this promise.
Along with the rest of the earth, Israel’s greatest trial is still ahead ( Matthew 24:15-22; Jeremiah 30:7 ).
Israel will be preserved and refined through this tribulation and recognize Jesus Christ as her Messiah ( Zechariah 12:10; 13:1,8-9 ; Romans 11:25-32 ).
After this, Jesus Christ will rule and reign on the earth for 1,000 years ( Acts 3:19-26 ; Revelation 20:1-6 ; Zechariah 14:9-21 ).

The notes of the New Scofield Reference Bible provide this concise statement regarding Israel’s unique role:
Israel was called to be a witness to the unity of God in the midst of universal idolatry (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10-12 ); to illustrate the blessedness of serving the true God (Deuteronomy 33:26-29 ); to receive and preserve the divine revelations (Deuteronomy 4:5-8; Romans 3:1,2 ); and to be the human channel for the Messiah (Genesis 21:12;28:10,14; 49:10 ; 2Samuel 7:16,17 ; Isaiah 7:13-14; Matthew 1:1 ). Back To Article

Does the Bible say that the gift of speaking in tongues will cease?

Dennis Moles
Basics Of Faith, Biblespiritual gifts, theology, tongues

Yes. The Bible says that the spiritual gift of tongues (or languages) will cease. What is not so clear from the Scriptures is when this particular gift did or will stop.

Many Christians believe that this gift was given to authenticate the gospel and that the gift of tongues stopped after the apostles’ death and the completion of the New Testament documents. People who hold this belief are called cessationists because they teach that the miraculous gifts including tongues have ceased. On the other side of the debate are the continuationists who believe that the miraculous gifts have continued and are at least theoretically possible today.

The passage each side struggles with is 1 Corinthians 13:8.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages [in tongues] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.^{^[1]}

The primary question interpreters fight to answer is what the “perfect time” is that Paul is talking about. While the vast majority of pastors and theologians agree that the gift of tongues will pass away “when the time of perfection comes,” they don’t always agree on what inaugurates this time of perfection.

Those who believe that miraculous gifts stopped in the first century generally argue that the time of perfection began when the New Testament documents were completed. When the canon was closed, there was no longer any need for the miraculous gift of tongues.

On the other hand, those who believe that the miraculous gifts continued after the first century generally understand the time of perfection as Christ’s second coming. They teach that when Christ finally and fully reigns as king of the new heaven and new earth, all need for spiritual gifts like tongues, prophecy, and special knowledge will pass away. But until that time, God the Holy Spirit will use the gift of tongues as He sees fit.

^{^[1]} Tyndale House Publishers. (2007). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (3rd ed.) (1 Co 13:8–10). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

Does the Bible Set Limitations on Age Differences for Men and Women Who Want to Marry?

Dan Vander Lugt
Ethics, Relationshipsage difference, cross-generational, marriage

The Bible doesn’t offer any specific guidelines stipulating the age differences appropriate for marriage, but some things are implied. It is hard to imagine the lovers in the Song of Solomon being of widely disparate ages; and Proverbs 5:18, “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of your youth” seems to imply the marriage of a young man to a young woman. Yet the marriage of an older person to a much younger one is not forbidden by Scripture; and since Scripture doesn’t forbid it, such marriages would be within the realm of Christian liberty.

Yet there usually is something unsettling about the marriage of two people separated by many years of age. The greater the age difference, the more it seems likely that there might be an unhealthy motivation for the marriage. Does the older partner hope to recapture his/her youth through union with the younger spouse? Is the younger spouse seeking the security of a parent figure rather than risking a relationship with a peer? Are there selfish sexual or financial motivations?

Further, there are the consequences of such a marriage. If a young man marries an older woman, he may never experience the joy of fatherhood. A young woman married to an older man may find when her children are teenagers that she is closer to her children in temperament and attitude than with a rapidly aging, possibly infirm, husband. There are too many negative consequences—both possible and certain—to list here.

The basic principle of Christian love should be the foundation of any Christian marriage. Anyone who marries a much younger or older person with the wrong motivations will not escape the negative consequences. The greater the disparity in age, the harder it may be for others to believe that love is the motivation, and a married couple of widely different ages will face a greater challenge living a full life of testimony before a cynical, unbelieving world.

Does the Bible Show Contempt for Women When it Refers to God as Father?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issues, GodChrist, God, humanity, objectifying women

The Bible presents God as Father and uses masculine pronouns to refer to Him. But God isn’t limited by the sexual distinctions of His creatures. God is eternal Spirit, and should not be perceived in an anthropomorphic way. He may be conscious, personal, and masculine in some significant way, but His consciousness, personality, and masculinity so far transcend our experience of these things that we should always be on guard against thinking of Him in merely human terms.

Many people believe that since the Bible was written in an age when women were often perceived as being of less worth than men, they automatically portray God in a way demeaning to women. However, since the New Testament teaches clearly that women and men are equal in the sight of God (Galatians 3:28), this premise is questionable.

Scriptures written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit cannot be assumed to express a bias against women. It is unlikely that when the Lord Jesus instructed us to pray, “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9), He was expressing contempt or disrespect for mothers and women in general. Jesus demonstrated high regard for women (Matthew 9:22; 28:1-10; Luke 8:1-3; 10:38-42; John 4:7-29).

Is it safe to assume that inspired Scripture has no reasons for referring to God in masculine terms? And if so, why then is the church described in feminine terms in relation to God (Ephesians 5:25-27; Revelation 21:2; 22:17). Does this metaphor of the church (obviously including both sexes) as “wife” and “bride” also bear unnecessary “cultural baggage”?

C.S. Lewis outlined the dangers of such a perspective in his brief article “Priestesses in the Church”:

Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. . . . Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

We should not think lightly of altering the figures of speech used by the prophets, apostles, and our Lord. Judging from the metaphors of Scripture, God clearly relates to us in a masculine way (a masculinity uncontaminated with human flaws), but this doesn’t mean that femininity (including the feminine role of the church) isn’t based in and created by Him as well!

Does the Bible tolerate slavery?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianity, Ethicsjustice, slavery, trustworthiness of the Bible

The slavery tolerated by the Scriptures must be understood in its historical context and should not be equated with type of slavery seen in the pre-Civil War American south or in the sex-trade slavery all across the world. Old Testament laws regulating slavery are troublesome by modern standards, but in their historical context they provided a degree of social recognition and legal protection to slaves that was advanced for its time.[1]

In ancient times, slavery existed in every part of the world. Slaves had no legal status or rights, and they were treated as the property of their owners. Even Plato and Aristotle looked upon slaves as inferior beings. As inhumane as such slavery was, we must keep in mind that on occasion it was an alternative to the massacre of enemy populations in wartime and the starvation of the poor during famine. It was to the people of this harsh age that the Bible was first written.

In New Testament times, slave labor was foundational to the economy of the Roman Empire. About a third of the population was comprised of slaves. If the writers of the New Testament had attacked the institution of slavery directly, the gospel would have been identified with a radical political cause at a time when the abolition of slavery was unthinkable. To directly appeal for the freeing of slaves would have been inflammatory and a direct threat to the social order. Consequently, the New Testament acknowledged slavery’s existence, instructing both Christian masters and slaves in the way they should behave.[2] At the same time, it openly declared the spiritual equality of all people.[3]

The gospel first had the practical effect of doing away with slavery within the community of the early church. It also carried within it the seeds of the eventual complete abolition of slavery in the Western world.

The fact that the Bible never expressly condemned the institution of slavery has been wrongfully used as a rationale for its continuance. In the American South prior to the Civil War, many nominal Christians wrongly interpreted the Bible’s approach to slavery and used their misunderstanding to justify economic interests. The terrible use of African slave labor continued in spite of those who argued from the Scriptures for the spiritual equality of all ethnicities. Today the Christian message of the spiritual equality of all people under God has spread throughout the world, and it is rapidly becoming the standard by which the human values of all nations are measured.

[1]. Exodus 21:20-27 ; Leviticus 25:44-46

[2]. Ephesians 6:5-9 ; Colossians 3:2 ; Colossians 4:1 ; 1 Timothy 6:2 ; Philemon 1:10-21

[3]. Galatians 3:28; 1 Corinthians 7:20-24 ; Colossians 3:11

Does The Fact That Few Ancient Non-Christian Sources Refer To Christ Imply He Is Legendary?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybiblical inspiration, Christ, historical Jesus, history, inspiration, reliability of scripture, scriptural authority

Why should anyone expect mention of Jesus in surviving Roman and Greek literature? Palestine was a relatively minor province on the periphery of Roman/Hellenistic civilization. Christianity would have been viewed as a minor Jewish sect, greatly overshadowed by the explosive Jewish politics that led to the Jewish uprisings and wars of the late first and early second centuries.

Although there is little reason to expect non-Christian writers to notice and write about Jesus Christ and the church, there were some who did.

The renowned Roman historian, Cornelius Tacitus, included the following passage in his “Annals,” written early in the second century:

Therefore, to stop the rumor [that the burning of Rome had taken place by order], Nero substituted as culprits, and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. (Tacitus, Annals, trans. C. H. Moore and J. Jackson, LCL, reprint ed. [Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1962], 283)

The most important Jewish historian of the first century was Flavius Josephus. He wrote:

When, therefore, Ananus [the high priest] was of this [angry] disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority]. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road. So he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James. (Antiquities 20.9.1)

There were numerous second- through fifth-century critics of the Christian faith who denied that Jesus was what Christians believed him to be, including Trypho, Pliny, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian. But none of them questioned Jesus’ historical existence.¹

Even Jewish rabbinical tradition, although extremely hostile to Christianity and Jesus, clearly considered Jesus a real person.²

Lee Strobel, a professional journalist who wrote one of the most readable books on the reliability of the scriptural Jesus tradition, The Case for Christ, writes:

“We have better historical documentation for Jesus than for the founder of any other ancient religion,” said Edwin Yamauchi. Sources from outside the Bible corroborate that many people believed Jesus performed healings and was the Messiah, that he was crucified, and that despite this shameful death, his followers, who believed he was still alive, worshiped him as God. (Zondervan, p. 260)

There are other possible ancient references to Jesus as an historic personage, but Christian evidences remain the most significant, and naturally so. The disciples of Christ were obviously the most motivated to write about Him.

There is no significant question about the authorship and dating of most of Paul’s epistles, the first-century dating of the first three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the dating and historical accuracy of the book of Acts, or the dating and authorship of many other Christian writings (all of which quote the Gospels and Paul’s epistles copiously) dating from the end of the first century on.

Even unbelieving and skeptical participants of the “Jesus Seminar” acknowledge that Jesus was a real, historical person. Given the strength of Christian textual and historical evidence, claiming that there isn’t much corroborating evidence about Jesus from non-Christian sources is more of an excuse for ignoring Christian sources than a significant criticism.

Trypho, recorded in Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue with Trypho,” denies that Jesus was Christ, but acknowledges Jesus’ historical existence. Pliny the Younger, a Roman senator and governor, refers to Christians as “reciting a hymn antiphonally to Christus as if to a god.” Celsus made the claim (echoed in the Talmud) that Jesus was a sorcerer and a bastard. Back To Article
“The Talmudic stories make fun of Jesus’ birth from a virgin, fervently contest his claim to be the Messiah and Son of God, and maintain that he was rightfully executed as a blasphemer and idolater. They subvert the Christian idea of Jesus’ resurrection and insist that he got the punishment he deserved in hell—and that a similar fate awaits his followers.
“Schaefer contends that these stories betray a remarkably high level of familiarity with the Gospels—especially Matthew and John—and represents a deliberate and sophisticated anti-Christian polemic that parodies the New Testament narratives.” (From the jacket summary of the content of Peter Schaefer’s book, Jesus in the Talmud.) Back To Article

Don’t All Religions Lead to God?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, World Religionsmany paths to God, one way, religion, salvation, truth

Just because all of the world’s religions express important elements of spiritual truth doesn’t mean that they all represent enough truth to lead to God.

The history of religion shows how immoral and violent religion can be. Most modern people would look upon the actual practice of many extinct religions with horror. The Canaanites, for instance, practiced human sacrifice, bestiality, and ritual prostitution. The Phoenicians practiced a similar, horrible religion. In the New World, the Aztec Indians practiced ritual human sacrifice on a scale that is almost beyond modern imagination.

Even our relativistic, “Postmodern” culture would find it difficult to defend religions that encourage impersonal ritual sex, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. It’s just too obvious that such religions don’t bring out the best in people. Neither do they produce healthy civilizations.

History also shows us that some civilizations that were founded on evil religion were ripe for destruction. The Canaanites were conquered by Israel. Carthage was utterly destroyed by Rome. The Aztecs were conquered by a few hundred Spaniards and a vast army of Amerindian allies from surrounding tribes who longed for deliverance from Aztec terror.

The major religions that still survive today have lasted a long time, gained many followers, and produced complex and highly developed cultures. Those that have survived into the 20th century generally uphold a moral law similar to the biblical 10 Commandments. But the world’s major religions do not share a consensus about how to come to terms with our failure to live up to the moral standards of our faith.

While all major contemporary religions have a fairly close general consensus regarding the moral law—the kind of behavior that deserves to be classified as virtuous or sinful—they fall far short of showing us how to come to terms with our own failure to live up to the moral standards of our faith.

According to the New Testament gospel of Christ, knowledge of the moral law brings awareness of sin and guilt (Romans 3:19,20; Romans 7:7-13; 1 Timothy 1:7-11), but is in itself not a means of salvation. Knowledge of the moral law only brings condemnation, and with condemnation comes guilt and the many destructive ways people try to suppress it (legalism, self-righteousness, scapegoating). (See the ATQ article, Can Assurance of Salvation Be Found in Obeying the Old Testament Law?) Only reliance upon Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in our behalf provides a solution to the awareness of moral condemnation and agony of guilt that rises out of knowledge of the moral law. Only Christianity offers access to God because it answers the problem of evil and guilt.

Jesus Christ fulfilled the moral law both in His life and in His death. He obeyed it perfectly. Of the entire human race, only He never sinned (see John 5:46; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22). He also laid down His life to pay the penalty for sin demanded by the law (see John 3:16; John 10:11-l8; John 11:50-52; Romans. 5:6-8; 2 Corinthians. 5:21). Because Jesus Christ fulfilled the requirements of the moral law, believers in him are restored to relationship with God through grace and no longer alienated and tormented by guilt. Only with Jesus Christ as both master and example can people manifest God’s love and exhibit a righteousness that fulfills the law without being shackled by it (Romans 13:8-10).

Don’t New Testament Passages Say Christians Will Perform Greater Miracles than Christ?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitydivine power, faith, faith healing, Healing, Holy Spirit, miracles, power

This question refers to several passages, including John 14:12:

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

Jesus wasn’t saying that His disciples would be able to perform all of the supernatural acts that He did through the power of the Holy Spirit (although they did perform miracles). He was speaking of the work that He considered most important: the spread of the gospel. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary contains an interesting explanation of this verse:

He wanted to impress on the disciples that He was not disbanding them in anticipation of His departure but, rather, He was expecting them to continue His work and do even greater things than He had accomplished. Such an expectation seems impossible in the light of His character and power; yet, through the power of the Spirit whom Jesus sent after His ascension, there were more converts after the initial sermon of Peter at Pentecost than are recorded for Jesus during His entire career. The influence of the infant church covered the Roman world,whereas Jesus during His lifetime never traveled outside the boundaries of Palestine. Through the disciples He multiplied His ministry after His departure. The Book of Acts is a continuous record of deeds that followed the precedent Jesus had set. As the living Lord He continued in His church what He had himself begun. He expected that the church would become the instrument by which He could manifest His salvation to all people.

Several other passages, such as Matthew 7:7; 21:22 ; John 14:12-14 ; and 1 John 3:22-23 are often mistakenly understood to mean that God places no restrictions on what we should be able to receive in response to our prayers. But if there were no limitation on the things we could receive from God through prayer, why would Jesus say, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. . . .Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”? ( Matthew 5:4,10 ).

In other words, if our lack of faith is all that stands in the way of our having whatever we want, we should never be mournful, persecuted,or afflicted. But that was not what Jesus promised, and His disciples did not receive everything they might have wanted. Just as Jesus had no permanent place to lay His head ( Matthew 8:20 ), the apostles suffered persecution and hardship ( 2 Corinthians 6 ), and eventually all but John were martyred.

These passages assume that we will pray in humble, childlike faith( Matthew 7:11; 17:20 ), with sincerity, out of genuine love ( Matthew 5:44 ), with good motives (Matthew 6:5 ), with perseverance ( Matthew 7:7 ), and in submission to God’s sovereign will ( Matthew 6:10 ). When we pray this way, we won’t make improper requests. Also, we will be so in tune with God that we will be satisfied when His plans prove to be different than we hoped they would be.

Don’t the Boundaries Promised to Abraham Imply that Modern Israel is Entitled to More Land?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Contemporary Issues, Ethicsendtime, ethics, Israel, Israelis, Palestine, Palestinians, prophecy

The boundaries of the land God promised Abraham are given in Genesis 15:18-21:

On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (Gen. 15:18-21 nkjv).

These boundaries included all of the land occupied from the river of Egypt on the south to the River Euphrates on the north. As Israel made preparations to enter the land, they also captured some of the area on the east of the River Jordan, and 2 1/2 tribes were given this area (Num. 34:14-15). The area just west of the River Jordan was occupied by the tribes of Benjamin, Ephraim, Issachar, and one-half of the tribe of Manasseh.

No one can make a certain identification of the “river of Egypt.” Some identify it as the River Nile. But Israel was clearly not in the Promised Land when it was in Egypt. Others think this river is a desert stream that flows during the rainy season. This would concur with Kadesh-Barnea being the southern border. It was from Kadesh-Barnea that the spies entered the land.

At the least, the area promised by God to Abraham would be all of the area west of the River Jordan from Wadi-el-Arish on the south to the Euphrates River on the north. (The area occupied by the 2 1/2 tribes east of the Jordan River was not specifically promised by God.)

Does God’s promise to Abraham entitle modern Israel to expand its territory? We need to remember that God promised to chastise a disobedient Israel by taking away its national sovereignty, place it under foreign rulers, and exile many of its people (Deut. 28:15-68). These warnings were fulfilled first under the Assyrians and Babylonians and then under Rome (ad 70 and 135). Prophecies of the spiritual restoration of Israel in the last days have not been fulfilled.

“I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations. Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!” (Ezek. 36:27-32 nkjv).

How does this prophecy of Ezekiel relate to modern Israel in its current state of unbelief? It states that at some future time a spiritually repentant and renewed Israel will be given security and peace in her ancestral homeland. However, we can no more assume God’s blessing on the unbelieving state of Israel today than we could have assumed God’s blessing on Israel before its destruction by Assyria, Babylonia, and Rome. God allowed the reestablishment of Israel, but He often permits things He doesn’t approve.

It would be helpful to remember that the rabbis who survived the Jewish-Roman wars of ad 70 and 135 fervently taught that a return to the land should occur only under the leadership of the Messiah himself.

Because of all of this and other reasons the Torah forbids us to end the exile and establish a state and army until the Holy One, blessed He, in His Glory and Essence will redeem us. This is forbidden even if the state is conducted according to the law of the Torah because arising from the exile itself is forbidden, and we are required to remain under the rule of the nations of the world, as is explained in the book Vayoel Moshe. If we transgress this injunction, He will bring upon us (may we be spared) terrible punishment. (“Why Orthodox Jews Are Opposed to a Zionist State,” Neturei Karta International)

This seems wise counsel, given the warnings of Deuteronomy and the disastrous past attempts of Jewish nationalism to achieve independence in the land on its own. In contrast, the atheistic leaders of the Zionist movement ¹ had little patience with the heavenly ideals of the religious who advocated patience in waiting for Messiah. They employed worldly means—political intrigue, economic influence, propaganda, violence, and terror—to establish and expand the modern state of Israel.

What are we to think? Christians should have a heart of compassion for Israelis and Jews, but genuine compassion involves willingness to confront injustice. We are under no obligation to help an unbelieving and unrepentant national Israel use worldly means to acquire the land promised Abraham. We should take biblical prophecy with great seriousness, realizing we aren’t called to be mere spectators of history. We shouldn’t enable Israeli discrimination, injustice, and violence towards non-Jewish citizens and neighbors any more than we should enable that of other nations towards their citizens and neighbors.

In accordance with the words of the prophets, if the state of Israel continues to pursue a path of unbelief and injustice, it will bring judgment upon itself—and its supporters.

The founders of Zionism were all atheists who denied the Torah. All the Torah sages of that time opposed them and opposed Zionism, saying that Zionism would lead only to destruction. (“Why Orthodox Jews Are Opposed to a Zionist State,” Neturei Karta International) Back To Article

How Can a Decomposed Body Be Resurrected?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianityafterlife, body, burial, death, resurrection

A body buried in a wooden casket would normally be entirely decomposed after a few hundred years, depending upon the conditions of the soil. Similarly, a seaman buried at sea would leave no traces. (Not a trace seems to remain of all of those who went down with the Titanic, for instance.)

The apostle Paul made it clear that our new body, though possessing some identity with our mortal body, will be a new “spiritual body” ( 1 Corinthians 15:35-44 ). God will not need to gather up the scattered molecules of our earthly bodies. (Remember that the bodies of many Christians have already decomposed, been completely destroyed by fire, or have been devoured by animals.) Therefore, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 doesn’t refer to a bizarre scene in which the ashes in funerary urns or decayed bodies in earthly graves are suddenly reconstituted. Rather, the resurrection is the wonderful occasion in which believers who have died will again be granted full bodily form, this time in a glorified heavenly body that can never again die or experience decay.

How Can Christianity Claim To Be the Only Way to God?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, World Religionsatonement, Jesus Christ, messiah, redemption, salvation, Son of God, way to God

Although there are numerous groups in every major religious tradition, there are relatively few major religious traditions. Probably the oldest religious tradition is that of Animism, found mostly among the so-called “primitive” peoples of the world. Animism teaches that the world is populated by a myriad of spirit beings that can be appeased and manipulated through ritual and magic.

The Hindu religion has its center in India. In the form of Buddhism, it has spread all throughout East Asia. This ancient tradition teaches that all living beings are caught up in a cycle of reincarnation. It maintains that the only way to achieve salvation is to be freed of one’s burden of “karma.” Only then can one escape the cycle of reincarnation, lose one’s individuality, and merge with the Being of God like a drop of water in the sea.

Islam is the religion of Muhammad, a warrior/prophet who was born approximately 700 years after Jesus Christ. Islam is similar to Judaism and Christianity in some respects, upholding the authority of the Old and New Testaments and believing in one God. Its holiest book is the Koran. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam despises idolatry and believes in the reality of eternal punishment or eternal reward in the next life.

The only other great religious traditions are those of Taoism in China and Shintoism in Japan. These religions are pantheistic like Hinduism, but they also have a number of animistic characteristics.

Although there are elements of truth in all of the religious traditions, the Bible teaches that there is only one way that we can be saved. In John 3:13 Jesus stated clearly, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” In Romans 10:9 we read, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Jesus Himself said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” ( John 14:6 ). We know that all salvation is accomplished through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ and His atonement for the sins of the world.

(See the ATQ article Are All Who Haven’t Heard of Christ Damned?)

How Can Christians Believe that the Human Race Is Depraved?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitydepravity, doctrine, fleshly nature, human depravity, sin, tendency to sin

A biblical conception of human depravity doesn’t imply that human nature is as evil as it can possibly be. Although we are often bad, we could be much worse. People often do good and generous things.

Rather than teaching that every aspect of our nature and personality is as bad as they can possibly be, the doctrine of depravity teaches that every part of our nature is tainted with original sin. Therefore, although we are always potentially more evil than we are in actuality, everything we touch is tinged with sin.

The Evangelical Dictionary Of Theology (Walter A. Elwell, Editor) gives this brief definition of depravity.

Positively, total depravity means that the corruption has extended to all aspects of man’s nature, to his entire being; and total depravity means that because of that corruption there is nothing man can do to merit saving favor with God.

How Can Christians Claim that Their Faith Is Rational?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Contemporary Issuescontradictions, faith, logic, paradox, rationality, reason, Science

Agnostics, atheists, and adherents of other religions often disparage the “contradictory” doctrines of the Christian faith as reason to reject it. They imply that a true religion or worldview would be free of such complications.

Christians agree that real contradictions imply real falsehood. A proposition cannot be true and not true at the same time. No worldview should be based on irrationalism. But statements that seem contradictory may not really be. Sometimes an apparent contradiction is merely an illusion of language. In other cases, ideas that seem contradictory on the surface assert a truth that we can’t fully understand given the present state of our knowledge. They represent a mystery that, while not irrational, permits analysis only to a certain point. They underscore the limitations—either temporary or permanent—of human thought. The word that is usually used to refer to such seeming contradictions is paradox.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines paradox as “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.” Regardless of one’s worldview, a number of basic paradoxes exist that no one has yet resolved. Let’s take a look at three of them.

Paradox one: freedom and determinism. ¹ If we look at human behavior through the empirical eyes of science, it seems to be shaped by genetic and environmental influences. On the other hand, meaningful human experience and relationships depend on our freedom to choose, ² as does our way of dealing with one another legally and morally in everyday life.

Paradox two: the “ghost in the machine” (dualism). What is the connection between mind and matter? When I consciously decide to take a physical action (stand, lift my arm, move my pen), what is the connection between my thoughts and the physical actions they command? The greatest philosophical and scientific thinkers have struggled with this problem for hundreds of years. So far they have failed to come up with a convincing model that explains how mind influences matter.

Paradox three: the “anthropic universe.” Scientists have observed that the universe is not only fantastically complex, but that it appears to have been designed specifically to permit the development of life and consciousness, even human self-consciousness—thus “anthropic.” The universe clearly seems to be designed by a Creator, yet no Creator imposes Himself upon us or makes His presence obvious. Just as the paradox of dualism acknowledges that my ability to “will” my arm to reach out and grasp the handle of a coffee cup is mystery, the paradox of the anthropic universe acknowledges that although it seems there must be a Creator, His identity and manner of interacting with the universe are unknown.

All of the so-called “contradictions” of Christian theology are reflections of these and other basic paradoxes of reality with which every thinking person must contend. Every worldview has to deal with the underlying paradoxes (or apparent contradictions) of human experience. Some do better than others.

Atheists, for instance, must live as though their lives and relationships are meaningful, while at the same time maintaining that the universe is a gigantic accident with no ultimate purpose.

Pantheists—including Hindus, New Agers, and neo-pagans—have a worldview that denies any ultimate distinction between good and evil. Still, like everyone else, they are faced with real moral decisions.

Honest, perceptive people don’t expect to find a worldview that contains no paradox or apparent contradiction. Instead, they look for a worldview that is most faithful to the laws of logic while maintaining fidelity to the depth, wonder, and mystery of reality.

At least two and a half millennia have passed since the book of Job was written, but its wisdom still rings true today:

The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:1-4).

Dr. Bill Hodges, a remarkable American medical missionary in Haiti,was also a skilled amateur archeologist and philosopher. He summarized the paradox of determinism and free will this way:

As any college student knows, the argument about freedom and determinism goes back many centuries. The Westerner has been mightily tempted to regard all freedom—as does the pagan—as an illusion. There really isn’t any. Whether the universe may be regarded as the capricious whims of the spirits, or as the meaningless inter-reaction of electrical charges, it would seem that there is only a senseless destiny in which man and his “will” are merely phenomena of the system. Strangely enough, however, all Western culture conceives of human freedom as real, and the social structures presuppose it . . . .

Our institutions assume that the human being has a choice: He can obey the law, or he can commit a crime. Our philosophy, on the other hand, is inclined to the view that the crime itself was mediated by dozens of factors ranging from birth injuries to parental neglect,and that therefore the crime is only an inevitable consequence of those factors over which the criminal has no control. The historian, the anthropologist, or the biologist may trace the various meanderings of human history and believe that all events are mediated by a determinism . . . be it economic, cultural, or revolutionary, . . . but subconsciously they believe that they are describing “truth,” and that in some mysterious way their analysis is not subject to the same rules. Back To Article
The school of behavioral psychology insists that if we are the product of a purposeless evolutionary process, it’s logical to conclude that what seems to be choice is merely an illusion. For these people, free will doesn’t really exist. They consider it to be an “epiphenomenon of consciousness,” that is, only a superficial sensation of freedom that conceals a deeper determinism, a determinism in which we only appear to choose things that our genes and our environment have already selected for us. It seems that this would be an uncomfortable thought for most people, one that is in direct contradiction to human experience. In fact, wouldn’t it have the potential to drive a sensitive atheist mad? Back To Article

How Can I Be Happy in My Marriage When My Spouse Is Not a Christian?

Allison Stevens
Relationshipshusband, love for, marriage, relationships, wife

The fact that you and your spouse do not share the same faith in Christ can create a number of problems in your marriage. At one time, the differences in what you believed might have seemed like a minor problem. But now they have grown into feelings of detachment and resentment, hindering intimacy and causing a significant barrier.

It’s not uncommon in marriage to have feelings of loneliness and isolation. Any of us who are married can begin to lose our passion for our spouse. But a believer who is married to an unbeliever may have even more of a struggle with feelings of loneliness, isolation, and resentment.

The challenge for you as a believer is to do all you can to set the stage and create an environment for your husband or wife to accept Christ as Lord and Savior. Exhibiting Christlike love in your marriage has the greatest potential for compelling your spouse to trust in God.

Loving your spouse means putting your spouse’s needs before your own. It’s not ignoring your needs, but when he has a legitimate need (not anything that would violate you as a person), it is loving to do what you can to help him. Invite him to enjoy a deeper relationship with you and hopefully a future relationship with Jesus Christ. Loving him well is being truthful and honest about your feelings and allowing him the same freedom to have and express his thoughts and feelings. Open communication and mutual respect help define a loving relationship.

As you love your spouse, also stay committed to God and to your values. Continue to pray, to go to church, and to read the Bible. Pray for your spouse ( Colossians 1:9 ; Hebrews 4:16 ). Fellowship with other believers (1 Thessalonians 5:14; Hebrews 10:25 ). In 1 Corinthians 7:14, the apostle Paul explained that the unbelieving mate is “sanctified” through the relationship with a saved partner. This means that the unsaved husband or wife is set apart to a place of special privilege and spiritual potential through living with a saved partner. For example, an unsaved man who has a wife sincerely praying for him and living a Christian life before him in the home is in a position where conditions will be favorable to his salvation. Not only does his wife influence him, but fellow believers who know the man’s spiritual state will also join in prayer on his behalf.

But try not to push your unbelieving husband or wife. They may feel manipulated if you encourage them to go to church or read the Bible with you. Trying to get them to attend church with you or pray with you is futile. Unbelievers have no basis to want this. Why would they pray when they have no faith? Pushing them to do activities such as church-going may lead them away from the truth of the gospel. In fact, the apostle Peter told believing wives to win over their unbelieving husbands “without words” but by the “behavior” of “purity and reverence” and “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” ( 1 Peter 3:1-4 ).

Remember that your faith will be tested. There may be times when you feel that your efforts are worthless, that they are not making a difference in your husband or wife. Your partner may even misunderstand your motives at times and pull away from you. The distance you feel can make you want to give up trying.

During these lonely times with your mate, acknowledge your legitimate feelings of loss and disappointment over not having a happier marriage. Take them to God in prayer, for He will comfort those who grieve ( Matthew 5:4 ). God doesn’t promise marital happiness, but He gives us something far better — restored faith, hope, joy, peace, and love ( Psalm 119:116; 147:11; Romans 15:13 ). God uses difficult times like these to bring about patience and character in us, working for our benefit ( Romans 8:28; James 1:2-4 ).

How Can I Be Sure of the Bible’s Moral and Spiritual Reliability?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Christianitybiblical authority, evidence, inspiration, moral authority, morality

There are many factors that give the Bible unparalleled moral and spiritual authority. The Old and New Testaments are deeply rooted in a historical and geographical record that is linked to laws, poetry, and predictions that express timeless life-changing wisdom. Even the parts of the Old Testament with parallels in Mesopotamian literature (the creation story, the story of the flood, etc.) are incomparably superior to the pagan versions.

¹ Although it is an ancient document, its realism is stunning and contemporary. The records of the Bible portray people in all of their complexity and inconsistency, with not only their achievements but also their sins—and the consequences of their sins—clearly displayed.² J. B. Phillips expressed in a few words what countless others have noticed about the New Testament: It has the “ring of truth.” There are few people of any religious tradition who are familiar with it that don’t hold it in high esteem. Further, the historical accuracy of Scripture has been demonstrated time and again—often to the surprise of skeptical scholars.

The authority of the Bible is by far the most well-attested document to come out of ancient times. The reliability of the Old Testament was confirmed by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a remarkable collection of ancient documents found preserved in caves in the Judean desert in the mid-20th century. The age of these documents, which included large portions of the Old Testament, was determined by several independent evidences, including:

Carbon 14 tests made on the linen wrappings of the scrolls.
Coins associated with the scrolls, which date from 325 BC to AD 68.
The type of pottery found with the scrolls.
Comparative paleography (science of handwriting), a science which has already been well-established for many generations.
Linguistic analysis of Aramaic documents found in the caves.

What made the Dead Sea Scrolls such a remarkable find in confirmation of the reliability of the Old Testament was the fact that prior to their discovery the earliest text in Hebrew, the Masoretic text, dated only to the 10th century AD. Biblical scholar Gleason Archer noted that in spite of 1,000 years separating the Scrolls and the Masoretic Text, “The texts from Qumran proved to be word-for-word identical to our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted primarily of obvious slips of the pen and spelling alterations” (Gleason Archer, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction [Chicago, IL: Moody, 1974], p. 25).

Similarly, no serious scholar, Christian or non-Christian, has historical grounds to doubt that the modern New Testament—regardless of translation—corresponds closely to the original form in which it was written. In his book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell quotes a number of authorities on the reliability of our Bible. Here he quotes scholar A. T. Robertson:

“There are some 8,000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate and at least 1,000 for the other early versions. Add over 4,000 Greek manuscripts and we have 13,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. Besides all this, much of the New Testament can be reproduced from the quotations of the early Christian writers.”

Historical evidence for the reliability of the text is overwhelming. But its spiritual authority can only be seen by someone who is seeking truth. It would require thousands of pages just to list the names of the outstanding people in every area of human endeavor who have looked to Scripture for their ultimate values. A random list of just a few might include:

Philosophy: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Soren Kierkegaard
Science: Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Blaise Pascal
Music: J. S. Bach
Literature: Dante Alighieri, John Donne, John Milton, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, T. S. Eliot, J. R. R Tolkien, C. S. Lewis
Politics: William Wilberforce, William Gladstone, Abraham Kuyper

The fact that the Bible provided the foundation for the personal values of some of the greatest figures of Western history doesn’t constitute a “proof” of its authority. But, along with the Bible’s age, textual reliability, and character as great literature, its appeal to such people certainly calls for an open-minded, respectful approach to its contents.

Anglican physicist/theologian/priest John Polkinghorne remarks on the value of scholarly comparison between ancient biblical and Mesopotamian texts:
Those who disdain a scholarly engagement with the same text will also miss the fact that, though the accounts are clearly influenced to a degree by neighbouring Near Eastern cosmogonies, they differ in a most marked and important way from those other creation stories. It is deeply impressive that tales of conflict among the gods, with Marduk fighting Tiamath and slicing her dead body in half from which to form the earth and sky, are replaced by a sober account in which the one true God alone is the Creator, bringing creation into being by the power of the divine word. Equally significant is the insight that human beings are not destined to be the slaves of the gods (as in the Babylonian epic, Enuma Elish), but are created in the image of God and given a blessing so that they may fulfill the command, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28 ). (Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality, pp. 44-45). Back To Article
To have a clear understanding of biblical authority, it is important to understand the nature of biblical inspiration. Inspiration has two aspects. One is its authority in providing truth without error in the words of Scripture. Scripture is truly the written Word of God. The other aspect of inspiration is that it was written by human beings who wrote with their own vocabulary, cultural background, and personal style. This fact does not controvert inspiration. Just as Christ was both truly man and truly God, the divine element in inspiration doesn’t exclude the human limitations of the Bible’s writers. For a clear discussion of the topic of inerrancy from a theological perspective, we recommend that you buy or borrow a copy of Millard Erickson’s Christian Theology. This theology originally came out in a 3-volume set, but currently is being offered in one volume. His discussion of inerrancy can be found in chapter 10, “The Dependability of God’s Word: Inerrancy.” Back To Article

How Can I Break the Spiritual Bonds Passed on from My Ancestors?

Dan Vander Lugt
Paranormal, Personal Strugglesancestral sin, demonic, demonic possession, demonization, exorcism, freedom, power encounter, responsibility

Some Christians believe that people can be “demonized” by ancestral sin. They believe that in such cases the demonized individual needs to be freed of inherited demonic influence by a “power encounter” in which the inherited demonic influence is exposed and expelled.

In our view, there is no scriptural precedent for using power encounters or exorcisms to deal with the sinful patterns of living that are passed down from our ancestors. In fact, Scripture seems to place a clear limitation on the power of evil ancestral influences, comparing it to the much greater influence of godliness:

I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20:5-6 NIV).

Practically speaking, how could we possibly distinguish the sinful tendencies inherited from our parents from those we learned by exposure to them and other significant people in our lives? Throughout the New Testament, deliverance from sin involves repentance and confession. Whatever the origin of our sinful tendencies, the biblical approach to dealing with them is neither quick nor easy. The New Testament gives us no reason to believe they can be “cast out” in the same way Jesus and the disciples cast out demons of the possessed. (See the ATQ article, Can Christians Be Demon Possessed?)

All of us are deeply affected by the sinful patterns of living of significant people in our lives. Our behavior is largely shaped by the behavior of our parents, whose behavior, in turn, was shaped by the behavior of their parents, and so on. John describes how God can cleanse our hearts of sin’s influence:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9 NKJV).

This doesn’t mean that our struggle is merely psychological or emotional. Satan is a real and personal foe, attacking us relentlessly, systematically (Ephesians 6:12). Yet the biblical pattern for overcoming inherited sinful patterns of living is not to obsess on the demonic element of our sinful traits, but to accept the direction of the Holy Spirit in uncovering and overcoming them.

A person who wins a lottery is much more likely to squander his wealth than someone who earns it in years of patient effort. Likewise, Christians need to understand their sinful tendencies and struggle with them before they can fully appreciate the value of being delivered from them.

The New Testament doesn’t promise power encounters that deliver us effortlessly from our sinful ways without the growing pains of spiritual renewal.

How Can I Distinguish Between Nudity in Art and Pornography?

Dan Vander Lugt
Bible, Ethicsart, nudity, pornography

The line between art and pornography is notoriously hard to define. In the Victorian era the sight of a woman’s knee was considered erotic, and one didn’t refer to the legs of a table in mixed company. Today in some Muslim societies women still have to cover their faces lest they incite male lust.

As much as we might wish to define our Christian responsibilities regarding things like clothing and art in stark black-and-white terms, we aren’t able to do so. The apostle Paul acknowledged this when he wrote:

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Yet if your brother is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:12-17).

Christian liberty is the freedom from bondage to sin ( Romans 6:18-23 ; 1 Corinthians 15:56 ), the power of evil ( Colossians 1:13-14 ),and the law as a means for salvation ( Galatians 4:21-5:1 ) that results from voluntary submission to righteousness.

Once we understand the meaning of Christian liberty, it’s much easier to live with a peaceful heart. People who are bound to the law (like certain legalistic sects who follow a strict set of rules for clothing) live with constant dread of failure, little sense of personal self-control, and an exaggerated feeling of guilt.

Rather than living under the law and struggling to do the right things for the wrong reasons, Christian liberty calls upon Christians to become conscious of the specific things that draw them into sinful lust and then resist them. Excessive general rules — such as those defining any kind of nudity as pornography — remove personal freedom and the responsibility to develop one’s own Christian character.

Try this simple rule of thumb: Don’t be overly sensitive, but if something arouses you, put it away. Don’t look at it any longer. Don’t let things escalate ( Genesis 39:12 ; Ecclesiastes 7:26 ; Proverbs 5; 6:25-28 ; Matthew 5:30 ). The nude image of an attractive person will always evoke a degree of sexual longing in a person of the opposite sex, but good people learn how to sublimate their longings in loving and constructive ways.

Sexual arousal is a wonderful aspect of human experience that should be cultivated only when it is appropriate, that is, with our spouse under the right circumstances ( Proverbs 5:18-20 ). If we don’t carefully cultivate this gift of arousal, we’ll find that purity, freedom of relationship, and appropriate affection for others of the opposite sex will be progressively harder to achieve. Giving in to inappropriate (sinful) arousal always enslaves.

The cultivation of sexual purity and self-control involves struggle and occasional failure. Developing this kind of self-awareness requires faith that God will honor our efforts to resist sin. He will forgive us for our setbacks and failures on the basis of what His Son did for us at Calvary. He will also — through the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit — enable us to overcome our sinful inclinations and obsessions.

When we proceed with faith and determination, the end result will be more personal freedom and greater intimacy with others.

How Can I Forgive Someone Who Sexually Abused Me?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, Relationshipsabuse, anger, confession, forgiveness, repentance

You took the difficult and vital step of confronting your abuser, but far from bringing some resolution, his reaction made it clear that he still is remorseless and unrepentant. It isn’t surprising that you are upset.

You needn’t feel guilty about your strong feelings. God designed us to have an intense emotional response to evil. Your natural revulsion to unrepented sin isn’t wrong in itself, nor should it be considered contrary to forgiveness. Forgiveness never ignores the harm that someone has caused us. But even though your feelings of outrage are no reason for you to feel guilty, it’s good that you are aware of them. Your awareness of your feelings will make it possible for you to be instructed by them, rather than being consumed by them.

Ephesians 4:26 says, “In your anger do not sin.” Anger in itself isn’t wrong. What is wrong is being controlled by it in a way that leads to sin. Our anger may be partially driven by righteous outrage, but because of our fallen nature an element of our anger is always like the fury of a dangerous beast — rooted in a lust for power and vengeance. That’s why even though we can’t keep natural feelings from erupting,we need to take charge of our response to them.

It took courage for you to broach the subject with your abuser. Further, the fact that you are disappointed by his response implies that you would be ready to forgive him if he were remorseful. At this point the emotional distance that exists between you and your abuser is mostly the consequence of his attitude and behavior. You can’t bridge the distance alone.

Jesus told us to love our enemies. Loving means to seek the best interests of another. Through our relationship with Christ we can find the strength to seek the best interests of those who harm us. But seeking the best interests of others involves holding them accountable for their sin ( Matthew 18:15-17 ).

There is nothing loving about shielding an evildoer from the ugliness of his sin. Jesus didn’t serve as an “enabler” for evildoers seeking to conceal their deeds. Although Jesus was the personification of love,He truthfully characterized people who consciously resisted the truth as vipers ( Matthew 12:34 ), thieves ( Matthew 21:13 ), whitewashed tombs ( Matthew 23:27 ), liars ( Revelation 3:9 ), and murderers ( John 8:44 ).

The key issue is the attitude of your abuser. Jesus made it clear that forgiveness and reconciliation are linked with repentance ( Luke 17:1-4 ). Only when an offender confesses his willful sin can we rightfully forgive him for what he has done. This man will have to sincerely repent 1 to be a beneficiary of God’s grace ( Leviticus 26:40-42 ; Job 42:5-6 ; Psalm 32:5 ; Proverbs 28:13 ; Jonah 3:8-9 ; Luke 15:21 ; 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 ; 1 John 1:9 ). Although we can pray for an offender and take action to seek restoration, a relationship cannot be healed until he has done what is right in accepting the responsibility for his past wrongs.

Is it really loving to be so confrontational? Yes. It is sometimes the only truly caring course of action. Confrontation can be the first step in demonstrating that you believe in a person’s potential for godliness.It is likely that King David would not have repented of his wickedness in taking another man’s wife and arranging the death of her husband if the brave prophet Nathan had not told him a parable that portrayed his sin in all of its ugliness and then said, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12 ).

This pattern reflects the way God Himself deals with our sin. The Bible declares that God can forgive all sin — including the cruelest and most intentional. God Himself paid the price for the reconciliation of all sinners ( John 3:16 ; Romans 3:24-25 ; Ephesians 1:7 ; 1 John 4:9 . But though God provided the basis for forgiveness, He imposes forgiveness upon no one against his or her will. He also expects those who have harmed others to make restitution where possible, or to take whatever measures are necessary to minimize the chances of harming others (Isaiah 1:16 ; Luke 19:8-10 ; John 8:11 ; Hebrews 10:26 ).

Your angry feelings are an important factor in keeping you from offering a premature forgiveness that would let your abuser minimize and ignore his evil. Yet your actions shouldn’t be based on your anger, but on a willingness to honor and obey God ( Exodus 23:4 ; Proverbs 24:17; 25:21-22 ; Matthew 18:21-35 ; Ephesians 4:32 ; Colossians 3:13 ; 1 Thessalonians 5:15 ).

Each of us begins life hating God and the Son He sent to redeem us.In Christ, God provides the supreme example of forgiveness. His example makes it clear that we shouldn’t be nurturing hatred or desiring vengeance. Instead, we should be willing to forgive when our offender truly repents. Forgiveness and restoration, however,can’t take place until your abuser is truly sorry for what he has done.

How Can I Go on Living When I Feel Like I Want to Die?

Allison Stevens
Christian life, Personal Strugglesdepression, disappointment, discouragement, personal struggles, suicide, tests, trials

When the cares of life overwhelm us, it might seem easier to wish for death than to face the struggle. If you are hurting and trying to find a way out, please read on, for there is hope for you!

God knows your pain. He knows your doubts and fears. He knows that you have difficulties and that you even question Him.

A follower of Christ named Paul (who wrote much of the Bible’s New Testament) also struggled with circumstances to the point of losing hope. In 2 Corinthians 1 , he told the church of Corinth that he had suffered greatly while in Asia. He said that he and a friend named Timothy were “under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure,so that we despaired even of life” (v.8). Paul too was in despair!

But the story does not end there. He went on to say that “this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God” (v.9).This emotional struggle, this hopelessness that Paul felt, caused him to rely on God even more. He saw more clearly how much he needed God through this dark hour in his life.

You may not be where Paul was when he wrote those words. You may be in the middle of a storm and you may be wondering if you are going to make it. You may even be questioning God’s presence in your life. Your story, however, like Paul’s, doesn’t have to end in despair. It is in the midst of the most desperate moments of your life that you too can call on the Lord and He will hear you.

Is it possible that instead of reaching out to the Lord, you have been using god-substitutes to avoid taking care of your real needs? Most of us do that from time to time. We find creative ways of drowning our sorrows and dulling our pain. We are often tempted to use sex, food, materialism, drugs, alcohol, shopping — anything to try and make the pain go away. When nothing seems to work, depression can set in. Depression is sometimes an internal decision to shut down and a refusal to deal with the difficult struggles of life. This kind of depression usually results from a series of failed attempts to deal with some painful circumstances or difficult relationships in one’s life. The feeling of a depressed person is often, “No matter how much I try, I am powerless to change the things that mean the most to me. I quit! Nothing works. I give up!” It is at this point that some think about ending their life. You are not alone in feeling as you do.

So how do we work through these deeply painful and frightening times? I believe it is when we admit that we are at the end and can’t make it on our own. God will comfort us in our grief, sorrow, and disappointments. He will reveal Himself to us and show us mercy ( Matthew 5:4,6 ).

Some experiences in your life may make you hesitant to reach out to the Lord for help. But, if you trust God with your pain, He can begin to show you that you have purpose and significance. You were created for a higher purpose, which is to worship your Creator and to find your hope and strength in Him.

If you continue to struggle with thoughts of suicide, seek help from a skilled counselor, your pastor, or a trusted friend. Your feelings may not change overnight, but you can begin to act in faith and take actions that will lead to a healthy perspective on life.

How can I help a friend who’s always being put down by her boyfriend?

Dr. Sabrina Black
Christian life, Ethics, Relationshipsabuse, dating, friendship, relationships

Don’t stand by and watch your friend suffer abuse. Yes, this is classified as abuse, and we need to recognize it as such. Anything a person says in an attempt to belittle and control another person is abusive. Your first job is to help your friend understand that love is not supposed to behave this way, and they should not consider dating anyone who hurts them or thinks so little of them.

The Bible says, “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.”[1] An abusive and belittling partner is bad company. Not only is an abusive partner bad company, they are poisonous to your friend’s self-esteem.

If the first step is seeing this type of abuse for what it is, the second step will likely be helping your friend see and embrace that they deserve better than the treatment they are getting.

More than likely your friend will tell you that their partner is not like this all the time. And they probably aren’t. But abusers almost always try to isolate and manipulate their victims. You friend may be fooled by her boyfriend’s charm and attention, but if he has already demonstrated an abusive pattern of behavior, it will only get worse if she continues to allow it.

Helping in these kinds of situations is never easy, but as a good friend you can and should gently and lovingly let her know that she is not alone and that she does not have to take this kind of treatment. She is worth more than that to you and to God.

(adapted from Live Right Now)

[1] 1 Corinthians 15:33 esv

How can I help my teenager deal with abusive dating relationships?

Dr. Sabrina Black
Christian life, Contemporary Issues, Ethics, Personal Struggles, Relationshipsabuse, dating, parenting, relationship, teenagers

While there are no simple fixes, there are several things parents can do to help their kids deal with abusive relationships. These ideas might help.

Take the time to talk with your teenager about abuse — what it is and how to deal with it. Let them know that they are far too valuable to accept abuse. It is never acceptable for anyone to manhandle or verbally abuse them. Then take the time to help them identify abusive behaviors and patterns to be avoided.

Abusers often try to isolate and control their partners. This is one of the first warning signs that your son or daughter may be in an abusive relationship. If you suspect abuse, lovingly encourage your child to surround themselves with friends and family members — this is a time to press into relationships, not recoil from them. Encourage them to get active in church, volunteer with organizations, and expand their interests.

Don’t accept the excuses your son or daughter makes for their partner’s abusive behavior. There is no excuse for abuse of any kind. Yelling, pushing, possessiveness, insults, and intimidation are signs of control. Remind your child that they have the power to end this relationship now. Everyone deserves to be respected because everyone is precious in the eyes of God.[1]

(Adapted from Live Right Now)

[1] Psalm 139:17–18

How Can I Know If I’m Addicted to Pornography?

Jeff Olson
Personal Struggles, Relationshipsout-of-control, personal struggles, pornography, sexual abuse, sexual addiction, sexual compulsion, sexually graphic images, talking to others

Pornography is a serious problem that is only getting worse. We live in a world of technology that some are taking full advantage of to make pornography more readily available than ever before. And as the pornographic industry continues to expand, more and more people are becoming enslaved to looking at sexually graphic images.

How can a person know if they’ve become trapped in an addiction to pornography? One of the surest signs is that you keep returning to something you know is wrong. If you have promised yourself over and over again that last time would be the last time — and it never is — then it’s likely that you’ve given yourself over to an activity that you believe you can’t live without.

A person who has become addicted to pornography will also identify with a number of the following statements:

I regularly seek out pornography.
I have an increasing need to view more pornography.
I have a pattern of spending large amounts of time looking forward to viewing pornography.
I shift between the extremes of feeling that my problem is either out-of-control or under control.
I’ve noticed a pattern of neglecting work, social, family responsibilities in order to view pornography.
I have a pattern of lying to conceal my struggle.
I have a pattern of breaking my promises to stop.
I have a pattern of minimizing the extent of my struggle.
I have suffered serious consequences as a result of looking at pornography such as financial debt or the loss of my marriage or job.

An addiction to pornography is a serious matter. The more you minimize it the more it will master you. If you suspect that you are addicted, stop kidding yourself. You can’t deal with this alone. You need to seek help. Let your secret out. At the very least, tell a “trusted” friend or wise pastor that you have a problem with pornography that feels out of control. Confiding in someone is scary for sure, but you have the assurance that “he conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

If you don’t consider yourself addicted to pornography, you should not assume that you can occasionally dabble in sexually graphic images. First, any watching of pornography, whether it occurs once or a thousand times, is wrong and harmful (See the ATQ article Is a Man Harmed by Looking at Pornography?). Second, anyone who lustfully looks at pornography is in danger of getting hooked.

How Can I Know If My Faith Is Strong Enough?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, Relationshipsfaith, God's child, God's family, heavenly Father, salvation

When you doubt that your faith is strong enough for you to be a child of God, it’s a clear indication that you misunderstand the nature of faith. Faith in God doesn’t involve certainty, nor does it imply the absence of doubts. The Gospel of Mark makes this clear in the account of Jesus’ healing of a little boy possessed by evil spirits ( Mark 9:14-27 ). The father came asking for help in front of a multitude, including religious leaders. He told Jesus that he had asked His disciples to cast the demons from the child, but they were unable. Then he said:

If You can do anything, take pity on us and help us (v.22).

Jesus’ tested the father’s sincerity, saying:

“If you can” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for him who believes” (v.23).

The boy’s father didn’t claim that he had perfect faith, nor did he walk away in despair. He acknowledged his doubts (unbelief) at the same time that he passionately expressed his desire to believe:

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (v.24).

This father’s faith passed Jesus’ test. Jesus didn’t condemn him for his doubts. Instead, He healed his son.

What a torment, what a terrible burden, to believe that faith must be perfect before God will respond to our need! If we believe that our faith must be perfect, we have established an unattainable goal and enslaved ourselves to a new form of works-salvation. Rather than basing our faith on God’s goodness and Christ’s completed work of love on our behalf, we base it on our own achievement-our own perfection.

People who think that their faith must be perfect before it will be acceptable to God ignore dozens of scriptural examples of people whose trust in God was imperfect, yet their faith was still accepted by Him. Here are just a few:

Moses ( Exodus 3:11; 4:1 )
Abraham ( Genesis 12:10-13; 15:1-5 )
Jacob ( Genesis 25:29-34; 27:1-46 )
Elijah ( 1 Kings 19:4 )
Peter ( Matthew 14:28-31; 26:69-75 )
Thomas ( John 20:24-25 )
The disciples ( Matthew 26:56 ).

These examples show that it isn’t the perfection of our trust that matters, but the perfection of God’s love and forgiveness. Perfect faith will be ours only when the Holy Spirit has completed His work of sanctification within us.

How Can I Overcome My Urge to View Pornography?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Personal Strugglesaddiction, lust, porno, pornography, sexuality

Each of us is vulnerable to the temptation of sexual fantasy. When our faith is weak and we feel that real fulfillment and joy are out of our reach, it’s difficult to resist the powerful illusion of fulfillment that sexual fantasy offers. We shouldn’t be surprised when we are tempted, nor should we be surprised when we don’t quickly “outgrow” this temptation. Writing specifically about sexual temptation, the apostle Paul said, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man” ( 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 ).

It may be that pornographic fantasy and sexual addiction draw their strength from a natural desire to return to the world of intimacy and security that we may once have enjoyed as infants. In adult relationships, it takes a long time to develop real interpersonal intimacy and trust. We often feel lonely, powerless, and rejected. By contrast, wrongful sexual fantasy offers the illusion of instant intimacy, respect, and acceptance with anyone we want. The powerful illusion of sexual fantasy makes sexual addiction much more enslaving than it would be if it were the mere expression of a biological appetite.

The first step toward freedom is acknowledging that your sexual obsession has taken on a life of its own. A great deal of time and energy can be wasted trying to rationalize and conceal our secret sins.

The next step is facing the fact that there will be no quick cure. No matter how resolutely we pray for deliverance, sexual obsession never disappears in an hour, a month, or even a year. No miraculous spiritual gift will instantly free you from a habit that has had years to develop. You have much work to do.

Withdrawal from any addiction is painful. Withdrawal from sexual addiction involves agony that can’t be avoided. Heroin addicts sometimes take methadone in hopes of avoiding the pains of withdrawal. They soon discover, however, that their heroin addiction has been replaced with addiction to methadone. There can be no real cure without pain.

To jaded senses and underdeveloped emotions, the first experiences of real intimacy are too subtle and uncompelling to offer much comfort. Initially, no relationship or activity will provide the intense, short-term pleasure of sexual fantasy. Like the rush from a line of cocaine or the quick euphoria of an alcoholic when he “falls off the wagon,” sin offers pleasure for a season ( Hebrews 11:25 ).

Intimacy in relationships is a living thing that must be nourished and given time to grow. Like a beautiful flower that blooms at the end of summer and wafts fragrance to every corner of the garden, intimacy is the product of discipline and commitment. Soil must be tilled, seed planted, water carried, weeds removed, and plants protected. These activities offer little immediate encouragement to a person whose will and emotions have for a lifetime been responding only to immediate pleasures. But genuine love is the gateway to joy and fulfillment, and addiction to sexual fantasy directly obstructs real relationships with real people.

In the long term, effort expended in resisting sexual addiction will be rewarded many times over. But movement toward freedom from addiction requires obedience, and obedience requires faith. You have used sexual addiction as a means of avoiding the legitimate growing pains of life. Now it’s time to learn to embrace the legitimate pain you’ve been trying to avoid.

Trusting God in spite of emotional pain, loneliness, and frustration produces sensitivity to the depth and richness of life. To a child, the sun-dappled beauty of a woodland meadow in springtime is less appealing than the garish lights and glitter of a traveling carnival. But it’s time to move on to better things ( 1 Corinthians 13:11 ). Resist wrongful sexual fantasy over a period of time and you will begin to notice changes in your perceptions as the Holy Spirit gains greater influence in your life. Paul wrote:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Be grateful for the feelings of guilt, hypocrisy, and contamination that you experience when you fail to resist sexual temptation. These feelings don’t mean you are worthless or condemned in the eyes of God. His grace is still available to you ( Hebrews 13:20-21 ). These feelings are signs of spiritual life flowing within, the conviction of the Holy Spirit as He grants growing awareness of the repulsiveness and sterility of sin.

Don’t be ashamed to take steps to avoid circumstances and behavior that nourish your obsession. Satan, the “accuser of the brethren” ( Revelation 12:10 ) delights in making you feel as though you are inauthentic, a hypocrite, or a prude because you are resisting sinful thoughts and desires that are still part of you. Every Christian struggles with the same sense of dividedness ( Romans 7:21-23 ; Galatians 5:17 ), but don’t forget that you are fleeing from an addiction that leaves you empty and unsatisfied and are climbing toward the source of all pleasures ( John 4:14 ). Don’t forget too that the Bible promises that you will be given the strength to succeed ( 1 Corinthians 10:13 ).

One of the first steps you should take is to remove the source of temptation from your home. Then, instead of planning how you can do the things that have kept you in bondage, consciously avoid situations that expose you to temptation. Don’t lose sight of the fact that with time your healthy sensitivities and wholesome desires will grow, and the power of your addiction will fade into insignificance. Also, remember that God doesn’t judge you solely on the basis of your failures but on the basis of what you can become through Christ. Although your sin is an offense to God, He always loves you.

A book you may find helpful is False Intimacy by Dr. Harry Schaumberg (Navpress).

How Can I Overcome the Feeling That I’m Damned?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Personal Strugglesanxiety, damnation, depression, guilt, Hell, obsession

To a person passing through the spiritual changes that the Bible describes as moving from death to life (John 5:24; Romans 6:13; Ephesians 5:14 ), awareness of the ugliness of one’s sin can be overwhelming. One of the reasons repentance is so difficult is the pain that comes from acknowledging sin.

Repentance involves spiritual battle. The names “Devil” and “Satan” mean accuser and adversary. When we move towards repentance and salvation, the enemy of our soul strives to transform our Holy Spirit-given consciousness of sin into despair. If he can make us so obsessed with our sin that we doubt the efficacy of Christ’s atonement and think that we must somehow atone for our sin ourselves, he will succeed.

People who are genuinely bound for hell either deny sin, explain it away, or rationalize it by comparing themselves to other people they consider worse. The first step in assuring one’s salvation from sin’s curse is acknowledging its power and influence. This step requires the humility to repent and see one’s helplessness. The next step also requires humility—a willingness to acknowledge that our sinful state is not unique. The Bible tells us that the whole human race is under the curse of sin. Everyone is too corrupt to earn salvation by his or her own efforts. We are no more or less lost than anyone else. As well as being a spiritual attack, obsessive focus on personal sin can also be an expression of a diabolically twisted pride that says, “I’m worse than other people. I’m too evil for God to redeem.” Of all sin, this pride is perhaps the most tragic.

Morbid, despairing thoughts come unbidden. If you choose to resist them in obedience to God’s Word, they will fade. But if you entertain them, their power will grow (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8-9).

Faith is trust in God’s love. If your parents were distant, arbitrary, or abusive, it may be difficult to view God as a loving Father. If you have been under the enemy’s power for many years, it may be difficult to believe God loves you. Spiritual and emotional growth is slow, and uphill. Trust involves carrying on without absolute emotional assurance or intellectual proof. YOU have to do it. No one else can do it for you (Ephesians 6:10-18).

Trust is willingness to live with unresolved issues, doubts, and frustrations and willingness to forego the demand that God eradicate all your problems and dispel all your fears.

Trust accepts the world as it is and moves forward. It sees the clouds as they shift and darken but is willing to wager ¹—on the basis of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ—that behind them is glorious hope of freedom and restored life.

Pascal’s “wager” was the challenge issued by the brilliant 17th-century French mathematician/inventor/religious philosopher Blaise Pascal. A translation of the main part of his “wager” is below.

“God is, or He is not.” But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up . . . Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose . . . But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is . . . If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.

The basic meaning of his “wager” still applies today: If we live a life of faith as though the Christian God exists, we will have a better life in this world and hope for redemption and eternal life following death. On the other hand, if we live as though the Christian God doesn’t exist, we will experience increasing torment and alienation in this life, and the possibility of retribution in the life to come. Back To Article

How Can I Prove to Someone that God Exists?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Godagnosticism, atheism, God, Pantheism, Science, scientific proof

The universe presents overwhelming evidence for God’s existence (Psalm 19:1). But no one can be forced to believe in God. In fact, God’s infinite nature makes it impossible to apprehend Him directly (1 Timothy 1:17; 6:16). Because God is Spirit, conclusions about the ultimate beginnings of the universe need to be drawn from the created world and God’s actions within it. Here in the created world, the evidence for God’s eternal power and divine nature is so overwhelming that belief in Him is the only reasonable option (Romans 1:20). While some aspects of God’s nature–His holiness and love, for example–have been obscured by the Fall (See the ATQ articles, Why Would an All-Powerful God Permit Evil? and Why Would God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People?), it is disbelief in God’s existence and power that is irrational, not belief.

To assume that the universe is just a cosmic accident goes against the grain of everything we experience. Everything that we have ever encountered with our senses has a cause: why not the universe?

There is a remarkable human tendency to ignore the obvious. We all take many of the most important things in our lives (security, family, health) for granted. Similarly, we all tend to take the universe and its mysteries for granted. Instead of asking the obvious questions “Why is there a universe and why am I here?” and “How does the universe happen to exist at all?” we allow a superficial smattering of scientific knowledge to divest us of an appropriate sense of wonder.

The Bible offers us the essential truths about God:

He was there “in the beginning” before anything else existed (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 33:9; Isaiah 57:15; John 1:1-3; 1 Timothy 6:16 ).
He has no beginning or end, and He is unbounded by time and space ( Psalm 90:2, 4; 93:2; Isaiah 40:28 ).
Everything else that existsminerals, water, plants, animals,angels, demonsis on a lower plane ( Psalm 33:6; Isaiah 45:12; Colossians 1:16; Revelation 4:11 ). Only God is an eternal Spirit, uncreated, other, of an entirely different order.

God made human beings in His image (Genesis 1:26-27 ), but we are still part of the material world. Each of us had a specific beginning, and are bounded by three-dimensional experience and passing time. Being immersed in time and space, we become overwhelmed and confused when we try to understand an eternal God (Job 36:26 ;Isaiah 40:28 ).

Many people simply ignore the overwhelming experiential and natural evidence for God’s existence. Ultimately, faith comes down to a decision of the heart. A mind darkened by a rebellious heart is incapable of perceiving God (Isaiah 44:18,20; Romans 1:18-23).²

The eternal God is transcendent, not part of creation. God’s existence cannot be “proven” in the way that science can prove or disprove a fact about the material world (Hebrews 11:1). We are spiritual beings, created in God’s image, aware of our own existence, and capable of choice. Choosing to believe that there is no God and that the universe is just a fantastically complex accident will inevitably lead to the conclusion that life is absurd and without meaning. To live without meaning is a hopeless struggle at best, and always ends in despair. But if we believe in the God of the Bible we not only have a reason to live, but the assurance of seeing the kingdom of God with our own eyes.

For the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity and whose name is holy says, “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isaiah 57:15).

Also go to, 10 Reasons To Believe In The Existence Of God.

There are many biblical examples of willful people ignoring the most spectacular demonstrations of God’s presence and power. Consider these: Pharaoh ( Exodus 11:10 ), the Israelites ( Exodus 32:1-4 ), Ahab ( 1 Kings 18:38-39 ), Jesus’ enemies (Mark 3:22 ). Back To Article
Today the ideology of naturalistic evolution is losing ground. Both laymen and scientists are growing increasingly aware that the universe and the life within it are much too complex to have been a mere accident. The so-called “Big Bang” (mentioned over 3,000 years ago in Genesis 1:3) set in motion a series of creative events so complex and perfect that all of man’s accumulated scientific wisdom is just beginning to explore them. Within the limited time frame of merely 15-20 billion years (if current estimates are accepted), a feat of cosmic engineering has occurred on such a vast scale that objective observers are being silenced and humbled, just as Isaiah was humbled by his vision of God’s inconceivable greatness ( Isaiah 40:21-23 ). Back To Article

How Can I Serve Others Without Feeling Like a Doormat?

Allison Stevens
Christian life, Ministry And Outreach, RelationshipsChristlikeness, commitment, friendship, making time for, relationships

No one wants to be a doormat. But if we haven’t put healthy limits in place, we can easily end up feeling used up and stepped on.

Biblical service is not mindless, robot-like obedience to the demands of others. It is intentional and life-giving. The giver and receiver are better people because of the act of compassion. It cultivates unity, closeness, and goodness in others that moves relationships in a positive direction.

It doesn’t always work that way, though. Occasionally, other people won’t appreciate us or they’ll take advantage of our kindness. We can ignore some of these instances, but we shouldn’t close our eyes to a pattern of disrespect or abuse.

We should be honest and, out of love for ourselves and others, refuse to give in to selfish demands or egotistical attitudes. Let’s not mistake Jesus words about turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:39) to mean that we overlook sin. We should refuse to accept disrespectful or abusive treatment so that we can restore our dignity and the other person has hope for change through repentance (Romans 6; 1 Corinthians 5:1-5).

Both Jesus and the apostle Paul are known for standing up for what is right and resisting evil. Jesus didn’t passively stroll through the temple while it became a “den of robbers” (Matthew 21:12-13). Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen and asked for a public display of regret when he was illegally arrested without a trial (Acts 16:36-40). He also advised the Corinthian church to kick a man out of their congregation who was sleeping with his father’s wife! We can’t pretend that a pattern of serious sin won’t affect our ability to serve.

Jesus set limits on his service to others by paying attention to his own needs as well as the needs of others. He healed the sick and fed the hungry, but he also made sure he got the food, rest, and time with his heavenly Father he needed so that he would be healthy to care for others (John 4:5; Mark 11:12-13; 6:30-32). We simply can’t ignore our own needs if we want to be available to help others. We must have physical nourishment, exercise, rest, relationship, and time for personal reflection on the Word of God. If we regularly neglect these areas as we serve others, we may begin to resent the very people we want to help.

Another way to limit the chances of becoming someone’s doormat is to keep in mind the scope of our talents, opportunities, and time that we’ve been given, and to seriously think twice about those things that do not fit into the unique purposes of our lives (1 Corinthians 12:1-31). Volunteering for things that you aren’t capable of or gifted for may not be a sensible stewardship of your time or resources. Find opportunities that accommodate the position in which God has placed you and that fit with the dreams and passions God has set on your heart. Performing only obligatory duties will drain us because they aren’t in line with who we were created to be.

And yet, we can’t base our service solely on how comfortable we feel. There are times when we feel the nudging of the Holy Spirit, asking us to do something completely out of our comfort zone. Often, the Lord is asking us to trust Him. On these occasions, pray fervently about it and ask God to confirm the direction. If you go ahead with a heart of gratitude and faith, the Lord will be delighted with you. He loves it when we trust Him.

Serving others involves personal sacrifice, but it is not without appropriate limits. We have physical requirements for life that we can’t ignore, and gifts and opportunities that distinguish us from the next person. But equally important is the disrespect or abuse from another person that may require us to limit our service.

How Can It Be Consistent with God’s Character to Demand Our Worship?

Dan Vander Lugt
God, Relationshipslove, respect, worship

The Bible makes it clear that God commands that we worship Him:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:1-5)

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)

However there is a difference between a “command” and a “demand.” When a military officer gives an order it is a command, not a demand. A legitimate command can be given only by someone in authority, while a demand can be made by anyone.

To use the word “demand” in relation to God’s expectations of us is to imply that there could be something arbitrary, petulant, selfish, or egotistical about them. We experience many “demands” in life that are just that way.

God’s command that we worship Him” needs to be taken in the context of the cross. God doesn’t “demand worship” out of egotism or a sense of insecurity, like a Pagan god or Roman emperor. The authority of His command is based on His self-sacrificial love and its purpose is to save and protect His beloved creatures. He commands it because He knows that we are lost outside of a proper relationship to Him. There are no other options. He is the only source of life, and to require anything else would be unloving.

If we have a proper relationship to our Creator, we will automatically be drawn towards worship. Worshiping because we “must” or because we are being coerced, or out of fear, will be the farthest thing from our minds.

How Can It Be Morally Right For Jesus Christ To Die For Our Sins?

Dan Vander Lugt
Uncategorized

On the surface, it appears impossible for one person to rightfully die for another’s sins. If a judge arbitrarily chose an innocent man — say, a faithful husband and loving father — to be executed in the place of a notorious serial murderer like Ted Bundy, we would be morally outraged. Here are a few reasons:

Punishing an innocent man turns the principles of justice upside down. Instead of being rewarded for his virtue, he would be punished for another’s evil deeds.

The man chosen for punishment would have no special relationship to the murderer. He would die, not to save a brother or a friend, but a stranger.

Killing a good man in place of an evil man would be unlikely to have any positive effects. The evil man would probably thank the devil for his good luck. If anything, the outrageousness of the substitution would only reinforce his evil perspective.

If killing an innocent man in place of a guilty one is so unthinkable, how can Christians believe it could be right for Christ to die for the sins of the world? Such a belief is based on the radical differences between Christ’s substitutionary death, and the arbitrary killing of a good man in place of a bad one.

First, Christ is intimately related to us (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6). He is a man, but not only a man. He is the eternal Word, the Creator of the universe, the Architect of existence, life, and consciousness.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made ( John 1:1-3 NIV). (See the ATQ articles How Could Jesus Be Both God And Man At The Same Time? and How Could Jesus Be God If He Had The Limitations Of A Human Being?)

Second, Messiah’s death satisfies the principles of justice rather than violating them. It reconciles God’s holiness with His love. In fact, apart from Christ’s substitutionary death, God’s plans for the universe could never have been fulfilled.

Had God created the universe to function like a clock, it would have been a colossal, perfectly designed machine requiring no risk or cost. It would contain no randomness, freedom, or sin. It would require no redemption. But it also would not be the cradle of self-aware creatures made in God’s image. It would be void of creativity, moral choice, and intelligent contemplation.

But God desired much more than mechanical perfection. He longed for a human society with the spiritual perfection of freedom in self-awareness, creatures made in His image with the capacity to choose fellowship with Him. Therefore He created the angels ¹ and the universe (Genesis 1:31) in a way that made freedom possible. Rather than a clockwork universe, He made the universe the perfect place to bring creatures in His image into being — creatures capable of worship and love.

Like the father of the prodigal in Jesus’ parable (Luke 15), God gave His sons and daughters freedom to fail and even to reject His lordship. And like the father of the prodigal, He loves them beyond measure and longs for their redemption.

Although the fallen state of nature grieves Him far beyond our ability to conceive (Romans 8:18-23), God intended from the beginning to undo the evil consequences of freedom while preserving its benefits. Just as the universe was created (and is sustained) through His Son, it was His Son’s task to redeem it.

The sacrifice of God’s Son in our place accomplished something that could be done in no other way. Only God’s infinite power and wisdom can cancel the effects of our sin and bring it into conformity with His holy purposes. By totally and unreservedly identifying Himself with His fallen creatures, He achieved what they in their freedom had failed to do, and took upon Himself the consequences of their misused freedom.

The death of God’s Son on our behalf brought salvation for a lost and helpless race. His perfect obedience and sacrifice were confirmed by His resurrection from the dead and appearance to hundreds of witnesses (Acts 1:1-11 ; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8). His willingness to become a human being and personally prove His love to our lost race made it possible for us to see how we can live fully in this world while cherishing goals that include the next (Isaiah 53:6-12 ; John 15:12-13 ; Romans 5:6-10 ; 1 John 4:8-10 ).

So unlike the death of a mere man for another, the self-sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ made it possible for us to reach for the perfection of the children of God ( Romans 8:16-21 ; Galatians 3:26-29 ). It’s not only morally right for Christ to die for us, it’s the only hope of our ever being morally right before God, the righteous Judge.

God made the angels perfect and without flaw. He made them free, and some angels chose to rebel (Ezekiel 28:13-17). Back To Article

How Can My Family Be Happier?

Allison Stevens
Relationshipshome, husband, parent-child relationship, parenting, relationships, wife

It’s important to understand that no family is 100 percent happy all the time. We all have our particular struggles and problems, which cause stress and anxiety for ourselves and our family members. This is part of living in a broken world. However, families can benefit from realizing that biblical love can make a happier, more content and healthy family.

Love is doing what is in the best interest of others. It is doing good for others, while never compromising or disrespecting the worth of another. Where there is love, there is mutual freedom of expression, choice, healthy boundaries, friendliness, and respect, which are necessary for the happiest of homes.

Every family member has significance and value. Children should respect and obey their parents (Ephesians 6:3-4; Proverbs 3:11-12), and parents should regard their children with high esteem (Psalm 127:3). Discipline should be done in a way that respects the child and honors them. Otherwise, children can grow to be angry (Ephesians 6:4).

A husband and a wife need to model love and respect by how they treat one another. They should seek to meet each other’s needs, without losing sight of their own needs (Philippians 2:4). They work with, not against, one another. They’re free to be honest with each other and do kind favors for the other. They love each other as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:2, 25).

A husband and a wife, as spouses and parents, are in a key position to set the tone of their homes. They have the ability to either create an atmosphere of power, control, fear, and hostility, or they can set the stage for a safe, loving, cooperative, and respectful home.

A happy home is not problem-free. But it is one where, for the most part, family members enjoy one another, cooperate with each other, and have a sense of camaraderie. And it’s where mutual respect between all family members guides behavior and interactions. In a happy, healthy home, love is the rule, not the exception.

How Can Our Stepfamily Be a Happy One?

Allison Stevens
Relationshipshome, husband, marriage, relationships, wife

All families struggle at times to be happy, but blended families

¹ often have bigger obstacles to face than others. For instance, the quality of the relationship between the stepparent and the stepchildren has a big impact on the level of happiness in a blended family. Loyalty issues with the biological children and knowing how to discipline also add major complications.

To meet these challenges well, a husband and wife must make their relationship to each other the top priority ( Genesis 2:24 ). All efforts toward a happy home are useless if you don’t consider your spouse’s feelings and make decisions together. A spouse whose feelings are ignored will begin to feel neglected, insecure, and unloved, which creates unhappiness. It’s important for spouses to discuss everything and make decisions only after they have come to an agreement.

It takes a lot of time to build loving relationships in a blended family. Emotional bonds don’t happen overnight, and it’s unrealistic to think that a stepparent and a stepchild will automatically hit it off. Sometimes that happens, but more often than not, it takes years to develop a more normal parent-child attachment. Be patient when it comes to developing close relationships with your stepchildren ( Proverbs 19:11; Colossians 3:12 ). Also be realistic enough to recognize that sometimes the kind of affection you long for never develops. Nevertheless, stepparents need to respect and accept their spouse’s children, not seek to force an immediate close relationship. That respect and acceptance often turns out to be the foundation of the relationship you desire.

As your husband or wife gets to know your children, they will begin to see things in them that you may have overlooked. Be open to your spouse’s judgment about your children. You may feel threatened to hear something negative about them, but listening to your spouse shows respect. Valuing these insights indicates that you respect your spouse’s important role in the family. Honoring his or her opinion may even help solve some of the discipline or relationship problems you may have with your children. It’s natural to feel protective; but those protective feelings could lead you to reject valuable observations, which can in turn lead to heated disagreements over the children ( 2 Timothy 2:22-26 ). When that protective instinct is turned on, admit it to your spouse and talk about it. If you are open about your feelings, you can develop deeper trust and intimacy with your spouse ( 1 Corinthians 13:6; Ephesians 4:15; James 5:16 ). Remember that it’s not you against your spouse; it’s you and your spouse, together, trying to find the best way to raise the children that God has given you ( Proverbs 1:8 ).

Both the natural parent and stepparent ² are responsible for the guidance of the children ( Proverbs 13:24; 23:13; Ephesians 6:1,4 ). If you love your children (or stepchildren) you will lead and train them. Neglecting to help prepare them for life is a failure to love. Biological parents, in their own way, need to make it known to their kids that the stepparent has equal authority so that there is a strong united front. It’s vitally important for the kids to know that there is agreement between you, and that each of you has the same authority over them.

Blended families have just as much hope for happiness through good relationships as traditional families. They need to recognize that their unique situation has unique challenges, and that those challenges are best met when they have built a strong, God-honoring marriage. (See the ATQ article Who Should Come First in My Stepfamily: My Spouse or My Children?)

A blended family is one where one or both spouses have children from previous relationships.Back To Article
Stepparents can have a positive influence in their stepchildren’s lives. While stepparenting is difficult at times, especially with older children, it is an important role because they are looking to you as a role model James 5:10-11. Back To Article

How can we helpfully respond to the prodigals in our lives?

Sam Carbaugh
Bible, Christian life, Relationshipschildren, leaving the faith, parenting, prodigal

When people we love abandon us, it can be painful. The pain seems magnified when the person is also leaving, or seems to be leaving, their church and their faith. When this happens, it is natural to feel angry and confused. But for the Christian, the call is to move beyond the initial pangs of emotion to something that will reflect the light and love of Christ.

Jesus offers us two visions of how we can react through the parable of the prodigal son: the father and the dutiful eldest son. Their reactions to the lost son’s return can instruct us as we engage with and respond to those who have abandoned the church.

The father, who could have easily become bitter from the hurt his youngest son inflicted, chose to forgive and offered the returning son open arms instead of a closed heart. He didn’t question his son about the sins he had committed. He didn’t ask his son to promise or do anything in order to be welcomed back. The father’s pain did not overpower his capacity for love.

On the other hand, the eldest son’s heart was full of bitterness and a sense of injustice, feeling that his lost brother did not deserve to be welcomed back. How easy it can be to react this way. How easy to ask, “Why does he (or she) deserve my love and rejoicing?”

When the prodigals in our life return to church for a holiday service or a wedding, how will we react? The unconditional love of the father for the lost and returned seems almost impossible for us to emulate…almost. As long as we think of emulating the Father’s unconditional love as our duty, we aren’t very likely to do it, and we run the risk of becoming like the older son. But love is not merely our duty; it’s our destiny as followers of Christ.

The church is the body of the risen Christ in the world. Something new and powerful happened when Jesus rose from the dead. It was the start of God’s Kingdom—His new creation breaking into our fallen world. And one day, when Jesus returns, he will finish that recreation. Until then, God calls us to reflect the reality of His future Kingdom in the present by how we relate to each other today.

When people leave the faith, we can react in a way that reflects old way of the fallen world as pictured by the eldest son, remaining “faithful” but all the while growing resentful and self-righteous in our dutiful obedience; or, we can react like the father, taking the new creational path of love, peace, and reconciliation, longing to pour our love out to those we have lost.

How Can We Know If Our Guilt Feelings Are from the Holy Spirit or from Satan?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christianity, Personal Strugglesaccuser, condemnation, conscience, devil, emotions, enemy, false guilt, forgiveness, guilt, Satan

Because this is a fallen world, we do nothing from entirely pure motives. (See article on Depravity.) As the prophet Isaiah said:

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away (Isaiah 64:6).

Because our motivations are always imperfect and our choices often difficult, one of Satan’s most effective ploys is to confuse and paralyze Christians with his accusations, putting them out of effective action. As our accuser and enemy (1 Timothy 5:14-15; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:10), Satan delights in our anxiety and fear. Although we may intellectually accept the premise that no one merits God’s grace, Satan knows how to use our emotions to cause us to feel outside of the reach of God’s mercy. His accusations are often vague, indefinite, and persistent. They throb like a spiritual migraine. They torment us even after we have acknowledged known wrongs and asked God for forgiveness (1 John 1:9). Whenever we are overwhelmed by guilt feelings that aren’t traceable to a specific sin, or whenever feelings of condemnation persist even after we honestly confess them to the Lord, it is reasonable to assume that we are suffering from false guilt — guilt that is either coming from our own hearts or from our spiritual enemy.

Why can we assume that these feelings of condemnation are not coming from God? The Bible tells us that godly conviction is based on love, not fear. Its purpose is to instruct and to correct, not to torment. The apostle John wrote:

In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:17-18).

God is not arbitrary or cruel. He always convicts His children out of love (2 Samuel 12:13; Luke 15:10). Conviction is His tool to bring us to a deeper reliance upon Christ (2 Corinthians 7:10; Ephesians 2:1-10; 2 Timothy 1:9). His Spirit doesn’t overwhelm us with feelings of condemnation for sins that have been confessed and forsaken or for choices that are unavoidably troubling and ambiguous.

When we sin, we will have to live with the consequences of our actions and with the loving correction of the Lord if we do not correct ourselves. Our position as God’s children doesn’t shield us from responsibility. But the natural consequences of sin will never cause us to lose our family relationship with God or any of the spiritual security that Christ has given us.

We need to always remember that it is not our good works but the blood of Christ that has provided for our every spiritual need (Ephesians 2:4-10). Christ is the foundation of our spiritual freedom and our emancipation from fear. Christ is the reason that Christians, unlike unbelievers, have no need to deny or conceal their sins. The entire price for sins has already been paid by the Lord — which gives us reason to quickly confess any sin that would damage our wonderful family relationship with God (1 John 1:9).

When we get to heaven, the process of our spiritual perfection will be complete and our motives will be pure (1Corinthians 1 Corinthians 13:12; 15:49; Hebrews 12:22-23). But in this fallen world, we will always struggle with some legitimate feelings of guilt. Here we wrestle with the tension of knowing that everything we do falls short of perfection. But faith trusts God’s promises. It is willing to go forward in spite of uncertainty (Hebrews 11:1,6), to be a good steward of God’s gifts (1 Peter 4:10), and to be as fearless of God’s wrath as a child is of a loving Father (Matthew 25:24-26).

How Can We Love our Neighbor as Our Self, as Jesus Commanded?

Dan Vander Lugt
Christian life, Ethics, Personal Struggles, Relationshipslove, loving one's neighbor, self-love

Loving other people as oneself is a difficult goal. But Jesus clearly made it fundamental to Christian living. On one occasion, an expert in the Jewish law challenged Jesus with the question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself’ ” (Luke 10:27 NKJV).

Although the goal of loving one’s neighbor as oneself is difficult, it isn’t impossible. In Luke 6:36-38, Jesus gives some basic principles that help us understand what it involves:

Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you (NKJV).

This passage contains two principles. One principle is that our expectations of our neighbors are directly related to the expectations that will be placed on us. As Jesus said, “With the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” The expectations we have of others will be required by them (and God) of us. But even subjectively, we already love—or hate—our neighbors as ourselves. We subconsciously project our own attitudes and values upon other people, expecting them to perceive us as we perceive them. If we are impatient and judgmental towards others, we assume others will be impatient and judgmental towards us. If we are compassionate and patient towards others, we won’t have to deal with the pressures that come from assuming that others view us with hostility and impatience. Love or hatred directed outwards is always matched by love or hatred directed inwards.

The second principle is that love for one’s neighbor should never be confused with indulgence. A father who gives his children anything they want spoils them. If we love our neighbor as our self, we must be as careful in setting standards and goals for him as we do for ourselves. If God were a genie in a lamp who gave us anything we wanted, would we ever be satisfied? Of course not! Love for our neighbor involves the same principle. While love always seeks to promote the other person’s well-being, at times it is manifested in acts of charity and at other times in firm confrontation.

Our neighbor is just like us. At times he needs mercy, at times he needs correction, but he always needs our love.

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