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Trusting God in Apologetics

There are Christians who are excited about using apologetics to defend and present the faith, and there are others who think that is a job for experts. All Christians are commanded to present the faith (2 Cor. 10:5, Col. 4:5-6, 1 Peter 3:15, Acts 17:22-31), but some are called to be more intense with it. And "tense" can apply to many of us. Mostly made at The Keep-Calm-O-Matic  using an image from NASA (Usage of images does not imply endorsement of site contents by anyone) It is indeed unfortunate that some are intent on winning arguments rather than helping the lost come to Christ. Similarly, we can expend mental energy trying to analyze (and sometimes rehash) situations so we can give the most devastating arguments. Yes, by all means, do the best you can. Sometimes we may feel that we botched it. That happens. However, convicting of sin and saving people is the work of the Holy Spirit; we do not do the saving. It is not up to our brilliance (1 Cor. 2:1-5), which can lead to

Distinguishing Between "Make" and "Create" in Genesis 1

There are some professing Christians who insist on finding ways of adding long ages into the Bible, but they ignore the context. While the context is frequently the surrounding verses, it can also mean culture, languages, and more. We look now at make  and create . Credit: Freeimages / Fernanda Ferrari Those owlhoots have attempted to bushwhack the plain meaning of Scripture by saying that they are different aspects of creation, and that make  means using material that was already created. Their eisegesis becomes heinous when their alleged distinction is used to give them license to add millions of years. Some even try to shove evolution into the picture. It won't work, especially when the greater context includes the New Testament. Many people who have written on Genesis 1 have attempted to make a very significant distinction between two Hebrew words found there: bara (בָּרָא, to create) and asah (עָשָׂה, to make or do). Theistic evolutionists (TEs) and old-earth creationists (O

Secularists Using Dinosaurs to Indoctrinate Children

Now there is a provocative title! Believers in an old Earth, evolution, and similar things are probably clutching their pearls while expressing their outrage. Secularists (and many professing Christians, unfortunately) insist that deep time is a scientific fact . We must teach children real science, right? Credit: Flickr / Marco Verch ( CC BY 2.0 ) What is actually happening is that children (as well as the rest of us) are being given stories based on naturalistic interpretations about the past; there is no actual empirical evidence that obliges us to believe that the earth is billions of years old. Children have been enamored with dinosaurs for many years, and this has been increasing in recent years. It is not surprising to find a youngster who can rattle off the names, secular dates, locations, and more of those terrible lizards. Movies and merchandising helped fuel the interest of many people. (I wonder how many were annoyed when the Jurassic Park movies made the Velociraptors

The Category of Evolved Religion

While categorizing and labeling can be helpful points of reference, it can also be very misleading. Misotheists often say that they hate "religion", but commit the hasty generalization fallacy to justify their own rebellion against God. Categorizing in this manner is disingenuous and harmful. Background image: Pixabay / Ro Ma , modified with Clker Clipart If you slip on your wading boots and trudge through the slough of an atheist social media location, you are likely to find fringe religious people (usually professing to be Christians) singled out to confirm their biases that everything in the "religion" category is bad; the exception is not the rule. Ironically, they have apoplectic fits when it is pointed out that atheism itself is a religion , and evolutionism is like it . Each religion is different. I'll allow that many have some things in common, but categorizing based on superficialities and exceptions is foolish. Also, there are people who claim to be me

Darwinism and the United Methodist Church

My father was a pastor in the Untied Methodist Church (misspelling intentional) for fifty years, but for some reason, he never accepted evolutionism to my knowledge. He had liberal theology and some old-earth views, but some owlhoots in the denomination were far too liberal for his standards. Original image before modification: Wikimedia Commons / San906 ( CC0 1.0 ) The UMC states that it has 12 million members , so it is not surprising that members have a variety of views. (One adult Sunday School class I attended was conducted by someone who was not even a member of that church, and was thought to be an agnostic. Good church decision making there, huh?) One of the first observed problems with compromise on creation is rejection of the authority of Scripture. Years ago, I was giving creation science presentations to churches, and one of them was a UMC. That pastor believed in biblical creation, but one old boy refused to shake my hand or even look at me after the service. While the d

Christmas — Relatively Speaking

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  For a short time, there was a series of captioned pictures often called "Unimpressed Astronaut" where the image was condescending about, for example, sky diving . There are many comparisons that people make, and getting some perspective can be a good thing at times.  Adoration of the Shepherds , Giorgione, ca. 1505 We had the winter's first serious cold spell, reaching low temperatures of two degrees Fahrenheit (almost minus 17 Celsius). It was cold for us , especially since winter did not hit our area all that hard until the week of December 17, 2020. People in Montana and other states would be saying, "That's cute". So would many in Canada, eh? Or Siberia, such as in this two-minute video which, for some reason, suddenly became age restricted but I see no problem whatsoever with showing it to children: So, some things that may seem like a big deal to one person are not all that impressive to another. Indeed, what is considered pover

Genesis Flood was Global

Pardon the awkward title, but Blogger, a property of the leftists at Google, was not allowing the previous one to publish. Since they keep destroying my work now, I keep backing it up so I can eventually post something. Even if I have to change titles and publishing times. There are professing Christians who believe that the Genesis Flood was a local event. Worse, some say it was allegorical. Mayhaps they were not taught well, have not seriously read the Bible — or fully believe it. Denying the global Flood has serious repercussions. Credit: Pixabay / Jeff Jacobs To be blunt, by denying the global Flood, they not only have a problem with biblical authority, they are also calling God a liar. It is referenced several times in Scripture. Bible authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit affirmed the global Flood, as did Jesus who is God the Son. If they were mistaken or dishonest, professing Christians have serious problems with who to trust for their salvation. It is clea

Secular Truth and Biblical Morality

One of the purposes of presuppositional apologetics is to prompt people to consider their own worldviews and assumptions. Angry misotheists have told me that creationists are lying about evolution, so I ask them if that was true, what would be wrong with it? Original image source: Unsplash / Jared Rice Responses to questions like that invariably involve changing the subject and attacking me, distraction, circular reasoning, or even outright refusal to answer the question. Evolution is a cornerstone for atheism, so if we were lying, we would be doing that with the view that it brings us happiness and helps our survivability. Also seen are comments on posts that show scientific geological reasons to believe in the Genesis Flood, but atheopaths refuse to actually read the material and ridicule biblical creationists. In essence, we're wrong because atheism.  This is based on hardcore presuppositions of deep time and naturalism. As Dr. Greg Bahnsen, Dr. Jason Lisle, and others have stat

Poor Excuses for Rejecting Creation

So often with various kinds of conversion experiences where people get all worked up about something — then the excitement cools. Books are untouched on the shelves, no interest in lectures (videos or otherwise), but they have a smattering of knowledge. Image source before modification: Pixabay /  Spencer Wing This is especially sad when someone believes in Jesus Christ but then falls away (Matt. 13:18-23). In a similar way, someone can become excited about biblical creation science but get discouraged and distracted by philosophies, intimidated by militant atheists, harassed by college professors, teased by friends, and so on. There are some who claim to be "former creationists" that have saddled up to ride with the Old Earth brand (or even with professing atheists), but when they have discussions with knowledgeable creationists, it is discovered that they only had superficial knowledge of biblical creation science. Worse, their theology (which is intertwined with it) is als

Theophilus the Biblical Apologist

Some people claim that biblical (young age) creation is a recent phenomenon, but that is contrary to most of church history and to the Bible. Theophilus of Antioch was an apologist who believed the creation account in Genesis and defended the truth of Scripture. Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos /  Janaka Dharmasena Theophilus was a former pagan who converted to Christianity, then he wrote a long apologetic to a pagan named Autolycus about the truth of the Bible. He obviously knew paganism and the Scriptures, and affirmed the authority of God's Word — beginning from Genesis. We need to do the same in our own increasingly idolatrous and pagan cultures. In the second century, after the original disciples of Jesus had died, the fledlging Christian church was beginning to grow and expand into a hostile Greco-Roman world, and accusations were brought against them by unbelievers. These accusations came from a number of people, one of whom was Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia. Pliny wrote

Meditation with the Proper Focus

It may be surprising, but everyone meditates in one form or another. It manifests itself in different ways, whether obsession in how to cheat and win an election, activities of favorite sports times, how much an atheist hates God that destroying "religion" and attacking Christians is an all-consuming goal, proving dust-to-Darwin evolution is true, television, sitting there woolgathering , and more. Some seek more formal types of meditation. Credit: Pexels / Gantas Vaičiulėnas Much of what is used for meditation purposes involves Eastern religious practices. Some versions want the meditator to empty the mind and think of nothing, but that is actually dangerous because (some folks balk at this truth) people are opening themselves up to demonic influences. No, I'm not saying you'll become possessed necessarily, but demonic influence does happen through opening that door. The word mindfulness  is often used regarding meditation, but not in the sense of paying attention t

Believing Despite Evidence for an Old Earth?

While some areas of the Bible are subject to differing interpretations and even disputes, I reckon we can agree that our understanding is the problem; God is not a deceiver. While we walk by faith and not by sight, we are not conflicted by evidence. Credit: Pixnio / Maysam Yabandeh To quote the great theologian Chico Marx, "Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" Except in cases of obvious miracles, the Bible does not contain claims that are not contravened by observed scientific facts. Yet some people think the earth appears  to be old but through some kind of fideism , they believe the Bible anyway.  Yes, we need to cling to the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, but we don't need to rustle up a conflict where none exists. When someone says that the earth "looks old", what is their point of reference? The so-called scientific evidence for deep time is fraught with problems and is inferred — nobody knows  the age of a planet to use for comparison purpos