How do you (briefly) respond to the objection that religion is dangerous because it causes violence and leads to so much conflict? Here’s a start:

I appreciate your concern, but I think the first thing we need to do is clarify which religion you have in mind because they all teach very different things. But beyond that, it doesn’t appear to me that religion is the root problem; people are. I think the lesson of history is that almost anything (e.g., politics, science, economics, or religion) can be abused or misused simply because people are involved, and people tend to manipulate, control, or exploit to get what they want. People are the common denominator. This strongly suggests that there’s something broken in the human heart. So for Christians at least, we’ll want to come back to the example, vision, and teachings of Jesus and ask if we are living consistently with that (e.g., loving our neighbors as ourselves). The teachings of the Bible, properly understood, is our standard. Anywhere Christians are out of line with that, then they are deviating from biblical Christianity. But that’s not a religion problem, that’s a heart problem. Thankfully, Jesus offers the solution for that.

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Recently Dallas Willard went to be with His Lord. I miss him already. Here is just one of the many sobering and insightful passages from his writing (Renovation of the Heart).

Thus no one chooses in the abstract to go to hell or even to be the kind of person who belongs there. But their orientation toward self leads them to become the kind of person for whom away-from-God is the only place for which they are suited. It is a place they would, in the end, choose for themselves, rather than come to humble themselves before God and accept who he is. Whether or not God’s will is infinitely flexible, the human will is not. There are limits beyond which it cannot bend back, cannot turn or repent. One should seriously inquire if to live in a world permeated with God and the knowledge of God is something they themselves truly desire. If not, they can be assured that God will excuse them from his presence. They will find their place in the “outer darkness” of which Jesus spoke. But the fundamental fact about them will not be that they are there, but that they have become people so locked into their own self-worship and denial of God that they cannot want God… We should be very sure that the ruined soul is not one who has missed a few more or less important theological points and will flunk a theological examination at the end of life. Hell is not an “oops!” or a slip. One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God. “Outer darkness” is for one who, everything said, wants it, whose entire orientation has slowly and firmly set itself against God and therefore against how the universe actually is. It is for those who are disastrously in error about their own life and their place before God and man.—Dallas Willard

Learn more about the life, work, ministry, and writings of Dallas Willard

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Our culture is talking about Same-Sex Marriage. How should Christians respond?

*A quick note. Christians are not the ones who are driving this issue, but we do need to be prepared to have this conversation (1 Pet. 3:15). We are all broken and all of us are called to repent. The Gospel is good news for all of us, because we all need a Savior.

Should Christians be for Marriage Equality?

What is Marriage? (Article)

How do Christians respond to the top 12 toughest questions about homosexuality?

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Gary Habermas offers the following helpful criteria when doing historical investigation. “Historians employ a number of common-sense principles in assessing the strength of a testimony.” Here are just five of those principles:

1. Testimony attested to by multiple independent witnesses is usually considered stronger than the testimony of one witness.
2. Affirmation by a neutral or hostile source is usually considered stronger than affirmation from a friendly source, since bias in favor of the person or position is absent.
3. People usually don’t make up details regarding a story that would tend to weaken their position.
4. Eyewitness testimony is usually considered stronger than testimony heard from a second- or thirdhand source.
5. An early testimony from very close to the event in question is usually considered more reliable than one received years after the event.

Christianity is a historical faith…you can investigate it with eyes wide open (1 Cor. 15:16). So is the Old Testament historically reliable? 

Listen to my podcast where I make the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus

Learn more in his excellent book with Mike Licona – The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus

Is it rational to believe in miracles? Has science eliminated the supernatural? John Lennox doesn’t think so and he has an argument for it! Watch this Veritas presentation at Harvard. You may be surprised by what you did not know about the origins of science.

About John Lennox

John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, is an internationally renowned speaker on the interface of science, philosophy and religion. He regularly teaches at many academic institutions including the Said Business School, Wycliffe Hall and the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, as well as also being a Senior Fellow with the Trinity Forum. He has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science and Christianity and he has also participated in a number of televised debates with some of the world’s leading atheist thinkers.

Check out the new website of John Lennox.

Learn more about the Veritas Forum.

Here is a great video by John Lennox on reconciling modern science with Genesis. Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Old Testament scholar C. John “Jack” Collins on the Genesis accounts (i.e., days of Genesis) that Dr. John Lennox lectured on. In Lennox’s excellent book, Seven Days That Divide the World, he cites and relies upon the Hebrew exegesis of Dr. Collin’s work. You can find my interview with C. John Collins on the days of Genesis here.

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Last summer I had a very important conversation with some sharp young students while I was speaking at Summit Ministries worldview camp in TN. It had to do with how we talk about Christianity with our friends, family, and coworkers. Most of the time, well meaning Christians talk about Christianity in the context of religion…not reality. Is that a problem? Yes, and here’s why. Religion is understood as a personal and private feeling that is not accessible by everyone else. You can’t question, challenge, or investigate it; you must simply be tolerant of it (and by tolerant, I am using the modern misunderstanding of tolerance which believes that all religious views are equally valid simply because a person sincerely believes them). That’s why having a conversation about Christianity as a religion is a dead end. It’s a non-starter.

That’s why I encouraged these students to talk about Christianity in the context of reality where terms like truth, knowledge, reason, and evidence apply. Any claim about reality is either true or false (it can’t be both). If Christianity is not the kind of thing that can be true or false…the battle has already been lost and the Gospel cannot be seriously considered. We need to talk about Christianity in the same way we talk about having a prescription filled at the pharmacy or receiving instruction from a doctor.

In today’s society, religion is a fuzzy (i.e., socially constructed or psychologically projected) category that makes little difference in everyday life. But if Christianity is true, then it speaks to ALL of life. It makes a comprehensive claim on reality. Jesus didn’t intend to merely address two hours of our week. As Christians we need to have more conversations about reality and less about religion. This insight is also critical to how we think about education and the next generation.

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“Imagine that you’re hiking through the woods and you come across a translucent ball lying on the forest floor. You would naturally wonder how it came to be there. If one of your hiking partners said to you, “Hey, it just exists inexplicably. Don’t worry about it!” you’d either think that he was crazy or figure that he just wanted you to keep moving. No one would take seriously the suggestion that the ball existed there with literally no explanation. Now suppose you increase the size of the ball in this story so that it’s the size of a car. That wouldn’t do anything to satisfy or remove the demand for an explanation. Suppose it were the size of a house. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of a continent or a planet. Same problem. Suppose it were the size of the entire universe. Same problem. Merely increasing the size of the ball does nothing to affect the need of an explanation.”

Would this apply to God? No, because if He exists, He does so necessarily. But the universe is clearly contingent (i.e., did not “have to” exist of its own nature). This is a version of the cosmological argument for God’s existence. But if God made the universe, then who made God?

Want to explore the evidence for God further? Sean McDowell and I wrote a readable book that will introduce you to the existence of God (we cover science, philosophy, history, and the Bible). We also interview some leading Christian intellectuals in the book as well. We hope you will find it helpful. Learn more here.

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Truth is Truth
By Chris and Stephanie Teague (Out of the Dust)

The truth is under attack
Deceptive schemes seem so pristine
We glean from news feeds and magazines

Just light a match and pour the gasoline
If we don’t identify the sly venomous lies disguised by vile devices

Truth is truth no matter what it is
Can’t say mine is mine & his is his
Emotional notions are a poor excuse for proof, but that’s how some use half truths on you
There’s no time for blurring the lines
Cause you can have your own opinion
But you cannot have your own truth

The world is hard pushing back
If its not PC are we truly free to speak and say things that we believe?
Will we surrender to the enemy?
With a gun to our head would we say what He said
Would we sway from a threat or die for it?

Truth is truth no matter what it is
You can’t say mine is mine and his is his
Some get offended when they’re threatened by the truth
And that’s why they do those things they do.
There’s no time for blurring the lines
Cause you can have your own opinion but cannot have your own truth

You’ll find there’s hope and peace
Free from complexity
When you know the truth

You won’t find it in yourself
It’s there from someone else
When you know you’ll finally see
It will set you free

Recently, I wrote about how and why we are failing our students.

In light of that, I teach with the following core commitments. First, Christianity is a knowledge tradition, which means that truths about God, history, the spiritual life, and morality can actually be known, not merely believed (cf. Col. 1:9-10 and Luke 1:1-4). Second, I assume (and argue for) the existence of objective truth. That is, truth is discovered; not created by an individual or culture. These two commitments will give students the confidence to cut through the mindless sound bites and slogans so common in our culture today.

Teaching from a Christian worldview requires that we ask and answer four vital questions:

1.) What do Christians believe about this? (Understanding / Content)
2.) Why do Christians believe this? (Reasons / Evidence)
3.) Why does this matter to my life? (Integration / Ownership)
4.) As an everyday ambassador, how can I help others connect with this important truth? (Embodiment / Connection)

This isn’t everything that could be said. But I think it’s an important starting point. Our beliefs and our thought lives provide the live possibilities for us to choose from in the day in and day out of life. If our thoughts are mostly away from God, then our choices most likely will be as well. Renewing our mind is fundamental to being an apprentice of Jesus and worldview formation (Col. 3:1-3; Rom. 12:1-2). I have tried to flesh out and apply this approach in my latest book with Zondervan, Think Christianly: Looking at the Intersection of Faith and Culture.

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I am convinced that the prevailing approach to education in our society is doing a great disservice to students. As a culture we can do better but as Christians we must do better. Unfortunately, much of contemporary education has come to be identified with data acquisition. However, simply regurgitating facts does not mean that one is educated. The ability to look something up on Google or Wikipedia is useful to be sure and I am certainly thankful for the unprecedented access to information available today, but this ability is not to be confused or conflated with education.

In order to understand what it means to be educated, we need to answer a fundamental question—what is a human being for? If a human being is understood to be the result of a blind, random process that did not have him in mind, then strictly speaking there is no objective purpose (this is the contemporary Darwinian narrative). But if a human being is specially created in the image of an essentially relational God, then education is about flourishing according to God’s design and for his glory. True education cannot sever the purpose for which we exist from who we are.

As Christians, we must resist the reductionism so common in our culture today. For as one of my professors put it one time, “education is not about testing well…but living well.” I have attempted to make a start at recovering true integration in my book Welcome to College: A Christ-Follower’s Guide For the Journey. Here is what some leading Christian thinkers are saying about it:

“Wow! What a book! Quite frankly, this is the book I’ve been waiting for the last forty years to give to college students. It is the single best volume I have ever read for preparing students for how to follow Jesus and flourish as his disciple in college.” – J.P. Moreland, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University

“Jonathan has both the intellectual resources as well as the practical experience to provide an effective students’ survival guide to university life. I’m impressed with the wide array of issues he discusses, from intellectual challenges to financial problems to sexual snares to getting enough sleep! All this is done in easily digestible bits for the student on the run.” – William Lane Craig, Philosopher, Theologian and Author, Reasonable Faith

“Unpacking biblical truths, Welcome to College is a treasure book of wisdom that will literally save lives and help build a culture of life.” – Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Author, Finding God Beyond Harvard: The Quest for Veritas (Founder of the Veritas Forum)

Thousands of parents and churches have already used Welcome to College as a gift for their high school graduates and it’s exciting to hear the stories of how God is using this book. It is gratifying to me as an author and my prayer is that many more students are encouraged and equipped by it in the class of 2013.

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It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and imagination on the other.

I think this is a powerful insight. Whether you are struggling or flourishing, a very important question to ask is this…what has captured your imagination? What do you dwell on? What do you think about most? (and for the more daring) What do you love?

Paul offers some sage and Holy Spirit inspired counsel:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Phil. 4:8

Our emotions follow our focused thoughts. In a world of distractions, its easy to drift. It might be worth adding this question to your mental playlist–What has captured my imagination lately? Either way, the question will be rewarded. It can snap you back to reality or help you experience true reality in a deeper more God-saturated way.

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See Michael Kruger’s excellent books Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Crossway, 2012) and The Heresy of Orthodoxy: How Contemporary Culture’s Fascination with Diversity has Reshaped Our Understanding of Early Christianity, co-authored with Andreas Köstenberger (Crossway, 2010) for more on the origins of the New Testament canon.

Michael J. Kruger, “The Authenticity of 2 Peter,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42.4 (1999): 645-671.

Michael Kruger’s Website / Blog I Books I Twitter I Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte)

If you enjoyed this topic, you would also enjoy our podcast with New Testament scholar Darrell Bock on “Is the Bible Full of Contradictions?”

Need a graduation gift idea for your high school seniors? Check out Welcome to College: A Christ-Follower’s Guide for the Journey

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“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” – Genesis 1:27

Learn more about Compassion International

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The Old Testament (OT) was originally written in Hebrew (with a few chapters in Aramaic), and it contains thirty nine books written from about 1400 – 400 B.C. Here are some good reasons to believe we possess an accurate OT text.

First the scribes who copied and preserved the text were careful[i] and meticulous. They developed numerical systems to ensure an accurate copy. They counted the number of lines, letters, and words per page of the new copy and then checked them with count of the original. If they didn’t match up, then the copy was destroyed and they started over.[ii]

Next, archeological discoveries shed light on many of the people, places, and events recorded in the Bible. While archeology doesn’t prove that the Bible is true, it certainly does confirm the historical reliability of the text.[iii] I don’t have room to tell you about all of these exciting discoveries, but you can see pictures and descriptions of many of them in the full-color Archeological Study Bible. There is cause for continued optimism because only about 10% of the biblical sites in Israel have been excavated. Who knows what other biblical treasures lie buried in the sand?

Perhaps the strongest evidence for the reliability of the OT is the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 at Qumran. In the summer of 2006 I had the privilege of visiting the site where they were discovered and saw a copy of the famous Isaiah scroll at the Shrine of the Book in Israel. The significance of this discovery cannot be overstated. Up until that time we had known how carefully scribes had passed down the text. But critics of the Bible always claimed that if we ever found earlier documents, then they would show how much the text had been changed and corrupted. So when a shepherd boy stumbled upon pottery containing ancient texts in a cave while tending his goats; it sent shockwaves through the biblical world. 800 scrolls, containing fragments from every book of the OT except Esther, were discovered dating from 250 B.C. – A.D. 50. But most significant was that an entire manuscript of Isaiah was found dating to circa 75 B.C. Old Testament scholars were then able to compare this text of Isaiah with the earliest existing copy of Isaiah in the Masoretic text dating to 1008-9 A.D. Their conclusion? 95% word for word copying accuracy over almost 1100 years! And the 5 % of variations consisted of nothing more significant than omitted letters or misspelled words—slips of the pen[iv]. In light of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls at Qumran, it is fair to say that the burden of proof is on the critic who claims that the OT has not been reliably preserved.

The oldest OT manuscript discovered so far is a fragment of the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-27 found in a silver amulet near Jerusalem dating to the 7^th century B.C. (2600 years old!). Now you might be wondering why we don’t have more OT documents. Here are several reasons: 1) Old manuscripts written on papyrus or leather would age and deteriorate over time. 2) Much of Israel’s history is marked by war; Jerusalem was destroyed and burned at least twice during the time the OT was written. 3) “When manuscripts began to show signs of wear, the Jewish scribes reverently disposed of them because they bore the sacred name of God. Disposing of the manuscripts avoided defilement from pagans. Since scribes were meticulous in copying biblical manuscripts, there was little reason to keep old manuscripts. When scrolls became worn, they were placed in a storage room called a genizah…until there were enough to perform a ritual burial ceremony.”[v] Once all of these factors are considered, we shouldn’t be surprised that we have not found more.

One last question needs answering before we leave the OT, Who decided which books were part of the OT cannon? While I can’t get into all the details here, the key point to remember is that “the books did not receive their authority because they were placed into the cannon [i.e., standard]; rather, they were recognized by the nation of Israel as having divine authority and were therefore included in the cannon. These books were used to determine beliefs and conduct long before ecclesiastical councils recognized their authority (emphasis mine).[vi]

After a lifetime of studying the text of the Old Testament, Bruce Waltke concludes that “95 percent of the OT is…textually sound.”[vii] The remaining 5 % does not affect any key Christian doctrine and as more texts are discovered and existing ones translated, that percentage should continue to decrease. As strong as the case is for the reliability of the OT, the NT is even stronger! And as Darrell Bock notes “the case is strongest where it matters most—in its portrayal of Jesus.”[viii]

*This is an excerpt from my book Welcome to College: A Christ-Follower’s Guide For the Journey

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More than a third of the respondents reported feeling negative, but it had nothing to do with Facebook’s ever-changing privacy policies and advertisements—most of those bad vibes were rooted in jealousy . . . We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook, with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry . . . The fact that we spend so much time on Facebook means that our petty retaliations take place there as well. Users who felt jealous of their friends’ status updates, photos, and life events often dealt with it by exaggerating their own accomplishments, posting unrealistically pretty profile shots, and sharing over-the-top status updates. That, in turn led other Facebook friends to feel jealous and inadequate—something the researchers dubbed an ‘envy spiral.’ All of that virtual envy creates a real-life problem: Users end up feeling dissatisfied with their own lives.

None of us are immuned form this stuff. We must as Solomon encouraged, “Guard our heart, for from it flow springs of life” (Prov. 4:23).

Read the rest of this article here.

One way to redeem your use of Facebook is steward the resources available there; Would you consider giving the Think Christianly Facebook page a like?

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Eric Metaxas and Socrates in the City present an evening with John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, at the Union Club in New York City on January 31, 2013. Dr. Lennox explores a method for reading and interpreting the first chapters of Genesis without discounting either science or Scripture. Afterward Metaxas is heard asking, “Why didn’t I ever have any math teachers like this?”.

Whatever your view, this is a very insightful lecture. It explores the central question…what does Genesis actually say? And then how does our scientific understanding integrate with that reading.

John Lennox: “Seven Days That Divide the World” from Socrates in the City on Vimeo.

Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Old Testament scholar C. John “Jack” Collins on the Genesis accounts (i.e., days of Genesis) that Dr. John Lennox lectured on. In Lennox’s excellent book, Seven Days That Divide the World, he cites and relies upon the Hebrew exegesis of Dr. Collin’s work. You can find my interview with C. John Collins on the days of Genesis here.

Are Your Students Ready For College? They can be… Learn more about Welcome to College

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Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels is clear, well illustrated, and has many strengths. But for the sake of time (and because I want you to read the book!) I will highlight just four of them.

How to think about and weigh evidence.

In a culture that thinks religious and moral truth is up for grabs, many approach the claims of Christianity armed only with feelings and preferences. But as we all know, our feelings can turn out to be wrong. Feelings are not the best indicators of truth…evidence is. What we desperately need to recover is the ability to think and evaluate claims and the evidence supporting those claims. In Part 1 of this book, you will learn how to be a detective. In other words, a first rate cold-case detective—whose work has been featured on shows like Dateline—will train you in 10 important principles that every aspiring detective needs to master. Along the way, you will hear fascinating stories of real cases and how juries would evaluate different kinds of evidence. After part 1, you will have the tools to assess the evidence of the Gospels.

How to know when enough is enough.

This is principle #9 in Wallace’s book and is worth the price of admission. “It’s important to remember that truth can be known even when some of the facts are missing. None of us have ever made a decision with complete knowledge of all the possible facts. There are always unanswered questions” (132). Well said. There comes a time when juries have to make up their minds and offer a decision regarding the evidence. This is true for all of us. And as Wallace accurately points out, there will always be some unanswered questions. But have enough pieces of the puzzle been put together for us to reasonably trust the available evidence? Which brings me to my 3rd observation.

That the Gospel accounts are reliable.

In part 2 of this book you will examine the evidence—you will apply the principles of investigation that you have learned to the claims of the New Testament. I think you will be surprised by what you discover. Were the writers in a good position to write about this event? Were they biased? Were they accurate? Turns out there’s a pretty impressive ‘chain of custody’ as the truth that was witnessed in the beginning concerning Jesus was reliably passed down from generation to generation. It’s a compelling intellectual journey.

That every Christian is called to be a “case-maker.”

Wallace makes the thoroughly biblical point (cf. 1 Peter 3:15) that each of us needs to become a two decision Christian. We have become a follower of Christ (1st decision) but we also need to make the 2nd decision to become a case-maker. In short, we need to believe and defend the truth. My hope and prayer is that as people read and become convinced that Christianity really is true they will help others do the same.

I could go on, but I think you can tell why I am really excited about this book. I’m not the only one either. Lee Strobel (who wrote the forward), Rick Warren, and Greg Koukl also give Cold-Case Christianity high praise. This book has something for everyone. Whether you have been a Christian for most of your life or if you find yourself unsure what or who to believe, you owe it to yourself to examine the evidence with an expert investigator (and former atheist). And when you’re done reading it, give it to a friend at work or a family member you have wanted to have a spiritually significant conversation with—you won’t be disappointed. I highly recommend this book and want to thank Jim for writing it!

Learn more about the important work of apologist J. Warner Wallace here.

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The name Jesus means God saves. The term Christ is a title for anointed of God. For Muslims and some Jews, Jesus was a prophet. Buddhists say he was enlightened. Hindus call him an Avatar (the incarnation of a deity in human form). And Christians hail him as the Son of God. Although he is understood in many different ways, everyone seems to agree that he was an extraordinary man.

Now I would take “extraordinary,” but is that what Jesus was after? Today in our thoroughly pluralistic culture, Jesusanity is what is most often practiced. Jesus is respected as one of the great religious leaders — even the best religious leader of all time — but he does not have unique status. For many people today, both inside and outside the church, Jesus is not unique; he is simply one among many. Respected? Yes. Street cred? Check. But if we take the New Testament documents seriously, Jesus wasn’t aiming for respect. His messianic mission was far larger than that.

In stark contrast to Jesusanity, Darrell Bock summarizes that Christianity “involves the claim that Jesus was anointed by God to represent both God and humanity in the restoration of a broken relationship existing between the Creator and his creation.” Only Jesus the Messiah can address humanity’s deepest need, the forgiveness of our sins so that we can be reconnected with God and enjoy the eternal kind of life we were made for (Mark 2:1–12; 8:27–30; John 17:3). In Christianity, Jesus is worshiped; in Jesusanity, he is simply respected. The difference could not be more important for our world. I dive into more of the implications of this mindset here.

Related Post: Are the Gospels Full of Contradictions?

To speak of sin by itself, to speak of it apart from the realities of creation and grace, is to forget the resolve of God. God wants shalom and will pay any price to get it back. Human sin is stubborn, but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half so persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way. Moreover, to speak of sin by itself is to misunderstand its nature: sin is only a parasite, a vandal, a spoiler. Sinful life is a partly depressing, partly ludicrous caricature of genuine human life. To concentrate on our rebellion, defection, and folly—to say to the world “I have some bad news and I have some bad news” –is to forget that the center of the Christian religion is not our sin but our Savior. To speak of sin without grace is to minimize the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the fruit of the Spirit, and the hope of shalom.

But to speak of grace without sin is surely no better. To do this is to trivialize the cross of Jesus Christ, to skate past all the struggling by good people down the ages to forgive, accept, and rehabilitate sinners, including themselves, and therefore to cheapen the grace of God that always comes to us with blood on it. What had we thought the ripping and writhing on Golgotha were all about? To speak of grace without looking squarely at these realities, without painfully honest acknowledgment of our own sin and its effects, is to shrink grace to a mere embellishment of the music of creation, to shrink it down to a mere grace note. In short, for the Christian church (even in its recently popular seeker services) to ignore, euphemize, or otherwise mute the lethal reality of sin is to cut the nerve of the gospel. For the sober truth is that without full disclosure on sin, the gospel of grace becomes impertinent, unnecessary, and finally uninteresting.

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The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. – 2 Timothy 2:2

Thank you Prof for marking my life and the lives of so many. Well done…may you enjoy the rest of your Master, Savior, and Lord.

Our thoughts are one of the most basic sources of our life. They determine the orientation of everything we do and evoke the feelings that frame our world and motivate our actions. Interestingly, you can’t evoke thoughts by feeling a certain way, but you can evoke and to some degree control feelings by directing your thoughts. Our power over our thoughts is of great and indispensable assistance in directing and controlling our feelings, which themselves are not directly under the guidance of our will. We cannot just choose our feelings.

We don’t have direct control over how we feel. But we can indirectly affect our emotions by thinking in certain ways. If we want to get at the root of the emotional doubt, then we have to change our thinking and stop allowing ourselves to believe lies. We must tell ourselves the truth—God’s truth—until we accept it. Again, this is not a one-time remedy; it’s a habit we need to build into our life.

In light of this, I hope that you will no longer feel ashamed when you experience doubt, nor idly sit by and allow emotional doubt to paralyze you with fear. I will let the poignant words of Oswald Chambers conclude our discussion: “Unless we train our emotions they will lead us around by the nose, and we will be captives to every passing impulse or reaction. But once faith is trained to control the emotions and knows how to lean reso- lutely against weakness of character, another entry way of doubt is sealed shut forever . . . Much of our distress as Christians comes not because of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature.”

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More on the Carson’s Scholars Fund

Related Posts: Why Everyone Needs the Right to be Wrong I A Free People’s Suicide

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Be attentive to how the Lord might prompt you to respond to Pastor Saeed’s imprisonment (here are some ways you can help). Read more about this situation at Breakpoint This Week. Please take 2 minutes and watch this video of a recent letter that he wrote while in prison and consider sharing this story with others you know.

Learn more about the persecuted church here.

“Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” – Eph. 6:19-20

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“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (1:2 – 4; cf. Romans 5:1 – 5).

Our tendency is to view circumstances as the enemy, when in fact they are opportunities to experience life with God, to cooperate with him in what he wants to do in these very moments. To be honest, I’ve got a long way to go. But I am increasingly recognizing how God is using everyday circumstances to form me into the image of his Son (cf. Rom. 8:29). How about you?

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The most accessible explanation of C. John “Jack” Collins’ view on the days of Genesis is Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? (Crossway 2003).

Other helpful books by Dr. Collins: Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? I The God of Miracles I Genesis 1-4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological Commentary

If you enjoyed this topic / podcast, you would also enjoy our interview with NT scholar Dr. Darrell Bock – Is the Bible Full of Contradictions?

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“When people say that God need not behave “logically,” they are using the term in a loose sense to mean “the sensible thing from my point of view.” Often God does not act in ways that people understand or judge to be what they would do in the circumstances. But God never behaves illogically in the proper sense. He does not violate in His being or thought the fundamental laws of logic.”—J.P. Moreland

God is the ground of logic; it is part of his nature and character. And God always acts consistently with his nature.

In the end, it becomes clear that everyone–from the Christ-follower to the most militant unbeliever–must deal with evil and suffering. No one gets a free pass; evil is everyone’s problem.

I go into more detail on God and the problem of evil and suffering here.

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