Lovin' Tellin' The Story

As I was reading over chapters 3-5 of 1 John this evening I realized that he makes some rather useful points from an apologetic standpoint. Usually when I think of this book of the Bible I think about how we are to love one another and how that love identifies us as children of God. True enough, this is a book that is laden with admonitions to love one another and abide in the love of Christ. Then there is chapter 4. In the particular edition of the Bible that I am using this chapter is sub-headed "Testing the Spirits." First of all, John tells us flat out that if a spirit does not confess Christ then it is simply and categorically, not from God. It's as easy as that. Then he lays this bombshell in verse 5, They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. How many of those who supposedly confess Christ in our society "speak as from the world"? This may be most true of hardcore "emergent" Christians. In fa...

I had the amazing opportunity last night to go with a couple of friends to here Ravi Zacharias and Stuart MacAllister speak in Gastonia, NC. Hearing these two men of God speak on the supremacy of Christ was a real treat to say the least. In the midst of all of this a couple of things stuck out to me that pertain to the nature of evangelism or mission in the United States today. First Dr. MacAllister said that the apologetic that is needed the most in American today is, borrowing Paul's words, "Christ and Him crucified." Later Dr. Zacharias went on to tell a rather humorous story about a family who didn't know the story of Jericho's wall being brought down. These two points, along with the rest that was said, made me ponder the state and method of evangelism in America. 1. Do we need to begin approaching our home territory similar to the way we approach missions abroad? - The reason I bring up this question is because, like most of western Europe, the US is in ...

Previously I began to describe what I see the real fruit of the secular to be. First it is apathetic and second it is hopeless or marked by despair. Now I would like to go on and finish with a third fruit, anarchy. Anarchy Anarchy, as I see it, is a complete lack of control or order. It would be the result of a society without laws and mores. We often see glimpses of this after natural disasters or in the wake of wars when governments are powerless to control the people. Death, looting and general chaos are the markers of this type of situation. You may be thinking, "well, just because a society is without religion does not mean that it is without laws or morals." This is partially correct but, as I mentioned earlier, without a religious framework, of whatever sort, there are no grounds for either laws or morals. They may be transferred from a religious worldview but they are not natural for the secular. Let us look for a moment at the idea of laws. These are imposed on a so...

In common terminology the so called "fruit" of something is that which it bears, or the result of it. Obviously the fruit of a tree is something like an apple or an orange and the fruit of plants are things like tomatoes and cucumbers. We also use it in a more metaphorical way such as, "the fruit of our labor." That is, if I worked hard in school the fruit of my labor would be good grades...hopefully. We also know that in the Bible Paul writes about the fruit of the Spirit telling us that it is love, joy, peace and that like. Now in society today there is a move to get further and further away from things like Christianity and some would even say religion all together. Highly educated professors, scientist, authors and others want to remove religion and all of it's nasty trappings from the world. With that in mind and I would like to reckon for a few moments what the fruit of the secular would be. Now, to be clear I am not suggesting that all secular people sho...