October 3, 2010

Jesus said to him, "It is written.."



People that do not believe in the God of the Bible often look at believers like they are uneducated idiots or delusional mental cases. How do I know this for sure? I use to be one. I was like Paul. I persecuted the people that I have become. I understand just how wretched I am (please note that I said am, not was). They cannot understand how Christians could believe in and shape an entire worldview around what they view as an imaginary entity. The entity Christian believers call Jesus. It stupefies them. What baffles them even more is they see that a body/group of people have been believing in this supposed “imaginary” entity for centuries and millennium based on a book called the Bible. To them it is just a manufactured delusion based in a book of myths. They claim that believer’s base their arguments for His existence on arguments from ignorance, or non-believers just make ad hominem attacks. They think that we create God in our own minds as a supportive psychological crutch and then argue for His existence. In actuality, it is God creating us and informing us of His existence through empirical historical data in the form of historical events. God actually entered the world of space and time and it has been documented historically as an event.


Galatians 4:4
"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law..."

Hebrews 1:1-2
"In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe."



The anti-God argument that he was imaginary might actually hold water if it wasn’t for the fact that we get this so-called straw man from the Bible filled with eyewitness accounts of Christ's incarnation among other evidences. Many in ignorance of the faith argue that the Bible is a book that was supposedly written by nomadic sheep/goat herders (which they created out of their imaginations, which according to the world, makes us twice as stupid because our culture is suppose to be so much more advanced in our "intellectual" thinking. This is where it gets really hard for the unbelieving world. They become indignant and downright hostile. They just cannot figure out how isolated sheep herders in the Middle East 2000+ years ago could’ve come up with such a consistently accurate book that has stood the test of time.


This is where the unbelieving world gets it totally wrong and begins to bark up the wrong tree. When they attack the Bible they are not attacking the antiquated or outdated writings of Middle Eastern nomadic tribes. They are attacking the living breathing and inspired word of God. The Bible was not written exclusively by peoples of ancient nomadic origin. As a matter of fact some of them were quite stationary and territorially powerful such as Solomon, David, etc. All the writers of the Scriptures were in some shape or form inspired by the Holy Spirit. The only thing that differed over the 1500 year period of writing all the works that entered the canon was the method for getting it on a medium such as parchment or papyrus. The pen went to paper in Dynamic Inspiration and that inspiration was the Spirit's content and the words of the human authors. Verbally Inspiration is the Spirit's content and words in harmony with the human authors or by partial dictation. Dictation Inspiration is the Spirit's content and words without reference to the human authors. Never were any books written without God’s guidance. It is called verbal plenary inspiration or, every (plenary) word (verbal) of Scripture is God-breathed (inspired) in the autographs or original documents


What should we expect from a perfect omniscient God? We should expect it to be totally unique. We should expect it to be internally and externally consistent. The Bible is absolutely and utterly consistent in spite of multiple authors, circumstances, and centuries of composition. Regardless of what "educated" experts tell you in the media (we know we can trust them don't we?). Wherever it has been attacked down through the ages it has not faltered in defense of itself. Even in modern day. We must keep in mind that the Bible is not a science book it is a book of God and theology and how God relates to man. Where the Bible has spoken to science it has never legitimately been refuted or wrong. It is the Divine revelation of God or a full disclosure of His Will to mankind. God’s Spirit helps us understand what is written. The Book will be inerrant. The Scripture will have authority or have its own significance.


Matthew 4:4, 6 , 7, 10
Jesus statement to the Devil with Scripture. "It is written."

Galatians 1:8
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Peter 1:20-21

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.


This is why the Bible is so consistently attacked and maligned. To avoid the circular argument fallacy (God of our own creation) Christians should and do rightfully claim that they are obeying the Bible and its authority from God. If you say you are not basing you opinions on your own rationalizations but rather obeying the Bible you are on sound logical ground. This is why many well versed apologists and pastors always revert back to the Bible for sound defense of the faith. It is also why people that do not do this end up faltering in their apologetics (defense) of the faith. The Bible has never been wrong and has its own authority being the Word of God. Again, this is the reason people so rabidly attack the Bible and its source (God). It has been made obvious to the enemies of God that if God's people base their argument on the infallible word of God in the Bible, the enemies only need to twist, distort and undermine Scripture and then attack the twisted distortion (straw man arguments/ad hominem attacks) to neutralize believers and their God in this culture. Sadly, this has become mildy effective because people claiming to be educated and even some marginal Christians are Biblically illiterate.


What they have failed to fully understand is that to neutralize the Bible and God is impossible. Every time this has been attempted in history it has failed. Everytime you suppress it in one place it jsut surfaces elsewhere stronger and more brilliantly. Every time it will be tried in the future, it will fail also. They do not attack you but rather they attack God. You are just the messenger or God’s message and the embodiment of it.

Acts 19:8-9
Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them...



You shouldn't take it personal. Look what Paul did in the Acts verse above. He left. He had done his job for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. The devil will attack anything that connects itself to God and His holiness and that includes you. The devil cannot even approach the holy God so he attacks God by proxy. Through His human creation. Through us. We should do everything within our power as justified people in the process of sanctification to resist that skunk by giving sound and logical arguments for our faith against His lies. We do this with the expectation that they will change. If they do not we should move on to others that may be receptive to the Good News. We should not run away with our tail between our legs when we hear someone clearly and fraudulently maligning God or God's Word. We need to be prepared to give a ready defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. We need to do it with gentleness regardless of how badly we are attacked for we represent Christ and the Kingdom. At the same time we cannot continue to bludgeon people with the same message over and over and have them repeatedly reject it. We give the message, The Spirit does the work inside the person. It is a squandering of the resource of time alloted to us by God if we continue to speak on deaf ears. There may be others that will respond positively.


Therefore, go forth and proclaim the Gospel to a hungry world!

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